New Lives (60 page)

I think I smiled, as if I had cracked a joke. The blond returned, plopped into the driver's seat, called some code into the radio mic, looked up, and said, “Hunky-dory.”

My dear Nicoletta, I should have been at the office long ago.
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To be continued. With warm greetings as always,

Your Enrico T.

Dear Jo,

I'm so sorry that you had to learn about it the way you did. Of course I should have been the one to tell you about our separation. I simply couldn't bring myself to put it to paper, as if that would make the loss irrevocable, as if it would mean giving up my last hope. I wanted to talk with you about it here, it was going to be the first thing you would hear from my lips. And then you go and run straight into the new couple…
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My dear Jo, what can I say?

Last year during those long weeks while I lay buried alive in bed, I was forced to watch Michaela go crazy watching me. I was empty and numb, and yet every fiber in me could sense how her love for me was draining away, day by day, bit by bit.

Believe me: when I awoke from that nightmare I was full of hope and full of love. And I knew what I had to do. Michaela has never understood that it was for her sake that I gave notice at the theater. Yes, I did it for Michaela and Robert, for us three.

It was during a walk the three of us took at the beginning of the year—it had snowed, and we had taken off across the fields—that I suddenly saw how wonderful my life could be. I realized how wretched, calculating, and loveless my behavior had been. It was no longer possible to go on living as I had—and it was impossible for me to write. Instead of breathing life into my characters, I had let my own life wither in the pestilent air of art. All of which came to me as Robert was leading me across the field—I had gotten a splinter in my eye. I wanted to save myself and thus Michaela as well, and above all the boy. I hoped for a new life that would bring us happiness. Michaela and I even started sleeping together again, and I was certain she would soon be pregnant.

In my despair I sometimes think Michaela's love would have had to last only a few more weeks, so that if Barrista were to arrive in town now, his sorcery could no longer accomplish anything. And yet it was I who prepared the soil for him, I literally led Michaela to him. I spin these cobwebs in my darkest hours. I still don't want to believe it's true: Michaela and Barrista! He simply took her by surprise. He's the surprise attack in person.

Michaela sees things differently, of course. In her opinion our separation has followed an inner logic. She had fought for me to the point of self-destruction. And then who had left her in the lurch? I had, by betraying her and the theater. She was left behind alone, her back to the wall. She claims we were already no longer a couple when the baron showed up. That isn't true, of course, along with a lot of other things she now claims. Michaela saw very clearly what all a relationship with the baron would make possible—and couldn't resist. He not only rescued her, he has also provided her a sense of gratification, maybe even of retribution. With one swift move, she eclipsed everyone—including, last but not least, me. As she gazes down from the heights now, I'm just one of a host of clumsy tyros. Even her larger-than-life Thea is now merely one of many people forced to prostitute themselves onstage. Michaela told you, I'm sure, about flight school. She doesn't talk about anything else now. To circle the town on high, while all other earthbound creatures creep to their labors, is for her the epitome of her triumph.

Her bad conscience, however, leaves her testy, especially since Robert has taken my side. Presumably Michaela told you about Nicoletta—the woman who was sitting beside me when I had the car accident last March. Michaela read some letters I wrote her
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—and of course found nothing improper in them. But she has managed to magnify into grounds for separation her conviction that I confided things to a “woman who's a total stranger” that I had “held back” from her. Ah, Jo, I actually wish her accusations were true, because it would probably make it easier for me to deal with the separation. It's so absurd. I don't even know if Nicoletta has a boyfriend, or if she lives alone or with someone or even what she thinks of my epistles, which I write early in the morning when I can't sleep. Nicoletta is the ideal person—at least the Nicoletta I imagine when I'm writing—for me to tell about the past. By picturing her, I can understand what has happened to us.

Nicoletta didn't believe me when I told her that I had voluntarily left the theater to put together a provincial newspaper. Her ideas about writers and artists are similar to those my mother entertains—even though she now sees the world with “businesslike objectivity.” Besides which, Nicoletta has read ten times more Marx and Lenin than all of us put together. She's not like Roland, Vera's old admirer, but she still goes on and on about exploitation and capitalism, even concepts like “aggressive imperialism” or “the military-industrial complex” (allegedly a term first used by former U.S. president Eisenhower) flow from her lips with no problem.

I suffered irredeemable loss of status in her eyes when I began “working in tandem” with Barrista. To her Barrista is unadulterated evil. I am not going to try to convince her otherwise, but I have every intention of making clear to her why I have chosen this life. And someone can only understand that if they know how we used to live.

I'm really not talking about love. I'm not in any condition yet for that either.

Besides which—and up until now it wasn't even a possibility—I want love between equals, between people who act on the same assumptions. I want love without quirks and contortions. I want an alarm clock ringing in the morning and supper at the same time every evening, I want vacations and Sunday outings. I want a family. Yes, I long for a bourgeois life, for order, both within me and around me. Nicoletta would probably run for cover if I confessed that to her.

Did you read the article about the Lindenau Museum in our next-to-last issue? Nicoletta is behind all those plans. What's more, she has her heart set on reconstructing Guido de Siena's altar at the Lindenau—she's already been to Eindhoven, where one panel is—the others are at the Louvre, in Princeton, and of course in Siena. The Dutch have evidently already agreed—a reconstruction would be a sensation!
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As soon as my apartment is ready to be moved into, Vera is coming to Altenburg for a few weeks or months.

She has separated from Nicola, or he from her, which she would never admit—Vera's vanity, her feminine vanity, is too easily wounded for that. Which makes it so difficult for me to console her. But she still can look very chic. No one would believe she lives out of two suitcases. Beirut turned out to be a bit too much of an adventure for her. Nicola's mother's constant chatter about kidnappings left her terribly anxious, the power keeps going out, generators make a deafening racket and pollute the air. There's no such thing as a “green” movement there. The sea is a sewer, and cars speed through the streets at sixty miles per hour, brake hard, then speed away again—for fear of snipers. Compared to West Beirut, West Berlin is as expansive as a prairie. The only thing that worked to her advantage was that she was baptized. That's accepted. But please, no atheism!

Nicola thinks he's about to make some big money. His oracle is a glazier: if people are buying window glass, there's hope for peace. So people are sure to buy up everything he has in stock.

She definitely doesn't want to go back to Dresden, and she no longer has a job in Berlin—in her beautiful West Berlin. She's giving up her apartment and closing out Nicola's shop, dumping everything at a loss. And if her luck runs out she may even end up with debts to pay. So you'll be seeing each other here.

Give yourself and Franziska a couple of weeks to get acclimatized. As far as the business goes, the baron takes a very down-to-earth view of things. Don't let it bother you. I've already written you about my first meeting with him. Pringel and Frau Schorba have no reservations whatever, and as far as our
élèves
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are concerned, you're a celebrity already. They'll probably fight over who gets to initiate you in the arcana of layout. Jörg is jealous of you because of the book. He and Marion really didn't expect to see someone like you at my side.

Anton Larschen, who was on the verge of turning into an evil spirit, is back to extracting fine items from his backpack. Your suggested changes are “correct from start to finish.” Frau Schorba will be typing the text into the computer this weekend.

Let me worry about the business end of things. Time is on our side. We'll pay for your driving classes, and you no longer need to get on a waiting list. Come autumn, then,
you'll
be driving the LeBaron.

You'll be able to move into your new place by September at the latest, since the construction firm has to shell out for every day of overrun past August 31st—it's in the contract. The rent will be modest. Did I tell you that the plans are not just for a snazzy tub in the bathroom, but a real small-size whirlpool?

Just picture a late-summer afternoon, the scent of apples drifting up from below, everything up top smells a little new yet, the castle rises up before you, behind it hills and, in the distance, mountains. You'll have enough money, no worries about the future, and each of us can peacefully pursue whatever he wants. And next year we'll all go to Italy or fly to the U.S. for lobster.

Give Franziska a kiss for me,

Your Enrico

Dear Jo,

I've thrown myself into work—I really don't have a choice, either. The situation is sorting itself out faster than I would have thought possible. Hardly a week has passed and already our newspaper is taking shape in the midst of all the mayhem.

And we are undergoing a transformation too. Whether it's Frau Schorba or her husband, who's our distribution manager, or Evi and Mona, our
élèves
at the computer, even our bruised Pringel—we all are not just working faster and more focused, downright impatient to tackle each new task, but we're also more cordial and open—we have nothing to hide, nothing to lose! This is what the daily routine should always look like. Yes, this is how things should stay.

Officially Herr Schorba is still working for Wismut. But he's been put on leave and is just waiting for termination papers and a final settlement. As a mining engineer he's a good organizer. I enjoy watching someone attack problems with intelligence and prudence. He has papered a whole wall with maps. By his calculation we should do a printing of 120,000. Schorba assigns clearly defined tasks and supervises rigorously. When I asked Kurt how he pictured his post-July world, he replied, “Why, here with you.” Fred, on the other hand, is completely overwhelmed. Every day, almost every hour he has to patch up his distribution network because vendors go out of business or are selling fewer and fewer copies, so that it's no longer worth the drive.

Plus we're calculating on the basis of ten or even a hundred times larger accounts. Jörg and Marion are kids playing store. My dear Jo, it's the start of a new life! Our articles have, if at all, raised some dust now and then, but it always settles quickly. But now we're really going to set some things in motion. Our ads are the motor. We're going to be changing the world. Just imagine our publishing house, and the passage we'll build to connect with Market Square. And above all: Who else is going to pull it off—a free paper, and in every household? Jörg reminds me of the eternal loser sitting at the roulette table, studying and analyzing the numbers, and when he does bet, he loses again. But we're going to win at this game. Because we have probability and time on our side. And the more money we have, the less chance chance has to muck things up. Just let Jörg go on studying and analyzing and writing about it; in the meantime we're playing a new game for him to study and analyze. How lucky we are to start all over again with a clear head.
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I was only too happy to accede to the baron's request that, after all the uproar and confusion involved in our project, we go back and recheck every detail from start to finish. Amid the muddle of trying to accomplish everything all at one time, we're likely to lose the thread. I had assumed it would be a working dinner, but he saw me as giving my report in the mundane space of our editorial office. Suddenly I knew what needed to be done: every single person in the office had to be assigned his or her role and make an appearance onstage. And I was the director.

For four days I did almost nothing else but talk with everyone. Nothing was to be accepted without question.

Fred and Ilona, who were happy to be spared such “gimmicks” at first, are now feeling neglected. Ilona looks like a cross-eyed magpie every time I assign a task to Frau Schorba. Besides which, the “Rolex affair” is about to drive her crazy. People come into the office and slam the “piece of junk” on her desk—either it's stopped running or the new subscriber has figured out it's not a real Rolex. Some of them refuse to leave until they get their money back. And then Ilona's explanation that the ad never mentioned a Rolex, but simply read, “You will receive this watch…” really drives them up the wall. Ilona's only port in the storm is the wolf she's always disparaged; since the commotion usually wakes Astrid up, she often yawns—and shows her fangs. Her white blind eye likewise instills respect in hoodwinked subscribers. Thank God that nuisance isn't our problem. We don't have to woo subscribers. Isn't that a marvelous emancipation from our readers?

Yesterday was the big conference. I had asked Frau Schorba to set the room up a bit, by which I meant clearing the table and making sure there were enough chairs.