It was known that Reader, the author of this text — in his own words a text without closure—now enjoyed a steadily growing audience whose small congregations lurked in many quarters of the city; that Reader’s reputation had in fact begun to spread beyond the city limits, but that he strictly declined to seek an audience above and beyond his readings, though his chances would have been excellent. Some radio station over in the West would occasionally feature one of his recitals, but as Reader apparently couldn’t be moved to discuss himself and his objectives with the radio producers or the journalists, their interest soon faded; there were plenty of more willing figures in what might be called Eastern Berlin’s unofficial cultural scene, and there were enough events that appeared more spectacular. Now, this very abstinence ought to have piqued the media’s interest. . that was not the case, though, and as usual our own interest reflected that of the media, persisting at a very lukewarm level. Just a year ago we’d been wide awake, and seemed poised to deploy the entire spectrum of activities that the Target Group Section generally lavished upon an emergent phenomenon — but nothing came of it, and soon I had the unpleasant suspicion that I and I alone was saddled with a sideline. No one seemed to think of mobilizing my competitive tendencies; a whole year passed without a soul far and wide whose findings I could envy. . and then I seemed to notice Feuerbach hiding the files on ‘Operation: Reader’ from me. I’d always seen that the file was thin — it was weak in the chest and failing to thrive! When I rested in the office late in the afternoon — usually with darkness falling and the staff gone home (one of my last remaining privileges: permission to sit alone in Feuerbach’s office!) — diagonally across from the desk of the first lieutenant. . who sometimes went by ‘Captain’ as well. . on the clients’ stool, which I’d dragged over to the window ledge — I knew this annoyed the Major no end, but he merely vented his feelings with spiteful barbs: Don’t get my future chair dirty, you catacomb swine!. . or something of the sort — anyhow, when I sat there for an hour or two. . and I sat there because I wanted to be disturbed; for undisturbed hours I had another place entirely. . I stared, chain-smoking and drinking vast quantities of coffee, at the operation file that hung in the pale yellow pressboard cabinets behind the desk: they didn’t even grant it one of the grey-black binders amid which it hid, childishly pink and nearly squashed; it was only a slip of a folder, it was consumptive, this file, a miscarriage. — Soon after the operation’s launch I was already noting, astonished, how stubbornly it lingered in the verbal sphere. And I looked for signs of dissatisfaction with this state of affairs. . once — perhaps even repeatedly — I had referred to Reader’s readings in Feuerbach’s presence as a phenomenon. Whether it was deliberate or merely a sudden inspiration, I no longer recall; the word was utterly unthinkable in our parlance, seeming as it does to describe a problem with no immediate solution, perhaps even a certain inherent impenetrability. In that moment it was my own word; Feuerbach tolerated it with that grin of his, a mixture of underhandedness and magnanimity, but from the adjoining office, whose door stood ajar, a furious bass rang out: Would you tell the man once and for all that we’re dealing with intelligence here. . and he should kindly leave his mystical mutterings down in his lodge where they hold their rites!
I thought about that in the nights when I had nothing to do, no duties but my desensitization. — All the same, there was something unfathomable about this Reader: he read and read; in front of a small but growing audience, at regular or irregular intervals, in flats all over the city, he read the same text over and over; there was no discernible system except that — and I found this rather arbitrary — he always began by rereading the sentences he’d finished with the last time, and then went on for about an hour, neither raising nor lowering his voice, so that even the individual sections had the character of something uninterrupted; he looked up only at the end, acknowledged the listeners’ homage, always waiting patiently for the last of the applause to die away — as a rule several enthusiasts would go on clapping for several seconds after the ovation had ebbed — then announced that the date of his next evening would be made known in due course. . less and less often did he know the time and place in advance; he was probably looking for new venues; he’d used all the available ones long ago, and the locations were beginning to repeat themselves. . or I tried to see it as a sign that the first burst of his production had exhausted itself. . and he gave a perfunctory bow, tucked away his papers in a black portfolio and promptly left the room. — Nothing could convince me otherwise: Reader was a phenomenon. He risked everything with this hermetic behaviour, and he won every time. He withheld himself from the media with astonishing firmness, rejected the fame he could long since have achieved; evidently he was content to exercise his influence within the narrow bounds of his scene — whether this influence actually existed, and what it looked like, that, it seemed, was the aim of my investigation. — Incidentally, I was also astonished that our side was neither creating nor encouraging any of the usual media contacts for Reader. Since when, I asked myself, is it our policy to wait for the target person to take the incriminating step of his own accord? I could hardly think of a single case that had played out this way. For here too we had the most infallible means at hand; we could programme a so-called illegal contact with quasi dead certainty — how many authors helplessly adrift in the Scene owed their discovery to our unsung ministrations? Those authors who’d always had our blessing, with their printings in the West, the hard-currency hustlers, the semi- and three-quarter oppos, they were no skin off our nose, anyway! — Or had Reader’s staunchness thwarted such measures?
I wondered whether to regard it as arrogance, and no everyday arrogance at that. Or he had something else in mind that I hadn’t yet managed to grasp. — It’s like he’s waiting for things to explode! I thought. But I shook my head at the thought, not knowing what kind of explosion I meant. If he’s waiting for an explosion, he can wait a long time, I said, but at the same time I felt my palms go damp and maybe even my forehead break out in sweat. It was ludicrous; I’d strayed into the fantasy realms of the chiefs. Though I felt more at home down here. . we, Feuerbach and I, we felt more at home down here. And yet, when I thought about it, I’d even heard him drivelling on along those lines recently. — No, I was tired, that was all. . it was three in the morning, and I hunkered exhausted on the stone steps in an unfamiliar stairwell. I was drained, and starting to see things — for a few moments when the light went out in the stairwell, I’d had no idea where I was, which neighbourhood, which street, which house. I hadn’t been able to unlock the basement door outside which I sat. . for half an hour I’d fumbled with the lock, the light in the stairwell kept going out, the skeleton keys and wire hooks I had on me proved useless, and it was the third or fourth lock I’d failed to open that night. . I struggled, throwing all caution to the winds and filling the house with resounding scrapes and rattles. With an effort I’d suppressed a bellow of rage; then revulsion overcame me and I sank down trembling on the cold, damp cement of the stairs.