Brano drank with them, lipping the bitter brandy. He cleared his throat. “Is it really so lucrative?”
Lutz furrowed his brow.
“Collecting exiles’ stories. A new sports car can’t be cheap.”
“I’m a busy man. I write my column for Kurier. Maybe you’ve read it.”
“Once or twice, yes.”
“I’ve got other projects in the works, though, more active journalism.”
“Shh,” said Ersek. “The secret works of a mad genius.” He raised his glass to Filip Lutz’s mad genius.
Lutz winked at him. “I’m going to shake up a few Politburo lackeys before I’m done.”
“Oh?” said Brano. “How are you going to do that?”
Filip Lutz shrugged, the first and last sign of modesty that night. “You, like Ersek, will know when the rest of the world knows.”
“The whole world?” asked Brano. “You’re an ambitious man, Filip Lutz.”
“The only man in this bar,” said Ersek, “whose ambition matches his ability.”
“Come on, boys. I’m turning red now.”
So Ersek returned to his favorite subject, the incompetence of writers from their country, though Lutz shook his head. “You’ve never been there, Nanzi. You don’t understand where these people come from.”
“I don’t understand? Are you telling me I don’t understand?”
“Did you know,” said Lutz, “that the Americans have invented an oven that doesn’t use heat? It uses radiation- micro waves. That’s a culture worth studying, Nanzi. I don’t know why you bother with us.”
Ersek waved for another palinka. “An atomic bomb to fry a chicken?”
“They’re a bright people,” said Brano.
The jukebox was playing the old national anthem again. Lutz stared into his empty glass, then slid off the stool and stood rigidly, hands by his sides, and began murmuring the words. Look! Look! The hawk is flying low. From the Carpat to the steppes, he marks his territory.
Ersek winked at Brano. “Are you busy this Friday?”
“I’m never busy these days.” The borders are ringed with fire!
“I’m having a party at my place, and you’re most definitely invited. Time to get some new blood into this dull scene.”
Brano thanked him for the invitation. When he looked back, he saw tears spilling from Lutz’s baggy eyelids as his lips worked out the words. But we’d burn our great Tisa Before we’d forsake our Land!
5 APRIL 1967, WEDNESDAY
Perhaps because of Ludwig’s encouragement, on Wednesday Brano watched a film, an English film. It was dubbed into German and concerned an English spy who wore horn-rimmed glasses. From what he understood, the spy was in fact a thief who had been coerced into working for the queen under the threat of being returned to prison. He didn’t know if this was the filmmaker’s criticism of British intelligence services or simply narrative flavor.
Most of the action took place in Berlin, which was part of the title; some scenes were set along the Wall. He’d seen the Wall up close enough to know these scenes were filmed in a studio, but the effect was not bad. There was a Russian general who reminded him of the Comrade Lieutenant General he’d known before his last return from Vienna-all jokes, drinks, and backslapping, which cloaked his darker intentions. In fact, some of the more opaque scenes seemed, in retrospect, to have been comic, but Brano was unable to quite find the humor in them at the time.
Although he did not want to return to the Carp, he felt it was his duty. He was in a foreign city, and his only order-from both the Austrians and Cerny-was to wait. And there was always the possibility that useful information would pass by him, so he should be there to pick it up.
The world of the affluent political exile, it seemed to Brano, was cursed by two deficiencies: its miniscule size and its inflated sense of self-importance. While a great city surrounded them-be it West Berlin or Tel Aviv or Vienna-the exiles consistently walled themselves off from their new homes in well-heated bars and cafes and dinner parties, and occasional visits to the brothels; expatriate communities were always very masculine. In these small ponds, medium-sized fish seemed enormous, and the largest were those with the most fluid tongues. And because they lived outside their native language and country, these exiles no longer felt responsible for what they said. They lived entrenched in their narrow-minded theories and petty jealousies, never quite part of the real world. So they spoke endlessly, adapting to the quick-step of empty dialogue. And any words they uttered were assumed to be as valuable as a piece of china, pristine and vague.
Of course, for Brano Sev there was a level of insecurity beneath his harsh judgment. Linguistic cleverness had never been his strong trait, and he could remember many times in West Berlin falling silent as his fat acquaintances spoke over him, provoking laughter and table slaps. When Brano chose to speak, there was seldom a reaction. Silence, maybe; sometimes a nod of agreement. But only rarely laughter, for Brano had never been, and never would be, an entertainer.
He considered this as he walked from the cinema to the Carp. Why would he never feel part of these expatriate cliques? Was it really that he had no humor about him, that he was always heavy, without the idle buoyancy that makes a born entertainer?
But this was not the right question for him to ask himself, and he soon realized this. The real question was, Why should he care?
He mounted the stairs at Sterngasse as the sun was beginning to set and understood why he cared. When he was with the exiles, he felt as if his documents and rank and even the medals he’d garnered over the years were just pieces of paper and iron. It was as if he, like them, had just been born when he entered the West and now had to start all over again. It was as if the scars and sweat of his long past were no longer of any consequence.
Monika served him beer, then settled her elbows on the bar. “How are you making out?”
“It’s a difficult transition.”
“Of course it is.” She lit a cigarette. “The thing I’ve noticed over the past twenty years is that those who do well are those who recognize the situation.”
“How do you mean?”
She took a drag and considered her words. “Well, we’re all in a foreign country. We didn’t choose to come here because we’re in love with Austria. We came because it was convenient. Maybe we want to be back home, maybe we don’t. It doesn’t matter. The thing is, we’re all here for the same reason.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re all running away from something. That’s the only reason anyone leaves his home.”
Brano sipped his beer and looked into the mirror. Behind him, two old men played backgammon by the wall. “I know someone who left Yugoslavia. She wasn’t running from anything. She simply decided she didn’t want to be in that country anymore. She told me that it had become a country of losers, and she didn’t want to become a loser herself.”
Monika shrugged. “And what’s that? She was running away from boredom or emptiness or whatever. And if she’s been here long enough, she’s probably come to terms with the fact that she can’t escape any of those things. Certainly not here. You know what’s interesting?”
“What?”
“Ask anyone around here for their story. Ask what happened to them. If they just arrived, you’ll find that their story goes on for a long time, with details on top of details, and you can watch them get upset-I mean, visibly-as they tell it to you. Ask someone who’s been here a few years, and they’ll have it condensed down to a sentence, maybe two, and that’s it.”
“Interesting.”
“It’s inevitable,” she said, then put out her cigarette. “Over here, your past is just a story. It gets smaller with time, until it’s just a haiku. Until it’s got no more emotion in it.”
“Until it’s cold.”
“Until your past can’t touch you anymore,” said Monika. “Watch out you don’t turn cold, too.”
