I rang Anke the next day and told her I would go straight up to Münster to see them. I continued the journey across Germany late at night on the Intercity. I saw people taking out flasks of coffee and sandwiches; eating quietly by themselves. I saw people asleep with their mouths open. Sometimes I could make out a succession of electricity pylons in the dark landscape. In Frankfurt main station, where I waited to change trains, I saw a group of American GIs, two blacks and three whites, all drunk and cheerful. They were just beginning to grow moustaches. I saw one of them stuff a half-eaten hamburger down another GIs neck. You motherfucker, I heard the guy say, while the others fell about laughing. I felt at home.
By the time it got bright, I was passing along the Rhine. It was a still, wintry Sunday morning. An elderly woman got on and sat by the window in my compartment. Nobody talked. Everybody stared out of the window at the rust-coloured landscape.
A while later, an argument developed between the old woman and the Intercity conductor. He accused her of not paying the Intercity surcharge. The woman pleaded with him, saying she had already paid it at her travel agents. The conductor would not accept that and continued to demand 14 DM from her. She began to cry. I could see the tears on her face.
I intervened. I asked him if this was necessary. Did he not believe the woman? He refused to speak to me. He looked out of the window and demanded 14 DM. The Intercity conductor doesnt believe tears. He gave her a choice of paying up or handing over her identity card. She fumbled in her purse with the tears streaming down her face.
I intervened. I asked him if this was necessary. Did he not believe the woman? He refused to speak to me. He looked out of the window and demanded 14 DM. The Intercity conductor doesnt believe tears. He gave her a choice of paying up or handing over her identity card. She fumbled in her purse with the tears streaming down her face.
I talked to her afterwards. She stayed on the train until Duisburg, still in tears, still proclaiming the injustice. I began to think there was more behind this. Maybe she was really crying about something else. I wanted to ask her about the war. Where she had been. What her experiences were. I believe tears when I see them. All she would tell me was that she was on the way back from visiting relatives in Stuttgart. Some people dont mind telling you things. Others will keep it to themselves. This frail woman sat in silence for the rest of the journey, staring out of the window.
20
I forget why Anke is beautiful. When you see her after a long time, you say to yourself, with a familiar shock: she is extremely beautiful. As much so in a pair of jeans and T-shirt as she would be dressed up to go out for an evening. Maybe its a universal charm, crossing all boundaries of personal preference. Everybody likes her. She can get away with anything. She can do no wrong.
Is it some kind of perfect symmetry in her features? Is she like a model? No. In the mirror, she is a little off-centre. Her smile is left-seeking. Thats the real test of symmetry, the one that artists use when painting portraits. Anke has idiosyncratic beauty. You would never guess her background. Or her age. She is one of those women who are beautiful as children and go on being so until theyre eighty. She will be a lovely old woman. Her mother is the same.
Anke jumped out of the Mercedes and walked over to embrace me. She had that slanted smile on her face. Life is for a laugh was her leitmotif; always was. I threw my bag into the back beside the child seat. On the far side, there was a large box of disposable nappies. It made me calculate. Alexander was four. Still a baby.
It was like a homecoming. Anke drove slowly through the town, talking and asking questions. The old buildings of Münster were all lit up, light spilling over on to nearby trees. The streets were empty. Sunday evening. We stopped at traffic lights, where the red light bled on to a tree beside it. Anke kept talking and looking at me.
Jürgen had the door open when we arrived. He embraced me too and stepped back to take a good look at me, to see if I had changed.
I got your card, he said, punching me and then leading me away into the living-room with his arm around my shoulder.
Alexander was shy at first. Jürgen showed him how to shake hands. Then Alex wanted to shake hands again and again. He ran away and came back to say hello again. His eyes shone.
I hope youve got some time, Jürgen said. I hope you can stay for a while. Weve got a lot to talk about. And Im going to take you hang-gliding if you stay till next weekend.
I told him I could stay only a few days. He said he was going to change my mind. Then he sat back and listened. Jürgen wanted to know everything.
Alex ran into the kitchen, where Anke was preparing something to eat. He came back moments later with an onion for me. After a while he came back again with an apple. His mouth dribbled.
Jürgen talked about his new practice. He had taken over his fathers practice and moved into new premises. Then he began to talk about changes happening in Germany, about the freedom trains. Münster was full of East Germans and displaced Germans from Poland. What did freedom of choice mean in Germany? What did they want?
Its the choice between thirty-five bars of soap, Jürgen said. The choice between mauve and sludge-green blouses. The choice to boot down the Autobahn at a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. Everybody wants that choice.
Alexander had dragged a chair into the middle of the room and sat underneath it, pretending to go to sleep. He began to sing. It was more like groaning.
Real freedom is a completely different matter, Jürgen said. Something we can talk about later: the difference between state freedom and domestic freedom. Personal freedom.
Over dinner, it was Ankes turn to talk about the events in Germany. People wanted the freedom to go anywhere in the world, even if they chose to stay at home.
On the wall of the kitchen hung a wooden plate with an egg-cup, spoon and a childs cup glued to it. Jürgen usually fed Alex when he was home. He showed extreme patience. Alex was limited in what he could chew. He got distracted and he wanted to eat from Jürgens plate or from my plate instead. Jürgen and Anke never talked about him in the third person when he was present. Jürgen held out the cup and Alex sang or sighed noisily as he drank. When he finished, there was a milk moustache on his upper lip.
After dinner I gave Alex the spinning top. It drove him mad. At first he got very excited about it when Jürgen spun it for him. But then he tried it himself and the handle broke off. He began to wail. Jürgen took him on his knee while I fixed the spinning top. But Alex was tired. He kept crying. I could see the full extent of his deformities; the pronounced cast in his eyes, the ill-fitting teeth and his inability to understand.
21
Bertha Sommer never saw the hostages being released. She never caught sight of their faces or of anyone getting off the trucks in Postelberg. All she saw were the onlookers in the streets and the occasional glimpse of purple lilac in full bloom as the trucks moved on again. The summer had come. It was hot on the trucks, under the green tarpaulins, as they drove out of Czechoslovakia. At times the trucks were hit by a shower of rain, but the sun quickly came out again. There was a smell in the trucks, like the inside of a marquee tent. There was also a constant smell of diesel.
After Postelberg, things moved slower than ever. Sometimes the pace was reduced to no more than five or ten kilometres an hour. Every conceivable form of transport was out on the roads, every available set of wheels; carts, barrows, prams, on the move. Outside Postelberg, they were held up for almost an hour.
The German units from Laun were determined to stay together as one convoy. Everywhere, Sudetenland civilians attached themselves to the retreat, getting in between the trucks, sometimes separating part of the convoy. Whole families were fleeing to Germany. Families pleading to be taken on the trucks. They knew what was going to happen. Bertha Sommer saw crowds of women and children, some of them leading farm animals. Some of the women carried enamel buckets for suitcases. The roads were stuffed with people fleeing, carrying as many of their belongings as they could, afraid to look back, afraid to think of what they were leaving behind. Bertha was the same, she had also left things behind, things she couldnt carry.
The streets were full of mud too. And full of rumour. The whole of Europe was full of rumour. On the trucks, it became clear that the Russians were trying to close off the escape from the north. The retreating army was trying to make it to Eger on the German border as quickly as possible, but the pace of the streets made it difficult.
On 9 May the Soviet Army had all but caught up with them. The soldiers at the back of the truck spotted them behind. At the edge of a valley, they could see the densely packed road curling through the trees and emerging on the opposite side of the valley behind them. Officer Kern handed Bertha the binoculars and she could see, with great shock, the first Russian tanks and armoured cars in pursuit. Binoculars show exactly how close you can be.
On 9 May the Soviet Army had all but caught up with them. The soldiers at the back of the truck spotted them behind. At the edge of a valley, they could see the densely packed road curling through the trees and emerging on the opposite side of the valley behind them. Officer Kern handed Bertha the binoculars and she could see, with great shock, the first Russian tanks and armoured cars in pursuit. Binoculars show exactly how close you can be.
Everybody on the truck began to talk at the same time. Officer Kern silenced them and said the Russians would never catch up. The roads were too clogged. As long as the Germans were not held up somewhere along the road ahead, there was no danger. Besides, there was too much mud everywhere. The tanks could never cross through the fields.