Magic Hoffmann (2 page)

 

White ankle-high gym shoes with black stripes. Did people still wear such things these days? Fred pulled the laces tight and made a knot. Outside the others were going to the workshop. A few of them knocked on the door.

‘Have a good one, Magic!'

‘Depend on it.'

Fred hadn't slept a wink all night. Overtired and euphoric as he was, life on this particular morning seemed dead simple to him. Four years ripped out of your life, pack your bags, sunrise. Nobody could touch him now. And if the shoes were out of fashion, he would bring them back into fashion. It wouldn't be the first time. Earlier in Dance 2000…

He shut the zip of his blue overalls and looked at himself in the mirror. The broad, angular chin, which seemed so reluctant to grow a proper beard, the bulging, slightly puzzled eyes, the protruding ears and the medium-length dirty-blond hair, which he had cut himself since he was fourteen; he piled it up in his fist at the top of his head and snipped the overspill. He hadn't changed, no question. And he was proud of it. They hadn't ground him down. Neither attempts at rehabilitation by the authorities, nor invitations to criminal scams from other inmates had got through to him. The prison had just been a waiting room in which he sat most of the time with his eyes and ears closed.

The initial admiration of his fellow prisoners for the slick bank robbery , and for Fred's refusal to grass on his mates in court, rapidly gave way to indifference in the face of someone who kept out of everything and seemed interested in nothing, other than fishing and log cabin construction. Some felt he was dumb, others a loudmouth; quite a few thought he was both. In fact Fred was both dumb and clever. Extraordinary foolishness alternated with staggering cunning. Thus he grasped extremely quickly which warders he had to win over in order to be left alone, but it took him a very long time to realise why his peaceable cell neighbour kept challenging him to wrestling matches in the gym, even though Fred was much stronger. Once Fred had allowed him to win for fun and, lying beneath him for the first time, had felt something hard pressing down on his navel. When Fred wasn't interested in something, he didn't grasp it, and then he became a loudmouth. His failure to understand was not quiet and discreet, but loud and arrogant, all guns blazing. He explained to the guys in the prison woodwork shop, who were all more skilled than him, that filling your head with dovetail joints and veneering was a mug's game. It wasn't without good reason that his contact with his fellow prisoners became rapidly limited to table football and the exchange of porno mags. Besides, Fred found the misery and rage of the others distasteful - wrong to mope around in jail, he thought. Free, rich and healthy you could afford to moan. But captive, tyrannised by screws, without women, and unhappy with it…?

Fred ran a hand through his hair. At last he was through with the porno mags! He wasn't handsome. Nevertheless, with his more or less deliberate, moronic 
charm and his easygoing manner he had had plenty of success with women. Why should that have changed? The moment he was released he would get to see blouses, dresses, asses and legs; life would begin again - just like it was before only with two hundred thousand marks instead of loose change in his pocket.

Fred closed the suitcase, sat up on the edge of the bed and smoked a last cigarette.

Shortly afterwards the warder fetched him and brought him to the gate. The warder informed the guard through the intercom: ‘Fred Hoffmann for release.'

The first layer of steel moved aside and they entered the gate lock. The guard eyed them searchingly through the bullet-proof glass, then he pressed a 
button and the second layer opened up.

‘Best of luck, Hoffmann.'

‘Thanks, but now I don't need any.'

‘Now you need it more than ever.'

Fred shook his head. ‘
I have friends
,' he intoned in English. And money, he thought, but of course he couldn't say that.

The guard groaned. ‘Cut out the English crap. Otherwise they'll all think you're an imbecile and you'll never get a job.'

‘Actually,' said Fred, ‘where I'm going I'll only find work if I can speak English - that is if I want to work.'

They shook hands, and Fred stepped out into the empty, sun-drenched street. The gate closed behind him. It took a moment for him to get used to the light.

Opposite was a kiosk behind which were bright apartments with open windows and colourful flower boxes. There was the scent of lilac in the air, and the trees lining the street were green. It was quiet apart from the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds. Was this not spring, was this not a beginning, thought Fred; what a wonderful world!

He put the suitcase down and took off his jacket. Apart from the man in the kiosk there was no one to be seen. On the postcards he had written: between ten and eleven. His watch showed shortly before eleven.

He picked up his suitcase and strolled over to the kiosk. The attendant, a balding forty year old, was dozing over a newspaper.

‘Morning.'

The attendant woke up with a start. ‘Oh! Morning.'

Fred laughed. ‘Spring fatigue?'

‘Mhmhm. What can I get you?'

‘A bottle of fizz. Make it your best.'

Since his arrest Fred had drunk no alcohol, apart from the aviation fuel secretly distilled in people's cells. That was a long time for someone who enjoyed the stuff in every halfways enjoyable form.

‘My best?' the attendant scratched his chin, ‘Faber?'

‘Is that your best?'

‘Sort of. It's my only one.'

While the attendant shuffled over to the freezer, Fred took another look down 
the road to right and left.

‘What's the time?'

The attendant placed the bottle down and looked at his watch.

‘Just after half eleven.'

‘Mine must have stopped…'

‘Would you like a glass?'

Instead of answering, Fred tapped the watch face. The attendant yawned. ‘Not the latest model then?'

Fred looked up and stared briefly at the attendant without expression. Then he returned to his watch. The attendant raised his eyebrows. How sensitive these young folk today were in matters of fashion. He asked amiably: ‘So, a glass?'

‘One for you too.'

‘For me?'

Fred nodded, removed his watch and threw it in the bin. ‘This is a celebration.'

The attendant was about to shake his head when his gaze fell on Fred's suitcase. He had run the kiosk opposite the prison gate long enough to know what small shabby suitcases meant around here. A juvenile prison, no real hard cases, none who thought about suddenly finding themselves on the other side of the wall years later. Many of them wanted to have a drink with him, and mostly he did them the favour. He shuffled to the back again and fetched two plastic cups.

‘Only for the toast though.'

Fred laughed. ‘Sure, and let's see how often we toast.'

He tipped the first cup back in one and closed his eyes briefly. ‘What a feeling.'

Thereafter they drank in silence. Fred watched the street and the salesman watched him. Daft eyes, he thought, sort of goggle-eyes. On the other hand, none of the other youths had shown such a determined look while enjoying their first bottle on the outside. No curiosity, no uncertainty, nothing. It was as if he had trained for a boxing match for which the bell might sound at any minute.

Everything had indeed been worked out down to the last minute in Fred's head:

Reunion with Annette and Nickel, then down to Clash, and later to Dance 2000 with some woman on his arm, and a discussion of Canada to follow the next morning. If prison did serve some purpose, then it was as a kind of advanced school for making plans, and Fred had qualified with flying colours.

A young couple turned into the street and approached rapidly. She was blonde and plump, he was tall and dark. Both carried something under their arm and they seemed to be in a hurry. Annette and Nickel, no doubt about it. Fred turned abruptly to the attendant and grabbed the bottle. ‘Let's have one more.' They mustn't see that he was waiting.

‘Thanks, but not for me.'

The attendant drained his cup and threw it in the bin. When he looked up, he gave a start. The young man was staring at him again. This time his 
look reminded him of the crazies from the Knights of Saint John home out in the woods.

‘I have to get back to work.'

‘Let's talk…'

Fred leaned forward and suddenly began to speak of a tramp who was known by everyone in Dieburg, and who kept cropping up in anecdotes which they told as jokes, even though no one had seen him for years. The nearer the couple came, the louder Fred talked and the wilder the story became. Then the couple had almost arrived at the kiosk and Fred turned round while in full flow, as if by chance, beaming at the trees as well as at the two young people…But they were the wrong ones. Loaded down with washing powder, cat litter and nappies, they glanced briefly at the kiosk and walked on.

Fred was struck dumb.

‘And then?' asked the attendant, ‘what did he do with the ladder?'

‘With the ladder?' Fred stared absently. The couple's footsteps became quieter, until they disappeared into the next doorway.

‘What's the time?'

‘Quarter to twelve.'

Fred drained the cup and poured some more, his gaze fixed on the corner from which the couple had emerged. The attendant waited a little, then he shrugged his shoulders, sat back on his chair and opened a magazine.

‘He hid it first,' said Fred after a while , ‘then it became damp and rotten, and in the end he junked it. From which you can deduce once again,' he was careful to grin casually, ‘that crime doesn't pay… What do I owe you?'

The attendant named his price, and Fred took a roll of notes, bound by a rubber 
band, out of his pocket. He'd seen that on TV. He loosened the rubber band, placed a twenty mark note on the counter, snapped it back and nodded. ‘Keep the change. If you see two people waiting by the gate over there today, could you please inform them that Fred is celebrating at Clash tonight?'

The attendant said he'd try to keep an eye out. Fred picked up his suitcase, tapped his forehead, ‘Bye bye,' and strolled down the street. A warm wind caressed his neck.

No, he wasn't furious. A little irritated, but not furious. Maybe Annette and Nickel had missed their train. No reason to worry. We've all been late…

Fred was almost better at adapting to changed circumstances than at forging 
unshakeable plans.

 

Grandma Ranunkel's small white house stood at the edge of the forest between an abandoned wadding factory and a tree nursery. The forest glowed bright green, and several branches grew above the roof and walls: a sign that the house had been uninhabited for some time. Unpruned branches were rare in Dieburg.

Once inside, Fred encountered stale, musty air. The rooms were dark and the electricity had been turned off. Fred felt his way through the living room. When he raised the blinds and opened the windows, he could see cheap fifties-style furniture beneath thick layers of dust. He stood still for a moment and looked around… Here again. But he remained unmoved by the sight of these familiar objects, or rather he didn't allow himself to be moved. He was beginning a new life, and this house had no place in it. He would sell it. That too he had planned for a long time.

He went into the kitchen, looked in cupboards and drawers and rummaged through the dining room. Then he worked his way through the other rooms, until he found an open bottle of Dujardin in Grandma Ranunkel's bedside table. He sat with the bottle at the open kitchen window and kept an eye out for Annette and Nickel coming down the street.

What if he had sent the postcards too late? Or if Annette and Nickel had moved house again?

He attacked the bottle until he was drunk. At about four, he left the house and went to the nearest phone booth.

As a precaution he had neither telephoned Annette and Nickel since his arrest, 
nor had they visited him in prison. He deduced from Annette's few, deliberately trivial letters that she and Nickel had split up and that she had moved away.

Admittedly she had written down the new address, but the last letter had no return address and gave notice of a further move. From Nickel, the most nervous of them, he had only received postcards bearing no surname. Not a word about Dieburg, let alone Annette - the prison post inspectors must have taken Nickel's postcards for the routine greetings of a distant relative.

Nevertheless: they had an agreement that he would send them a card as soon as he knew when he would be released and that they would collect him, and it didn't matter how long ago this was, a deal was a deal, and it was up to Annette and Nickel to ensure he had their correct addresses…

Fred unfolded Annette's letter with her Berlin telephone number. Suddenly he felt uneasy. He hung up and looked for a cigarette. He had waited four years for this moment, four years and eighteen days. If Annette wasn't on the train or already in Dieburg, he would hear her voice now. Not the voice that had entertained him the whole time in the cell, that intimate voice that mostly told him what he wanted to hear, but her real voice - her voice four years on. The blood pounded in his temples. He smoked two cigarettes and tried to find the right form of words. Finally he dialled the number and held his breath. The phone rang briefly.

‘Zernikow,' replied a woman. A television droned in the background.

Fred cleared his throat. ‘Hello, may I speak to Annette Schöller?'

‘What, who?' she screamed over the noise of the TV.

‘Annette Schöller,' repeated Fred.

‘Never heard of her. Who the Hell… hey, Jessica! Leave the bloody computer 
alone. I've told you a hundred times, that's not a toy, it's your Dad's, and he'll belt you one if he finds out …Hello.'

‘Annette Schöller. She… she was probably the previous tenant.'

‘And? Does that mean I've won something?'

‘What? No, but…'

‘What then?'

Well, if you could give me the new address for…'

‘I know, I know: wee Annette. But previous tenants' addresses aren't my problem. Look in the phone book.'

‘Okay. But maybe you could tell me whether Annette's post is being forwarded?'

‘You think I'm a postman?'

The woman hung up, and Fred pressed the phone cradle. For a moment he felt like he had those first days in prison, when everything seemed to rush by and the lads took the piss out of him at every opportunity. Strange attitude these Berliners.

Then he rang directory enquiries, but without success: Annette's name was not listed. Next he called Nickel's old Berlin number, but nobody answered.

He went back to Grandma Ranunkel's house and stuck a note on the door: Am at Clash. Then he set off to visit a couple of old friends. But the answer was always the same: he or she had spent the last two or three years in Munich, or Frankfurt, or Hanover, or Berlin, or Tübingen…