Adam and evelyn, p.14
Adam and Evelyn, page 14
“Sounds strange somehow.”
“It’s like a drug, once you’ve been up there with it, you never want to come down.”
“Do you live to work, or do you work to live?”
“That’s not a legitimate question.”
“Yes it is. You’re spending your whole life working for eternity.”
“For me work is life. Isn’t it for you?”
“Yes, but we don’t mean the same thing.”
“Why not? What you do is great work.”
“Precisely because I can do what I want.”
“But if she wants a dress, you can’t make her a pantsuit.”
“Sure I can, if she looks better in a pantsuit.”
“You’re sure sure of yourself, I’ll give you that.”
“Do you love Evi?”
“Do I love Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I ought to have been in Hamburg long before now.”
“Are three weeks too long?”
“Do you have any idea what it means to disappear for that long? Three weeks can mean letting go of everything, the whole shootin’ match—not just your own existence, but that of the others, and of the project.”
“Or of immortality.”
“Right, of immortality too.”
They both nodded, as if they were finally in agreement.
33
LADIES’ CHOICE
“I WAS SO TIRED,” Katja said, “but now I can’t fall asleep. I might as well get up.”
“Maybe the men would like to sleep.”
“And we’ll stand guard? Sounds like they’ve got quite a conversation going.”
“Could you catch any of it?”
“Nope. But Adam has a lovely voice. Damn, when he told me his real name, it was like the end of the world.”
“You thought he’d been jerking you around the whole time?”
“For a moment—yes.”
“I’d already moved in with him, and I didn’t know even then. Everything had just his last name on it.”
“Is it because it sticks out so far?” Katja tapped her larynx.
“He had to have been embarrassed as a kid, with that thin neck and then that huge Adam’s apple. Somehow he was always Adam.”
“It looks very masculine.”
“Hm, I thought so too.”
“But not anymore?”
“Oh, sure.”
“And Michael?”
“That’s totally different. Adam’s a child in comparison.”
“You think so?”
“Michael knows what he wants, keeps moving on. With him something’s always happening, he’s a searcher, a researcher. Been everywhere, speaks umpteen languages, there’s a wide-openness there, he breathes a lot freer—it’s not the same thing year after year.”
“He has beautiful hands.”
“Hm. But he’s got some crazy stuff inside his head too. He’s read everything by Lem. Lem’s the reason he started learning Polish once.”
“The science-fiction guy?”
“Yeah, with all the robots and machines. Michael thinks he’s the greatest writer there is.”
“His stuff is available to us too, isn’t it?” Katja propped herself up so that she could see Evelyn. “Is he a good lover?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Was there a spark right from the start?”
“It didn’t even occur to me. He was supposed to marry my girlfriend, his cousin.”
“Mona?”
“Oh, right, you know her.”
“The bad company.”
“Is that what Adam called her?”
“It just slipped out. Why did you take off without him?”
“Adam didn’t tell you about that, of course.” In propping herself up too, Evelyn touched the roof of the tent. “It’s damp,” she said and pushed back her hair.
“You have to be careful in the morning. You bump against it and there’s a sudden downpour,” Katja said.
“We’ve got one like it, or almost the same.”
“And so what was it?”
“I knew what was going on for a long time, or at least I had a pretty good idea. Mona said everybody knew except me.”
“Knew what?”
“That he was screwing them, his women.”
“His women?”
“His clients, his creations. He even gives them names. At first he said they were the names of the designs he created. But they’re more like the nicknames guys give easy girls. He photographs them in their new outfits. You only need to look at their eyes, so hot to trot it’s as if they’re only taking a quick break. The last one was a silk blouse, nothing underneath of course—you could’ve put out your eyes with those nipples.”
“Younger than you?”
“Ah, anything but! If you saw them on the street, nobody would ever think of turning around for a second look. Well past their prime.”
“Really?”
“But when he custom-tailors something for them, and can he ever, they look really sharp, and that turns him on.”
“Is it maybe a dressing-undressing thing?”
“Nah, it’s not that simple. I caught them at it, I saw them, even though I truly didn’t want to know.”
“Ouch, damn! That hurts.”
“I don’t think I’m all that vain, I don’t, but if you had seen that woman.” Evelyn’s hand touched the roof again. “Sorry. You wouldn’t believe, I swear you wouldn’t. Naked she was just an old biddy.”
“And Adam?”
“I still see him standing there, behind the cupboard, not a stitch on—”
“Adam without his fig leaf. Has he a got a thing for women like that?”
“No, that’s not it. They’re not all that way. But theoretically it could be any one of them, of his clients, just about any woman.”
“I don’t know whether this is of any interest to you or not, but he was always perfectly proper with me—I mean it, a real angel.”
“I believe it, I believe you.”
“I’d said something stupid about how I’d fulfill his every wish, or whatever—and I was even thinking of that. I just wanted him to take me along with him, all the rest didn’t matter. But there was never even a remark or a stupid move. I was beginning to think he was gay—”
“Adam?”
“Well, he’s a tailor. I know a gay hairdresser, and tailors and hairdressers, they’re not all that different.”
“A tailor is a whole different thing.”
“Doesn’t matter, what I wanted to say was that he was either gay or truly loved his wife.”
“Maybe he did once.”
“If a man would be willing to follow me in an old heap like that, even though I was with somebody else—that counts for something.”
“Yes, but what?”
Katja was lying on her back now, one hand under her head. “Do you really want to go back?”
“The awful part is I change my mind every couple of hours,” Evelyn said.
“Do you have anybody over there?”
“No, no one. Adam has an aunt—well, not a real aunt, but she came to visit now and then. Her husband fled at some point, didn’t want to live in the East anymore or wasn’t allowed to. He’s some sort of big shot now.”
“All our relatives are over there. We’re the only ones who haven’t done it.”
“Once you start thinking about it, and it suddenly becomes a real possibility, and you suddenly ask yourself what your life’s about, where it goes from here—”
“And from that point on, there’s no peace of mind. I even think a person has a duty to get out. We have no idea what life can mean.”
“Adam is so undemanding. Sits there in the garden of an evening, with a beer and a cigar, and the neighbor comes to the fence—he even gets along with his neighbors. That always fascinated me, he was so independent, you know—it showed character. The guys at university were so cautious and well behaved. Adam was like breathing free. He never minced his words, always spoke his mind. And yet, if he’s just going to sit there in his garden—”
“Have you never gone on trips together?”
“We were in Bulgaria once. He’s got money. Money to burn, at least to my mind. Adam even wanted children. But … I …” Evelyn rolled over to face the side of the tent.
“What’s wrong? Hey, Evi?”
Katja carefully began to stroke Evelyn’s hair and shoulders.
“What’s wrong? Are you crying?”
“I had them get rid of one.”
“I’ve got that behind me too. But he was such a son of a bitch, a real thug.”
“Adam doesn’t even know. And don’t you dare tell him, never ever. Promise?”
“Sure, I promise.”
“You had a reason at least. But I, I just thought I wanted to wait. And now I’m thinking it was a good thing I didn’t have it. What would I do with a baby in the West?”
“I didn’t want to be tied to that guy my whole life long—all the same it crosses my mind way too often.”
“Are they still out there?” Evelyn raised her head.
“Your men?”
“My men?”
“Well yes, that’s true, you have two, and I don’t have even one.”
Evelyn blew her nose. “You can have one, that’d simplify things somehow.”
“Then I’ll ask in the morning if one of them wants me.”
“And who are you going to ask first?”
“Adam, of course.”
“But he doesn’t want to go to the West!”
“All the same, if it doesn’t matter to you?”
“Listen—what’s that?”
“It’s a mob of some sort.”
“Can you make anything out?”
“The West German national anthem?”
“No, it’s ours, it’s our anthem!”
34
A FAIRY TALE
EVELYN, KATJA, AND ADAM were sitting in a little corner café on Népstadion út, about halfway between the embassies of the GDR and the Federal Republic.
Katja pushed her empty cup away. “All this coffee is putting me to sleep.”
“I think it’s funny we’re sitting here guzzling coffee at their expense,” Evelyn said.
“What do you mean? I have to pay the embassy back,” Adam said.
“Damn, and here I thought you’d finally stopped footing my bill,” Katja said.
“That’s what money’s for, to spend.”
“No reason to throw it out the window, Adam. We can’t even pay for a night at a hotel or a decent meal.”
“Anything you guys are doing without? I don’t feel like I’m having to cut corners. We couldn’t have it much better than this.”
“You don’t even notice anymore just how degrading it is.”
“If you’d be happier at the Hilton, go ahead. But you won’t experience anything like last night, that’s for sure.”
“You mean our soused countrymen? I can do without them.”
“They’re all just standing and waiting in the exit line, as you yourself heard.”
The waiter arrived, exchanged ashtrays, and removed empty plates.
“I’m ashamed to say it,” Katja remarked, “but I feel better with papers.”
“Perfectly normal.” Adam pulled out another cigar. “Will this bother you?”
“Not me.”
“Wait till we’re outside. Shall we pay?”
“I wouldn’t mind something else to drink. Some juice maybe.”
“But the really awful thing is …” Katja propped her elbows on the table and hid her face in her hands.
“What?” Adam asked, the cigar already in his mouth, and shook the box of matches.
“You’ll think I’ve lost all my marbles, but once I was outside again, I was on the verge of tears—”
“What amazed me,” Evelyn said, “was that you were even willing to give it a try.”
“I thought I might need diapers.”
“That close to fudgin’ your undies?” Adam said and lit his cigar.
“Well, the main thing is it went all right,” Evelyn said.
“I was on the verge of tears—that same old familiar smell.” Katja shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re right, somehow it reminded me of … school or something.”
“Lunchboxes,” Katja said. “As if they’d all just opened their lunchboxes. And then the way they tried to buck us up.”
“They weren’t unpleasant,” Adam said.
“No wonder, now that everybody’s running away from them. They’re tickled pink if somebody says they want to go back. Wait and see, once you’re home, just how nice they are to you. For twenty years now they’ve forbidden you to sing the words to their own national anthem.”
“Good God, I don’t want to go back!” Katja said.
“I didn’t mean you.”
“And then all at once that smell. Suddenly it seemed I’d been away for years.”
Adam laughed and then had to cough. “I could sell my provisional travel pass. To the highest bidder.”
“Nobody can ever take you seriously, Adam.”
“Just wait. I bet there’s a pack of people who’d be interested. Like those guys who were counting out their dollar bills for everybody to see. If I asked them—”
“That was Michael!” Katja jumped up and ran outside.
“Do me a favor, Evi? On the way back, sit up front with me?”
“But you’ll have to put that thing out.”
Adam laid the cigar in the ashtray and looked around for the waiter.
Katja appeared at the door.
“We need to come outside, he’s got something he has to say to us, something’s happened.”
“Bad?”
“I don’t think so.”
Evelyn followed Katja. Adam took the cigar from the ashtray, puffed until it was glowing again, and walked to the counter. He watched the waiter’s ballpoint move across the pad, and then stared at the amount, underlined twice. He counted out the currency and laid it on the bill with a soft “Viszontlátásra.” The waiter thanked him with a slight bow.
As he reached the door Adam took another puff on his cigar and blew the smoke into the milky blue September sky.
“He’s arranged pleasant quarters for you in the embassy, has he?” Adam asked, as Katja and Evelyn finally stopped hugging.
“Make all the jokes you want, but in a few days the border will be open,” Michael said. “That’s certain.”
“As certain as immortality.”
“They’re opening the border!” Michael said.
“Bull,” Adam said. “Who’s been telling you fairy tales?”
“It may not suit you, but in a couple of days—”
“Why shouldn’t it suit me? I may actually make some money on my travel pass.”
“From here on, I’m footing the bill for everything,” Michael said. “And this evening we’re going to live it up.”
Adam blew one little cloud of smoke after another into the air and led the way to the car. He unlocked it and opened the doors from inside. Michael held the door open first for Katja, then for Evelyn.
“Can I sit up front?” Evelyn asked.
Michael nodded and stepped aside so she could get in.
It took them three-quarters of an hour to find their way out of Budapest. Adam had given Evelyn the map, but she very quickly fell asleep. And Katja had closed her eyes too. Only Michael was sitting up and staring out the window as if not to miss a detail.
They left the autobahn at Székesfehérvár. In Veszprém Adam didn’t take the exit for Balatonfüred, but instead, hoping to see something of the landscape, drove parallel to the north shore of the lake in the direction of Tapolca. But only a few kilometers beyond the bypass around Veszprém, the motor had started to stutter—and now at last it fell silent. Suddenly everyone was wide awake.
“No problem,” Adam said, letting the car roll onto the shoulder, “it’s just the spark plugs.”
He took out the tools stored in the trunk, released the hood, and smiled. He reminded Evelyn of a magician about to begin his act. He raised the hood. He had shown her a couple of times before how to pull the plug caps, unscrew the plugs, and clean them with a wire brush. But when Evelyn got out of the car, she saw that he wasn’t doing anything, just standing there with his hands on the fender and his eyes closed.
“Adam,” she said softly. “Is something wrong?”
35
TOWED
IT WAS EARLY afternoon before Adam could finally be persuaded not to undertake further repairs of his own and to be towed instead. Evelyn and Katja were able to get several cars to stop. But either they were not going to Lake Balaton or didn’t have towing gear or gave them some explanation they couldn’t understand. Finally Evelyn and Katja hitched a ride to the next village and called the Angyals.
Around five o’clock Herr Angyal stepped out of his white Trabant. Stretched out on a blanket beside the road, Michael and the two women had nodded off. “Cylinder-head gasket,” Adam called to Herr Angyal as he was pulling a large bowl from the passenger side. After Evelyn had taken over the potato salad, Herr Angyal pushed his glasses up on his forehead and bent down over the engine. Katja handed out utensils and plates, and Michael poured white wine from a large bottle. But neither Adam nor Herr Angyal would join in the picnic.
When they had finally got the towline attached to the Wartburg, they wiped their hands off on the grass and sat down with the others. Adam ate his potato salad straight from the bowl and popped the few remaining meatballs into his mouth.
“Do you think your car can handle us all?” Michael asked.
“We could hitchhike,” Katja said.
“You all get in with him,” Adam said. “Two long honks mean stop. Two short ones—you’re going too fast.”
“Three shorts,” Michael said as he stood up, “you’re passing us.” He reached out a hand to Adam, who held his out and let himself be pulled to his feet.
Once they were all in the Trabant, Herr Angyal rolled down his window, pushed his glasses back into place like goggles, and held his arm up as he slowly pulled away.
