In Times of Fading Light

underground on a trial run—so to speak eyeball to eyeball with the dead.

Something now occurred to Kurt: Melitta had said that Sasha had taken to reading the Bible recently. That he even, so Melitta claimed, kind of believed in God…

Was that it—the crazed expression in his eyes?

Opposite, Kurt saw the strange, ruinous arcades of whose origin and purpose he knew nothing at all, except that beyond them, somewhere on the other side of the yard, the printing works of Neues Deutschland lay, he knew that, and the fact that ideas of his went through a printing press there now and then rather pleased him, even if his articles for ND, which he was usually asked to write for the celebration of some historical anniversary, were certainly not among the best of his work as a historian.

Once you’ve read everything I’ve written… he thought.

But no, that was no good. Second attempt:

At least read what I’ve written before you judge it.

Commit that to memory. Use it when the right occasion came.

The traffic lights on Wilhelm-Pieck-Strasse changed to red—Sasha waited. Amazing that he still observed the rules of the road.

While the lights changed, Kurt had caught up. They crossed the street together. For a moment Kurt wondered whether to broach the subject of God—but what for? And how? Did he seriously mean to ask Sasha if he believed in God? Even the word, if he really meant God, sounded crazy.

They passed the Volksbuhne, the “People’s Theater,” where a production of The Idiot was being staged.

They went on in silence. Construction work was still in progress on Alex. The wind rattled the scaffolding. The earpieces of Kurt’s glasses were so cold they hurt his temples. He took the glasses off, covered his nose with his scarf, and wondered how he had ever survived the camp; thirty-five degrees below zero—they had been sent out to work in the taiga until the temperature sank as low as that.

If there was wind as well, only until it was thirty degrees.

They passed the roofed passageway between the big hotel and the department store, and then, Kurt could not have said why and on their way to what destination, crossed the square, where the wind attacked them, whirling around, buffeting them, bringing tears to their eyes. Kurt tried to shield his eyes with his hand, braced himself against the gusts, swayed blindly forward on icy, uneven ground, and couldn’t have said whether his son was still beside him, didn’t turn around to look for him, heard nothing, felt the dull pain gradually creeping into his fingertips in spite of his sheepskin gloves, and imagined getting home and having to confess that he had lost Alexander on Alexanderplatz, of all places, as if he could have foreseen that the square would swallow him up, that Sasha would dissolve into thin air here, or sink into the bowels of the earth—confused stuff, thought Kurt. The kind of thing that shot through your mind if you didn’t watch out.

“Where are we going?” asked Sasha.

They were standing in front of the clock telling world time. In New York it was twelve thirty, in Rio it was three thirty. A few frozen figures stood around, people who had unthinkingly arranged to meet here in spite of the cold; the clock telling world time was a favorite meeting place, as if you sensed something of the great wide world here.

“The hell with this,” said Kurt.

“Look, they’re open over there,” said Sasha. “Let’s go in, or my ass will freeze off.”

Sasha meant the self-service restaurant on the first floor of the Alexanderhaus. Kurt had been there only once. Ten years ago, when the restaurant was opened, it had been the latest thing. By now a rancid patina had settled over the whole place. The figures washed up here by the cold evening weather were rough and coarse- faced, and it seemed to Kurt as if they were all handicapped in some way.

You could get cold food from a row of vending machines. Hot goulash soup stood on a metal counter, eighty-five pfennigs a serving. It didn’t take Kurt long to make up his mind and take a bowl. Since the operation in which part of his stomach had been removed, he had stopped cautiously testing dishes for strong flavors or the amount of onion in them; he ate anything—and he could easily digest it. Sasha helped himself to goulash soup as well. They stood at one of the tall tables to drink their soup. It didn’t taste bad. Kurt’s mood immediately improved; he was on the point of getting a second serving, but he disciplined himself to follow his doctor’s advice: eat little but often.

After their goulash they stood at the table a little longer. Kurt watched the traffic rushing past beyond the big glazed windows on the side of the building turned to Alexanderplatz, and the tempting idea of taking a taxi back occurred to him—at least as far as Karlshorst? Then he remembered the money that he had counted out and was still carrying in his coat pocket. He produced the bills—they came to two hundred marks—and tried handing them to Sasha under the table.

“This is for you,” he said.

“No need for that,” said Sasha.

“Don’t make a fuss,” said Kurt.

“I have all I need to live on,” replied Sasha.

Kurt wondered whether he should simply stick the money under the goulash bowl and walk away, but then he put it back in his pocket.

They said good-bye outside the restaurant, hugged each other as they always did on parting, nodded to one another. Then Sasha set off back the way they had come, while Kurt turned in the direction of the rail station. On the steps to the suburban trains he stopped; the hell with it, thought Kurt, I will take a taxi! He turned and went down the steps again.

Sure enough, there was a free taxi at the rank near the station. Kurt got into the back of the car. It was a Volga, a broad vehicle with soft seats, and like all Russian cars it smelled of Russian car—a smell that always reminded him slightly of Moscow. Even the old Pobeda taxis used to smell the same.

“Neuendorf, number seven Am Fuchsbau,” said Kurt, expecting to be asked where that was. Neuendorf? Am Fuchsbau?

Instead the driver folded his newspaper and drove off.

It was warm in the car. Kurt took off his coat, took the two hundred marks (which now felt to him as if he had found them in the street) out of his coat pocket—and put them back in his wallet… What was he going to tell Irina?

The Volga was humming its way along the Adlergestell slightly too fast. In his mind, Kurt went over the story of this unedifying afternoon. Wondered whether to play down particularly unedifying details, or leave them out, without actually falsifying his account. Could hear himself speaking to Irina in an artificial, soothing voice…

Saw her face. Saw the lipstick left on the filter tip of her cigarette. Saw her upper lip, which she didn’t always pluck so scrupulously these days, begin to tremble before she launched into another anti-Melitta tirade…

Kurt did some calculations. Taking the taxi was saving him an hour. It would be difficult for her to check how much time he had spent with Sasha. It was seven in the evening now… What the hell, thought Kurt, damn it all, what the hell…

“Do you know the Gartenstrasse in Potsdam?” he asked the driver. “Off Leninallee?” asked the man.

“That’s it,” said Kurt. “Take me to the Gartenstrasse,”

“Not the Fuchsbau?” asked the man.

“No,” said Kurt. “Number twenty-seven Gartenstrasse.”

2001

A frightful idea occurs to him just before the bus leaves: his neighbor in the seat beside him might be that man—a sturdy mestizo of rustic appearance who keeps cleaning his gappy teeth with a toothpick while constantly making sucking, lip-smacking sounds. Sure enough, when Alexander is already in his seat the man comes closer and closer, comparing every seat number at length with the number on his ticket,