Star 111, p.16
Star 111, page 16
“Samara!” Carl called out (as if he had rediscovered a forgotten part of the world) and pointed at one of the conurbations showing through the paint.
“That’s where the Zhiguli was built and here! Here is Zhiguli—actually it’s a mountain range.” Carl inadvertently grabbed at the picture and recoiled. Henry bent forward for a closer look at the spot—a gesture solely for Carl, conspicuous.
“Rilke, for example, was in Samara,” Carl stammered, then fell silent.
Wallrodt looked at him attentively, as if he were waiting for something, a punch line, perhaps. He was even smiling. His friendly eyes rested on Carl before returning to Henry. I’m at the very bottom, Carl thought. And I don’t even know where the ladder is.
“There are ruined places everywhere, whether here or in Ethiopia,” Wallrodt explained. “What interests me is how we can take a stand in this shattered world.” He was now speaking only to Henry.
“Is that why everyone here looks like they stepped out of Mad Max?” Henry asked and Wallrodt laughed as Carl edged his way slowly toward the door.
On his way downstairs, he noticed another chalk arrow, half-erased, pointing to an apartment on the third floor. From the hall, Carl could make out a table and a few other pieces of furniture draped with a thin, black plastic film that billowed with a soft rustle when he entered the room. The windows were also covered with plastic film. Candles were placed on the floor throughout the room. The walls were bare except for a small drawing, framed in gold like an icon, that drew Carl’s gaze. It was the silhouette of a woman bowing before a naked man. As if following an old court custom, the woman knelt on one knee with her arms stretched out behind her and her head lowered, but just slightly, perhaps because she wanted to keep her eyes on the man’s genitals or was kneeling only to see them.
“The drawing isn’t finished, but . . .”
Racing heart, rustling film.
“Oh, excuse me, no, don’t be alarmed. The light is broken, the whole electrical system here, nothing works.”
Since he’d entered the room, the woman had sat motionless on one of the plastic-covered chairs but now she rose and, tentatively, approached him. Carl saw her smile, her high, gleaming forehead.
“Effi?”
The soft rustle of plastic film.
“Effi!”
The slender figure, her medium-length hair, under which her shoulders gleamed like silver epaulets. Some light from the hall fell on her face: it was Effi, there was no doubt. In his embarrassment, Carl stretched out his hand toward her.
“Effi, what . . . What are you doing here?”
“I’m Effi.”
“I know, Effi, I . . . Did you get my letter . . . ?”
“Excuse me, but the door must stay closed during the performance.”
With these words, she shut the door and returned to her chair.
The soft rustle of plastic film.
She hadn’t taken his hand.
Carl had pictured it a hundred times but had never really believed they would see each other again, not even while writing his letter, that abrupt declaration of love, which more than anything was an expression of a sudden decision, a departure, that now lay months behind him.
“So, is this all part of your—installation?”
His question was naive and he immediately regretted it. He simply knew too little about art, he knew too few artists, as he’d feared.
Effi cleared her throat and picked up a note ready to hand near her chair. “Welcome to this room, wanderer. Behind you, the closed door to a long-forgotten room in a house that was abandoned years ago gives you one last chance to look at these things undisturbed. Things from the past. Your life. And me.”
She didn’t look at him. She looked absently into the room and put the note back on the floor.
“Ryke, the rich woman, welcomes you.”
She said this slowly and clearly.
“We have time.”
Carl examined the room, the window, the plastic covering everything. He could have fallen to his knees before Effi: here I am, take me . . .
After a while, he could do it: he could look at her, could observe Effi, without shame. He saw her broad, bony shoulders, her prominent collarbone, her pale face, and her wide, arched eyebrows with that never-tiring expression of alertness; he saw her fine, thin mouth with the small scar on her upper lip and her somehow shaggy hair. He saw the girl and he saw the woman he’d been in love with, since forever, Carl thought.
“We have time now.”
She hadn’t said it to him, just to the room.
After a while, something happened. The woman on the chair grew unfamiliar, she changed rapidly, with each breath. Carl now noticed traits of hers that must have escaped him back then. But that couldn’t be it. He’d forgotten. Something about Effi that had struck him even then as hardened and damaged. Something had held me back, Carl thought. Now he remembered. More than shyness or timidity or the fear of being rejected. It hadn’t lessened his desire, on the contrary. And now, there she sat, a puzzle.
Each movement was followed by the rustling of plastic film. It’s the objects’ breath, Carl thought, as if the building were sighing.
After half an eternity, the woman, who possibly was Effi, spoke to Carl. “What are you up to next?”
“And this—here?”
“It’s just finished.”
•
Carl led her through the small forest in front of the building. He briefly took her hand. She stopped, then stood very close to him. She was exactly his height. He’d forgotten that. Had she really always been this tall? She slipped a leg between his and looked into his eyes.
In his apartment, Effi (or the woman who must be Effi) became very quiet. She admitted she was hungry and Carl started fixing her something to eat. Because nothing better occurred to him in his confusion, he started to tell her how he had found his two-burner stove top, in which street he’d picked it up, how he’d finally scraped off the flaking rust from the burners and then “rubbed it well with butter.” He pointed at this and that object (a plate, a knife). All these witnesses of his habitation now seemed peculiar to Carl and suddenly he had the feeling that he’d long ago found accommodation here, come aboard this road.
Because it sounded impressive and important, he also told Effi about the guerrillas (the aguerrillas) he’d joined up with, how they’d armed themselves with zinc-plated halberds, about their use of border dogs in battle, and all their plans. Effi sat on Carl’s chair at the workbench, looking at him attentively, so he also told her about the Shepherd and the pack. Effi knew Henry as a painter. She’d “often heard” his name, which agitated Carl even more. He told her about selling pieces of the Wall and the worker’s café (but not about stealing tools), he simplified the Shepherd’s goals, emphasizing solidarity and brotherhood. “He’s insane, but in a good way, you know?”
Effi nodded. She agreed with him. He saw the Christmas glow in her eyes and on her forehead that had a certain translucence. Everything about her exuded affection and warmth. She tilted her head slightly (as if it helped her hear him and see him better); she stroked the wood of the workbench while he spoke (the bench for work, Carl thought, she’s stroking the work). He saw how slender her hand was; he saw her long, slender fingers and the way her fingertips caressed the grain of the wood. I’ve missed that, Carl thought.
“First Berlin, then Morocco. Big plans.”
Blood rushed to Carl’s cheeks—it was the first time Effi had referred to his letter, to one of the two poems he had sent along with his confession. She got it all, understood it all immediately, Carl thought.
“First Berlin, then Morocco,” he repeated softly, “Capote, Williams, Bowles . . .”
“Matisse,” Effi whispered and Carl now began to realize something, it dawned on him, something very simple, simple but vast and all-encompassing: he had never yet met anyone who believed in him, in his work, that is, and that’s what he’d been missing. This realization was abrupt and undeniable, as if he’d suddenly found the name for a pain that had always been there. He explained to Effi that the building behind the small bomb crater copse was first and foremost a place to write, that he (probably) had ended up here precisely because it was a place to write. Yes, essentially, his writing itself had chosen this spot: “After a few days, I understood this, Effi.”
“I have a child, Carl.”
“What?”
“Freddy, he’s four years old.”
“And where? I mean, where is your child—I mean Freddy?”
“In Leipzig. We live in Leipzig, Freddy and I.”
Freddy and Effi. She did not seem to want to talk more about it, at least not at that moment.
•
Fried potatoes with fried eggs (Inge’s recipe with lots of caraway) and pickles on the side. Water pearled from the window and collected on the cupboard in a small puddle shaped like Lake Baikal. “Academy of Fine Arts”: it sounded like music to Carl, it was the old Effi melody that Carl listened to enraptured. They recalled former friends, Effi laughed. It was easy and pleasant to talk to her, a discussion of the situation, out of which anything was possible, and so Carl also started telling her about Inge and Walter.
“Why not leave? But who has the courage? That’s the real question. You should be proud,” Effi said softly and stroked the workbench. “I’d go if I could, away from all this.”
That was Effi’s view and although her answer no doubt had a dark, obscure side, Carl was grateful to her.
For some reason, his movements were often clumsy but he finally finished preparing the meal. Effi ate very little, as if she’d suddenly lost her appetite. After a while, she stood and went into the adjacent room. For a second, Carl saw her slender figure, the elegance of her movements. All evening long, he’d had to be careful not to stare at her and now he forced himself to keep eating and finally he even began clearing up when she called him.
“Cold feet!”
She was standing on the mattress-raft. She’d undressed but wasn’t naked. She was wearing something on her skin that gleamed, some kind of fabric but not actually cloth, more of a filigree webbing with lace trimming and a plunging neckline. It’s a kind of curtain, thought Carl, who had no idea. Because it was see-through, it was strangely not visible at first glance. Only on second look did he see the dark outline of her sex, marveling as at something one has imagined too often. It was Effi’s first lesson. Carl knew what a bodysuit was, but he had never before seen anything comparable, something he’d naively imagined only prostitutes or clever princesses wore . . .
“Do you like it, Carl?”
She wasn’t looking at him and for a moment her voice had sounded strange, like the voice of the woman in the room with plastic film.
“It’s a present from my sister. She lives not far from here, by the way. I don’t normally have underwear.”
In his bare room, the sheen of the bodysuit had an extraterrestrial air. Effi was now an exotic being, shipwrecked on his raft. She stretched her hand out to him. He wanted to hug her, but Effi was quicker and took his head with both hands.
“I’m very tired, but you could lie next to me anyway, I mean, if you want to, Carl. Or will that be awkward?”
Effi lay right down on her stomach with her arms in front of her chest, which had an air of self-imposed captivity. She’d turned her head and tucked her chin to her shoulder; her eyes were closed and her face completely relaxed.
“Come now. Please.”
Carl undressed and nestled up to her. He became hard. He felt the material of the bodysuit against his skin. At some point in the night, he felt a soft pressure that came from Effi, maybe still asleep. He penetrated her and she asked him not to move.
“Stay like that, alright?”
Carl kept still and then he felt it. Like a small hand that clasped him softly, let go, and clasped him again.
“Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
GRASS
Effi’s mother had taken her own life—this was widely known in Gera-Langenberg. Effi was thirteen when it happened. “The child found her, all alone,” was the story at the time. No one knew more than that. Nevertheless, stories spread in the area, nasty rumors and suspicions.
Carl didn’t know anything either, of course not, since he’d never been together with her. He’d never been one of her close friends, nor part of her circle. Effi had always done things that were part of another world, to which Carl had no connection, perhaps because of his background (and despite the fact that he’d always longed to be a part of it). The only connection was a few hours of “art appreciation,” a school subject in which he mostly experienced failure.
Carl had never forgotten their teacher Mrs. S.’s assignment to draw one of Albrecht Dürer’s watercolors. It was called The Large Piece of Turf. The Large Piece of Turf depicted about a thousand blades of grass and a bit of earth. For a while, Carl fought against a feeling, for which he later found the word “humiliation” to be fitting, but he finally found a solution.
Initially, he found it very difficult to let his pencil simply glide over the paper, but eventually his wrist relaxed and he drew more and more quickly until it became a frenzy, of dashes, fine, long, short, fast strokes, crosshatching—in Carl’s view it was the only way he could do justice in his own way to the endlessly detailed variety of The Large Piece of Turf. Carl remembered how secretly pleased he was with his drawing (proud, even, and full of expectation).
To grade the assignment, Mrs. S. went from one bench to the next. Occasionally she would pick up a sheet and look at it for a few seconds, but mostly she decided ad hoc.
“What is this supposed to be, Carl?”
She gave his grass a four. Carl could still feel the injury. A few days later, Mrs. S. had disappeared. From Yugoslavia to the West, in the trunk of a car, it was said. Carl could remember: it started with rumors, then came the flag assembly, during which the headmaster judged the “traitor” and her escape harshly (but in a tired voice). First, she gives me a four and then she disappears, Carl thought at the assembly. And that’s how he remembered it: as a double mockery.
Carl didn’t know what grade Effi’s grass drawing had been given. You didn’t hear much about other classes, but he did know that Effi painted seriously, she also acted on stage, and at thirteen had taken a course in magic—shortly after her mother’s death. In eleventh grade, she’d played the lead role in a school production of Effi Briest, enthrallingly and with depth of feeling, according to the teachers.
Carl had admired her: Effi’s body in clothes from some distant era and her voice in the semi-darkness of the dining hall, where the play was staged. The word “desire” hadn’t yet surfaced but it was certain that Carl’s longing had begun right there, in front of the hatches through which meals were served and which were now part of the stage.
He’d hated Instetten and the Major, too; both were miscast and terrible actors. Effi was not ashamed of her role, not in the least. “She can act anything, even the kissing,” things like these were said, which Mrs. Schimpf, their German literature teacher, took in with some concern and incredulous astonishment. A few of the students couldn’t stand it and made fun. In fact, they were the ones who, from then on, spoke only of Effi. Effi’s real name was actually Ilonka. Ilonka Kalász, her father was Hungarian. At some point, her friends also started calling her Effi—or just Eff, which was meant affectionately.
“Effi sounds much too sweet for me,” Ilonka had said to Carl, with her leg between his thighs, in the small forest in front of his apartment building.
“It’s Fontane, after all,” Carl had replied inanely.
“And Eff? What do you think of Eff?”
•
He pushed his papers aside, he smoked, he wanted to go outside again. He needed air now, air and movement. He crossed the small bomb crater copse to the other side of the road. From there you could keep both towers that guarded his street in view at once, even at night. On one hand, the television tower’s flashing red light on the horizon as it gave signs from the heavens (when it wasn’t shrouded in clouds or fog), and on the other, the lovely green Gatsby light on the stubby water tower. Good old watchman, Carl thought, lighthouse for poems, but he’d already stopped looking at it when he reached the corner of Sredzki Strasse and listened only to the noise of his footsteps.
He had twenty poems, maybe only ten that really counted. He had seven poems at a publisher—and now: Effi. Now he had Effi.
Effi in the plastic-film room.
Effi on the mattress-raft.
It was as if he’d already achieved something, as if he’d found the right direction. As of now (from now on, Carl thought), everything could be different.
“Eff, yes. Eff sounds good.”
He walked down Ryke Strasse, toward the Ryke Retreat, and after just a few steps, his mouth opened, and the murmuring began. He couldn’t really help it (he often didn’t even notice). A few people came toward him and Carl turned his head to the side. He looked as if he were whispering to the ruined facades or as if he were deep in prayer, a long, meditative prayer in which certain words were repeated endlessly, completely unintelligibly, just breath and tongue in the echo chamber of his head, where step by step something was struck, or more precisely struck up.
A woman coming toward him laughed.
She thinks I’m not quite right in the head, Carl thought, I couldn’t care less. He didn’t care what any woman thought because now he had Effi—it was a triumph. He wanted to go back to his workbench and create something. Never again would he let himself be misled by any specter whatsoever. Never again would he kiss a fur cap.
A three-wheeled, lever-driven wheelchair stood in front of the Ryke Retreat. It gleamed in the light of the streetlamp like an extraterrestrial machine. A small puddle had collected on the scuffed seat. The vehicle had been there for several days and was slowly weathering. His father could have explained the mechanics. The lever had been one of his favorite topics, earlier, when I still knew my parents, Carl reflected, and then he didn’t give it another thought. He thought instead of Effi and the drawing in the plastic-film room, just a few lines, a woman on one knee, her sumptuous clothes and her humble posture . . .
