Someone makes a joke: West Berlin, more than one million free people in a cage. It does not always feel that way but, oddly enough, it does when you drive out of it, although what I am driving into then is definitely not my freedom. I have to go to Kiel for a reading and have decided to go by car. The Berlin–Hamburg route is one of the three options, and I have not driven that way before. On some sections of the road, which you are never permitted to leave, at any point, not under any circumstances (it is strange how quickly you accept such an alien concept), you are only about seventy kilometers from the Baltic. And, although I cannot quite explain why, that lends a sense of adventure to the proceedings.
There are two kinds of pathos involved in this journey: the pathos of politics and the pathos of weather. Pathos is a weighty word, but today it needs to be said. The weather is wallowing in itself, lavishing lush excess upon itself, having dived into summer in one breathless, senseless swoop. Everything is full, fat; the trees are rounded and plump, the hawthorn is blooming, the breeze is balmy—there is no doubt about it, this is an exemplary summer, the kind that you mention in the future when you are describing how summer should be.
A lot of people in China must feel the same way right now, I think. The images I see on television remind me of May ’68, but hugely magnified. Crowds that look like a forest, cars full of flags, the excitement in the voices that hits you even through the mask of a foreign language, the gleaming eyes, the experience against which your entire life is measured, no matter what comes after. In those rare moments, when the articulation of a single idea takes precedence over all other considerations, life suddenly seems to weigh no more than an ounce, because everything else has become so heavy. Every morning I listen to the commentary and interviews on the B.B.C. World Service, and find myself standing in the Square of Heavenly Peace, which, for a few days, has become the town square of the entire world.
There will always be something of the foolish virgin about me (those poor, unwise souls in the parable who have no oil left in their lamps at the crucial moment), and so I want to look at the faces of the guards of the other republic and see what they are thinking. I want to know whether any of that excitement, which should, after all, be their concern as well, is actually filtering through to them. But if it is, you cannot tell from their faces.
I have resolved never to write about this border again, but I have to do it one last time. Together with the dark gate from Macau to China at night, this is the most challenging border I know, one that expresses the very notion of border, to the extent that you cannot believe that those foolish crows can just fly straight over the top of it.
You notice the railings converging, see that you are being channeled somewhere. Suddenly you are inside, yet you have just come out of somewhere else. A forest of lights. The area is bare and wide, but the route you must take is marked out, narrow, severe. There are not many cars around. The weather lends everything a friendly glow, but the forms remain as strict as ever. Do I have children with me? I do not have children with me. Do I have a telephone in my car? I do not. Will I take off my sunglasses and turn to look at the guard? I will, and it is a match. I am me. I am allowed through to the next guard post. Each person processed requires a certain amount of time and no one else has been waved through, so I drive the next section alone, across the concrete. Several watchtowers. More of those tall lights—it must be beautiful here at night. Speed limit thirty, then twenty kilometers per hour. You become your own deceleration, reining in all those invisible horses in your engine. Perhaps you are no longer moving; maybe you are on a conveyor belt that is taking you forward. To my right, a long tube runs from the first guardhouse to the second. That is where my papers are now, travelling onwards, along with me, slow and invisible. I can see a gleaming pulley turning the belt on which my passport must be. Second check, all very friendly. Nothing in those expressions but work. And that is what it is, of course. A job. They are young boys. They are polite but firm, and they are just as strange to me as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Then there is a third check, and sometimes a fourth. All that time, you are moving steadily along, like the tortoise Achilles could never catch up with. A sign: “Zero per cent alcohol in the D.D.R.!” Slowly, you flow out, then in. Still thirty, then forty. And then you are in that other country, the same country. I see that summer holds sway here too, see the yellow banks of broom hugging the road. Land is innocent; it knows nothing. Purple lupines, distant views slipping by, rural scenes. Later, farms, villages, church towers. Cars and tractors driving along the other, more distant roads that you sometimes see. I can see them, but I am not allowed to go there. And, of course, that creates a desire. All I want to do is make a right turn and go and sit in one of those villages in the shade of a lime tree.
There is not much traffic. Plenty of time to think. Even the few cars that are around reveal the difference between the two countries, the same country. The Trabant is a silly little vehicle, almost endearing. The others, driving their emblematic Mercedes, Audis, B.M.W.s, must feel so superior. But something is missing here: the hysterical, aggressive rushing and pushing of the West German Autobahn. It is as if all of their national frustrations are played out there. When you are trying to overtake and you see one of those pointless racing drivers looming in your rearview mirror, you know that within two seconds that grim shadow will be pecking at your bumper, flashing his big headlights; given the chance, he would like just to drive straight through you. Murder seems to be constantly on their minds. They disappear over the horizon only seconds after passing you, doing 180, 200, maybe more. They have been bottling something up for their entire lives and now they are burning off that frustration. It feels as though the entire country is permanently furious. But there is none of that on this side. A hundred is not much, and I would feel happier at 120, but within half an hour you are used to it. At least I can look out at Brother Falcon and Sister Buzzard, at the pink blossom of the chestnut trees, at the sensual script of the wind in the corn.
I think about the article I read that morning in Der Tagesspiegel: “Glasnost in der D.D.R. der 90er Jahre?” Will the D.D.R. always continue to limp along behind the Soviet Union, Hungary and Poland? The D.D.R.’s view is that the Russians needed glasnost to mobilize the population because the economy had fallen woefully behind, an argument that does not apply to the D.D.R. itself, because in that respect they are the mirror image of those other Germans, top of the class. Recently the Aspen Institute in Berlin held a seminar with representatives from the S.E.D think tank, the Akademie für Gesellschaftswissenschaften. It was also attended by Americans, British, West Germans, academics and politicians. The event was intended to pave the way for democratization in the 1990s and was described in Der Tagesspiegel as a “contribution from the D.D.R. to the discussion of glasnost and perestroika in Eastern Europe.” A couple of quotes: “Socialism needs democracy like we need air to breathe,” and “Socialism without democracy or without comprehensive implementation of human rights would be inadequate socialism, or no socialism at all.” It was going to take a long time, but the development of a greater sense of personal responsibility and a climate of “criticism and self-criticism” was essential.
But how is that supposed to happen with the Wall still in place? wonders this Dutch citizen, as he drives from one barrier to the next, as though merely contemplating such notions might make all that metal melt away. Words by themselves cannot melt anything; their truth will have to make itself felt in other ways. Perhaps this is the point: it is as inconceivable that it will never happen as that it might happen immediately. However, it is, in fact, the immediate nature of all those proposals that must matter so much to the people involved. So many Russian soldiers are being withdrawn from Eastern Europe. I watch them on T.V. as they go, soldiers hanging out of train carriages, laughing, arms filled with flowers, their tanks on low, flat wagons, their guns suddenly pointing foolishly into the air. What will happen to all of those men? By the end of the century there will be nineteen million unemployed in the Soviet Union. What is to be done with them? And what are they to do with themselves, once the semblance of activity offered by an army in peacetime has been removed?
Words need to be tapped like a tuning fork. Does it sound the same? Is it really the same? The S.E.D. is based on a “democracy” that politically secures the socialist ownership of the means of production. According to the article in Der Tagesspiegel, this should be seen in the light of the “Grundsatz der Stabilität,” the principle of stability, along the most sensitive border in the world, the one I am now crossing. According to this principle, the division of Germany is essential to maintain this stability. The Wall is far more than a mere symbol of this requirement; it is an integral part of the need for stability. As becomes evident several times a year, this Wall can also signify death. So how does it work? “Anyone crossing the border in the proper manner has nothing to fear.” In 1988, twelve million journeys were made from the D.D.R. to the West and West Berlin, and six million journeys in the opposite direction. Why would anyone choose to cross the border in an “improper” manner? Could it perhaps have been someone who simply wanted to leave, but had not received permission to do so?
I am allowed to leave, that is a fact, just as it is a fact that I will be allowed back in when I return. I pass the guard posts, zigzag over the concrete, inch from barrier to barrier, have no children with me, show my face, and am once again back with the other others. Suddenly the Mercedes begin to race again, as if they have been given a shot of adrenaline. The first Mercedes devours an Audi that was just wolfing down a B.M.W.—the remains are still dangling from its jaws. So this is freedom: exhaust fumes biting into the gentle trees, I am home again. There are five kinds of condoms at the Raststätte, ten sorts of trashy magazines, drinks in twelve varieties, but, thank God, there is also that unique, breathtaking summer. I take a side road through the countryside to Lübeck. Woods, lakes, peace. War never happened, the earth was never polluted. I lie in a wood beneath tall beeches and listen to two cuckoos calling out long stories to each other about eggs and other birds’ nests.
Lübeck. This is a Germany I do not know. The hotel is on the Wakenitz, languid summer water, rowers, fishermen. It feels northerly here, Hanseatic, mercantile prosperity, Buddenbrooks, old houses, stepped gables, coats of arms, wealth. Everything seems almost Dutch; it is most pleasant. I climb up a tower, let the landscape and the citadel fall away beneath me. The city is a strange jagged shape lying in its own amniotic fluid. In the harbor are the large ferries to Sweden and Norway; to the north, Travemünde, the Baltic; the world is a bowl filled with light. I wander along the quiet streets, eat at the Schiffersgesellschaft: model ships, memories of sailors, ship owners, distant harbors. The Protestant work ethic, the accomplice of trade and capital—nothing that came later would look quite that virtuous and peaceful. The impoverished fishing folk have gone, what has remained are the merchants’ houses, the churches with the Hanseatic cog on their weathervanes. Through a closed church door I hear the swelling notes of an organ, and it all sounds like days gone by. Gesellschaft zur Beförderung Gemeinnütziger Tätigkeit, Haus der Kaufmannschaft. In the Heiligen-Geist-Hospital I gaze at the small cabins where the old people used to sleep, like dwarves in their dwarf beds, endless rows of compartments under one large roof of beams and joists that resembles the interior of an upturned ship. Stained-glass windows, benefactors’ coats of arms.
In the Lübecker Nachrichten it says that Kapitän Harmannus Otten Wildeboer, retired maritime pilot, has died; the first stork of the year has been born in Eekholt; the sale of seagulls’ eggs is forbidden because they contain too many toxins; the dollar has overtaken the Mark again; and in the Square of Heavenly Peace the students are dancing, but not for long. I buy a black-and-white postcard that shows the city burning, houses lying ruined in the streets, bells fallen from their towers. That was then. Times are different now. The republic built on that rubble has existed for forty years, and those forty years are also forty of my own years. I could have put together the commemorative issue of Stern in my sleep: Adenauer’s leathery face, Willy Brandt on his knees in Warsaw, Erhard with his cigar, Uwe Barschel asleep forever in the bathtub of his suicide, his pointless watch still on his wrist. The first student shot dead by the police, Ohnesorg; the successive waves of terror and counter-terror; the suicides of Baader and Meinhof; the construction of the Wall; the fields of rubble in the city where I now live. And all of those lesser nostalgias in between: the first puny little cars, the first wooden television sets displaying their fuzzy grey miracle, the millionth Gastarbeiter, so warmly welcomed with the gift of a motorbike.
And so the two histories intertwine, the history of those faces, captured forever, which will go on and on, and that other, smaller history, made up of the memories of the survivors, which will disappear along with them. Michael Jürgs writes in an article that the Germans of today are no better than the others, but just normal: normally good and normally bad. They no longer dream of reunification with the other part of the same country, he says, but are happy to see indications that the Wall was not built for eternity. As always, the Germans have been listening to the voices from abroad and they have heard a lot of things that they do not like. Jürgs (Stern, 24 May) suggests some answers. Yes, friends from France and colleagues from Nouvel Observateur and Le Monde, you are probably right to wonder about this nation of militarists developing into a majority of anti-militarists. But we would rather make you nervous that way than with tanks and cannons. And perhaps, English neighbors, you have still not grasped that we are not like the Teutons in your television series, and that Mrs. Thatcher has no say here, however frustrating that might be for her. The tone is self-assured, including Jürgs’ remark that the fatherland matters about as much as Mother’s Day. The guilt for the crimes “once committed in our name” has been accepted as “part of our history,” and is no longer repressed. And there is no longer a national fatherland of the Germans. So there is no longer any need for others to make the judgment of the past into the prejudice of the present. The whole article is clearly in support of Genscher’s politics, and a farewell to the Cold War: “Let us celebrate the future of this troublesome fatherland.”
Troublesome fatherland, troublesome neighbor. A country that is hard on itself weighs heavily on its neighbors. On an impulse, I decide to take a detour. I do not have to be in Kiel until late in the afternoon and, on the map above Schleswig-Holstein, I have seen that other border, the Danish one, with the town of Kruså beside it. In my very first book, Philip en de anderen,1 I chose Kruså as the setting for a fictional, embellished encounter, woven out of something that had actually taken place in 1953. That is how long it has been since I was last here. I do not recognize anything, except that same, breathless summer and the foreign language around me. Soldater slog til i Peking-forstad: other words, still the same. Thatchers E.F.-stil kan koste hende dyrt, Alfonsín går før tiden. Tijd, time, Zeit, tiden: what have our mouths done to those words?
It is quiet on the narrow road I have chosen. Blonde children on bicycles, empty houses, thatched roofs. I feel at home here and I wonder why it is that small countries are so appealing. Maybe it is that they have no great weight to place on the scales of the world, but equally no great weight to drag them towards a national fate that is bound up so inextricably with that of its inhabitants. As though that weight is now making itself felt, I turn my car around and drive back towards the north, which is now my south.
My reading is at the main library in Kiel, a bright and airy space. There are about seventy students there, and we go out for a meal afterwards at Der Friesische Hof. They are friendly, northern, open. Why are they studying Dutch? Dutch people always ask that question, as if they are somehow skeptical of other people’s motives. Our language is our hang-up. But the students have their reasons: art history, history, the Golden Age, De Stijl, studying primary sources. Suddenly Holland expands a little; we are not always a secret society. Some of the students think it is a beautiful language, while others were simply looking for a suitable subsidiary subject, and the Netherlands is nearby. One is studying Dutch because a friend of his said it was unfair that so many more Dutch people learn German than the other way around, and he thinks his friend has a point. And he is enjoying the experience. He visits Groningen occasionally and he can talk to his friend now without having to resort to his own language—he likes that. What about the war? When they are in the Netherlands, the students see the monuments: “It’s something that our country did. There’s no getting around that.”
The wind is blowing in Kiel; the sea wind is up to no good. I visit a wonderful exhibition at the Kunsthalle the next morning: Der junge Lucebert, 110 paintings, etchings, gouaches, drawings by the COBRA poet and artist. There are a few things I have not seen before, but I know most of them, and I recognize even the pieces I do not know. I reread the words that are already engraved in my memory and have taken up permanent residence in my language. I look nostalgically at the photographs of the earlier, darker man, his eyes glinting then as they do now, walk past the colored animals, the crowned heads, past the earliest, so serious self-portrait from 1942, past all those tattered and vibrant people, the furious pathos of the faces he drew, his riddling moons, mythical creatures. I see how one single painter has taken command of all these differences, characters, forms, techniques, how some of the paintings laugh or mock and others are full of sadness, and I feel downhearted and elated at the same time. Burdens of the air, Thinking animals, Heavenly twins, The poet feeds poetry, In conversation with evil: the poet’s language has wrapped a cord around each of these images, but also around me, a slow, sparkling cord of imagination that remains wrapped, invisible, around me long after I have become a driver again, on the road back to Berlin. A handwritten poem appears in the front of the beautiful catalogue, “Berceuse,” the last three lines of which I shall never forget:
Dat je tiert en rond rent
met roestige kettingen dat was
van weleer dat is toch bekend
Het moet ons nu van het hart
je bent behendig in het verkeer
schoon insulair in de weer
Maar wat je ontkracht en verwart
niemand te zijn en nergens
en dan nog iemand te zijn en hier 2
June 10, 1989
1 Philip and the Others, translated by Adrienne Dixon (Louisiana State University Press, 1988).
2 Your raging and rampaging / in rusty chains is from / bygone days that much is plain
Now we have to get it off our chests / you are adept in your dealings / yet insular in your feelings
But what weakens and confuses you / is being no one and nowhere / and yet someone and here