The Valley of Unknowing (7 page)

PART TWO

11

The facts were these: upon his return to the valley, the young screenwriter had reportedly contracted a rare and deadly disease. It had incubated in his blood or his lymph for a week or so, then struck at the lining of his brain. According to his father, he had collapsed on a quiet street in the district of Loschwitz, on his way back from a party. He had been taken unconscious to a small hospital nearby and placed in intensive care. Treatment with antibiotics proved ineffective. He never regained consciousness and was dead within twenty-four hours. The microbe responsible was reportedly a meningococcal bacterium, one the authorities feared might be highly contagious. That was one reason his father had telephoned Michael Schilling: to warn him.

‘And now you’re warning me,’ I said.

By this time I was in my chair, staring out at the steely blue dusk. Fingers of sleet were running down the window, gathering soot as they went.

‘Yes,’ said Schilling.

‘We didn’t meet. I never spoke to Richter. I didn’t even shake his hand.’

‘Maybe you wouldn’t have to. Maybe this bug spreads through the air. We were all in the same room with him when you got your award.’

‘So we were.’

‘Although what we’re supposed to do about it, I don’t know. Get a blood test, I suppose.’

‘Right. We should definitely do that.’

I put a hand to my forehead. It felt distinctly clammy. And there was an unfamiliar tension in my shoulders and my neck.

‘There’s something else,’ Schilling said. ‘The funeral. Wolfgang’s father asked if you were going to be there.’

‘He did? Why?’

‘He was a great admirer of yours.
The Orphans of Neustadt
was one of his favourite books.’

‘The father or the son?’

‘The son. It was the reason he took up writing. Apparently he was always talking about you.’

How little fathers knew about their sons, I thought. How little they understood. If Wolfgang Richter had talked about me at all, it would have been the way Lenin used to talk about the Tsar, with a view to his overthrowing him, and the sooner the better.

‘But I didn’t
know
him,’ I said. ‘We were virtually strangers.’

‘Herr Richter just asked. Still, I got the impression it would mean a lot to him, and his wife. Maybe it would be a kind of validation for them.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Their son was an artist. They want to think he’ll be remembered.’

For
Two on a Bicycle
? It didn’t seem all that likely. As artistic legacies went, it was decidedly slim; another tragic case of promise unfulfilled. Except, of course, there was his unpublished novel . . .

‘I still don’t understand how my name came up,’ I said.

‘They knew where you’re published. I expect Wolfgang told them. Look, it doesn’t matter. I just thought if you didn’t have anything better to do. It’s this Wednesday at the Tolkewitz Crematorium. Two o’clock.’

‘The day after tomorrow? That’s a little quick, isn’t it?’

‘The authorities at the hospital arranged it,’ Schilling said. ‘Apparently they don’t want to take any chances with this bug.’

It was a cold, grey afternoon. I took a tram to the Johannis Cemetery, then walked up the long avenue towards the crematorium, the east wind cutting through my frayed old suit, so that my bones soon felt as cold and numb as those of the permanent residents. Monumental in soot-streaked granite, the Tolkewitz Crematorium was one of the few buildings in the city that the Royal Air Force could have firebombed into oblivion with my blessing. Of late imperial design, it hovered in its likeness between a massive pressure cooker and the entrance to a Wagnerian Valhalla. This was to be Wolfgang Richter’s final destination, as if, with his last breath, the part-creator of
Two on a Bicycle
had become a devotee of tragic opera and wished to be borne away like a dying hero in the arms of a Valkyrie.

The Richter party – I counted twelve of them – stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting for their turn to go in. Either side of the avenue mourners from earlier funerals wandered about, singly and in pairs, among the trees and the graves. Some placed flowers, some held quiet conversations with the headstones, some even took photographs. One of them, to my surprise, pointed his lens at me – an opportunistic fan, I told myself. The presence of these strangers was unwelcome to me, though I was little better than a stranger myself. It made the occasion too public and too routine – one more funeral in an endless succession of funerals. Like the architecture, it prohibited intimacy.

Schilling was already there, dressed in his new raincoat, which, new or otherwise, wasn’t warm enough for the prevailing conditions. He came over at once, shook my hand and led me towards a late-middle-aged couple standing arm-in-arm on the bottom step.

I had expected Richter’s parents to be elegant, even in their grief. I imagined urbanity and sophistication, or at least a touch of the bohemian. Nothing of the kind was in evidence. Frau Richter was a fat woman with a disastrous home perm that reminded me of a wet poodle. She was dressed in a pale blue trouser suit, over which she wore a black anorak. Herr Richter, older by some years, gave off an air of awkwardness and timidity, accentuated by a double-breasted jacket that was too small for him. Short and bald, with red, elfin ears, he was afflicted with a stammer, which he had learned to control with telltale breaks in his speech – breaks that I at first took to be the effect of trauma. Had Wolfgang really sprung from the union of these two people? Or was he a graft, an orphan, adopted in childhood the way my great-uncle had adopted me – the main difference being that my great-uncle had only lasted a few years before dying of a brain tumour?

I briefly surveyed the rest of the company, searching for the cultured and stylish mourners who I had imagined would be there: the Berlin literati, the film-makers from the Babelsberg studio, the host of beautiful women (now all in black, veiled) that Wolfgang Richter always seemed to have at his command. But I saw only old people and pimply youths in sports clothes. It was possible that the Berlin crowd hadn’t yet learned of the tragedy, I reminded myself. It wasn’t necessarily the case that they thought it was too far to come.

It had crossed my mind, I must admit, that Theresa Aden might be among the legions of beautiful women in attendance. But that was not my reason for being there. At the universities, the new term had not yet begun. I thought she would still be at home in Austria, oblivious to what had happened. Besides, if we were ever to renew our acquaintance, I wanted it to be as far away from Wolfgang Richter as possible. I had no wish to be connected with Richter in her eyes. It was bad enough that Richter was connected to her in mine.

But then I saw her. She was walking up the path towards us, her hands in the pockets of her overcoat. I hadn’t recognised her at first; her blonde hair was shorter and mostly hidden beneath a black beret. She looked pale, her eyes puffy. She came and stood at the edge of the crowd, but no one came forward to greet her. I had never expected to see her look so vulnerable and alone.

‘Frau Richter, Herr Richter,’ Schilling was saying, ‘allow me to introduce Bruno Krug.’

Herr Richter grasped my hand with both of his. ‘So good of you to . . . come, Herr Krug. So good of you to m-make the journey.’

Ten minutes on the tram; that was the journey (and ten minutes back). But then the poor man wasn’t to know that. Nor would it have been kind, in the circumstances, to enlighten him.

‘Wolfgang would have been so proud,’ Frau Krug said and, without warning, she hugged me, her teary face brushing against my cheek, her hand flapping against the back of my neck like a freshly landed fish.

I had prepared my condolences in advance. The potential for saying the wrong thing is never greater than when dealing with the recently bereaved. But faced with the reality of grief, my carefully balanced words deserted me.

‘He . . . he was a . . . a great talent,’ I stammered. ‘He showed such . . . such extraordinary . . .’

‘Promise?’ Schilling suggested.

A troublesome picture leapt into my mind: Herr Zoch, perched on the edge of my sofa, his notebook and ballpoint at the ready.
It’s the promising ones you have to keep an eye on.

‘No, not that,’ I said. The Richters looked crestfallen. ‘Vision. Wolfgang was a visionary.’

At this Frau Richter felt free to hug me again. ‘It would have been his birthday next week,’ she said, as if that somehow cemented the tragedy of the occasion, ‘his twenty-eighth birthday.’

I moved away as swiftly and tactfully as I could, but not so far that I couldn’t form a clear impression of what happened next. Theresa had made her way towards the Richters. I don’t know if she knew them already, or if she had to introduce herself, but when I looked back again, she was standing before them, her hands clasped together in front of her, talking. I suppose she was offering her condolences. But then, without warning Frau Richter turned away, grabbing her husband’s arm. She was angry. Then she thought of something to say. She leaned towards Theresa so as not to be overheard. I could tell from the fix of her gaze and the mean set of her lips that her words were not friendly. Then she and her husband took off smartly up the steps, leaving Theresa standing at the bottom, looking stunned.

Before I could go to her, the doors of the crematorium opened and we were all ushered inside.

Close to the cemetery gates was an old world
Konditorei
that did good business holding funeral wakes. I had spent many uncomfortable hours in one or other of its function rooms, which were decked out with faux-velvet wallpaper and artificial flowers that no one ever dusted. Nonetheless, given the short notice, the Richters had been lucky to get themselves a slot there, because it was not unknown (so I was told) for relatives to make a booking even while their loved one still breathed. The nearest alternative venue was a good distance away.

The Richter party, swollen by now to maybe sixteen, were trailing back down the avenue at a respectful pace. I left Schilling and dropped back until I was walking beside Theresa. I wondered if she would recognise me, so long was it since our one and only conversation.

‘It’s nice to see you again, Herr Krug,’ she said, with a smile that was fleeting, but just warm enough to seem sincere.

‘Bruno, please.’

‘I’d no idea you actually knew Wolfgang.’

‘I didn’t really. I knew his work.’

‘His scriptwriting?’

I hesitated. With Michael Schilling barely out of earshot, I didn’t want to get into the whole business of the Richter novel.

‘That’s right,
Two on a Bicycle
is one of my favourite films.’ Theresa looked puzzled. I chuckled by way of supporting evidence. ‘That scene where the chickens get on the roof . . .’

‘I haven’t seen it.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘Good?’

‘Good because . . . Because you still have that pleasure ahead of you. We could even . . .’

I just managed to stop myself from proposing we make it a date: she and I, watching her dead lover’s film – if indeed they had been lovers. I wanted quite badly to ask, but, again, the circumstances were not propitious.

We walked on a few paces in silence. The mourner I had seen earlier, taking photographs among the graves, was still in evidence. He had been outside the crematorium a few moments earlier; now he was just beyond the trees on the other side of the avenue, his camera round his neck, his hands buried inside the pockets of a sheepskin coat. His gaze met mine, then suddenly he became very interested in a stone angel praying at the foot of a yew. A moment later he had disappeared.

The head of the party was nearing the road. As she reached the kerb, Frau Richter looked back at us. Seeing Theresa, her mouth pinched and her nostrils flared, as if by now she had expected to find this particular mourner gone.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing . . .’ I said. ‘Frau Richter . . .’

Theresa looked down at her shoes. ‘She thinks it’s my fault. That’s what she said.’

‘She couldn’t mean . . .’

‘If I hadn’t got my claws into him, Wolfgang would still be alive.’

‘That’s ridiculous. You heard how he died. It was meningitis.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘The poor woman’s still in shock,’ I said, glad of the opportunity to offer support. ‘When something like this happens – something so unexpected, so senseless – people often feel the need to blame someone, however irrational that is. It has nothing to do with you.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. Mothers have a way of knowing these things, don’t they? An instinct? Maybe if he’d never met me, everything would have been different. Maybe Wolfgang would have stayed in Berlin. And none of this would have happened.’

‘Now you’re the one being irrational.’

Theresa looked at me. I felt sure she was going to tell me something, to confide in me. But then she changed her mind. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Forget what I said. It’s not your problem.’

‘So you and Wolfgang, you were close?’ I was certain that with a little more probing she would tell me the whole story.

She sniffed and got busy pulling on a pair of hairy woollen gloves. ‘I only met him a few weeks ago.’

‘But still you came today. It looks like a lot of people didn’t.’

‘I wanted to say goodbye.’ She dug her hands into her pockets. ‘It all happened so suddenly.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It did.’

We stopped opposite the
Konditorei
. The Richters had already gone inside. A smell of baking pastry sweetened the chill air.

‘I’ll leave you here,’ Theresa said.

‘You aren’t coming in?’

She shook her head.

‘Then I won’t either. I’ll make my excuses and . . .’

She put her hand on my arm. ‘No. You must stay. They’d be disappointed. It means something to them that you’re here.’

Theresa was right. It would have been too selfish to disappear at that stage of the proceedings.

‘I tell you what, though,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a mandatory performance in a few days. At the college; the Blochmannstrasse building. Part of my exams. Why don’t you come along, if you can?’