Europe Central (99 page)

My target shouldn’t be difficult to locate, they’d told me, because he quote
lives in a fairytale ballet without human context
end quote, so I floated in the direction which seemed most inhuman, proceeding rapidly eastward beneath what a nineteeth-century traveler has described as
a pearl-grey, faintly blue sky which lent a luminous quality to everything except the pale green roofs,
yes, I knew that, everything transparently grey, with lime trees painted on the stage backdrop.

Shostakovich was eating dinner with a younger woman, a certain Galina Ustvolskaya, about whom I’d been given no information; they appeared to be consuming some sort of fat blind white cave-fish which resembled turbot. He looked unhealthy, and she seemed angry about something. Frankly, I didn’t like her. Groaning, my host locked the door behind me and hobbled back to the table. When I asked him how he was, he smilingly quoted the poetess Akhmatova:
Call this working! This is the life! To overhear some music, and pretend that it’s my own . . .

Ustvolskaya began screaming when I drew my gun. I shot him in the head five times, after which he said to me: There’s a musical term—it’s, it’s, well, it’s Italian actually, which you might not . . .
ma non tanto,
which I think means
but not so much.

7

Then I woke up in a double bed with starched sheets; on the pillow beside me slept a single long dark hair. That made me very happy, although I wished that I could remember who my co-dreamer had been; on the other hand, if I really chose to know, I could have made inquiries through the Gehlen Organization. Throwing a white bathrobe around my shoulders, I opened the French doors and stepped out upon the terrace, enjoying the sunshine on my bare feet, and the lovely terrace-view of the squat white dome of our Great Hall of the People—how fine it felt to be home again! I let my gaze be carried down the wide white boulevard which passes through the Arch of Triumph (which of course overtowers the French original), then widens, widens again into a perfect white channel in the white maze of Berlin; it becomes a narrow strait between watchtowers, then widens into a horseshoe-shaped courtyard gripped by the rectangular wings of the vast white ministry where our sleepwalker watches over us. Just then my case officers knocked. I rushed back to bed, and hid the long dark hair beneath my pillow just in time. There were three of them—GRAENER, who bore no resemblance to GREINER; HAVEMANN and PFITZNER—and they trooped in almost shyly, because I was their hero, you see; they gathered around my bed, smiling forgivingly. The anti-sleeping pill was working even better than expected, they assured me. I shouldn’t feel discouraged. With a wink, GRAENER patted my pillow and added: The German people need romanticism once more. Then PFITZNER raised the syringe: Here we go again! Close your eyes! They re-injected me into the Soviet Zone.

8

This time I was getting better at, at, so to speak—my God! Now I was thought-stuttering like
him—

I swam through Europe Central, which is an aquarium scattered with the stone shells of ancient Polish institutes. I went to Moscow, which might well have been Leningrad, found Shostakovich, and shot him as dead as I could. That is what I did, more or less. He was alone that time; he must have fallen out with G. I. Ustvolskaya. This time I finished it. I transformed him into a new man. When I’d completed my world-historical mission, he was smashed like the stone lion of Potsdam, and his brains were scattered over three rooms. Since there was one bullet left, I also made sure that his heart had stopped. I repeat: It was only a question of time and manpower. Then I slipped the Walther back into the pocket of my trenchcoat. I was on my way out when he said to me: My heart is actually, so to speak, inside that piano. I wouldn’t have minded if you’d actually, er, written me out of the score, but unfortunately you’ll have to . . .

How could I bear to look at him? And the timbre of his voice, my God, my God! What was he going to say about me behind my back? I went out into the snowy street, trying not to fall asleep amidst the translucent rushing crowds. Evidently there was more, how should I say,
complexity
to this situation than I’d been informed. Well, that’s not uncommon in intelligence work. Was I in over my head? I’d better return straightaway to the office and request a deeper briefing.

L. Moholy-Nagy once wrote:
Penetration of the body with light is one of the greatest visual experiences.
And so I came back into my Germany, the real Germany, where the sunlight was as white as Heydrich’s hands.

9

Who moves the mover? inquired the pale man in dark glasses. He seemed far unhappier than I. He longed for the old days when soldiers, not dreams, marched through the Brandenburg Gate. He reminded me of his chief grievance:
They all dance to Shostakovich’s tune.

I felt so ashamed of my failures that I simply bowed my head. HAVEMANN waggled a finger a me.

Somehow the brightness felt less bright. It was doomed since it was already articulated. What if even the pale man were doomed? I’d begun to feel more suspicious of him, although I still declined to fear him, since I had so easily tricked him. Reminding myself that I had often voyaged eastward of my own volition, I shored myself up; wasn’t I doing exactly what I wanted?

PFITZNER entered the room, bearing more silver bullets on a tray. GRAENER brought me a ring of invisibility. The pale man, frowning and rising, said to me: You’ll be in our thoughts when you’re on the other side.

Then I wondered: What
is
the other side?

10

That night I had to meet them on Stresemannstrasse. They injected me into the Russian sector right across from the ruined dome of the Haus Vaterland. It took six motivated ex-Nazis to lift up the Iron Curtain for me. There was no distinction between them and me, except that they knew who they were. One of them slapped me between my shoulderblades and whispered: Thank God somebody is finally doing something.—Another one slipped an American cigarette between my lips. NEY whispered a report into her empty basket. Then off I went. I felt as lonely as a dispatch rider cycling off into the enemy’s field of fire.

I floated around, trying to get my bearings.—We’re going to get all that back, the pale man had insisted, but what exactly would we get back? Was he longing for the good old days of Kontroll-Girls in three grades and Bubis in long coats dancing with their Mädis in lesbian bars? The sleepy feeling retreated, leaving me as nauseous as if I’d overdosed ever so slightly on some narcotic.

Location: East Berlin. Russian soldiers were carrying messages in and out of what used to be our Air Ministry, with the Wall before them. I could hardly prevent myself from envying these individuals. They seemed so happy, with their smoke-blackened faces and their looted wristwatches! (Top secret: Their Party already planned to make office blocks out of the Cafe Kranzler.)

This time I had brought with me, disguised as a rolled-up umbrella, one of those old
Faustpatronen
we’d handed out to the old men in the Home Guard at the very end; this one-shot weapon was meant to kill a tank, and my plan was to blast it through both of Shostakovich’s pianos, in hopes of finally stopping his heart. The pale man in dark glasses would have been disappointed to be informed, if he hadn’t been already, that I’d given up on his silver bullets. As much as I cared to please him, I preferred to be returned to the list of people who could be trusted. The worst part was knowing that I couldn’t trust myself.

As for the ring of invisibility, I’d already lost it. Well, in every mission something goes wrong. No doubt there’s a scientific explanation for that.

Before I knew it, I was in a wintery sort of place whose frosted icicles reminded me of the snow-white walls and crystal bed of the Cave of Love in Gottfried’s
Tristan.
Somebody was kissing me; I’m fairly sure that this time it was Elena Kruglikova. Now here came evenly spaced tanks (three abreast) clanking down Gorki Street. Quick! I dodged out of sight. Elena seemed disappointed, but only for an instant, since I wasn’t real; she was already dreaming of someone else, probably a certain, well, you know. Where was
he?
I spied the triple smokestacks of the
Aurora
protruding from the harbor’s ice; over there, the Univermag Department Store memorialized Stalingrad; now if only I could see the Bronze Horseman . . . Pretty women from the Home Guard marched past the long facade of the Winter Palace, with their rifles pointed at the sky; they hadn’t yet begun to starve. Then I heard the inimitable sound of Shostakovich’s fingernails clicking down on piano keys; he was about to play this reduction of the Seventh Symphony; Elena Kruglikova was already beginning to sing. There he was! I could see him perfectly through a frostless circle in the window. What an interesting composition it was, without atonal fallacies; the Rat Theme especially, which made me want to dance. (But I’m positive that had I not been eavesdropping, it wouldn’t have appealed to me nearly as much.) I waited until he had finished. He rose from the piano bench, bowing awkwardly, with his fists clenched at his sides, and E. Kruglikova, who in real life might never have met him (I have no confirmed information on this), smiled lustrously; she was wearing a formal black dress and a necklace of frozen tears. Their friends applauded, thereby imitating static on a clandestine radio.

Excuse me, excuse me; it was nothing but a little
nothing,
apologized Shostakovich (who was codenamed ELENKA; I neglected to tell you that.)

Standing on my tiptoes, I fist-rocketed him as planned, following up with light machine-gun fire until everybody was dead, blackened and pockmarked like Saint Hedwig’s Cathedral—you can count on it! He was
gone,
just like the Romanisches Café. His severed hands scuttled inside the piano, where they doubtless lived in some sort of nest or spider-hole; but I had
plans
for that piano! Two hand grenades later, I couldn’t even have picked my teeth with it, it was so perfectly pulverized. I waited. Very cautiously, blood began to leach out of that pile of sawdust, so I must have gotten his heart at last. Then a sky-blue icicle peeped out, so I stamped on it.

I know I should accept it and simply, so to speak, be, well,
dead,
said Shostakovich, carefully inserting the bloody teeth back into his mouth, especially since not many people listen to music nowadays. It’s all very . . . But I
can’t.
There’s something in me that won’t let me accept, how should I say, fate.

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I certainly couldn’t imagine the report I would need to write. Instantly, I was suffering what we used to call
a crisis of nerve—
bring your own gas mask! And Shostakovich kept pattering on:

Maybe on account of
that bastard,
you know who, that Kremlin mountaineer who climbed up his heap of corpses; I could have been one of them, but somehow I was never able to surrender, musically I mean, since of course I did abase myself in every other way—not that I joined the Party, at least. Come to think of it, if you want to kill me you’re going to have to make me write false music—

Clearing my throat (why not try to be pleasant?), I ventured: What about your “Song of the Forests,” Herr Schostakowitsch? Isn’t that a bit of Stalinist ass-kissing?

Not at all, my dear friend! I said, not at all! You see, even there, there’s parody—not that
that bastard
would ever notice—and it’s swollen with self-loathing. But the one I loathe tonight is
you.
Just because you’re a monster, do you have to be an idiot?

Herr Schostakowitsch, I’m as tired of this as you are.

Now he could put his spectacles back on, so that he could glare at me. He said: Once or even twice, that’s, you know, because I kept saying to myself, he’ll learn. But you haven’t. This is almost not funny anymore.

11

With perseverance I’d get him. Back in Berlin-West, I took a sleeping tablet and dreamed of Valkyries. When I woke up, I went to the office, where they gave me American instant coffee. The pale man wasn’t there, but somebody codenamed LEHMANN told me that they were all proud of me; even Adenauer had been informed. Would I like another coffee? I felt
valuable.
This would constitute the turning point. It had better, since my existence in both zones remained potentially punishable.

I could see a long line of shabby shoes marching eastward under the Iron Curtain, and in a counterattack of self-confidence I told myself: Let those poor dreamers queue up to be examined; as for me, I’ll come and go as I please; I work for the Gehlen Organization!

If only I hadn’t misplaced that ring of invisibility! (The problem was that I couldn’t see it.) At least I had the latest crop of silver bullets; PFITZNER had assured me that they’d been blessed by a Croatian priest. If I failed this time, it would truly be my fault. How embarrassing, that Shostakovich considered me to be an idiot! Once upon a time, in some fairytale or other, I used to think well of myself, but I don’t remember when or where. At least I had one thing going for me: I was a realist.

At 0210 hours I breached the Curtain through a cellar in the ruined Kaiserhof Hotel. They had cut a diaperlike flap of grey Ur-metal to hang down across the broken stairs, and it proved more challenging than I had imagined to worm myself underneath, for it was so heavy, cold and dead; at least it wasn’t yet poisoned or electrified. Anyhow, up I came. No more dancing with Aryan girls at the Berolina Haus! Smashed tanks around the smashed Reichstag, black marketeers doing business in the moonlit grassy rubble all around (because the People’s Police couldn’t crack down on everything yet), this was not the Berlin that I could have imagined back in the days when our stone eagles flew. If only LEHMANN were here to repeat how proud of me they all were!