A Greater Music (5 page)

“Well, in that case you'll just have to go and sit with the smokers. But it might be pretty boring.”

“I want to go home,” I said in an undertone.

“What? You mean now? You must be joking. You're just being stuck up, and besides, people would be offended. I mean, it's just plain rude, helping yourself to food and drink then rushing off without even staying to celebrate, like your typical pauper.”

“Typical pauper” was
something I liked to call Joachim, and now here he was throwing it back at me.

“Who's there for me to celebrate with? The people who come to these parties transcend nationality, age, class, race; they're nothing but a bunch of uncultured idiots, damn it. Why should I put up with it?”

“Just hang on a bit longer, maybe you'll change your mind.”

“I'm never coming to this kind of thing again. Why did you bring me?”

“Hey, you're the one who said you wanted to come! Don't be so neurotic.” Joachim steered me into the kitchen, where he'd been chatting with some of the others. It was incredibly loud in there, the crowd of new arrivals getting food and opening beer bottles and greeting each other. Across the room I spotted a window seat that I hadn't noticed before, and wondered if I would be able to ensconce myself there without bothering with all the questions and handshakes and embraces. In order to reach that haven, though, I would have to make my way across the crowded kitchen, which seemed a veritable war zone to me. There was nothing I hated more than putting up with something when I wasn't in the mood, purely for the sake of social conventions—it was just too pointless. Just then, someone asked me for a cigarette. I said I didn't have any, adding that I didn't smoke. Right behind me, a group of students whom I'd met a long time ago were standing bunched together, talking all at once to each other about their grades and exams, complaining about their teachers and winter jobs. I couldn't be sure which of them had spoken to me. All I saw was an exceptionally large hand on the table.

“Really? What a shame. I mean, you used to enjoy having something in your mouth.” Those last words were pronounced with particular relish. I turned to look behind me.

“Do I know you?” I
addressed the first one my eyes landed upon—a short young man with exceptionally blue eyes shining in his darkly tanned face.

“Yeah. You came to Erich's party a few years ago. With M. Isn't that right? How's M doing? Haven't seen her for years.”

But he melted back into the group before I had the chance to reply, as if he'd never had any genuine interest in either me or M and had merely been mouthing empty formalities. My eyes picked out a familiar face from across the room—the guy who'd asked me for a cigarette. But I didn't recognize him. Joachim pushed his way through to me, holding my coat and his jacket. If you still want to go we can go now, he said. You want to go too? I asked, and Joachim replied I don't care, I really don't care.

“I can go on my own, Joachim. That way you'll be able to stay here as long as you want. It'll be fine, I'll get the subway from Friedrichstrasse then change at Alexanderplatz and get the tram.”

“No, you can't. Do you even know how to get to Friedrichstrasse station from here? And if you change to get the tram it'll be a long walk from the subway station; you shouldn't do that alone, not at this time of night.”

“Okay, in that case, let's both leave now.” As soon as we put on our coat and jacket and made our way to the front door, the woman who had been introducing herself to everyone came up to us and smilingly asked Joachim where he was going.

“Are you leaving? Look, the fireworks are starting in twenty minutes; you don't want to miss that, do you? Then we'll open the wine and the party will really get going. Come on, stay and have some fun.”

“Oh no, we're not leaving,” Joachim said, “but she's got a bit of a headache.” He indicated me. “We're just going to go downstairs and get some air.”

“Oh? Well, come
back soon, then, and I'll see you in a minute.”

I said a curt goodbye to the woman, who was waving happily at me, and left, closing the door behind me. The blaring music was faintly audible even with the door closed. I went downstairs and, as I exited the building, saw fireworks explode in the distance. The gunpowder-scented air was cold, but wonderfully refreshing after the crowded rooms upstairs. I was glad I hadn't gritted my teeth and tried waiting it out. As we walked to the subway station the explosions grew progressively louder, coming thick and fast. Some were being let off near the entrance to the station, and even once we were safely underground the noise was really something. It was so loud it made my ears hurt.

“Did you tell Alfred you were leaving?” I asked Joachim, with my fingers stuck in my ears. He shook his head.

“Seemed better not to,” he answered peevishly. “Just a bit longer and they would have opened the wine; it's all your fault.”

“What? I told you I could go home on my own. You made the decision for yourself.”

“You think anyone would want to talk to me with that haughty expression you had on? You looked so stuck-up.”

“I didn't have a haughty expression.”

“You just can't act like that at a party.”

“I don't care about how you can and can't act at parties. And they were ignoring you too, Joachim. Like you didn't notice?”

“Most of them were just kids I went to gymnasium with, I don't know them that well. That's why. Anyway, I don't give a damn about that kind of thing either.”

Joachim's friends had been to ordinary gymnasiums like him, and he'd wanted to show me that he was in with a certain crowd, the kind of crowd that included blonde Scandinavian girls. In those terms, his evening had been a failure; I guess that's just the
way these things go. But his mention of the gymnasium reminded me of something.

“Joachim, one of them knew me from somewhere. Maybe he'd seen me at Erich's party, ages ago.” Erich taught English at Humboldt gymnasium.

Joachim barely reacted, probably still thinking about the food, wine, and beer we'd left behind at the party. He was striding along with his arms crossed. It was now only ten minutes or so to midnight, when the fireworks would be let off in earnest. Walking the deserted streets at such an hour seemed like something only an idiot would do. Everyone else would have gathered together to celebrate, either in small groups of friends or at bigger, public parties, and those who preferred open spaces would brave the cold to go and watch the television broadcast being filmed at the Brandenburg Gate. Teenagers would be letting off fireworks in the small squares dotted here and there among the network of streets, and local kids would be lying in wait down dark alleys with firecrackers in their hands, waiting to let them off with a bang under the feet of passersby, then run away.

“So, how's M?” Joachim asked, as if the thought had suddenly struck him while we were waiting for the subway. “You must hear from her, right? She doing okay?” It was the first time he'd mentioned M.

“I'm not sure. We haven't met up or been in touch since the last time I was in Berlin.”

Joachim was silent for a while, as if deep in thought. “Really?” he said eventually.

“I heard she was being treated by a French doctor who lives near Cité Foch. That's all.”

“What do you mean, that's all? She's your oldest friend.”

“She's the one who severed contact.”

It was only two stops to Friedrichstrasse, so it wasn't too bad. The city center was thronged with people heading toward the Brandenburg Gate, kids planning to set off firecrackers on the subway, sour-faced policemen grumbling at having to work on New Year's Eve, and tourists wondering what was worth seeing. Joachim asked again if I wanted to go to the Brandenburg Gate, but I told him I didn't like that kind of thing.

“Just a little
longer and they would have opened the wine,” Joachim grumbled again. “It's all your fault.”

We took the subway from Friedrichstrasse to Alexanderplatz, and from there had to physically shove our way through the surging tide of revelers in order to get to the tram stop. My jaw was tight with tension, conscious that a firework might explode next to me at any moment. Multicolored flowers of fire were blossoming in near-constant succession against the dark background of the sky. When we got onto the tram, Joachim looked at the clock and counted down to midnight.

“Three, two, one—now!”

We were sitting on the back seat in the last carriage, which was empty except for the two us, our bodies twisted round so that we could take in the scene outside through the window at the rear of the tram. Joachim did the countdown, and when the tram rounded the bend at Alexanderplatz the whole square was lit up by what seemed like a never-ending stream of fireworks, carving trails of cultured sparks across the sky. Three years earlier, M and I had gone to a fireworks display. But that had been an orderly, choreographed presentation, whereas New Year's Eve fireworks were an entirely different animal; something primitive, like a medieval hunt, or plague rampaging through a city, or a war in the barbarous Dark Ages. There were almost no other passengers on the tram. We turned to each other.
Frohes neues Jahr!
It was New Year's, after all.

“Just a bit longer and they would have opened the wine. Champagne, music, and we would have been celebrating New Year's at a party, where everything's warm and bright. Not some filthy, clapped-out tram. It's all your fault.”

Joachim kept on muttering away to himself, like it was some tic he had. The tram pulled away from Alexanderplatz, and the fireworks followed us all the way to Mollstrasse and Hufelandstrasse, embroidering the sky like patterns on black silk. The numerous street parties had all reached their peak, and countless fireworks seemed to be being released simultaneously. Our tram was first attacked around Ernst-Thälmann-Park. Teenagers aimed their firecrackers at the wheels and windows of the tram, letting them off in a deafening cannonade. The whole city had become one big scintillating flash of light, lit by multicolored flares, and calling to mind images of Berlin during a bombing raid. Every time we turned a corner there were new gangs, their firecrackers already primed and ready, and the further we went into East Berlin the more serious it became. Not a single carriage got through unscathed, as long as there were passengers visible through the windows. Eventually, once we'd passed Thomas-Mann-Strasse and began heading in the direction of Ostsee, we ducked our heads beneath the glass window, hunching over like citizens of a bombed-out city cowering in an air-raid shelter. Joachim couldn't resist stressing his point one last time.

“This is all your fault.”

Joachim had long maintained that, were he to become a successful entrepreneur, have a mansion built by the Spree and tear around in a sports car (though it was doubtful that a perfectly ordinary young engineer could ever amass such a fortune), the women whom his vast wealth would inevitably attract would be the icing on the cake,
and he would have everything he could possibly desire. “Russian women, or Polish women, they're the best, because even the really pretty ones aren't fussy.” His words dripped with contempt. And he wasn't joking; this was genuinely what he thought. “How on earth could anything be more important than money?” he said. “When it comes down to it, the reason you like M is that she's rich, isn't it? You're lying if you say otherwise.” Joachim wasn't physically fragile like M, and he didn't suffer from allergies. He didn't drink alcohol and didn't smoke, though he would treat himself to the occasional joint if he happened to have a bit of spare money. He liked to affect a complete lack of interest in anything other than that which would be of some practical, tangible benefit or harm. He claimed that he wasn't afraid of dying, not in the least. According to him, what was there to be afraid of when it was just for the briefest of moments, and then the end? He claimed he would kill himself if he was unable to complete college, or some similar calamity befell him. He drew his index finger across his throat and made a short sharp sound,
kkik.
He would do it, he said, in the smoking room of the national library.

“
Kkik
, I'll make a quick end of it. Beats me why other people make such a big deal out of suicide. Those so-called ‘artists' and ‘intellectuals,' with their books and their plays and their essays. They're just trying to make a point with the kind of stuff they write about, being ‘artistic' is just an excuse for them to kick up a fuss about something or other, something that'll get people talking. Money and fame, that's all anyone's after when it comes down to it.”

While he was talking, Joachim poured a good slug of milk into his coffee and slathered a thick layer of jam over a slice of cake.

“Hmm, you must have read a lot about it to make a claim like that?”

“Oh yeah,
they made us read all kinds of crap at school, really weird stuff, even though only some of it will come up in the
Abitur
and there's no way of telling what. For example, I had to read this one book called
The Tin Drum
, you know it? Insanely long, and even more tedious than Latin; the kind of thing where you don't have a clue what the hell it's supposed to mean even after you've read the whole thing. And it's all because of the language those writers use. They actually earn money for playing their clever little tricks! I mean, there's nothing wrong with plain German; there's no need to write books like that, the kind that make your mind go blank so you can't think of anything, or that use all these ambiguous words so it's so vague you can't be sure what any of it means. It's obviously all nonsense, just deliberately trying to confuse you. Beats me why I have to read those sorts of books if I want to become an engineer. I mean, just to put money in some writer's pocket? There's no other reason.”