the outbreak of war, Ludwik’s uncertainties evaporated. Krystina’s position was clear from the very first day. She felt no need to consult a higher authority. This was a war in which it would be criminal to take sides. Neither Tsar nor Kaiser. The European powers were fighting each other to determine who would dominate the rest of the world and using their workers as cannon fodder. Krystina wanted all the workers’ parties to call a Europe-wide general strike against the war. She did not want British workers to kill or be killed by their German counterparts. ‘Workers have no country!’ she had shouted with shining eyes at the new converts.
At first, the Ls were not convinced. For them, the Russian Tsar was the greater evil. A German victory would aid the democrats, free Poland and other Russian colonies and … Krystina became very angry. Why should they exchange one ruler for another? True freedom meant the end of all the monarchies and their empires. They argued for several days. Krystina won the argument.
What finally convinced the Ls was the sight of Krystina weeping over a copy of Die Neue Zeit. The German Social Democrats had voted in the Bundestag for war credits. Only Liebknecht had voted against. The war hysteria had gripped the workers and their party had been too weak to swim against the stream. Perhaps, Ludwik had suggested tentatively to calm her down, this meant that German workers did have a fatherland. But the dark look that greeted this heresy forced an immediate retreat. Ludwik was influenced by people rather than ideas, and his philosophy would always reflect this. The realization would from now on dominate his existence.
Their choice meant that they had to leave Vienna immediately since a general mobilization had been decreed. Krystina took them to Warsaw.
_______________
*Party of Democratic Socialism, which is the reincarnated version of the former ruling Communist Party of East Germany.
†The German Social Democratic Party.
*Democratic Republic of Germany: the formal name of the old East Germany.
LET MY FATHER LUDWIK and his friends wait awhile. Krystina is training them in the arts of political warfare and I will return to them soon, but there is something else worrying me, keeping me awake at nights.
More than anything else, I want to repair our relationship, bring some laughter back into our lives. I can see where the danger lies. Unspoken bitternesses and unresolved tensions have become lodged within us both. I want to find an antidote to this poison. I hope you agree, Karl.
Even as I write, it seems ridiculous to go so far back into the past instead of coming to terms with more recent histories. I mean your mother’s decision to leave us, for which you have always blamed me. Perhaps if she had stayed and I had left, you might have censured her instead, though that would have been equally unjustified.
Everything seemed to go wrong after the death of your grandmother Gertrude. Your mother and I found we had less and less to say to each other. With our apartment empty I noticed her absences much more and began to feel that she had lost interest in me. She was spending more and more time in her clinic. Then one day while I was having coffee with Klaus Winter, he said something he shouldn’t have said. You remember Klaus, don’t you? He was a very old friend of Gertrude and was weeping a great deal at her funeral. He’s the one who bought you a pair of jeans from the other Berlin on your fourteenth birthday.
Klaus told me quite casually that he had seen Helge with a friend at a concert two days ago and asked why I had not been present. The point being, Karl, that not only had Helge not told me she was going to a concert, she had explicitly said that she couldn’t attend a meeting of our Forum that same night because of a patient, whose condition was such that his appointment could not be cancelled. Why had she lied?
I left Klaus Winter stranded in the hotel where we were meeting and rushed home. I was crazy with jealousy. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, you were out with your friends. When your mother returned I confronted her with the facts. To my amazement she smiled and called me pathetic. I hit her. I felt ashamed immediately afterwards. I pleaded to be forgiven. She did not speak, but walked slowly into our bedroom and began to remove her clothes from the cupboard. I was paralysed. I could neither say or do anything to stop her. I sat silently on the bed as she continued to collect her belongings and then pack them in her faded green pre-war suitcase, which had once belonged to her grandmother. I remembered the day I had brought her home after our wedding and carried this same suitcase into our bedroom.
‘I did not lie to you, Vlady. I never have. The man with me at the concert was a patient and it was part of his treatment. Your reaction is a symptom of your own guilt-ridden mind. I’m going. We’ll talk next week when you’re calmer, and then we’ll both talk to Karl. Tell him I’ve gone to Leipzig to see my mother. And if you want Evelyne to move in, I have no objection.’
That’s all she said as she walked out of our home. I wanted to scream, to run after her, to drag her back, to fall on my knees and plead with her to stay and give our relationship a last chance, but I did nothing except shed a few silent tears as she walked away.
Perhaps something inside me told me it was no use. We had grown apart and nothing, not even you, Karl, could bring us back together again. The rest you know. She came back and I broke away from Evelyne. The big break came much later and for reasons we both understand.
Helge was wrong about Evelyne. If I’d confessed to her, she would have been angry, but she would have understood. She found out by accident – a stupid letter from Evelyne to me which I should have destroyed. A letter in which she argued that the female orgasm was a male invention and that I should not despair at my inability to satisfy her. I only kept the letter because it amused me. Your mother read it differently and ascribed powers to Evelyne which that young woman, alas, never possessed. I suppose I should begin at the beginning.
This may come as a surprise to you, Karl, but I was a popular lecturer at Humboldt. Comparative literature is a field that permits a great deal of creativity in its teaching. Evelyne was one of the students in my special seminars on Russian literature.
I used to, for instance, talk of Gogol reading extracts from Dead Souls to Pushkin and the students would then write an imaginary dialogue between the two men. Evelyne was quick-witted. We were all smiling at her clever dialogue till it reached a surreal stage. She was allergic to the prevailing orthodoxy and, as her imagined exchange neared the end, she had included some savage references to Honecker and the Politburo. Everyone looked at me. I did not comment, but moved on to the next student.
I had never spoken to her after my classes. Our relationship had been restricted to regular and sympathetic eye contact and the occasional smile, especially when a student trying hard to move upwards in the party hierarchy posed a particularly uninspired question.
That same week it was my fiftieth birthday. Helge had organized a party. To my surprise, Evelyne showed up with a few of her university friends, none of whom had been invited. Helge welcomed them all.
It was a haphazard and disordered occasion. Evelyne alone remained sober that night, observing us all through a haze of tobacco smoke. That was when I first saw her as an attractive young woman. Medium height, slim, short blond hair and exquisitely carved. Her breasts were not voluptuous like Helge’s, but small and firm. Overlooking them was a pair of sharp blue eyes and an intelligent, angular face.
A week later we made love for the first
