by S J Naudé
Etienne turns away, walks out on Kastanienallee and further up on Schönhauser Allee. He is stiff with cold. When he turns into Stargarder Strasse, he slows his pace, then stops. Some distance ahead of him, opposite No. 72, in front of the Bäckerei, an idling Trabant is parked. Two men in coats are standing on the pavement. One is pulling on a cigarette, exhaling smoke and steam. Etienne looks up. In the bay window of the flat, Frau Drechsler’s profile is clearly visible. She lifts her hand, points towards Etienne. The Trabant-men’s heads simultaneously swivel towards him. Etienne turns in his tracks, starts walking back rapidly. He pulls his head into his coat collar, his eyes fixed on the snow-covered pavement. When he looks up, Mthu is heading towards him, hardly forty metres away. They both stop, look at each other. Etienne makes a swift turn left, down Greifenhagener Strasse, but quickly stops in his tracks. There, ahead of him, is Nils, coolly leaning against a shopfront. And, in an identical position across the street, is Etienne’s father. He blinks his eyes. No, not his father, but the man from the planetarium with his green pullover and his ginger beard. Etienne turns around, starts jogging. He crosses Stargarder, casting quick glances in both directions. To his right, the two men are getting into the Trabant, switching it on. To his left, Mthu is running towards him with long strides, his coat flaring behind him. Etienne is now running as fast as he can, further up Greifenhagener Strasse, without looking back, to the back entrance of the s-Bahn station. He rushes down the stairs. There is a train on the tracks. The doors are closing; the alarm is already ringing. He forces the door open with his shoulder. He slips in; the rucksack is caught in the door. He leans forward, tugging in vain, then lets the rucksack slip off his shoulders. It falls onto the tracks outside; the train departs. He is sure he can hear the wheels crunch over the film reel. The other passengers look vacantly at him.
He tries to get his breath back. Beneath his coat, his shirt is drenched with sweat. The train gains speed. Through the windows he looks at buildings cut in half when the track was built, intimate courtyards exposed to the violence of trains.
He changes over to the u-Bahn at Friedrichstrasse. He looks searchingly at everyone he passes, ready to flee at any moment. He keeps one hand on the travel document in his pocket. What luck that he always carries it with him! He feels through his other pockets: twenty Ostmark and a handful of West German coins.
In the Tränenpalast, Etienne is made to hand over his Ostmark, ostensibly to withdraw them again later. He enters the border guard’s cubicle. The door closes behind him; he keeps his eyes on the locked exit. The guard picks up his phone, dials. Etienne can hear the engaged tone. He puts down the receiver, lifts it and dials again. Still engaged. He says something under his breath, looks at Etienne, thumbs through the titre de voyage a second time. He stamps it; the exit door unlocks.
Downstairs in the West German tunnel, Etienne’s legs give way. He crouches, leans a cheek against the tiled wall. A metre or two above his head, East Germans are walking through the snow in Friedrichstrasse, in a country where Etienne will never set foot again. He listens out for the creaking of plastic soles on fresh powder. He takes off his hat, presses the fur against his chest.
Something has caught up with him, entered him. Something like epilepsy. Or history. His body is quivering, as if he is being struck by lightning on a vast city square. He is a reluctant conductor. The volts must find an outlet; his body cannot contain them. The electrical energy will make him tear across the streets in a smear of white light; he will burn a fiery road through the city. The terror of his involuntary copulations will leave behind broken bodies: bite marks, bloody abrasions, convulsing sinews, drugged tongues . . .
When he regains consciousness, it feels as if his arteries have bled out.
Chapter 29
He arrives at his three friends’ home on Chamissoplatz with only a few Pfennig in his pocket and the sweaty clothes on his body. At least he managed to get away with his coat and hat. His body feels irradiated. He pushes at his teeth (are they becoming loose?), tugs at his hair.
He is trembling; his body is aglow. He closes his eyes, tries to speak. The words won’t fall into place. A large, cool hand rests on his forehead. He opens his eyes: Matthias. And, behind him, Christof and Frederick. Matthias looks stern and concerned, his single-line brow in a kink above his eyes. He silences Etienne when he tries to speak. The three disappear. Deeper inside the flat a bath is run. From where Etienne is lying, he can see steam swirling into the corridor, as if from the exhaust of an idling Trabant. He lets go of this image, lets go of all thought.
Matthias leads Etienne down the corridor. The three of them undress him, put him in the bath. Frederick strips off his own clothes too, slips in behind Etienne, starts lathering him up. First he washes Etienne’s back, then sticks his hands under Etienne’s arms, scrubs his chest with the sponge. Foam spatters and drifts. Matthias and Christof stand frowning in the steam. Etienne sighs deeply, lets his body slacken, leans backwards in Frederick’s arms.
‘You’ll be staying here with us. Sharing a bedroom with Frederick.’ Matthias is speaking. Etienne has slept a few hours; it is evening. Or night. The curtain is open; it is not as dark outside as in East Berlin. Inside it is warm, and the light is soft and generous.
Christof is standing over Etienne. ‘We must show you something.’ He helps Etienne to sit up and then get up. Etienne walks unsteadily down the corridor. Outside the door of a small room, Christof makes a showy gesture that is incongruous with his serious, harried body. ‘Arrived the day before yesterday . . .’
Etienne inhales deeply. Inside the room is his drum kit. He approaches it warily, inspects it. He gently touches the cymbals, as if they are fragile body parts. He knocks on the drums with a knuckle, touches the pedals. Everything looks fine. He could rely on him after all, on Patrick with his dreadlocks and undiscriminating wishes for peace. Patrick who doesn’t believe in private property.
Over the next two days, a sense of bliss descends upon Etienne. His friends cook for him, care for him as if he is a lost child who has crawled to the West through tunnels and pipes, under the death strip.
On the third day he says: ‘Thank you. I’m fine. I can eat – and bath – without help now.’ He smiles. Frederick smiles back, his teeth large and healthy; he acquiesces, although the bright blue vigilance in his eyes remains undiminished.
When Etienne enquires about news regarding Axel, they at first respond vaguely. Ultimately Christof admits that their search has not yielded any clues. ‘I don’t know what else one could do,’ he says. His head is bowed, his index finger drawing tight patterns on the kitchen table.
‘Perhaps,’ Matthias says, ‘you should reconcile yourself to the possibility that you won’t ever . . .’
Etienne gets up, walks out.
On the fourth morning Frederick brings Etienne a package, wrapped in brown paper. The undisguised anticipation on the triplets’ faces is too much for Etienne. He turns his back on them, goes to the bedroom, pulls the door shut. He sits on his bed, tears open the package.
The letter on the top is from Patrick. The handwriting is scarcely legible – spidery, with hoops and lines shooting away from tiny letters.
Hey bruther!
Howre u man! Heres your drums! Alls cool in London man! Hope Berlin is treating u well bruther! I hear that Citys cookin man!
Oh your muther came here man. She wus lookin for u. Bout 2 months ago. She looked lost seemd pretty upset that u wusn here. Offered her my room for sleepin in man but she wusn too sure-looking, sayin she wanted to sleep in the house you wus sleepin in, just once, but will find a hotel. Told her u wus in Berlin but you havn told me no address yet. She came back 2 days later before goin back to Africa that wus only 1 day before i got your letter man. She didn say much man she left without sayin anythin. She has lots of pain in her heart man. That lady. Your muther. She lookin for u.
Also letters been arrivin fo
r u. Everyweek man. From her. Aksed her if she want it back. She said keep it for u. Sendin u those too man.
Peace bruther
Patrick
Etienne takes a deep breath, looks out into the snow-covered courtyard. Poor Patrick – he has no idea how inconceivable it is that Etienne’s mother would spend even a single night in the squat. Etienne tries to imagine her in Patrick’s nest of a room. Her shapeless body, lost on the threadbare futon into which marijuana smoke and reggae rhythms have seeped. Among Bob Marley posters and a collection of pipes. Having to share a bathroom with the Finnish goths. Like a polar animal in the tropics.
The other letters are neatly tied with a ribbon. His mother’s correspondence that has been arriving weekly, while he was living in Bermondsey Street, and afterwards in East Berlin.
He hesitates, then opens the envelopes one by one. There are no longer parallel streams of letters. Only the more intimate letters, in her own voice. The second voice – supposedly modulated for his father – has fallen silent.
She steadfastly keeps sending news, undeterred by Etienne’s silence. The tiniest particulars of daily life in South Africa. His cousin’s graduation ceremony. Drought, bad harvests, how difficult things are for the farmers. He can hear how a male voice would read this news on the sabc’s Afrikaans radio service. Her voice, when she writes about these things, is momentarily lost: she is using words imposed on her by other voices. There is more: she writes about a female friend whose daughter has a rare blood disease, about the neighbour’s son – an engineering student, as Etienne once was – who is constantly fixing and kick-starting his motorbike. When she addresses Etienne directly, the undertone is sorrowful. She no longer confronts him with questions. She sketches scenarios, hypotheses – a barely disguised invitation for Etienne to replace them with the truth. She imagines Etienne’s life alongside a British girl. With porcelain skin and fine features, the bridge of her nose lightly freckled. And perhaps he has managed to finish his engineering studies. Maybe he is playing the piano again. Or your drums in a pop band.
Only three letters are left. They date from November, when he was in East Berlin.
I didn’t want to burden you with this before, but your father has been ill. For months now. Cancer of the vocal cords. He hasn’t been able to speak over the last few weeks. Etienne lowers the letter; his eyes are struggling to focus. He reads on haltingly. I didn’t want to tell you this prematurely. You wouldn’t, after all, have been able to travel here, even if you wanted to.
The next letter gives sparse detail about the progress of the illness. She writes: He is refusing further treatment. He is asking for you, Etienne, or his lips are forming the letters of your name. Constantly. I have asked whether he wants to include a letter for you, but he refuses pen and paper. Etienne opens the last envelope. She must have written it shortly before her visit to London. His father is dead. I don’t expect you to reply. (It feels as if I’m sending letters into a void.) And I know you won’t be able to attend the funeral, but I think you would want to know.
For days Etienne doesn’t get out of bed. He wishes his friends would leave him alone, but they take turns to check up on him. Like three angels arriving to stir the waters. They come and sit with him, one at a time, trying to lift his mood with weak jokes. They bring him food that he never touches.
He sleeps for hours on end, dreaming of cheerless, interchangeable South African landscapes: monotonous mountains, grasslands, bleached beaches. Highways and suburbs, tarred parking lots and petrol stations.
Frederick comes into the room, makes Etienne sit up against his will.
‘You have to come and listen to something.’ Etienne shakes his head, grabs hold of the sheets. Frederick drags him out of bed, forces him into the bath. Frederick washes him, dresses him warmly.
The four of them walk to the Oranienstrasse studio. Etienne is dragging his feet like an obstinate child. ‘A new song,’ Matthias says when he unlocks the factory doors and presses a sheet of music in Etienne’s hands. Written at the top is Sonnenfinsternis. Solar eclipse. Matthias takes his place in front of the microphone; the other two sit down, start playing falteringly. It is good, Etienne knows even after the first few chords; it works. The muscle fibres in his arms tighten. His drum kit is there; they must have brought it from the flat. He approaches, sits down behind his own drums for the first time since leaving South Africa. He takes the sticks, puts them down, takes off his shirt. He shivers, picks up the sticks again.
He lets loose the violence inside him. Thousands of volts. It connects their four bodies, makes their blood rush. They are testing each other. Then their attention shrinks back; nothing but each one’s own instrument exists any longer. They move down, underground, to where the rats live. To deeper places then, abandoned even by the rats. Then up into the city skies, where statues live on columns or parapets, their eyes empty, as if pecked out by crows with iron beaks.
They keep holding it right there, a menacing mix of sounds. Pure noise. It has taken a while to find this exact spot. Matthias’s overstretched voice in hoarse falsetto, Christof convulsing over his guitar, Frederick with both elbows on the synthesiser. And there they keep it. Keep it. It is the raw sound, Etienne thinks, of his own blood.
Then they stop abruptly, almost simultaneously. The silence is so stupefying, Etienne has to gasp for air.
‘Fuck,’ Frederick says, and takes a step back, stunned, his fringe over his eyes.
Christof and Matthias sit down on the floor, wiping their shiny foreheads. The sweat dripping through Etienne’s lashes makes his eyes burn. Slowly his skin starts feeling the cold again.
That night Etienne tells Frederick about everything that happened in East Berlin: about his landlady, the film archive, Fraue Fuchs and Keller. About his friendship with Nils. About Mthu and the men in Trabants, how he had to flee. He doesn’t leave out anything.
Frederick listens in silence, then says: ‘The exiles who arrive here from the East have stories about the dirty tricks. They always get someone to gain your confidence, usually skin against skin. And, after you’ve been betrayed, they torment you: lock you up alone, keep you awake, bombard you with questions. Then they match you with a sympathetic cellmate. Someone with a similar story, a good listener. An actor, it later turns out. Whose job it was to extract the real story . . .’
Etienne thinks of the stubborn neck of a plastic swan, of Nils’s vertebrae like prayer beads.
Chapter 30
Christmas 1987. Matthias, Christof and Frederick. And Etienne.
On Chamissoplatz the snow is half a metre thick. Frederick cooks a ham. They drink beer. There is no Christmas tree, no Räuchermännchen. Etienne tosses his mother’s letters into the fire. His thoughts are now entirely here, focused on the glowing skins next to his own. Only on Christmas Eve did he catch himself thinking of the photo from his childhood, the one on Hermanus beach. Of the washed-out colours, the sand beneath his mother’s bare feet. Of his father’s distracted expression, his green pullover. Of his toddler self, suspended in the air, out of his mother’s reach. As if taking off, rather than falling back to earth.
In the quiet days between Christmas and New Year, when it feels as if the earth has frozen on its axis, they talk endlessly. Mostly about music, sometimes about films or sex. They spend days and nights in the Rote Harfe, their favourite café. They drink beer, sit in front of the fire until it burns to ash.
Midnight, 27 December. Short films by Kreuzberg filmmakers are projected against the Rote Harfe’s walls – an endless loop of images. Frederick is talking about bands. Over Frederick’s shoulder, Etienne is watching the film. The camera – and viewer – is in the driver’s seat of a West Berlin car. It pulls away, accelerating directly towards the Wall. Each time, just before impact, the image cuts out. Then it starts again – the view through the windscreen, the acceleration, the approaching concrete. Over and over.
Etienne forces his attention back to Frederick. He thinks of Frederick as a boy, but when he talks about music, he is suddenly a man. His verdicts are merciless. Bands are either brilliant or opportunistic copycats. Etienne knows barely half the bands he mentions. Names like Fehlfarben, Die Krupps, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Leather Nun, Attrition. The ‘hardest and best’ only surface in late-night conversations, when a lot of beer has been imbibed: Sprung aus den Wolken, Laibach, spk.
Matthias interrupts Frederick. The original industrial music, he explains, as if Etienne needs to be educated, was played for factory workers while they were making implements of war. Foxtrots, Viennese waltzes and Brahms through tinny megaphones. Etienne is half-listening. Behind Matthias a second film is playing on the wall: short fragments of Nina Hagen tearing her clothes at concerts, on one stage after the other.
Etienne can see Christof can’t wait to add his own insights. The sinews in his neck are clenched. But he is waiting for Matthias, who is telling Etienne about Last Few Days, ‘the most important band in history’, to finish.
‘British band. Almost impossible to follow. Only perform at the most unexpected times in the most unexpected places. Don’t distribute recordings. Sometimes send a few tapes to a few shops, only to ensure that they almost immediately disappear from the shelves again.’ On the wall behind Christof images of burning cars and riots are projected onto a beating drum hammer. ‘I managed to see them once. In the Electric Cinema in London. At four in the morning. They never advertise – you have to find out from other fans. Afterwards I begged one of the band members for an address. The next day I wrote them a letter, asking everything I’d ever wanted to know about their music. Six months later I received a response. Just one page: a picture of a church bell.’
