Tough luck

I go to bed. Down the long corridor, all in darkness. The floorboards creak.

The varnish Vera and I applied over ten years ago has been worn away down the centre. It doesn’t matter. It’s shabby chic. Will the landlord see it that way? What is the exact wording in the contract? Will we have to renovate before we move out? Re-varnish the floor before they sand it anyway? How will Frank find out if he’s managed to get rid of us? Will he send somebody round or come himself? What will he say?

Sven is asleep.

I undress and lie down next to him in bed. Protected by the twilight, his closed eyes, and our relationship sealed by four children, I look at his profile. How am I supposed to know what love is? It gives me a lump in my throat to look at him; I’d rather die myself than have somebody lay a finger on him. I’m afraid for him. Of him? It’s probably the same thing.

First, I saddled myself with Sven’s hungry heart, then with those of our four kids. It’s particularly bad when you’re all asleep, because then you’re all so beautiful it hurts.

Behind Sven’s nose, the wardrobe sticks up, and I focus on it: an ugly, half-broken thing. It won’t survive another move; Ikea furniture can’t be taken apart more than three times. But not having a wardrobe isn’t an option either, no more than not having children.

‘No one promised you a rose garden!’

Says Renate.

And I say: ‘Yes, they did. You planted your hope in us like a seed: hope for a fresh start, a new leaf. It sits there inside us, and speaks to us — and if not of roses, then of what? The promise lies in our existence. No, don’t deny it, Renate; I’m sorry that my gripes with your generation always end up at your door. No, I’m not sorry; actually, it’s your fault. You’re the one who raised the subject in the first place. We could’ve chatted over tea about unimportant things, but you didn’t want to. And why? Because the seed doesn’t add up to much, and nothing else adds up either. You need to do more than turn over a fresh leaf all the time. A few tips would be useful, a bit of practical advice. Sometimes it helps to cut notches into hard-coated seeds to help them germinate. Yes, I know, it’s an effort, and the knife might slip, but waiting and hoping is not enough. You’ve been here longer than I have, and you know your way around. Where did you leave the instructions? It’s unfair to hand something down but leave out the most crucial part. What are these figures for? What do these squares mean?’

Sven wakes up.

‘Resi?’

I’ve been tossing and turning. I can’t sleep.

Sven stretches out a hand and puts it on my neck. Pulls me towards him.

In three or four moves, Sven can take away my feeling of being a victim. I’m not alone and abandoned — quite the opposite. With Sven’s help, I have sired a whole gang who will open the door to the bailiffs in slippers, snot hanging from their nostrils, and say: ‘Hello? Who have you come to see?’

With the last remnants of my working-class instincts, I did what our sort does best: I bred like a rabbit.

Sex is a form of defiance, I read somewhere, because we do it to defy. Not only because a new person who will preserve the species might be born as a result, but because the act itself is defiant.

Death stands next to us and thinks, ‘Damn, they’re getting on just fine. I’d better go. Love, desire, and fun? Not my thing. I’m out of here.’

And so death takes off, along with fear, worries about coping, and anger at the injustice of the world: everything disappears, and I end up somewhere entirely different, and I become somebody entirely different, all heartbeat and skin and life.

Okay, for about fifteen minutes. But it amazes me that it still works, even though it’s so simple and we’ve already done it a thousand times.

I know you don’t want to hear all this, Bea. No one likes imagining their parents having sex.

My mother was very considerate about that.

She managed to tell the story of her lover, who didn’t want to marry her, without mentioning sex once.

Werner had a car, as far as I knew. And I also knew that people could have sex in cars, because Raimund liked to recite limericks: ‘There once was a couple from Waiblingen / Who used their VW for loving in / It made them quite glad / To be scantily clad / But after the sunroof was jammed right in.’

Resorting to a car because people didn’t have their own rooms, or only ones with landladies who didn’t let girls come up, or parents who judged the girl as inferior — I didn’t know anything about all this. Perhaps my mother mentioned the car because that’s where she could have sex with Werner — but for me to understand that, she’d have had to be much more direct.

I knew Marianne loved cars; and that later, when she had one herself, she was reluctant to let anybody else take the wheel.

She didn’t have one when she was young. Werner did though, and they went out in it for drives in the country. All the way down to the South of France — where Werner dumped Marianne.

How exactly? What words did he use? And why there?

‘His father never liked me. I was a nobody. His parents would have even had to pay for the wedding to do it the way they wanted.’

And then came the part of the story that had nothing to do with Werner, about the wonderful turn of events that occurred because Marianne was dumped by Werner: her wedding to Raimund, which took place in a pizzeria with only the witnesses. It must have cost a hundred marks at most, but money doesn’t mean a thing when you really love each other.

But you do have to love each other. And how does love show itself? In sacrifices.

Werner shouldn’t have listened to his father. Should’ve spurned his inheritance, and got married in a pizzeria — no, in a brasserie in the south of France. That would have been cool! But he failed. For that reason alone, I lost interest in Werner: he was a coward, a loser, a walking disaster. A caricature who didn’t feature in my life. I didn’t know anybody like Werner. I was with Ulf, who back then was never going to accept a pfennig of his grandparents’ tainted inheritance—

‘A marriage is so much better when you’ve blown ten thousand euros beforehand.’

Ulf and Caro aren’t married.

I don’t know where the money for K23 came from. Who paid for Ulf’s studies or the Mies van der Rohe cantilever chair in his office. It’s indiscreet to ask and unnecessary to think about.

It’s spiteful.

Idea for a Christmas series: the architect Ulf is in a tight squeeze. At the age of twenty, in a grand gesture, he spurned his inheritance (black-and-white flashback: forced labourers at the conveyor belt of a German factory, bombs falling on London, Ulf’s grandmother steps out of the factory-owner’s villa wearing a fur), but now construction has come to a halt on his current building site. The client, a committed NGO manager who builds flats for Syrian war refugees and hires them as workers, has lost his state subsidy. Architect Ulf runs around like a madman to drum up private investment in his project — but in vain. Only his sister Elfie, who accepted her inheritance and is in the process of organising a commemorative exhibition called ‘The Dark Years’ in the factory owner’s modernised villa, offers Ulf help. Researcher Resi, an unsuccessful scriptwriter, who is trying to draw attention to her blog with left-wing radical revelations, posts an article about the involvement of Elfie’s firm in arms exports to Syria just when, over champagne, Ulf is pocketing a cheque from his sister at her exhibition opening—

‘Resi?’ Sven has stopped. He’s noticed my mind is elsewhere.

I would like to tell him what I’m thinking. Let myself go and confide in him completely, but how?

Sven barely talks about himself, let alone his past.

A man without a past, an alien from outer space: that’s Sven.

He hates hymns.

He doesn’t like singing, but he can play the piano: he would have had an answer to Ulf’s grandma’s question. Sven was talented, ambitious, received a scholarship and piano lessons.

But he wouldn’t have told Grandma that he played the piano.

Sven stopped showing his talent very early on; at some point, he kept it to himself instead of peddling it. Tried to avoid using it to open doors at any cost.

‘So, you get your foot in the door, and then what? You smell all the nice smells, and the light’s so inviting, and you hear laughter — but the gap doesn’t get any wider, your foot starts to hurt and goes numb. Eventually your blood circulation is cut off and you faint, and have to be carted off.’

Much earlier than I did, Sven realised that he didn’t fit in.

‘I’m different,’ he thought, looking in the mirror. ‘Totally different from the way people are supposed to be.’

That’s how he described it to me — unwillingly, because I was determined to find out how he managed not to be afraid of the dark, mustiness, and silence on this side of the door.

‘Of course I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Very afraid. But I know it’s normal. You can’t change it. You just have to put up with it — the dark and the mustiness.’

And that’s why I don’t have the guts to tell him how lonely I am. It doesn’t even stop when we’re having sex, and so I stop having sex, and death promptly turns up.

‘Everything okay?’ Sven asks.

I don’t have the heart to answer him. It’s okay, I’m fine, everything’s fine, the dark is fine, and I don’t live alone; I have him and four healthy children. We are a long way from living under a bridge — that’s rubbish, that’s a huge exaggeration. What would real poor or homeless people say? War refugees? AIDS orphans? What we give our children is worth its weight in gold, and anyway, I freely sacrificed all my chances to move up in the world. Who said we deserved to live in the city centre? If I’d wanted it that badly, I should have earned it.

I can’t talk to him about how angry I am at my old friends. Because he just thinks they’re all twats. And he thinks I’m a twat for getting angry.

And I wanted to stop saying ‘twat.’

Why actually?

So that I am correct at all times, and can’t be a target. I only have the right to complain about what’s wrong if I do everything right.

Too late.

Speaking of AIDS orphans.

That’s why I had children: to use them to hide behind and send them on ahead. Not only to send them to open the door when the bailiffs come, but also to go begging when there’s no door left to open. Kids are ten times better at begging than adults because they evoke much more compassion. Kids are normally cut more slack than adults, even when it comes to AIDS — the number one ‘O-U-T spells out’, ‘only yourself to blame’ fate. Because unlike their no-good, promiscuous parents, it’s probably not the kids’ fault.

Speaking of only having yourself to blame for your fate.

Isn’t that a paradox?

Sven says: ‘Good night, then.’

And me? I lie awake and wonder how it was with Werner. Who Werner was. There’s no one to ask. Marianne is dead, and Raimund will squirm his way out of it.

‘Hey, Dad. Who was that Werner guy?’

‘Which Werner?’

‘You know, Werner! The coward who didn’t want to marry Mum.’

‘No idea. The only son of the esteemed Reverend Eidinger.’

‘And what did he look like?’

Raimund looks into the distance. Makes a face that tells me there’s no point in going down this path.

‘Like Jean-Paul Belmondo.’ He grins. ‘No, more like Jean-Louis Trintignant.’

I imagine Werner to have been like Ulf’s father. Trapped in the never-ending expectations of his own father, who didn’t let his son become an actor. An actor? Why not just go straight to being a hairdresser?

Ulf’s father boasted that he didn’t wear a tie. ‘The only tieless lawyer south of the River Main!’ On the carved colonial tray next to his desk, there was always a bottle of whiskey. When he was drunk, he liked to recite Handke.

I know he told Ulf that he should try other girls besides me, and I didn’t hold it against him, seeing as he was trapped and obviously unhappy with his life. No wonder he wanted to ruin what others had. In any case, he needn’t have gone to the trouble. Ulf had already ‘tried’ other girls — we were Jules et Jim, after all, and did all those things that Ulf’s father watched on late-night TV.

Werner took photos of Marianne. They’re stuck at the back of her photo album — her only one — which starts with her parents’ wedding photos and has about twenty pictures from her childhood. Then comes a group photo from her trainee days, then Werner — not him, just his portraits of Marianne. She’s looking over her shoulder, which brings out her jawline, her small ears, and her cropped hair.

Pictures that were taken in the south of France, the landscape in light grey, white houses on dry hills, Marianne in front of a bar on the route nationale in the style of the period with a neck scarf, and a cigarette between her lips. That must have been shortly before it was over — or did they go there more than once? Did Werner give her the photos even though they had split up?

He had a camera and a car: two machines that made him the main character in his own life. Marianne must have been easy prey.

September 1963 (let’s say).

Marianne left school and decided to train as a bookseller. The alternatives were the post office, home economics, or household care, and Marianne thought bookselling was the most glamorous, picturing herself among dark-wood, ceiling-high bookshelves in a shop where all kinds of people would stop by, especially clever people looking for something to read.

In summer, her hair was cut in a short pixie style, and the mustard-coloured bouclé sundress she’d made herself was also very short.

So she started her job training in a small-town Swabian bookshop, where the bookshelves were made of light veneer and no higher than two metres fifty. She learned how to index and give advice, and demonstrated a knack for window dressing and calming down irate customers whose orders were late yet again. The boss should have counted himself lucky to have Marianne, and he did.

At some point, Werner came into the shop looking for a road atlas.

A road atlas? Couldn’t he have ordered Sartre?

But he would have needed the road atlas to drive to France. In his own — yes, his very own — car, a sky-blue 2CV. Or a Fiat? Not a VW, in any case: too German.

Marianne liked all things foreign. She had never been outside of Germany, still lived at home, had a penchant for the Great Wide Open and an exotic lifestyle: eating outdoors, dining after ten, brandy snifters, raffia wine bottles and candles, even when it wasn’t Christmas.

Werner invited her out for a drink. Chatted cleverly about Hermann Hesse. Ordered Trollinger. Well, it wasn’t exactly what Marianne wanted — a quarter-litre carafe with Werner over lamb in a country inn — but at least it was red wine! And the car was really nice! Driving back later, Werner let her take the wheel. Werner filled up the tank. Werner had money, a camera — and no problem seducing Marianne.

When was her last period?

Marianne didn’t tell him, just blushed instead—

No, wait:

Werner panted. ‘Is it safe now?’

Marianne guessed that he was asking about her menstruation and thought about it for a second. Embraced Werner, who took this to be consent and no longer held back. Then his sperm was in Marianne’s vagina, and later in her underwear — instead of being on Werner’s clothes or, even worse, his car seats.

Marianne worked in the bookshop. Took Van de Velde’s Ideal Marriage from the shelf when no one was looking and browsed through it—

No, wait:

They wouldn’t have stocked Van de Velde in a small-town Swabian bookshop.

Marianne consulted her best friend who heard from somebody else that it should be safe if she subtracted fourteen from twenty-eight, added two, and subtracted two again to be sure. Or switched to coitus interruptus. Which is bad for car seats.

Oh, what a tricky business!

What would Werner have done if she’d got pregnant? Given Marianne money for an abortion? Why didn’t he invest in condoms? Is it even true that Marianne was lucky not to have got pregnant? Wouldn’t that have been her ticket to move up in the world? Because then, Werner might have married her and ‘done the right thing’: Werner’s parents could have taken comfort in Marianne’s pretty ears along with her cooking and needlework skills.

No, hold on:

This isn’t Jane Austen. This is September 1963, the eve of the sexual revolution! These were Marianne’s formative years in work and in love!

In 1967, Werner dumped her, not while they were in the south of France, but just afterwards. Most relationships end after holidays, but in this case, the main reason was that Marianne wasn’t good enough for him. Didn’t speak French, had a trainee position for a meagre seventy marks a month, some of which she even had to give to her parents for food and lodging. Happened to be good at sewing and calming down customers, but could neither ski, play tennis, or order waiters about. She was timid; as pretty as the actress Anna Karina, but lacking self-confidence and ballet lessons — that certain something that nobody can pull off except real con artists or those who happen to have been born into a wealthy family. Take a good look! Use a magnifying glass and study those photographs from France!

The scarf that Marianne is wearing is clumsily tied, she’s holding her cigarette too far towards the middle, and her knees are turned in. Her expression reveals that she’s worried about things that Werner thinks are completely superfluous — like whether the petrol will last all the way to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and whether she should go to the toilet in the bar, or will it just be one of those holes in the ground again? In which case she might as well squat down by the roadside. And that way she’ll avoid having to ask ‘Où est la toilette, s’il vous plaît?’ (Is that right? Doesn’t ‘toilette’ mean make-up?) And is it okay to leave most of the pastis, or will the barman think that’s strange? How come she didn’t know that pastis tasted of aniseed?

‘Au revoir’ were Werner’s final words after that holiday.

I’d like to castrate him. Yes, really, for the first time in my life, I want to cut off a man’s dick. If Marianne was good enough to be fucked in the back of his 2CV, couldn’t he have stuck with her?

No.

You have to see Werner, too, as a victim of the class system, just like Ulf’s father, who binge-watched New Wave films on the portable TV in his study with a glass of warm whiskey in his hand.

Werner didn’t dump Marianne of his own free will. He was so under his father’s thumb that he could only see her through his eyes. It must be awful not to trust your own eyes; first trying to fight somebody’s superimposed view, before surrendering and realising your lover is inferior. Poor Werner.

That’s how Marianne saw it, but I want nothing to do with that anymore. No change of perspective, no understanding, and no pity. Just Werner’s dick.

Arthouse meets horror: Resi, a well-groomed woman in her forties, rings the bell at the gate of a sandstone villa in Frankfurt. The gate buzzes open without anyone asking via intercom who is there. The woman flinches, pushes open the door that bears Werner’s name, and crosses the front garden (in full bloom — perhaps hydrangeas?) A housekeeper (without an apron, only identifiable from her tired worker’s face and orthopaedic shoes) lets her in. In the study with ceiling-high, dark wooden bookshelves facing the terrace doors to the garden, (next to which hangs a small original Nolde?) sits a well-kempt man in his seventies, flicking though an old road atlas. He turns his friendly, sun-tanned face towards the visitor, raises his wild old gent’s eyebrows and smiles affably.

‘How can I be of service?’

The visitor does not smile.

‘You’ve never served anybody, so don’t say it like you know what you’re talking about!’

Her voice sounds hoarse, revealing her overindulgence in cigarettes and alcohol. The old gent’s smile becomes strained.

‘Do we know each other?’

‘No, thank God.’

She looks around.

‘So, this is where you live?’

The gent’s smile widens again, and his shoulders relax.

‘This is my humble abode, yes.’

She walks over to him and grabs him by the neck of his sweater. Pulls him up out of his study chair. Brings her face very close to his.

‘You’ve never been humble either, and if you don’t drop that tone straight away, I’ll make sure you do—’

She lets him fall back into the swivel chair. Thrusts him, even. The chair creaks dreadfully.

The creaking continues on the soundtrack long after the chair has stopped swivelling and the elderly gent has suffered torture that would have justified screams and groans in the background. But he’s not afforded that honour. During the scenes that follow, only the creaking can be heard; it’s all filmed in close-up, and even those who are into snuff, and usually hate these kinds of intellectual experiments with their genre, find it pretty interesting. Because there is real loving attention to detail.