One of the greatest mysteries of mankind is that Käthe doesn’t do any baking. You know what my mother’s like. She’s afraid Käthe lets you two go hungry.
Thomas nodded, agreeing with him; he rolled up the paper and let the crumbs trickle into his mouth.
A narrow ray of light fell through the curtains onto the brass picture frame, making it look golden. His radiance comes, his radiance goes. Thomas pointed to the black-and-white photograph. An altar to His Majesty, explained Thomas, pointing solemnly up at Walter Ulbricht; he bowed reverently to it and offered Michael the armchair. We have a desk with its only drawer locked, we have a bed that isn’t used, we have air that isn’t moving. His stomach was grumbling; more and more often these days, Thomas felt hungry directly after eating. It might be better not to eat any cakes, and particularly not to eat the love of other people’s mothers. Thomas filled his pipe with the herbs that Michael had grown in his greenhouse on the plot of land near the woods and dried in the loft of his parental home.
Let’s paint the walls black. Thomas pointed to the two buckets of paint in the middle of the room. The colour wasn’t dark enough yet; he tipped black powder into the viscous paint and stirred it in with the long handle of the scrubbing brush. As he puffed the pipe Thomas kept his gums closed and enjoyed the bitter taste cutting through the sweet flavour in his mouth. He handed Michael a broad brush. Under cover of the falling dark, they tarred the air and their mouths, they painted the walls black in the smoke. Thomas spread paint with the scrubbing brush; now the floor was clean and the wall was black. Michael made two newspaper hats and handed one up to Thomas. Thomas stood on the ladder and worked on the ceiling with the scrubbing brush.
The future’s unthinkable in a self-contained system. Michael swung his arm well back and stretched so that he could pass the brush over the wallpaper. The Wall will turn us into animals in the zoo.
Thomas laughed at the idea of freedom and the doctrine of frugality. Ulbricht’s monkey house.
No monkey has to go near the fence.
No lunatic has to climb a wall.
Keep quiet and be good. Michael bent and dipped his brush in the black paint.
No one’s forced to take a jump into the water and venture into the muzzle of a cannon.
Their anger alternated between bitter grief and silliness. Their hair and shoulders were black now.
Death to the tyrant!
They would stay in this room for the rest of their lives. A bunker in prison, no one would dare to drag them out of the crypt where they were buried alive and into a class struggle, it wasn’t their struggle and they didn’t want to be the class. An airgun fired more than just gas into the world. You could use it to kill.
The first shot broke the protective glass; it shattered into umpteen pieces, splinters of glass lay on the desk, on the floor, and there were still a few inside the photo frame. The brass sparkled like gold; there was a hole in Ulbricht’s cheek.
Let me have a go. Michael laughed and took the gun from Thomas. He doesn’t need any eyes now. Michael hit Ulbricht’s left eyebrow. They took turns to aim the gun.
Death to the tyrant, death to the Führer, death to the just man. They had been shooting for about half an hour when the door opened, and the figure of Ella showed in the bright light behind her. She looked at her brother, at his friend, at the picture on the wall that was now full of holes.
What are you two doing?
Our life is over! Michael was lying on his back on the floor aiming the airgun. He fired and said: Wall closed, monkey dead.
The swallows have gone this year, there was an epidemic, they abandoned their nests. Do you know the breeding pair of barn owls? Have you seen them soaring through the air? Pipe in the corner of his mouth, Thomas took the gun from his friend, aimed, shot, and handed the gun back.
What are you doing? Baffled, Ella looked from one to the other.
Shooting, explained Thomas. Ella was in the way, she had no idea what it was all about. He drew on his pipe and blew smoke rings into the air. All that pointlessness has seduced us. We’re devout believers now, we believe there’s no point in life.
To emphasise his faith Thomas, grinning, put one hand round the other and raised them in the air as a double fist, holding the pipe.
Nonsense. Michael shook his head, he stood up, the gun held loosely in his hand, went over to Ella, raised an admonitory forefinger and said gravely: It has nothing to do with belief, we know it. Michael looked at Ella; you would have thought he was in full possession of worldly wisdom. All he needed was to predict the entry into the earth’s atmosphere of a meteorite with absolute certainty. God doesn’t think in terms of sense and nonsense, God thinks only beautiful thoughts, added Michael, things of this world were seldom enough for him, God’s existence was evident to him in all thinking. Only man, unfortunately, has no talent for beauty, or not usually. He’s trapped in functions, intentions, all that nonsense — Michael took a step to one side and threw the airgun to Thomas, who caught it and aimed, keeping his pipe in his mouth. Michael excused himself to Ella; he had to go out for a moment. Thomas shot and immediately aimed a second time. Shot. He took the six-chamber magazine out of the gun and reloaded it with diabolo pellets. Taking no more notice of Ella, he pushed the magazine back into the gun, looked through the sighting notch, drew a bead on Ulbricht’s forehead.
You two are crazy! Ella cried. She stumbled against a bucket of paint; it fell over and left trails on the pale bouclé rug. She put her hands on her hips. You pair of stupid nihilists. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Her voice caught in her throat. Are you disappointed to find that we’re not in Paradise?
Only pretended sympathy. Exhausted, Thomas grinned at her.
You can keep your daft grin to yourself, idiot!
Michael came back. Right, we were going to paint the rug black as well. He nodded his agreement. All that elegant white was bothering me. Smiling gently, he reached his hand out to Ella. Thanks, Ella, thank you very much.
Ella flinched away like an animal. The hand seemed to her as untrustworthy as his thanks. She stood in the doorway with her legs apart and her arms folded.
But Thomas wanted no female spectator; he closed the door of the room in her face.
Stupid nihilists, shouted Ella through the door.
Thomas thought her anger out of place; he put his ear to the door and heard the tip of Ella’s nose still touching the door on the outside, he heard her exhausted breathing, her jealous whispering: stupid, stupid, stupid.
You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine. Thomas bent down to the floor, took a sip from the wine glass and drank to Michael. He took a folded piece of paper from his trouser pocket, holding the glass in one hand; it was difficult to unfold the poem with the other alone. He had written it in pencil and hadn’t got round to typing it yet. ‘A Call’. The wine was pleasantly rough on his palate. I tell you, away so far — / I tell you, far away — / Far away on the star: / Here is what I say! / Noisy men stride by, / And much is broken — / The silent weep in silence, / No law is awoken! / Those who stab us, / Judge them now / Who break our eyesight / Judge them too. / Noisy men stride by / Broken freedom was bright — / Blood flows in the pool of water: / Give us light.
He went to Gommern on his own. Käthe had given him a sketch-pad and charcoal to take with him, bedlinen, a spare pair of trousers, soap. Even from the train he saw the pillars of dark smoke, and soon after that the two chimneys from which they were rising came into view. Going south through the woods, he passed the great wandering dune that lay on the Kulk, one of the oldest lakes filling the stone quarries at Gommern. The sandy soil threw up ripples. The hostel, three huts, stood on the road to the quarry. Behind it was the manager’s house. They slept four to a small room, two bunk beds, a table and a locker in each. Thomas was sent to a room with the apprentices. There was an acrid smell of sweat, alcohol, urine, something going bad. You got up at five in the morning when it was still dark, work began at six, gloves were provided. At first sight the apprentices looked to Thomas rather younger than him, one might have been seventeen, like Thomas, the other two were more probably fifteen. Were they apprenticed to learn about stone quarrying? Was that a profession you trained for? The boys made fun of him when he said hello, asking what sort of posh guy he was. No one asked him anything else. Thomas took the free bottom bunk, his bedclothes were too small for the long, scratchy blanket above them, which could have been woven of coarse wool and remains of plant substances. Thomas thought of thistles, he turned to the wall and scribbled words on the sketch pad with his well-chewed pencil. Instead of silence: lonely helpless pointless / Always beginning — / Always the same / Life, you are death / I am great in the shadows — / I am endless waiting / A small, dirty scrap of fear. . / Your sphinx eyes are fixed / for millions of years! Later he closed his eyes, although the neon tube on the ceiling was still lit, and the boys were playing cards. They were bawling. The prize on offer was a certain lady from the Wasserburg. The boys raised the stakes, the atmosphere was heated, in spite of the cold they sat there in their vests sweating. They reminded each other of intimate details of the woman. Her big boobs, her behind, but also how much she obviously enjoyed it. She was the prize for whoever had won at the end of the evening, and the others were going to watch.