In Times of Fading Light

Her cheeks flushed red and were even plumper than usual. She extracted herself gently from his embrace, took the little tray on which she had brought the coffee, and walked away.

“Lisbeth?”

“Yes?”

She stopped.

“If I die, she killed me.”

“Oh, Wilhelm, how can you say a thing like that?”

“I’ll say what I like,” said Wilhelm. “And I want you to know it.”

For a little while he thought he could still feel the swell of her swimming-pool breasts against his body.

The doorbell rang. Wilhelm heard someone arriving. Then there was no more to be heard. Murmuring. Then Schlinger appeared. With a bunch of carnations.

“I’ll be off again in a minute,” said Schlinger. “I wanted to be the first.”

Wilhelm was studying the encyclopaedia. Iguanas, he had found out, grew to be up to two meters twenty in length. Unfortunately he couldn’t find out how long they lived.

“Many happy returns of the day,” said Schlinger, “and I wish you plenty of creative power on into the future, dear Wilhelm, and…”

“Take those vegetables to the graveyard,” said Wilhelm.

Schlinger laughed.

“Always in a good humor,” he said. “Always with a joke on his lips.”

“And what did she say?” asked Wilhelm.

“Who?”

“Charlotte.”

Schlinger made a stupid face. Corners of his mouth turning down, eyebrows raised. His forehead was furrowed with fat, sausage-shaped folds.

“I know what she said,” said Wilhelm. “The old man’s off his rocker. Crazy as a coot.”

“But Wilhelm, you’re not entirely…”

“What?”

“I mean, for your age you’re still entirely…”

“Off my rocker,” said Wilhelm.

“No, no, intellectually you’re still absolutely…”

Schlinger waved the carnations about in the air.

“I’m slightly off my rocker,” said Wilhelm. “But not entirely off my rocker.”

“Of course not,” said Schlinger.

“I can see how things are going.”

“Of course you can,” said Schlinger.

“Downhill, that’s what.”

Schlinger took a deep breath, but then said nothing. Wagged his head, you couldn’t tell whether he was shaking it or nodding. Then, grave all of a sudden, narrowing his eyes: “To be honest, there are problems.

But we’ll solve them.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Wilhelm.

He would have liked to point out to Schlinger that problems— problems of that kind—weren’t solved by the Potsdam District Committee. He would have liked to point out to him that problems—problems of that kind—were solved in Moscow, and that the problem was that very thing, it was that Moscow itself was the problem. But his tongue was too heavy and his mind too sluggish to find the words for such a complicated idea. So all he said was:

“Chev.”

Schlinger’s forehead was set in those sausage-shaped folds. His head came to a halt. His eyes looked upward at a slant and past Wilhelm.

Suddenly he looked like an iguana.

“How old do iguanas live to be?”

“What?”

“Iguanas,” said Wilhelm. “Don’t you know anything about iguanas?”

“They’re some kind of reptile.”

“That’s it,” said Wilhelm. “Reptile.”

“I think they live to be old,” said Schlinger. His head waggled, and he made a face as if he had said something intelligent.

When Schlinger had left, Wilhelm remembered what it was he had to do. He marched into the salon.

“I’m going to extend the extending table,” said Wilhelm.

But Charlotte said:

“Alexander will do that.”

“I’ll do it myself,” said Wilhelm.

“You can’t,” said Charlotte. “Alexander will do it,”

“Alexander! Since when can Alexander do anything?”

“Only Alexander can extend that extending table, we’ve been over this I don’t know how many times.”

“Stuff and nonsense.”

Of course he could extend the extending table. After all, he’d trained as a metalworker. What had Alexander trained to do? What was he, really? Nothing. At least, Wilhelm could think of nothing that Alexander might be. Apart from unreliable and arrogant. The fellow hadn’t even joined the Party. But his tongue was too heavy and his mind too sluggish to argue with Charlotte.

Who knew what kind of stuff she was giving him? Stalin himself had been poisoned.

Wilhelm went into the hall where the tombstones were standing, drawn up in rank and file. Their blank labels shone faintly in the reddish light. What for, thought Wilhelm, what are they for? The idea of getting his red pen and writing their names on the labels—Wilhelm controlled himself. Anyway, he knew only the cover names of most of them. He did still know those. Clara Chemnitzer. Willi Barthel. Sepp Fischer from Austria… he still knew them all. Would never forget them. Would soon be taking them to the grave with him.

The doorbell rang. Outside stood the Pioneers’ choir. The woman conductor said: “Three, four… ,” and the choir struck up “The Song of the Little Trumpeter.” Nice song, but not the one on his mind. Not the tune that kept going through his head all the time.

He hummed it to the Pioneers’ conductor, but she didn’t know it.

She was young to be in charge of a troop of Pioneers, not much older than a Pioneer herself. Wilhelm took a hundred-mark bill out of his wallet.

“Oh, Comrade Powileit, I can’t possibly accept that!”

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Wilhelm. “Buy the children ice cream, it’s my last birthday.”

He put the hundred-mark bill down inside the neckline of the Pioneers’ conductor.

“Then we’ll accept it for the class funds,” said the Pioneers’ conductor.

There were spots of red on her face. She shepherded the children out of the garden. At the gate she turned and looked back once more. Wilhelm ground his teeth and waved.

He marched into the salon. Marched, because that tune kept going through his head. Charlotte was standing by the telephone. When he came in she put the receiver down.

“No one’s picking up the phone,” she said.

Wilhelm could see that Charlotte was on edge. Instinctively, he pursued his previous point.

“So—where is Alexander?”

“There’s no one picking up the phone,” Charlotte repeated. “Kurt isn’t picking up the phone.”

“Well, there you are,” said Wilhelm. “Here we go again.”

“Where do we go again?”