New Lives

by Ingo Schulze

  She lived in Dresden Neustadt, in the garret of a rear-house that lacked a front-house. Since only her apartment had a bell and the other gates and doors were locked at eight o’clock, if you arrived in the evening or at night you had to somehow make your presence known. Vera’s neighbors took revenge the next morning by ringing her bell or pounding on her door on some pretext or other. Or pilfered her underwear from the clothesline. Our conversations often took place in the dark, because one of her admirers was raising hell out on the street and, once he’d drunk enough courage, would try to scale the fence.

  Two tiny rooms opened off a long hallway with a little cabinet and sideboard that served as a kitchen.

  In the back room Vera would perform for me her repertoire for passing the drama school’s entrance exam. “Pirate Jenny” was always included. I loved those performances in that tiny room, but feared the moment when she fell silent—should I break into tears or applause?

  Of course I find it difficult to speak of Vera without already seeing premonitions of what happened later. Though we rarely met if she “had somebody,” we were inseparable in the days and weeks between such affairs. She introduced me to what was called “the scene.” I was always greeted with twofold joy: first as a brother who you were nice to in order to please her, and second because I was living proof that Vera was free game again.

  I never knew when Vera would invite me in or send me on my way. I would often break off with her, but still stopped by to pick up bowls that had contained food my mother dropped off now and then.

  Whenever Vera reemerged—she would usually be waiting for me outside school—she would reproach me, wanting to know why I hadn’t shown my face for so long.

  Vera lived a life that I wanted to live too as soon as I could—a nonstop series of exhibitions, readings, parties, performances, and night prowls. My clothes would likewise reek of ateliers, I would write whatever I wanted, until the day when I’d become too dangerous for the honchos of the GDR, and be deported, to the West, where my books had already been published and where Franziska and I would enjoy life together, making love, writing, and traveling.

  But first I had to survive school. I wondered if it would be worth it to say something abrasive and so provide myself with material. An event worth writing about was sorely needed! Should I write on the blackboard, maybe a “Swords Into Plowshares!”

  In January 1980, panic broke out as the result of “Karl and Rosa Live!” being painted in red on the wall beside the main entrance. All I got to see was a gray cloth draped over the inscription, as if some memorial plaque were about to be unveiled. Everyone was in the crosshairs—especially those who were thought to be truly convinced. (You do understand what I mean by “convinced”? Our “Reds,” the ones who believed in the GDR.)

  The only thing that prevented me from confessing to the deed was fear that the real perpetrator might own up. But no one, male or female, hinted at being the offender. At least I heard nothing about it. The inscription was swiftly removed, although its traces now achieved the status of “the handwriting on the wall.” Some thought they could make it out at the upper left of the entrance, others believed the four words were distributed across the whole wall, and ended not in an exclamation mark, but a hammer and sickle. Just gazing at the wall was held to be an act of resistance. Small gatherings repeatedly formed as if by chance before it. I never saw anything.

  I mention this wall episode because I intended to make my memory of it the embryo of a novel years later.

  In hope of being provocative I tacked a poem to the bulletin board—resulting in serious consequences for one of the school’s wunderkinder. Myslewski ripped off the page along with the thumbtacks and called me to account in front of the whole class. He had walked right into my trap. That same poem was scheduled to be published in a student anthology.147 Couldn’t I have said what was on my mind somewhat more simply? he asked, and then to universal laughter sent the tattered paper sailing down onto my desk.

  The publication of Ehrenburg’s memoirs in the GDR offered the opportunity to raise questions about Stalinist work camps. The camps, I was told, were the outgrowth of the cult of personality, a phase that had long since been put behind us and was condemned by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as early as 1956.

  I searched in vain for something I could do or leave undone that would really have a payoff.

  My hope was the army!

  Ever since my first appearance before the draft board—after that first experience of being questioned by men in uniform—I knew where I could find what I was looking for.

  Once inside District Military Headquarters I felt immediately inspired, ideas came to me all on their own. No other place possessed such poetry, such ineluctability. I think I compared the banner of the Army Athletic Club with my underpants—banners were intended to cover a vacant spot on the wall, but in fact revealed instead just how barren that wall was—it was the same with my underpants and my body. Or something like that. I jotted down a whole sequence of such comparisons right there on the spot. Uniforms made suffering plausible. This was no longer just pubescent hypersensitivity, or a shirking of duty that carried no risk à la Neustadt or Loschwitz,148 this was a cold war, this was theater on a global scale.

  The high point of my appearance before the draft board was a certain interview. “Several highly placed individuals,” the officer behind the desk said, “have great plans for you. Great plans!” He recommended a three-year tour of duty, which would be of advantage to my further development.

  In his eyes my exhilaration was simply arrogance, and when I turned him down, he threatened, rather clumsily, to deny me my diploma or matriculation. He was more successful at gloomy descriptions of the everyday life of soldiers who were a disappointment to a government of workers and peasants. Much to my satisfaction I noticed the spit thickening at the corners of his mouth, his rapidly fluttering eyelids, the reddish blue tinge of his complexion, most intense around the nostrils, and watched as the ballpoint pen in his right hand practiced Morse code against the desktop. Trying hard to provide a literary fullness to my ideas, I saw myself standing at attention in my underwear, shivering in the chilly room, but undaunted.

  Believe me—after my first draft board appearance, I looked forward to the army.

  An intermezzo at the end of my junior year might also be worth mentioning. It was about four months after the Karl and Rosa episode, when without warning, right in the middle of class, the door handle clanked and the vice principal called out my last and first names. I stood up, she waved me toward her. I knew right away: this was not about my mother’s being in an accident or some other private catastrophe.

  I followed her. From behind closed doors came the grumble of classes in session. Up the stairs, past a mural of the eleventh of Marx’s Feuerbach theses, according to which philosophers had just had different interpretations of the world, but the main thing was to change it. I concentrated on the play of our vice principal’s calf muscles. I exchanged a mute greeting with the secretary in the principal’s reception room. I would later describe the odor as a blend of cigarettes, floor wax, and plywood—but I probably didn’t notice a thing. I tried to gain control over my agitation by focusing on the secretary’s sandals.

  Geronimo had had to deal only with the principal. Two more men were waiting for me. They sat side by side at a table turned lengthwise to abut the principal’s desk. They took their time putting out their cigarettes. When they looked up, I greeted them as well.

  I wasn’t disappointed by their appearance. The older one at least, with his rheumy eyes and black hair combed straight back, matched my expectations. The other one seemed more friendly, the jock buddy on your team. The director sat there like an umpire, his palms pressed together. He looked exhausted and perplexed. Rheumy Eyes began in a disciplinary tone of voice, saying that they were here for a very serious matter. I already had hopes that they would let me remain standing, like a prisoner, when Rheumy Eyes briefly exte
nded his forefinger, which was his way of saying, Sit down.

  In my mind I was running through my poems. Which one had made them prick up their ears, which one did they think was the most dangerous? Jock Buddy was resting his hands on the file, it was imposing. How had they got hold of them? What I wanted to say was: “Yes, you’re speaking with the author, but I’ve already thrown that poem out”—because of faulty rhythms and rhymes. Only recently I had run across Mayakovsky’s A Drop of Tar, a slim volume put out by Insel, in which he describes the construction of his poems—highly recommended reading. Mayakovsky, who would take his own life, writes a poem upbraiding Yessenin for committing suicide. Yes, I planned to use Mayakovsky to lead our Checka agents around by the nose.

  The bell rang for a change of class, then rang again for class to begin, and I still didn’t understand the point of their questions about my family, especially about relatives in the West. Yes, we were planning to fly to Budapest. If they wanted to chat—please, I had time. This was getting me out of chemistry and Russian both. Jock Buddy and I were now engaged in a smiling contest. When he asked for his next cup of coffee, he also ordered a glass of seltzer for me and offered me a cigarette—then immediately pretended he had forgotten I was just a student.

  I was expecting a nasty turn of events at any moment. I was curious how they would segue into my poems. My first district poetry seminar had begun with the question, who among those attending were of the opinion that literature must be oppositional.

  It had all happened so fast that time.149 Now I finally had the chance to correct my mistake. True literature is by its very nature oppositional.

  When the bell rang for the last class of the day, Jock Buddy asked why my mother was planning, together with me, with the Enrico Türmer sitting here now in this room, to leave the German Democratic Republic by illegal means. “We merely want to know why. We have more than enough proof that this is the case.”

  Rage and shame throttled me, I fought back the tears. So that’s what they thought was a direct hit. Rheumy Eyes and Jock Buddy fired their barrage of questions, bang, bang, bang, bang. I got to hear things I had said during class breaks, disparaging remarks about the antifascist protection barrier; Vera was quoted and described as an element hostile to the state; Geronimo was granted the honor of being mentioned several times. Over and over, Geronimo! It was like some curse. Which is why it took me longer than I would have liked to regain command of a firm voice. I don’t think that I did in fact stand up, but when I recall that day I can only see myself standing to deliver my speech. We both spoke at the same time. Not in my wildest dreams had I ever thought of leaving this country. For me nothing could be worse than having to abandon it. This was my spot, these were my roots—my family, my school, my home was here. What would I do in the West?

  I babbled away like a windup toy, and at some point they fell silent. “I want,” I said, “to become a writer, and as a writer I have no choice but to work where I know my way around, where people live who share my experiences. A person such as myself would never leave a country in which literature is of the utmost importance.” Did they get my threat at all? “What would I do in the West?” I repeated, fully aware that I had succeeded in sounding convincing—except for a missing a word or two: What would I do in the West now? was the real question, or at this point. But the more I kept on talking, the more I realized that I was slowly running out—if not of rage—then at least of arguments.

  I defended Vera, an exceptional talent, who found herself thwarted in her development and self-realization, Vera, who merely offered her candid opinion, which they ought to be happy to hear.

  I added several remarks about the social role of literature, before I asked finally asked them what justification they had for this false charge of wanting to flee the republic. And then I heard myself calling their suspicions shameless—shameless, yes, shameless! I couldn’t have put it any better. They had to know that there was no rebuke more beloved by the people’s pedagogues than: “I’m ashamed for you! I’m ashamed for you all!”150

  “We’re asking the questions here,” Jock Buddy interrupted, smiling yet again. I assumed that his smile came from the fact that he was quoting a well-known phrase, a joke for insiders.

  Rheumy Eyes wanted to know why my mother claimed that our trip to Budapest was one awarded her for professional excellence, and whether perhaps she was, without my knowledge, planning to flee the republic. Both of them noticed how I hesitated before I replied. Then we all fell silent, until Jock Buddy gave the principal a nod.

  I washed my face in the restroom—my eyes were red from tears—and leaving school, headed straight for the Café Toscana.

  As for the Toscana, suffice it to say that I transposed every café scene I ever read to that particular oasis beside the Blue Wonder Bridge (so that even today I could show you the table where young Törless once sat). I populated the café with famous colleagues. Sometimes they called out my name and waved me over. Sometimes they whispered among themselves, uncertain whether the marvelous verses being passed from hand to hand had in fact come from the pen of the young fellow sitting there solitary and pallid over his absinthe. Sometimes I was all by myself. The waitresses probably thought I was a Holy Cross choirboy, one of whose greatest pleasures was to have breakfast there after morning rehearsal. I seldom had to wait for a seat.

  That day I was greeted downright rapturously by my famous colleagues. They congratulated me on the courageous speech I had given. Both their reception and the ragoût fin did me good. I immediately ordered seconds.

  Gradually the scene in the principal’s office acquired some good points. After all, I had my first official interrogation behind me. That was as significant as a hundred-page manuscript. Besides which, these guys now knew that they were dealing with a future writer. From now on my response to any questions would be a whispered “Stasi” and silence. Along with my ragoût fin I relished the rumors that would soon envelop the whole school, arouse Franziska’s admiration, and ultimately find their way to Geronimo.

  Vera—she was living with Nadja at the time—tended to me as if I were someone who had been severely injured and walked me home that evening.

  My mother not only had a three-and-a-half-hour interrogation behind her, she had also had two gentlemen escort her back to our apartment. The two had insisted on seeing the application of my request, which the school had approved, to be released from classes. There was nothing in it about an award for professional excellence. All the same we were puzzled—my mother had in fact been considering using the phrase to avoid making people envious. Were we being bugged? Were there mics behind the wallpaper? The solution was perfectly banal. The only officer candidate in our class had recently spent the night with us because our apartment was close to the airport. We two represented our class on a committee providing the hoopla for a visiting foreign nabob (whose plane never landed). Evidently the vigilance of my schoolchum had set off the false alarm.

  The next day, after each bing-bong that preceded every announcement on the loudspeaker, I expected to hear our names called out. My expectations were in vain.

  It was only much later that I realized the real appeal of this involuntary session had lain in the mistake made by State Security. At the time I was almost ashamed of having been interrogated on false suspicions—which is why I never made literary use of the incident.

  With warmest greetings,

  Your Enrico

  PS: Georg has quit. I’m taking over his share of our enterprise. Not one nasty word has been said, general relief on all sides. We’re looking for new quarters.

  Thursday, April 5, ’90

  Dear Jo,

  Yesterday Jörg presented me as his associate; he spoke in serious tones with unusually long pauses, lending even more weight to his sentences, which always sound as if they’re ready to be set in print. Although everything he said was already known, no one dared disrupt the ritual, not with so much as a look of boredom. Marion sat erect, n
odding at me as if to say: Courage, Enrico, courage! Ilona pressed her bony knees together and kept smoothing the hem of her plaid miniskirt. She and Fred are evidently especially receptive to orations of this sort and waged a contest to see who could look more dignified. Kurt, Fred’s assistant and deliveryman, as well as our film developer and ad hoc photographer—he’s a member of a photography club—sat there inert, arms crossed. I’ve never heard Kurt speak a single complete sentence. Whenever we meet he raises his hand in greeting and answers every question with “Fine” or “Could be better.” For him every job is alike. If you were to ask him to wash windows, he’d immediately find himself a bucket, rag, and newspapers and would not stop until every window sparkled. The Wismut mine had let him go, which left him with just his job as a night porter at the hospital. I don’t know if or when he ever sleeps.

  We had also asked Pringel, one of our freelancers, to join us. I got to know him in Leipzig, where he put together the house journal, Air Research Technologies—he’s an impeccable proofreader. Because he’s stocky and overweight he can’t keep his legs crossed for any length of time, although he seems to think that’s important. So he’s constantly changing legs, which gives him a strange fidgety look. Pringel’s beard keeps growing wilder with each passing day, like a hedge framing a child’s face.

  Jörg spoke at length about the responsibilities and risks we’ll both be sharing. He called on everyone to show discretion in terms of content and numbers, especially now, because next week we’ll be leading with the announcement of the hereditary prince’s visit.

  Jörg will represent us in public, I’ll work on in-house issues, and we’ll share editorial duties.

  Then it was my turn to say a few words. No sooner had I finished than Fred asked just what if anything would be different? He was upset because Jörg doesn’t want him to sit in on editorial meetings—but has asked Ilona to.