the entrance downstairs. ‘Do you get spooked here, by yourself at night?’ I ask.
‘Sometimes,’ she says, ‘but it was much worse back when we had just opened. At that time the whole building smelled—we cleaned and cleaned and we just couldn’t get rid of the smell.’
She stops walking and turns her face up to me. Even in the half-light her eyes are cornflower blue and pretty. She winces. ‘Do you know it?’ She does not wait for an answer. ‘It was the smell,’ she says, ‘of old men.’
8
Telephone Calls
The phone rings. I steel myself for another Stasi man. But it’s a woman’s voice.
‘Anna, Anna is that you?’ Something turns itself over in my chest. It’s Miriam.
‘Yes, Miriam, hello, I’ve been meaning—’
‘I’m just calling,’ she says, ‘to say thank you for the other day. I wanted to thank you very much.’
What is she thanking me for? Suddenly I know I should have called her earlier. ‘No, please, I thank you,’ I say. Something is odd here. A retreat from intimacy is taking place.
‘It was very nice to meet you,’ she says. ‘And I wish you good luck with your work.’
This sounds final. I want to ask whether she has heard about the unclaimed urns at the Runden Ecke, but it feels wrong. ‘Perhaps we could meet again,’ I say, ‘at some point.’
‘I’d love to,’ she says quickly. ‘I’d love you to come down, sometime. We could visit my friends who have a sculpture garden. It’s very beautiful, and I’d like you to meet them, and…’ She trails off. ‘Just call me and we’ll go there.’
‘I will,’ I say, ‘and thanks. For everything.’
I replace the handset. If I were Miriam and had told the most painful and formative parts of my life to someone, I’m not sure I’d want to see that person again either. Especially if my life had already been written down by other people, stolen and steered. The phone is made of black plastic. It’s not a walk-around model but as a compromise some nifty student attached an extremely long extension cord to it. I walk back through the bare and broken apartment, retracing the lead to its source.
I’ve dragged my mattress into the living room, to be closer to the heater. Every evening I watch television until I fall asleep. It is a canny box which receives only three channels but they are of its own choosing, and one of them, although I have no dish, is a satellite channel. They are all black and white, and the terrestrial ones have constant snow.
Late at night there’s a program called ‘PEEP!’ Guests are interviewed and quizzed about their sex lives in seamy catch-22 hypotheticals (‘If your girlfriend brought her sister home to play with would you…?’ ‘Is there anything you have had to give up since the reassignment?’). Footage is shown to tempt the censorship provisions—about sex expos, sex experiments, sex revues and sexual art.
Tonight there’s a feature about a Leipzig stripper named Heidi, aka Yasmina. Yasmina is stocky and firm-bodied with blue eyes and fake blonde hair. This evening she and her brood are doing a ‘horror-erotic’ show inspired by Walpurgisnacht , the night when witches meet to revel with the Devil. On the stage young witches, wearing latex masks, leopard-skin and lace, are undressed by skeletons till they are nothing but rubber faces and sequinned G-strings in the dry ice gloom. The camera zooms dizzyingly in and out from breasts and crotches. Then there’s an interview with Yasmina, who has pushed her witch’s face onto the top of her head so that the nose droops a little over her forehead, nodding when she speaks. The interviewer wants to know what it was like to have had the only strip school ‘back in the GDR’, and, ‘is it true’—he puts the microphone closer to her face—‘that you stripped for the Politbüro?’
Yasmina smiles and flutters a taloned hand. ‘I always want to offer my public something a little different,’ she says, ‘then as
‘Sometimes,’ she says, ‘but it was much worse back when we had just opened. At that time the whole building smelled—we cleaned and cleaned and we just couldn’t get rid of the smell.’
She stops walking and turns her face up to me. Even in the half-light her eyes are cornflower blue and pretty. She winces. ‘Do you know it?’ She does not wait for an answer. ‘It was the smell,’ she says, ‘of old men.’
8
Telephone Calls
The phone rings. I steel myself for another Stasi man. But it’s a woman’s voice.
‘Anna, Anna is that you?’ Something turns itself over in my chest. It’s Miriam.
‘Yes, Miriam, hello, I’ve been meaning—’
‘I’m just calling,’ she says, ‘to say thank you for the other day. I wanted to thank you very much.’
What is she thanking me for? Suddenly I know I should have called her earlier. ‘No, please, I thank you,’ I say. Something is odd here. A retreat from intimacy is taking place.
‘It was very nice to meet you,’ she says. ‘And I wish you good luck with your work.’
This sounds final. I want to ask whether she has heard about the unclaimed urns at the Runden Ecke, but it feels wrong. ‘Perhaps we could meet again,’ I say, ‘at some point.’
‘I’d love to,’ she says quickly. ‘I’d love you to come down, sometime. We could visit my friends who have a sculpture garden. It’s very beautiful, and I’d like you to meet them, and…’ She trails off. ‘Just call me and we’ll go there.’
‘I will,’ I say, ‘and thanks. For everything.’
I replace the handset. If I were Miriam and had told the most painful and formative parts of my life to someone, I’m not sure I’d want to see that person again either. Especially if my life had already been written down by other people, stolen and steered. The phone is made of black plastic. It’s not a walk-around model but as a compromise some nifty student attached an extremely long extension cord to it. I walk back through the bare and broken apartment, retracing the lead to its source.
I’ve dragged my mattress into the living room, to be closer to the heater. Every evening I watch television until I fall asleep. It is a canny box which receives only three channels but they are of its own choosing, and one of them, although I have no dish, is a satellite channel. They are all black and white, and the terrestrial ones have constant snow.
Late at night there’s a program called ‘PEEP!’ Guests are interviewed and quizzed about their sex lives in seamy catch-22 hypotheticals (‘If your girlfriend brought her sister home to play with would you…?’ ‘Is there anything you have had to give up since the reassignment?’). Footage is shown to tempt the censorship provisions—about sex expos, sex experiments, sex revues and sexual art.
Tonight there’s a feature about a Leipzig stripper named Heidi, aka Yasmina. Yasmina is stocky and firm-bodied with blue eyes and fake blonde hair. This evening she and her brood are doing a ‘horror-erotic’ show inspired by Walpurgisnacht , the night when witches meet to revel with the Devil. On the stage young witches, wearing latex masks, leopard-skin and lace, are undressed by skeletons till they are nothing but rubber faces and sequinned G-strings in the dry ice gloom. The camera zooms dizzyingly in and out from breasts and crotches. Then there’s an interview with Yasmina, who has pushed her witch’s face onto the top of her head so that the nose droops a little over her forehead, nodding when she speaks. The interviewer wants to know what it was like to have had the only strip school ‘back in the GDR’, and, ‘is it true’—he puts the microphone closer to her face—‘that you stripped for the Politbüro?’
Yasmina smiles and flutters a taloned hand. ‘I always want to offer my public something a little different,’ she says, ‘then as
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