by S J Naudé
He turns the page. The last entries vaguely mention Ariel’s – and some of the production team’s – plans to leave Germany. Irmgard contemplates how she might be able to safeguard the film material (she doesn’t say how many reels or copies there are) from destruction.
Pehraps, she writes, we should divideit betwee n the team mmebers. Smaler risk of l oss?
Ariel: what doess his future hold? Ours? Amidst all the teerror, Irmgard writes on the last page, a child is rowing inside of me. Ariels. And the film
The darkened grooves change into a monochrome haze of lead, which washes up on white space like a wave on a beach.
A child rowing inside her? Then he realises: it should be growing. He sits back, holds his breath. Axel once mentioned that his mother was Irmgard’s only child. If Ariel Schnur impregnated her, it follows that he was Axel’s grandfather. Dark figures are taking shape in the fog.
Etienne breathes out, returns to the first grey page, reading more slowly now. There isn’t much new information. When his fever around the discovery of the invisible text – and of the family connection between Axel and Ariel – subsides, he realises he is still stuck. He reverts to the old doubts. Was the film ever completed? This is still not clear – the recovered text was itself apparently interrupted by some event. And, even if it was completed, did the other two reels survive?
And Axel? Does he want to be found? Or see Etienne again? Does Axel even remember him? And, the question his mind has been sheering away from: is Axel still alive?
There is a knock on the bedroom door. He sits up with a start, looks at his watch. It is past three. He opens: Nils.
‘I saw the light under your door.’ Nils looks at the washbasin. ‘Do you want to make us some of your Western coffee?’ It is the first time Nils has spoken to him since their voyage on a swan to the island hospital a week ago.
Etienne puts his last two spoonfuls of pure London coffee in the percolator. Nils is pacing between the bed and the basin. Etienne pours two cups. ‘Let’s take a walk,’ Nils says unexpectedly. His coffee is left untouched on the basin’s edge. Etienne puts down his own steaming mug.
They walk out on Stargarder Strasse, turn left. Nils stays a few steps ahead. For a few moments he wonders whether Nils is going to take him into the planetarium, whether he has a secret key. Just the two of them: on their backs under the relentless river of the Milky Way, floating in the soothing sea of commentary. But Nils aims past the planetarium, into the park behind it. Etienne thinks of the massive structures of the old gasworks that used to stand here.
In these early hours there isn’t a soul in the park. Etienne wants to enquire where they are heading. He catches a glimpse of Nils’s tense face in the gloom, keeps quiet. They stop in front of a huge monument. It is lit by cold spotlights: a bronze bust, fist aloft, rising to ten times the height of a man. ‘And this colossus?’ Etienne’s voice echoes against the bronze.
‘Ernst Thälmann. Leader of the communist party in Weimar Berlin. Shot in Buchenwald shortly before the end of the war.’ Nils looks gaunt against the massive monument.
‘What is it that you want to tell me, Nils? Why do you bring me here at four in the morning?’
Nils comes and stands in front of Etienne, takes him by the shoulders. ‘I’ve been admitted to Humboldt University.’ Etienne can only see the outlines of his face. ‘Japanese studies.’
‘But that’s wonderful!’ Etienne puts his hands on Nils’s shoulders too. They look at each other, their arms doubled. Nils drops his head; shadows collect in the contours of his face. Etienne thinks of a swan boat, of lake water and the comatose trunk of a fallen tree. Something is amiss. ‘So suddenly, Nils? What made them yield?’
Nils drops his arms by his sides. ‘Nothing comes without a price in this country.’ He shrugs off Etienne’s arms. Etienne is trying to make out Nils’s expression. ‘It is time for you to leave East Berlin, Etienne. You have choices. You don’t know how lucky you are.’
A cavern opens up in Etienne’s innards. ‘What do you mean?’
Nils looks utterly depleted; his silhouette is that of a parched angel. Some distance behind him, in one of the few streets in Prenzlauer Berg with street lights, a vehicle drives past, its engine inaudible. It is one of those green-grey vans with the name of a butcher on the sides. The street lights are far apart. It moves slowly through the bright patches, appearing and disappearing.
Nils turns around without answering, briskly walks away towards the planetarium.
Frau Finkel comes and takes Etienne out of his class, interrupting the lecturer. The director wants to see him. Her eyes are serious behind the rock-and-roll glasses. Is Etienne imagining it, or is Frau Finkel’s hair getting progressively higher?
The director is wearing his dirty-yellow jacket. Outside, the sky is murky. The soil is frozen, wind is gnawing at exposed skin, icicles hanging from the roof.
‘I am keen to know how your project is progressing, Herr Nieuwenhuis. Are you, for instance, getting proper cooperation from the archive personnel?’ The director is swivelling in his chair. Before Etienne can answer, he adds: ‘And of equal importance: are you giving your cooperation in the light of our mission here?’ The director’s eyes are dull but piercing; his fingertips are pressed together.
Etienne doesn’t respond. He wishes his chair could swivel too.
‘Be sure,’ the director continues, ‘to keep to the parameters of your research. The archive has prescribed procedures. All of us have to comply with them.’
Etienne wants to get up and leave, but he can see the director isn’t finished yet. In the meantime Etienne’s thoughts wander to Bösel: the manic old man with his idiotic smile. Was he really Schnur’s cameraman? Does he have a copy of the film somewhere up there in his concrete cube, or is he just dotty? Did Etienne find him by accident, or is he maliciously being led astray? Is someone playing a game of which Etienne doesn’t know the rules?
‘Why don’t you hand in a first draft of your research work?’ the director says. ‘You have, after all, been working on it for more than a month.’
‘I’m only in the early stages—’
‘Bring whatever you have. We are interested.’
Etienne smiles and nods. He won’t be bringing anything.
The next day he goes back to Herr Bösel. He holds out little hope, but he has no other leads.
This time he takes the right lift. When he arrives, Herr Bösel is already making tea. Etienne holds out the reel. ‘This is the wrong film, Herr Bösel.’
Bösel apologises humbly and effusively. ‘Wait. Now I know where it is!’ He scurries away to his mysterious little archive. Etienne switches off the kettle when it starts boiling over.
Bösel reappears after ten minutes, out of breath, sweat beading on his forehead. The place is overheated; Etienne’s armpits are itching. Herr Bösel has a film case in his hand. ‘Here! I’ve found the right reel!’ Etienne imagines a dusty old archive connected via a secret passage to Herr Bösel’s flat. He sees Bösel going up and down dozens of stairways, scurrying through passages, descending into the earth in a private lift, hurrying through hidden annexes and an endless series of rooms. Moving ladders on tracks, climbing to the highest shelves, blowing dust from steel cases . . .
Etienne takes the holder. There is something in it. Herr Bösel bids him goodbye outside. When he looks back from the lift, the old man is waving, grinning and fanatical, his hair forming a halo around his head.
Etienne walks to a narrow alleyway before pulling out a strip of film and holding it against the narrow ribbon of sky above him. He moves the frames through his fingers. Another piece of antique pornography. Probably French again. A man with a handlebar moustache, a woman with a nineteenth-century frock. Layers and layers of clothes, the impatient French gentleman burying his head under the flounces of her dress. Etienne can imagine the copulation that is to
follow: flickering, at comic speed. The film is so brittle that it splits and crumbles between his fingers.
Etienne dreams of a blue file. A report of some kind. He is sitting in front of an empty desk in an empty office. Someone has instructed him to review the content carefully and correct it where necessary. When he opens the file, it is written in Japanese. He cannot read a word of it, flicks the pages to the end before realising it is in fact the beginning. He returns to the front – to the actual end, that is. At the bottom it is signed by the author, whose name is the only word written in the Western alphabet: Nils.
Chapter 28
Frau keller is behind the reception counter today. Frau Fuchs is ill, she explains. She looks fresh, with a ponytail and nylon blouse. For the first time, Etienne sees her face in the light. She has a surgically repaired harelip. She no longer mumbles, and her lisp is less prominent now. She is swift in her responses, even talkative. It is as if Frau Fuchs’s absence is profoundly invigorating her.
She sets up the projector in the viewing room as if nothing is amiss. When Etienne filled in the form in triplicate yesterday, he dared to request Berliner Chronik. He is waiting to see what will end up on the projector.
A 1970s film, it turns out, about communal farming in Hungary. Women with headscarves, ploughing, and feeding slaughter animals. A three-hour torture session. Promptly every forty-five minutes Frau Keller arrives to swap the reels.
Etienne wakes with a start. It takes a few moments to remember where he is: the projection room. It is just after ten. On the screen the Hungarians are now harvesting, and milking cows. Etienne’s hair is sticking to his sweaty neck. He opens the padded door slightly. Frau Keller isn’t behind the counter. She must be having her morning tea somewhere. He tiptoes out, through the reception area and down the corridor. He tries the door of the storeroom where he was previously caught in the act by Frau Fuchs. Locked. He goes further, tests more doors. The third one is unlocked; lights flicker on inside. It is large, with double the shelf space of the room he has been in before. The shelves are densely stacked with reels carrying the defa symbol: post-war East German films. He exits, closes the door.
He tries another room. Locked. So too the next one. The door beyond that is open. The shelves are packed with films from other Eastern bloc countries. Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, the labels on the sides read.
The next room’s door also swings open. For a moment he wonders whether it is a trap, these selectively unlocked doors. His eyes find it immediately: on one shelf, next to a long catalogue number: Entartete Kunst (Dritte Reich). He bites his lower lip, slips into the room. He turns the shelf’s crank with both hands. It slides open without a hint of friction. He reaches for a random reel, freezes when he hears a sound. A film sequence plays out in his mind’s eye: a medium shot of himself here between the shelves, from behind. A close-up of an anonymous hand turning the crank. His body being crushed between the shelves, the sound of ribs cracking and snapping . . .
He takes the reel, peeks out the door. Nothing. Just the rectangle of light from the reception area at the end of the corridor. Yet he has lost his courage. He closes the door softly, returns to the reception. Across the street, he notices through the window, is the same baby-blue Trabant as before: fumes steaming from the exhaust, windows fogged up. He must be clearly visible from outside, Etienne thinks. Here under the fluorescent lights, with a film reel in his hand.
He enters the projection room, pulls the door shut. His brain is expanding against his skull; his palms are slippery against the steel of the film container. He quickly swaps reels on the projector, his fingers unsteady. He drops the reel of the Hungarian film on the floor; the steel rim bends. He tries in vain to bend it back. He puts on the new reel, starts the machine. It is a film from the late ’20s about the spectrum of drugs obtainable in Berlin – from the cocaine, morphine and opium sold on street corners to the extracts, magic potions and tonics for heightened libido in specialist shops. Radium creams make penises glow; a tincture of yohimbe bark from West Africa makes them grow . . . Etienne tilts his head, pricks his ears. Nothing penetrates the soundproof door. He returns to the film. It is a kind of guide for consumers. A volatile breakfast elixir is demonstrated: a mixture of chloroform and ether. A woman with a long string of pearls twirls a white rose in the solution, then bites off the frozen petals . . .
It is a short film, barely fifteen minutes. He rewinds it, puts the bent Hungarian film reel back on the projector. He puts the drug film on the chair, peers out the door. Frau Keller should have been back by now. Through the reception area’s window he can see a man leaning against the Trabant. The engine has been shut off; the rain has stopped. The man is wearing a raincoat and a homburg. He touches his hat, suddenly starts walking to the archive’s front door. Etienne’s heart starts pounding. He crouches, stays below the level of the windows. He scurries to the reception counter, still hunched. Behind the counter he tries the handle of a door. It is open: a toilet. Inside he waits for a few moments, listening. Then he climbs onto the toilet, wriggles through the window, lands soundlessly on the mud outside.
He starts running in a random direction. The carpet of leaves is pneumatic underneath his feet. He comes upon a footpath, follows it around the back of the second asbestos building and the dark tower, which is slippery with moss. He touches it as he passes, as if the texture would reveal what is inside. He runs a few hundred metres into the trees, then squats and pants.
When he catches his breath, he starts walking back. Before he gets to the tower and the archive buildings, he turns onto another path. He walks in a wide arc around Kohlhasenbrücker Strasse, to the next street. He hears the Trabant’s engine through the trees before he sees it. He has lost his way; in his state of disorientation he has been walking back to the archive. Dammit! He turns on his heel, starts running towards his bus stop.
When he is fifty metres away from the stop, the bus arrives. He runs and waves, but it departs without him. Fuck! He slips around the back of the bus shelter, presses himself against it. The next bus is only due to arrive in fifteen minutes. A woman is watching Etienne through the window of a flat. He can see her picking up a telephone, making a call. He can hear the cars passing. Almost all of them Trabants, the engine noise unmistakable. He holds his breath. Every minute feels like fifteen. Then the next bus is there. When the doors open with a sigh, he slips around the shelter and into the bus. He sits down, turns up his collar, looks away from the window.
When he enters, Frau Drechsler looks intently at Etienne from the sofa. He stares at the whining radio on the sideboard. It is slowly driving him insane. He doubts whether he can stay here one more day.
He shuts his bedroom door, strips off his clothes. He is simultaneously warm and cold, like someone with a fever. He sits on the bed for a while, the synthetic bedspread slippery against his palm. He pulls it over his sweaty body, kicks it off again. He thinks of the bent film reel and the Weimar film that he left there in the projection room, of the open toilet window, of his tracks all over. What was he fleeing from? An idling car, an empty reception area, an unattended counter, a man with a hat. Is he losing his mind?
Every now and then, he looks through the window at the street. The temperature falls; the radiator clicks and creaks. He holds his hands against it. Outside, it starts snowing. The snow is late this year, Frau Drechsler has been saying over the past weeks. Over and over again. He goes to his door, listens. Where is Nils? Usually he is at home this time of day. Etienne opens his door a little. Frau Drechsler’s radio is off now, perhaps for the first time since he moved in here. There is just a dim glow from the Berliner Zimmer. He takes out the reel of Berliner Chronik from under his bed, strokes the steel box. He hasn’t watched it since leaving London. He will try to find a projector somewhere. He puts the reel in his rucksack. He dresses, puts on his fur hat, takes the rucksack, exits his room. Frau Drechsler is still sitting on the sofa. The reading lamp
is on, but she isn’t reading. There is an unusual smell. On a side table there are two wooden figurines. Räuchermännchen, smoke unfurling from their glowing mouths. Traditional over the festive season, Nils explained when they recently saw such figurines in a shop window, even though Christmas celebrations have been secularised. ‘I’ll be back for dinner at the usual time,’ he says. He has never explained his movements to old Drechsler before. She doesn’t respond.
It is freezing outside. He tightens his scarf, hooks his thumbs into his rucksack’s straps. He walks towards the planetarium. Inside it would be warm, but he goes past, through the park, all the way to the Ernst Thälmann monument. He looks up at the surly bronze as if consulting an oracle, snowflakes falling in his eyes. He thinks of the demolished gasworks again. Who will miss them, write an elegy for them? He heads back, turns down Prenzlauer Allee and walks with a long detour to Kastanienallee.
He enters a beer garden. There is a wooden building teeming with merry drinkers. The garden itself is deserted. Etienne wipes snow from a table with his sleeve, sits down on it. He looks at the mute jollity behind the Kneipe’s expansive windows: men with Santa Claus hats dancing to inaudible Schlager. Etienne shuts his eyes, places his hand on his chest like a stethoscope. He thinks of the Transvaal sunshine on your cheeks when you look up, of the heat radiated by slate paving in his parents’ garden. He is missing Axel, wishes he could rub his cheeks against his. And he sees his mother’s face, even though he doesn’t want to.
The cold seeps into his bones, the rabbit fur over his ears notwithstanding; his teeth are clattering. He thinks of the child who once grabbed him by the legs in the fur-hat shop. When he opens his eyes, he notices, amid the merriness in the Kneipe, a motionless figure looking out of the window. Etienne gets up, walks towards the building. The figure still doesn’t move. He walks right up to the glass. It is Mthu. Etienne looks him in the eye. Mthu doesn’t flinch. For a few seconds they remain like that, as if there is iron between them, instead of glass.
