TOO MANY TRIPS TO HEIDELBERG
For Klaus Staeck, who knows that the story
is invented from beginning to end, yet true
That evening, as he sat on the edge of the bed in his pajamas,
waiting for the midnight news and smoking one last cigarette, he
tried in retrospect to pinpoint the moment at which this pleasant
Sunday had slipped away from him. The morning had been sunny,
fresh, a coolness of May although it was June, yet the warmth to be
expected at noon was already perceptible: light and temperature
had reminded him of the old days when he had been out training
from six to eight before going to work.
For an hour and a half that morning he had cycled along back
roads between suburbs, between allotment gardens and industrial
areas, past green fields, toolsheds, gardens, the big cemetery, out to
where the forest began far beyond the city limits. On the asphalt
stretches he had speeded up, timing himself and testing his
acceleration; he had put on spurts and found that he was still in
good form, might even risk entering an amateur race again, his legs
responding to the joy of having passed his exam and to his intention
of taking up regular training again. What with his job, night school,
earning a living, studying, he hadn’t been able to do much about it
these last three years. He would need a new bike, but that would be
no problem provided he could come to terms with Kronsorgeler
tomorrow, and there was no doubt that he would.
After his training spin, a few exercises on the rug in his rented
room, a shower, clean underwear, then by car out to his parents for
breakfast: coffee and toast, fresh eggs and honey, on the terrace
Father had built onto the house; the bright awning—a gift from Karl—and, as the morning warmed up, the reassuring stereotype
utterance of his parents, “Well, you've almost made it now, you'll
soon have made it now.” His mother had said “soon,” his father
“almost,” and always the pleasurable harking back to the fear of the
last few years, a fear they had never blamed each other for, a fear
they had shared: from amateur regional champion and electrician to
passing his exam yesterday, erstwhile fear that was beginning to
turn into veteran’s pride. And they kept asking him what this or that
word was in Spanish: carrot or motorcar, Queen of Heaven, bee and
busy, breakfast, supper and sundown, and how happy they were
when he stayed on for lunch and invited them over to his place next
Tuesday to celebrate his success. Father went off to pick up some ice
cream for dessert, and he accepted a cup of coffee although an hour
later he would have to have coffee again at Carola’s parents’. He
even had a kirsch and chatted with them about his brother Karl, his
sister-in-law Hilda, about Elke and Klaus, the two kids who, they all
agreed, were being spoiled, what with their jeans and fringed
jackets and cassettes and all that, and constantly there would be
those pleasurable sighs: “Well, you'll soon have made it now, you've
almost made it now!” That “almost,” that “soon,” had made him
uneasy. He had made it! All that remained was the interview with
Kronsorgeler, who had been favorably disposed toward him right
from the start. Hadn’t he done a good job teaching Spanish at the
adult education center and German at those evening classes for
Spaniards?
Later he helped his father wash the car and his mother weed the
garden, and as he was about to leave she brought carrots, spinach,
and a bag of cherries from the freezer, packed them in an insulated
bag, and insisted that he wait until she had picked some tulips for
Carola’s mother. Meanwhile his father checked the tires, asked him
to start the motor, listened to it suspiciously, then stepped up to the
lowered window and asked, “Still making all those trips to
Heidelberg—on the autobahn?” It was meant to sound as if he were
querying the capability of his old, somewhat decrepit car to cover
those fifty miles twice, sometimes three times a week.“Heidelberg? Yes, I still drive there two or three times a week—
it’ll be some time before I can afford a Mercedes.”
“Oh, yes, Mercedes,” said his father. “There’s that fellow from the
government, the Department of Education, I believe—yesterday he
brought in his Mercedes again for a checkup. Insists on my doing
the job personally. What’s his name again?”
“Kronsorgeler?”
“Yes, that’s the one. A very nice fellow. I’d even call him a
gentleman, no irony intended.”
Just then his mother brought the flowers, saying, “Remember us
to Carola, and her parents too, of course. We'll be seeing them on
Tuesday anyway.” As he was about to drive off, his father came up
once more and said, “Don’t make too many trips to Heidelberg—
with this wreck!”
On his arrival at the Schulte-Bebrungs’, Carola hadn’t come home
yet. She had phoned and left a message that she wasn’t quite
through with her reports but would come as soon as she could; they
were to go ahead with their afternoon coffee.
The terrace was larger, the awning, though faded, more generous,
everything more elegant, and even in the barely perceptible
shabbiness of the garden furniture, in the grass growing in the
cracks between the red tiles, there was something that irritated him
like some of those harangues at student demonstrations; things like
that, and clothing, were sources of irritation between Carola and
himself since she always complained that his clothes were too
formal, too bourgeois. With Carola’s mother he chatted about
growing vegetables, with her father about bicycle races, found the
coffee not as good as at his parents’, and tried not to let his tension
turn into irritation. After all, these were really nice, progressive
people who had accepted him without prejudice, officially, even, by
sending out engagement announcements. By this time he had
become genuinely fond of them, including Carola’s mother, whose
frequent “charming” had at first got on his nerves.Eventually Dr. Schulte-Bebrung—a bit embarrassed, so it seemed
to him—asked him to come into the garage, where he showed him
the newly acquired bicycle that he rode every morning for “a few
turns” around the park and the Old Cemetery—a magnificent
specimen of a bike. He praised it enthusiastically, quite without
envy, mounted it for a test ride around the garden, explained the
workings of leg muscles to Schulte-Bebrung (remembering that the
senior members of the club had always suffered from cramps!); and
after he had dismounted and propped the bike against the wall
inside the garage, Schulte-Bebrung asked him, “What do you think
—how long would it take me on this magnificent specimen of a
bike, as you call it, to get from here to, say, Heidelberg?” It sounded
casual enough, innocent, especially as Schulte-Bebrung went on,
“You see, I was at university in Heidelberg, had a bike in those days
too, and from there to here used to take me—young and strong as I
was then—two and a half hours.”
He smiled, obviously with no ulterior motive, talked about traffic
lights, traffic jams, all the cars that in those days hadn’t existed; by
car—he’d already tried it out—it took him thirty-five minutes to get
to his office, by bicycle only thirty minutes. “And how long does it
take you by car to Heidelberg?”
“Half an hour.”
The fact that he mentioned the car took away some of the
casualness of mentioning Heidelberg, but at that moment Carola
arrived, and she was as sweet as ever, as pretty as ever, a bit
disheveled, and you could tell she really was dead tired; and now, as
he sat on the edge of the bed, a second cigarette still unlit between
his fingers, he simply didn’t know whether his tension had already
turned into irritation and been transferred from him to her, or
whether she had been tense and irritable—and this had been
transferred from her to him. She kissed him, of course, but
whispered in his ear that she wouldn’t be going with him today.
Then they talked about Kronsorgeler, who had spoken so highly of
him, about getting into the civil service, about the boundaries of the
regional district, about cycling, tennis, Spanish, and whether he
would get an A or only a B. She herself had only scraped throughwith a C. When invited to stay for supper he pleaded tiredness and
work, and no one had particularly urged him to change his mind.
The air quickly cooled off again on the terrace; he helped carry
chairs and dishes into the house, and when Carola walked with him
to the car she kissed him with surprising ardor, put her arms around
him, leaned against him, and said, “You know I love you very, very
much, and I know you’re a splendid fellow, but you do have one
little fault: you make too many trips to Heidelberg.”
She had run quickly into the house, waved, smiled, blown him
kisses, and he could still see her in the rear-view mirror, standing
there waving vigorously.
Surely it couldn’t be jealousy. After all, she knew he went there to
see Diego and Teresa, to help them translate applications, fill out
forms and questionnaires; that he drew up petitions, typed the final
versions—for the department of aliens, the bureau of social services,
the union, the university, the employment office—concerning
placing children in schools and kindergartens, bursaries, grants,
clothing, holiday camps. She knew what he was doing in
Heidelberg, had gone there with him a few times, had done more
than her share of typing, and displayed a surprising knowledge of
officialese. Once or twice she had even taken Teresa along to a
movie and a café, and her father had given her money for a Chilean
fund.
Instead of driving home, he had gone to Heidelberg; Diego and
Teresa had been out, as had Raoul, Diego’s friend. On the way back
he had got into a traffic jam, and around nine had looked in on his
brother Karl, who went to the fridge for some beer while Hilda fried
him some eggs. Together they had watched the Tour de Suisse on
TV, in which Eddy Merckx hadn’t shown up too well, and, when he
left, Hilda had given him a paper bag full of used children’s clothing
for “that nice gutsy Chilean and his wife.”
Now at last the news came on, and he listened with only half an ear:
he was thinking of the carrots, the spinach, and the cherries that he
still had to put away in the freezer compartment; he lit a secondcigarette after all: somewhere—was it in Ireland? there had been an
election, a landslide; someone—was it really the Federal President?
—had said something very positive about neckties; someone was
issuing a denial about something; the stock market was up; still no
trace of Idi Amin.
He didn’t finish his second cigarette and stubbed it out in a half-
empty yogurt tub; he really was dead tired and soon fell asleep,
though the word “Heidelberg” kept reverberating in his mind.
He had a frugal breakfast, just milk and bread, tidied up, took a
shower, and dressed with care. Putting on his tie he thought of the
Federal President—or had it been the Federal Chancellor? Fifteen
minutes early for his appointment, he sat on the bench outside
Kronsorgeler’s outer office, next to him a fat man in trendy, casual
clothes; he recognized him from the teacher-training courses but
didn’t know his name. The fat man whispered, “I’m a Communist,
you too?”
“No,” he said. “No, I’m not—I hope you don’t mind.”
The fat man didn’t spend long with Kronsorgeler; as he came out
he made a gesture that was probably supposed to convey “no dice.”
Then the secretary asked him to go in; she was pleasant, not exactly
young, had always been nice to him—he was surprised when she
gave him an encouraging nudge, having always regarded her as too
prim for that kind of thing.
Kronsorgeler received him with a smile. He was nice, conservative
but nice; objective; not old, in his early forties at most. A bicycle-
racing fan, he had given him a lot of encouragement, and they
began by discussing the Tour de Suisse: whether Merckx had been
bluffing so as to be underrated in the Tour de France or whether he
had really lost his form. In Kronsorgeler’s opinion, Merckx had been
bluffing; he disagreed, feeling that Merckx really was almost
finished, there were certain signs of exhaustion that couldn’t be
faked. Then came the exam: that they had wondered for a long time
whether they couldn’t give him straight As, the snag had been
philosophy. But otherwise: his excellent work at the adult educationcenter, at those evening classes, never taking part in
demonstrations ... there was just—Kronsorgeler gave a genuinely
warm smile—one tiny little blot.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “I make too many trips to Heidelberg.”
Kronsorgeler almost blushed; at any rate his embarrassment was
obvious. He was a sensitive, reserved person, almost shy; bluntness
was not in his nature.
“How do you know?”
“T’ve been hearing it from all sides. Wherever I go, whoever I talk
to. My father, Carola, her father, all I hear is: Heidelberg. Loud and
clear, and I wonder whether, if I were to dial the weather bureau or
bus information I wouldn’t hear: Heidelberg.”
For a moment it looked as though Kronsorgeler would rise and
place his hands soothingly on his shoulders. He had already risen,
then he lowered his hands again, placed them flat on his desk, and
said, “I can’t tell you how awkward this is for me. I have followed
your path, a difficult path, with much sympathy—but there’s a
report on that Chilean that isn’t very favorable. I can’t ignore that
report, I simply can’t. I have not only rules to follow but also
instructions, I’ve been given not only guidelines but also advice over
the phone. Your friend—I take it he is your friend?”
“Yes.”
“You'll have plenty of time on your hands during the next few
weeks. What are your plans?”
“Pll be training a lot—cycling again, and I'll make lots of trips to
Heidelberg.”
“By bike?”
“No, by car.”
Kronsorgeler sighed. It was obvious he was suffering, genuinely
suffering. When he shook hands he whispered, “Don’t go to
Heidelberg, that’s all I can say.” Then he smiled and said,
“Remember Eddy Merckx.”
Even as he closed the door behind him and walked through the
outer office, he was thinking of alternatives: translator, interpreter,
tour guide, Spanish correspondent for a trading company. He was
too old to become a pro, and there were already more than enoughelectricians. He had forgotten to say goodbye to the secretary, so he
turned back and waved to her.