New Lives (19 page)

As the baron turned the safety key in its lock, the sound echoed inside the tower.

I'd probably have no trouble making the climb, Barrista remarked, and waved me on ahead. He followed. I tried to keep some distance between us, but he stayed hard on my heels, meanwhile chatting away about how the tower was closed because the stairs were in need of repair—I should watch my step. He had found Proharsky to be a man who carried out little requests without further ado. Proharsky was actually a Cossack, the child of so-called collaborators, whose adventures had landed them as strangers here among us. He had helped Proharsky's mother apply for a special pension that had long been hers by rights.

“You know,” he said as I took the last step and my gaze swept the rooftops, “I've fallen in love with this town. While I was away I felt it more strongly then ever before. All the jabbering and blathering we do over there had me literally longing to get back here.”

The baron even had a key for the watchman's room, a cluttered mess with a foul odor.

The baron had fallen in love for a strange reason: The town had as good as no chance, and if it ever could be saved, then only by a miracle. He laughed and massaged his left knee. The name itself, Altenburg: “old” plus “fortress.” Old didn't sound all that inviting, a town with that prefix would have a difficult time of it from the start. And people associated fortress—here he laughed more loudly—with awful things, with cold, cramped dungeons.
Nomen est omen
—all he had to do was say “Alten-Burg” and foreign investors would throw up their hands at the thought of some colonial fort abandoned by Charlemagne. That was without even mentioning an autobahn that was as far away as hell and back. One glance at a railway map and it had been clear to him that it wouldn't be long before only milk trains stopped here. Moreover, I could ask anyone I wanted—the local factory behemoths were close to folding, and the D-mark, whenever it did arrive, would finish them off. D-mark wages would put an end to selling vacuum cleaners at dumping prices, and as for industrial sewing machines—that train had left the station long ago. And the vehicles for the Volksarmee, those fully obsolete trucks—for the Western German army maybe?

Then we stepped out onto the encircling balcony. It took me a long time to find Georg's garden and our viewing spot there, but I immediately located the Battle of the Nations Monument on the northern horizon.

Brown coal, the baron went on—and I knew this as well as he—had, according to his information, a water content that made it more profitable to process it as a fire retardant. And environmental agencies would close that muck spinner
¹¹³
in Rositz the moment the cancer rates became public knowledge. And as for uranium—we were looking now at the pyramids to the west—that was a matter of pure speculation.

“So what does that leave? Altenburger liqueur? Altenburger mustard and vinegar? A couple of decks of skat cards? The brewery maybe?” And suddenly, turning toward me: “I'm asking you!”

How was I supposed to know? I replied. But he wouldn't let go. Surely I'd given it some thought, ultimately it was all of a piece, and without money in their hands it didn't matter what people were offered. One really ought to be able to expect a prognosis from someone who had founded a newspaper, which itself involved no inconsiderable risk.

“The newspaper doesn't have anything to do with any of this,” I replied. These kind of worries, I proposed, had played no role in our founding the paper. Barrista was scaring me. I thought of my grandfather's prophecies: someday I'd find out just how hard it is to earn my daily bread.

So tell me more, was what I really wanted to say—the same way you do when you want to hear how, as improbable as it might seem, the storyteller escapes in the end.

“There isn't much left, in fact,” Barrista finally said, “except for these towers, houses, churches, and museums. The theater, if you'll beg my pardon”—he bowed—“surely can't be something you would add to the list. Two years, maybe three, and its glory days are over.” And after pausing, he added, “Wonderful view, isn't it?” Then he fell silent, and strolled on. We could see the Vogtland to the south and the ridgeline of the Ore Mountains, and to the east, behind Castle Hill, I thought I could make out the gentle hills of Geithain and Rochlitz.

“But it's all got to be kept going somehow,” I exclaimed. He turned around and, after gazing a while in astonishment at me with his deep-sea eyes, raised his right eyebrow in silent-film fashion. “Well, then tell me how…!” he cried.

“Why me?” I burst out.

“And why me?” he echoed with a laugh. Yes, he was making fun of me. The matter required some thought, he went on. A good general with only half as many soldiers as his foe needed to come up with something—or seek refuge in retreat. After all, I had studied in Jena and surely hadn't forgotten what had happened there in anno Domini 1806.
¹¹⁴
Hegel's
Weltgeist
wasn't going to come riding into town all on its own.

I shuddered, as if someone had slipped an ice cube under my shirt collar. The baron had turned up the collar of his jacket. “If only the hereditary prince could see this,” he said. “What all wouldn't he give for such a view.”

The baron laughed and then began rubbing his hands like crazy. “We've got to find something—a vein of silver, gemstones, something's always lying buried somewhere. We just have to find it!” He gave a raucous laugh and showed me the red palms of his hands, as if they had just released something into the air. “Shake on it,” he said, and I grasped his hand without knowing what pact I was entering into. But because his hand was warm and his gaze so momentous, I clasped his hand with my left as well—on top of which, obviously moved, he laid his other hand.

We were greeted down below by Proharsky. Without a word he took back the keys and wooden weight, and wandered off.

We walked across town, heading for the office. I slowly began to grasp what he had in mind, that is, the decision he had come to. Approaching by way of Nansen Strasse, with Market Square lying in its full expanse before us, he merrily prophesied that within a short time I would see how everything he touched would turn to gold. He himself had ceased to be amazed that this was so. First he needed an office, a spacious office with a telephone and all the rest. He would be grateful if I could help him find one over the next few days.

Now I had to laugh. Was he just playing stupid, or was he really that out of touch? With everybody wringing their hands these days in search of a few dry square feet of office space, he wants to be able to pick and choose?

He plans to announce the opening of his real-estate office in the
Weekly.
“During the next few weeks of renovations, contact possible only by mail.” By the time the ad appeared, he said, he'd have his business license. He asked me to suggest a name. “LeBaron,” I replied without a second thought. Not bad, he replied, and asked whether Fürst was my life partner's last name, he had seen it listed next to mine on our door. I nodded. “Well then!” he announced, joy apparently propelling his step. That was the ticket, but even better in the plural, Fürst & Fürst, Prince & Prince, which would probably present few problems, he added, since there was surely no one else by that name in Altenburg. He would, if I had no objection, ask my partner for her consent, a deal that would provide some ready cash for Michaela—he actually called her Michaela.

What I really wanted to do was invite him to Robert's birthday party, if only because of the wolf, which Georg's boys normally take for an afternoon walk. But there have been enough arguments already, because both grandmothers are arriving tomorrow, and Robert can't be dissuaded from selling newspapers on Market Square. Michaela's mother insisted on at least keeping Jimmy's steering wheel. I'll present it to her tomorrow—the urn of her deceased companion, so to speak. I'm to keep the LeBaron for now.

You really must meet Barrista, if only to taste his wine and to behold a Hero of Contemporary Literature.

Hugs, E.

PS: Georg is still brooding, but breathing calmly and regularly.

Dear Nicoletta,

There are times when I interpret your silence as a test to maintain my trust in you and not to let my emotions drive me crazy. I go over and over the hours we spent together, searching for some clue as to what I might have done wrong. If only I knew that much! Is my task to discover my own failings? Or have they sent you to Hong Kong? Can Barrista really be the reason for your silence? A single word from you—and I'd have no trouble making that decision. Or is my search for reasons itself presumptuous?

If the question weren't so absurd, I'd ask whether you read my letters. Not one has been returned. Which gives me the courage to continue.

         

The high point of my second summer in Arcadia was our annual visit to Budapest. Instead of whiling away the night on the train, we flew—the ultimate in luxury. Plus the added benefit that we traveled without Vera, who had a job at a vacation camp on the Baltic.

Our landlady, Frau Nádori,
¹¹⁵
whom as always we paid with bed linens,
¹¹⁶
greeted us with an invitation to join her in the kitchen, made us coffee, and puffed away on a Duett from my mother's pack. She inhaled deep and blew the smoke into my face. (She had been a friend of Tibor Déry's mother and had helped Déry's wife out during the difficult days after '56. The name meant nothing to me at the time.)

As always we walked up to the castle. This time, however, I was no longer a child—I had my pencil and notepad with me.
¹¹⁷

And then I saw it, the tower! It reigned over the street like one of those all-seeing, omnipotent constructions in a Jules Verne novel. A tower like that could strike us with some mysterious ray or send a life-saving message. But if we got too close to it, it would vanish.

“Foreign currency hotel”—Frau Nádori's term for this miraculous tower of golden glass—missed the mark completely. The thing we were staring at was not of this world, and yet stood on solid ground. A UFO—it had inexplicably landed in the here and now and had simultaneously become the crown, the capstone of our own world.

I'll never forget my mother's smile as she entered the Hilton, or her wave to me to follow her. Unmolested by either the police or State Security officers we made it inside—just as we were.

You need to know that prior to that I had never seen the inside of a hotel, not even a fourth-class one. We walked across carpets still wearing our street shoes—no one cared. I heard primarily West German and English and one other language, presumably Italian. Plus there was an inexplicable light, neither bright nor dim, and a general hush, even though people spoke here more loudly than on the street. Mostly older married couples were sprawled in leather armchairs, something I had never seen before in public. Some of them had even pulled up footstools to stretch their legs out across them. No one demanded these Westerners remove their shoes. And to my even greater astonishment I saw one of the uniformed personnel heave suitcases and bags onto a gilt cart and push it toward the elevator. They were police, weren't they? Or were they servants maybe, real live servants, who carried Westerners' luggage for them? A portal onto the underworld could not have astonished me more than this passageway into the beyond.

My mother, who evidently wanted to confirm the reality of the species, asked a lanky uniformed fellow, whose hair was cut far too short—were they soldiers maybe?—where one could have a cup of coffee here. He directed her with an open hand to our left, circumvented us with a few short steps, and repeated the gesture. My mother thanked him loudly, and in German. German of all languages, she had always drummed into us, should never be spoken loudly in other countries.

I recognized the tall, uncomfortable stools from a milk bar in Dresden. I was both disappointed and relieved to see something for which I had some reference.

My mother closed her purse and shoved it onto the counter. A pack of Duetts crackled in her right hand, the cigarette lay between the forefinger and middle finger of her left, her ring finger and pinkie pressed a brown D-mark bill against the ball of her hand.

So as not to betray us with her box of matches, she asked the woman working the bar for a light. This time my mother had spoken too low. I had to help her, had to protect her. I went over the question in English several times before I risked asking it out loud. “Do you have matches, please?” I repeated it and blushed. I was less in doubt about the correctness of my English than whether it would be understood outside my schoolroom.

The pack of matches not only shimmered white, it also bore a flourish of golden letters and lay on a white porcelain saucer. And then the shock: “You are welcome, sir.” The woman had called me “sir” in front of my mother. The phrase instantly suffused my flesh and blood, and I would use it later to the amazement of my English class.

I took a match from the pack, set it ablaze, and cautiously raised it—for the first time ever—in the direction of the cigarette.

My mother looked older. The worries of the last few years, my arrest, and finally my expatriation were deeply traced in her features. Her joy in my worldwide success could not change that either. Her only son had been taken from her. When had we last seen each other? It had taken five years for me finally to be issued a visa by the Hungarians. The whole time we had each thought one of us would be sent back at the border, just as had happened so often before at the last moment. But then, incredible as it seemed, it had happened, and mother and son could embrace. Was it not perfectly understandable that words came slowly, if it all, that we simply took silent delight in each other's presence?