Authors: Ingo Schulze
“His mother?”
“He was still very young—an accident, on a moped, if I recall correctly.”
“And his profession?”
“He’s a ladies’ tailor, master tailor—self-employed, he could have had apprentices.”
“And how long have you had a desire to leave the GDR?”
“Always.”
“But you went ahead and studied pedagogy.”
“That was the only subject for which I could get admitted—they wouldn’t take me in art history. I would have also been willing to study German or maybe used my French somehow.”
“Can you speak French?”
“The French you learn in school, from seventh grade on, I got an A on my final exams.”
“You were in the Free German Youth?”
“Yes.”
“Youth Consecration?”
“Yes.”
“Socialist Unity Party or Block Party?”
“No.”
“And you and Herr Frenzel drove to Hungary with the intention of taking advantage of the opportunity.”
“I wanted to leave.”
“But he didn’t?”
“He arrived after me.”
“You met there, then?”
“Yes.”
“Were you afraid you wouldn’t be allowed to make the trip together?”
“We had had an argument.”
“Because he didn’t want to leave?”
“I’d rather not talk about it, it was a private matter, we had a very private argument.”
“Was he trying to keep you from leaving?”
“Not directly.”
“And his motive was?”
“An interpersonal problem, if you like.”
“Did Herr Frenzel do service?”
“Service?”
“Was he in the National People’s Army?”
“Yes, sure, eighteen months.”
“Are you certain?”
“That’s what he’s always told me, eighteen months and not a day longer.”
“Do you know his rank as a reservist?”
“Soldier, if that’s a rank.”
“Some were discharged as corporals or noncommissioned officers.”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“Was he with the border patrol?”
“No, very basic, a footslogger.”
“And why didn’t he want to come to the free world?”
Evelyn stubbed out her cigarette. She looked straight at him and tried to smile.
“That’s not the way to put it. He wanted to be together with me. And in the end that’s why he came.”
“Are you certain?”
“I think it will be good for him too. He has a truly golden touch. He can really make a start of things here and build a career.”
“I have to ask you yet again why he didn’t want to come with you? Or put another way, are you certain in the judgments you’ve formed about your life partner?”
“Are you suggesting that Adam’s a spy of some sort?”
“Adam? Who is Adam?”
“Herr Frenzel. Everyone calls him Adam.”
The man made a note on a checkered slip of paper.
“But the last name is correct?”
“Yes, Lutz Frenzel, also known as Adam.”
“This line of questions is also in your interest.”
“This is ridiculous, really. Adam was the only person I know who never voted. They always sent friends of his father, members of the Liberal Democratic Party, and they had to ask him why he hadn’t voted. Adam just laughed at the GDR, he no longer took it seriously.”
“And wanted to stay all the same?”
“He’s easygoing.”
“As a self-employed man? Doesn’t that mean a lot of work?”
“He did work, never stopped, in fact.”
“You mean ‘easygoing’ but not in the sense of lazy?”
“As far as he was concerned it could have gone on like that till retirement. Two weeks on the Baltic or in Bulgaria in the summer, and the rest of the time he sits and sews and sketches and does photography.”
“Did he make any calls to the GDR while you were in Hungary?”
“He called two or three of his clients.”
“To tell them that he wasn’t coming back?”
“That he was extending his vacation a little.”
“Did he have contact with anyone who did go back?”
“He drove a friend of ours to Budapest so that she could catch a train.”
“So this friend took a train back to the GDR.”
“Yes, for private reasons.”
“Maybe not all that private?”
“It was all about a man, if you must know, a man from the West, from Hamburg.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Yes, but I’m not going to tell you.”
“Did Herr Frenzel have any contact with the embassy of the GDR?”
“Why would he have any contact?”
“A routine question.”
“We were there once.”
“You were in the embassy?”
“Our papers had been stolen, our wallets, everything.”
“Stolen from you and Herr Frenzel?”
“From me and an acquaintance.”
“The one from the West?”
“Yes.”
“And how did Herr Frenzel react?”
“How would you expect him to react? He helped us.”
“Could it be that he initiated a situation that forced you to visit the embassy of the GDR?”
“You don’t really think that Adam stole our papers! That’s absurd. We got out of the embassy all in one piece and were even provided a little money.”
“But Herr Frenzel’s papers were in fact not stolen. What was he doing in the embassy?”
“He was just making a show of it, he was accompanying us.”
“And who is this ‘us’ now?”
“A girlfriend, who had tried to swim the Danube and lost her papers in the process.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Yes, but she told me that too.”
“And what is this girlfriend’s name?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“An equation with a good many human unknowns, don’t you think?”
“He picked her up on the autobahn—no papers, no money—and he smuggled her across.”
“And how did he smuggle her across?”
“In the trunk of his car. He also brought my jewelry and our turtle over the border.”
He squinched his eyes briefly, the right corner of his mouth twitched.
“So then he brought someone over the border into Hungary in his trunk?”
“Yes.”
“He told you that?”
“I know about it from her as well.”
“And were the gentleman from Hamburg and Herr Frenzel previously acquainted?”
“Just barely. Adam was jealous. It was a problem between two men, or maybe call it a woman problem, but nothing more.”
“Between the acquaintance from Hamburg and Herr Frenzel.”
“Yes.”
“And how did this acquaintance come about?”
“I rode to Hungary with him and his girlfriend.”
“And Herr Frenzel right behind?”
“Yes, but not for political reasons. Adam loves me, is that so hard to understand?”
“I do understand, but please, we are just doing our duty in asking certain questions.”
“Adam—Herr Frenzel if you like—had no use for the GDR and got out, along with me. Those are the facts. What is he supposed to be after as a spy? Dress patterns?”
“There are simply a few particulars here, which, if we were to—”
“But as you can see, we’re both here!”
“That will do for now. Thank you very much.”
“Then I can go?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, fine.”
“And if you happen to find those forms, please be so kind as to drop them by, we’re starting to run short.”
Evelyn nodded. She stood up, pushed the chair against the table, and looked across at the man, who had also got to his feet and appeared to be searching for something in the filing cabinets behind him. She waited for him to turn around but finally left the room without saying good-bye.
“THEY REALLY DO
have better scenery here too,” Evelyn said. The nail of her index finger touched the train window several times. She had taken off her shoes, stretched her legs to rest them on the seat across from her, and now opened the turtle’s cardboard box. “What are those slabs? They smell funny.” She pointed to the two books beside him.
“Our guidebooks, for birds and plants, they were always in the car, always handy.”
“Elfriede definitely misses her beautiful box.”
“And who was going to carry it? Besides we couldn’t show up with a pen like that.”
“Look, there are the Alps again, and behind them lies Italy …”
“Behind them lies Austria …”
“The Alps are Austria, but behind the Alps lies Italy. We’ll take a trip there soon, Elfriede.”
“But without Elfi.” He folded up his newspaper.
“It could be, Elfriede, that you’ll have to stay at home.” Evelyn folded the cardboard flaps down. “You act as if you’ve seen all this!”
“Am I behaving the wrong way again?” he asked, not looking up.
“Aren’t you in the least anxious to see it all?”
“Sure I’m anxious, especially whenever I do or say something wrong again.”
“You don’t have to take your anger out on me. He ran me through the wringer too.”
“They would’ve found a job for him on our side too, I guarantee you.”
“But he was polite. Our guys tried to scare you, you never knew if they were ever going to let you out.”
“Nobody’s ever tried to pump information out of me the way he did.”
“Maybe not you.”
“You either.”
“But you’re tetchy.”
“And you get offended when I just ask if you’ve called your Mike.”
“Because you don’t believe me. And even if I had called him, so what? Anyhow, surely I ought to be able to expect that you’ll believe me?”
“You don’t believe me either.”
“I simply don’t believe that Michael was there in Trostberg. He would have let us know, we were registered there, after all.”
“Why would he have let us know? He was wearing a uniform, was there on business.”
“And I think, quite frankly, that you’re mistaken. What is Michael supposed to be doing in an old barracks like that, and in uniform besides?”
“I saw him, of course I saw him. Even though he closed the door again right away, because I spooked him—”
“ ‘Spooked’—now that’s new. You told me he had closed the door again right away, but not that he was spooked.”
“He was spooked. He saw me, flinched, and beat a retreat, flinched and retreated.”
“Why should he lie?”
“How should I know. Research on eternity sounds better than intelligence officer or whatever it is he does.”
“We can give him a call then.”
“What’s that gonna prove?”
“That he lives in Hamburg.”
“Don’t be so naive.”
“You’re saying he gave me a phony number?”
“Would you know where it was ringing?”
“But why go to the trouble of putting on that whole show?”
“You think they don’t have spies too? And you don’t need to grin like that.”
“You guys have got some screws loose.”
“What do you mean, ‘you guys’?”
“You, just you, have some screws loose.”
“Then why did you say ‘You guys’?”
“I mean people who are constantly suspecting other people.”
“What do you mean ‘constantly’? And specifically which people?”
“Just in general, I meant it all just in general.”
“I don’t suspect people in general.”
“Can we drop this now, okay? Please.” Evelyn leaned back and stared out the window.
“Did Michael suspect me? Tell me, did he think I was from the Stasi? Tell me yes or no, that’s all.”
“No,” she said without turning her head. “We never talked about you, period.”
“So for you two I simply didn’t exist?”
“I didn’t want to talk about you. He did ask about you, but I felt like it was none of his business. Can’t you understand that? Did you want to talk about me with your Lillis and Desdemonas and whatever their names are? Let’s hope not. I think I might resent that.”
“I didn’t, but then I didn’t want for us to go our separate ways either.”
“You wanted something totally different, but your soul was still with me. Thanks heaps.”
“Go ahead and laugh, but my soul was truly and always with you.”
Adam crossed his legs and, it appeared, went back to reading his newspaper.
“I’d very much like to believe that,” Evelyn said.
“Then do.”
“I keep trying. I’ve been trying for two weeks now.”
“And what’s keeping you from it?”
“Nothing. But I just keep on trying.”
“And if you can’t bring yourself to do it?”
They looked at each other.
“Somehow you’re so unhappy. You were always in a good mood somehow, even in Hungary. Maybe it isn’t enough for you, just being with me.”
“ ‘Somehow,’ it’s always ‘somehow.’ ”
“Is polygamy what you want?”
“Let’s get married first, and then we’ll see if I need one or two more.”
“Don’t make a joke of this. Men are like that—or at least some of them. I’d rather we talk about this than just joke around.”
“I don’t miss Lilli and have never missed her. Period. What more am I supposed to say.”
“And Pepi?”
“Pepi is a lovely girl and will make a good university teacher, and I would love to see her again sometime, but it’s not what you think it is.”
“So then what is it?”
“What?”
“Well, there’s something wrong with you.”
“Now that’s rich. We leave it all behind—lock, stock, and barrel—and I don’t know how I’m going to earn my daily bread, and you ask if something’s wrong.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“I try to picture what it’ll be like when Mona walks into our house and your mother and the rest of them, and take out whatever it is they need—it’s something a man thinks about. I can’t just turn off the switch.”
“We don’t need that stuff anymore.”
“On Monday there were ten thousand of them in Leipzig. Imagine, ten thousand!”
“Adam, we’ve made it, we’re here in the West, we have all the papers we need, we’ll be given passports, we have three thousand Westmarks, I can study whatever I want, we have a roof over our heads for free, and you make a face like a prune.”
“It’s not been all that much fun so far.”
“That’s over and done with, we’re on our way to Munich.”
“Well yes, not exactly downtown Munich.”
“You’ve either just been sitting in front of the tube or playing with that stupid cube.”
“I find it interesting what our brothers and sisters are up to there in the East. As long as they’re allowed to get away with it, we should at least watch what’s happening.”