by S J Naudé
‘Escape? How?’
‘Each block is three metres long. You pull them out one by one!’ He yanks one of the handles. Nothing happens. He smiles, shrugs his shoulders.
For the first time, Etienne looks properly at his informant. He gets a fright, steps back: it is Axel’s face! How can it be that he only recognises him now? And how can it be it that Axel doesn’t recognise him? How can they just stand here and converse so coolly? Etienne tries to calm himself, but then he puts his arms around Axel, pressing the air from him.
Axel is caught unawares; then he relaxes, opens up his body. He slips a hand into Etienne’s pants. Someone else presses against Etienne from behind. He is astonished to see that that too is Axel. Or his twin brother. Then there is another body. Axel, yet again. Etienne opens his eyes wide, defying the flickering. Everyone is Axel: a hall filled with upside-down oak trees, a hurricane in an ancient forest. He looks straight into the stroboscope. Let them become blind together, he and all the Axels. Now he too steps out of his clothes, slick with sweat. He and the Axels are all wearing only boots.
He urgently needs oxygen, tries to find it in the throats around him. His tongue recognises all of the throats. One Axel-mouth isn’t enough. He empties one set of lungs after the other. The bodies are as hard as concrete. Etienne isn’t yielding an inch himself.
He can sense he is on the verge of losing consciousness. He stumbles towards the escape door, reaching for the handle of block No. 84.
When Etienne surfaces, he is lying on a slippery, warm cement floor. The blond waiter is bent over him, hair covering his face. There is silence, and electrical light. The party is over. ‘You found him, didn’t you?’
Etienne just nods. His jaws are made of iron; his vocal cords have been destroyed.
The sharpness has returned to the man’s voice. ‘I told you so, didn’t I?’ He holds out a hand towards Etienne. ‘We should go, there is no air left in here.’
The next time Etienne goes to Anderes Ufer, the waiter with the long fringe is nowhere to be seen. He never encounters him again. Neither at the café, nor anywhere else.
Chapter 32
‘Someone has responded to one of the most recent ads,’ Christof says when Etienne wakes up late afternoon after his night in the bunker. Christof’s mouth moves in a nervous twitch while he scratches a rash in the crook of his arm.
‘I screened the calls last time,’ Frederick says. ‘You won’t believe what a bunch of loonies and swindlers call up. One was supposedly the director of Berliner Chronik. First wanted a thousand marks before—’
Matthias shakes his head. ‘Well, let’s focus on this guy. He knows specifically that the film was made in 1933. The ad just says “in the early ’30s”. That’s something. He’s willing to meet. He hasn’t thus far mentioned anything about payment.’
None of them asks Etienne about his movements the night before, but he can sense they are itching to know. ‘What is there to lose?’ is all he says. Frederick fusses, looks around restlessly.
The flat is in Neukölln. On the u-Bahn on the way there, Etienne feels weary. It is becoming a pattern: he fumbles around in the dark, there is an unexpected lead, hope is ignited, there is a glimpse of a breakthrough. And then? A false trail. Disappointment. Nothing.
A needle in all the world’s haystacks indeed. It is the end of March. He left London almost six months ago. He is still no closer to either Axel or the rest of the film. Soon he will have to apply for a refugee visa in West Germany. His British asylum doesn’t allow him to just settle here. If he isn’t careful, he will be deported and his entire search will be at an end.
Etienne gets off at Hermannstrasse station. The nondescript block of flats he is approaching dates from the ’50s or ’60s. Etienne takes the narrow lift, knocks on the front door. A man in his early forties opens, turns around and walks back into the flat without a word. Etienne hesitates, then follows. The flat smells of cauliflower, old smoke and something unidentifiable. Detergent? Drugs? Etienne imagines a little laboratory: a simmering pot, steam that could make you lose consciousness. ‘Volker,’ he says when Etienne asks his name a second time.
There is just a tired sofa, a chair and a table. On the carpet are stacks of paper, as well as scattered cigarettes, matches, badges. Volker sits down on the sofa. He is tall, wearing a vest. His muscles were once well-toned, Etienne can see; now the skin is starting to loosen. Etienne isn’t invited to sit down. ‘So,’ Etienne says. ‘You know why I’m here. I understand you have information.’ Outside the window a children’s play area is visible in the snow. It doesn’t look as if a child has ever played there.
‘It will cost you,’ Volker says. His arm is resting on the back of the sofa. The hairs in his armpit cling together. There is a tattoo on his neck: the face of a dog baring its teeth. His arms are inked too.
‘And what is it that you reckon I should pay you for?’ A waste of time, Etienne thinks. He should go.
Volker is not to be discouraged. ‘The movie.’
‘I see. Well, perhaps you should show it to me first? Before we talk about money?’
Volker lights a cigarette. He puts one arm behind his head, inhales the smoke, doesn’t say anything else. The chemical smell is becoming stronger. Is something mixed in with his tobacco?
‘I’m going now,’ Etienne says. ‘I don’t have time for games.’ Just another dead end, he thinks. Another chancer and swindler. He has run out of patience.
‘Suit yourself.’ Volker smiles. A dog smile, teeth showing. Through an open door Etienne can see into the bedroom. Knee-length Doc Martens boots stand against a white wall. Polished to such a high gloss that they look varnished. A photo on top of a stack of paper draws Etienne’s attention. It shows a younger Volker, among a group of men: shaven heads, suspenders, boots. They are shouting. Screaming, in fact. Veins stand out on their temples, neck muscles taut.
He looks back at Volker. Somewhere under his clothes, where the police of the new Germany cannot see them, there must be one or two swastikas on his skin. And various knife scars.
‘Three thousand marks,’ Volker says. On his arms are tattoos of barbed wire and medieval symbols. And phrases in Gothic script. His shaved hair is a messy in-between length – clearly it hasn’t seen a blade recently.
‘Two hundred,’ Etienne says. ‘Provided it’s what I need.’
Volker sits with his legs spread wide. ‘Do you want to know how I got it?’
‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’
‘My woman’s – well, now my dead woman’s – mother worked on the movie.’
For a few moments, Etienne is silent. He tries to keep his voice steady. ‘And what would her name be?’
‘Irmgard,’ the man says. ‘Irmgard Fleischer.’
Etienne sits down on a chair. ‘Let me see it,’ he says after a while. He doesn’t care that his voice is cracking. ‘I will pay you what you want. Please. Just let me see it.’
The man takes his time extinguishing his cigarette in a saucer, gets up. He pulls out a film case from beneath the stack of paper, puts it down on the table. When Etienne reaches for it, Volker hits hard on the lid with his open hand. ‘Remember, mate. Just look.’
Etienne nods. He opens it, pulls out the end of the film, studies a few frames. He takes out the whole reel, threads a longer piece of the film through his fingers. He knows instantly: it is Berliner Chronik. The second reel.
Etienne looks Volker straight in the eyes. He wishes he could avoid such a pleading expression. ‘Axel,’ is all that Etienne says at first. His voice falters. ‘You,’ he tries again, ‘are Axel’s father.’
Naked anger spreads over Volker’s face. Then something else. Fear? Revulsion? Then nothing. Volker shakes his head, clears his throat. ‘Who is Axel?’
When Etienne is on his way down, the lift briefly comes to a halt between storeys. When it shudders and
then moves further, he suddenly manages to link a memory to the odour in the flat: the flea collar of his parents’ German Shepherd in South Africa. How smells tend to evade one! Faces are easy to recall. But memory’s archive has no shelf dedicated to smell.
He told Volker he would come back for the reel. And would bring a thousand marks with him. ‘You can’t go there on your own again,’ Frederick says when Etienne recounts what happened. ‘I can’t believe we sent you on your own to such a crazy fucker.’ Then, calmer: ‘How in God’s name do you know he was Axel’s father?’
‘Irmgard, Axel told me, had just one child. And Axel himself is an only child. So it follows that this man is his father.’
‘Not necessarily.’ Frederick’s eyes turn from blue to grey. ‘ok, he’s her lover, calls her “my woman”. But what if she had lots of lovers, of which he’s only one?’
‘Why would she give him the film if he’s just another lover? And, I’m telling you, I saw it in his eyes. The moment when I mentioned Axel. But he won’t talk, or give me the reel, if I don’t pay. And it will take months of gigs to get the money together . . .’ If he could find out Volker’s surname in the meantime, Etienne thinks, that might help. It is probably Axel’s also.
A wintry wind is blowing. Etienne is back in Neukölln today. Frederick is accompanying him; he and Matthias and Christof have managed to gather several thousand marks in a few days. Etienne didn’t want to accept, but they insisted. If it only concerned the film, he would not have taken the money, but this is about Axel. And only money will get Volker to talk.
Frederick was adamant about coming along, and now wants to enter the building with Etienne. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I have to put him at ease, get him to talk.’ Frederick grudgingly agrees to wait outside.
Volker is as defiant in his attitude as before. ‘Why don’t you just admit you’re Axel’s father?’ is Etienne’s opening gambit. That Volker wasn’t expecting. His head jerks back. Something shiny catches Etienne’s eye. A badge lying on the table, small and polished. Twin flashes of lightning: an s and another s. It would have been pinned to a uniform, once. Just as Etienne thought: Volker is one of those cliché bullies. Someone who stirs shit with his neo-Nazi friends. He is washed up now; his high point must have been in the 1960s and ’70s. Etienne can picture Volker and his henchmen. Sitting around drinking beer in empty lots, the steel points of their boots polished with spit, arms lifting in drunken salutes while comrades go and piss in the cold with semi-erections in the steam. Nights of kicking and punching immigrants, until they go home, slick with blood, to unload wildly inside their girlfriends. (Is that how Axel was conceived?) Etienne steps forward, his chest touching Volker’s. He doesn’t know where he is gathering the anger and courage from. ‘Tell me now! Everything about Axel! What has happened to him? Where is he?’
Volker brutally pushes Etienne back. ‘Don’t you come and tell me what to do in my own home! That cunt-head is no longer my child. I know nothing about him. Don’t want to either.’ Etienne notices a scar on Volker’s arm. A recent one, a reddish-purple ridge.
Etienne retreats. ‘Just tell me something. Please. I’ve been searching for more than a year . . .’
‘Where’s the money?’ Volker’s expression changes with Etienne’s tone of voice. He is in control again.
‘I have it.’
‘Show.’
Etienne takes the notes out of his pocket, thumbs them. Volker reaches for the film reel next to the ss badge. ‘I know nothing about that little fucker. A year or so ago he was here once. I don’t have the vaguest fuckin’ idea where he is now. Do you think he keeps me informed? He hates me, just like you.’ Volker exposes his dog teeth, holds out the film reel. ‘There it is. Give me the money.’
Etienne puts the cash and a scrap of paper with the telephone number in Chamissoplatz written on it down on the table. He takes the reel. Volker counts the money twice. ‘Now fuck off,’ he says.
They sit in a row in the Oranienstrasse factory’s courtyard, Etienne’s three friends. Wrapped in blankets, mugs of coffee in their hands, their breaths steaming. Like children at a bonfire concert. It is cold, but spring is in the air. March was windless. Snow started melting, dripping from roofs. April blossoms are blooming in sheltered courtyards.
Etienne has insisted on setting up the projector. They have borrowed it from a little Kreuzberg cellar cinema that shows vintage films. He threads the film through. The reels start turning. Christof and Frederick make room; Etienne sits down between them. Frederick takes his hand, pressing it tightly.
In a sequence entitled Ein Gespenst – a ghost – there are lengthy shots in a bedroom: gowns hanging behind a velvet curtain, textiles stirring in abstract night movements. In Die Speisekammer – the pantry – a close-up shot shows a hand pilfering currants from a cupboard. Etienne sits up. Behind some frames he can vaguely make out a second image. A huge angel, its wings spread out. Or so he imagines. Are two images shifting across each other – a technique of double exposure that was also used in the first reel? Or is the angel just a chemical stain on degraded film?
Etienne tries to figure out how the images, or the dim shadow of an angel behind them, manage to bring such consolation. Frederick’s hand stirs clumsily in Etienne’s lap.
The cold returns; blossoms freeze. Two weeks after Etienne visited Volker, Volker calls him. His tune has changed. He has information about Axel, but he wants another thousand marks. The other three come up with the money in three days. Etienne doesn’t want to accept it at first. Then he gives in, undertakes to sell his drums to pay them back. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Matthias says. Christof waves away Etienne’s offer with a gesture of his hand. Frederick vigorously shakes his head.
Frederick goes with him, once again waits, under protest, down in the street. Volker is looking self-satisfied. Since Etienne’s last visit, his hair has been shaved to the scalp. The flat is smelling worse, of mothballs and hydrochloric acid, a chemical stew. Volker is shirtless, wearing tight jeans and old boots without laces (the shiny new ones are still exhibited in the bedroom). He is sitting on the sofa, smoking, legs spread wide. Etienne gawks at the tattoos on his chest. Signs and codes, over and across each other, as if each tattooist had imagined he was starting on clean skin. As if an entire army had wanted to write out its anger on one man. A chaos of meanings, or the complete absence thereof.
Etienne puts down the money on the table, keeps his hand on it. ‘Where is he? Where is Axel?’
Volker is looking at something far behind Etienne. His pupils are large. He picks a sheet of paper from the floor, writes something on it. Slowly he folds it into a paper plane, launches it towards Etienne. It glides as if on a hot current. Etienne catches it, unfolds it: an address in Hannover.
‘That’s where you’ll find that little mother’s cunt. I only saw him once, as I’ve told you. When he arrived in Berlin.’
‘Why Hannover?’
‘Go ask him yourself.’
‘I’m asking you.’
Volker’s face screws up venomously. ‘Your little bed bunny was locked up for a year, mate, in the fuckin’ clink, where he belongs! Now he’s living in Hannover, with his other bed bunnies. Slammer friends.’
‘Jail? I don’t believe you. Why?’
Silence.
‘And I want to know about Axel’s mother, and about Irmgard. About Axel’s childhood days spent with you. Why can’t he talk about it? What did you do to him? I’m staying right here until I’ve heard everything!’
Volker gets up. There are still traces of youthful leanness. Underneath the tattoos the chest muscles attach to the sternum like fingers. ‘You’ll hear fuck all else from me! Go and search for him yourself, go and listen to the kind of shit he tells people. Get lost! Out!’
Volker’s cigarette falls on the dirty carpet. He aims wildly at Etienne. Etienne retreats, walking backwards to the front door. Volker sto
ps, slaps his hand over the little pile of bank notes on the table.
When Volker turns away, Etienne sees it. There, at the base of his spine, is the source of his power: a neat tattoo of a swastika. Not too large, not too small. Just right.
Christof has been planning Stunde Null’s concert tour for the last month. Their first performance is in Bremen. It will coincide with a solar eclipse that will be visible there in two weeks’ time, in early May. Now they will add a visit to Hannover along the way.
At first, Etienne urgently wanted to take a train to Hannover. ‘How can I wait?’ he asked Frederick. ‘If I only get there in two weeks’ time, he may well have left again.’ Volker had not provided a telephone number; there was no way to contact Axel beforehand.
‘I know you’ve been searching for a long time, Etienne. I know it’s urgent. But he’s not going to just disappear again overnight. You can’t take the trip through East Germany on your own. What kind of notes do you think there are next to your name for the border guards? Just two weeks, Etienne, then we’ll all go together.’
Etienne can’t afford a plane ticket. Overland, through two East German border posts, is the only route. He can’t embark on such a trip without the other three. He wouldn’t want to disappear into a twilight world, like Nils’s brother on his endless voyage across the Baltic Sea. And he knows these three won’t allow him to be torn away from them.
Chapter 33
Matthias paints Stunde Null on the side of their grey 1964 Volkswagen Kombi. In black Gothic letters. His brow twists; the little gutter running from his nose to his upper lip tightens in a strict line. Christof and Frederick look on sceptically. They veto his work, paint over it. Christof starts from scratch, this time with red paint. It drips down the steel. Matthias shakes his head. ‘Looks like someone has shattered a rabbit’s skull against the bodywork.’
