Fear of Mirrors. Tariq Ali

mind. He had written to Helge several times about Gerhard, and she had responded warmly. To Vlady he had written nothing, and Vlady was the parent who really needed to talk about Gerhard. Karl sometimes wondered why he was punishing his father, but no satisfactory response was forthcoming.

      Eva always listened sympathetically. She was startled by the contrast between her young protégé’s emotional confusion and his political confidence. Last night, during dinner, she had both comforted and confronted him.

      ‘Everything has its limits, Karl. Everything. What a couple does for each other, what a father does for his son or the daughter for her mother. The fact is, you love your father much, much more than you ever acknowledge. Gerhard’s death has forced you to admit this to yourself. Yet you hesitate. Why? You’re hurt that your father didn’t help you when you needed him the most, but did you ever help him?’

      ‘Does Matthias ever help you?’

      Eva smiled. She often discussed her family with Karl. Even though she had separated from Andi, her film-maker husband, when she was appointed Head of Research in the German section of the Foundation, they remained friends. Matthias, her son, was a lead singer with an anarcho-Green rock band in Berlin. He was the same age as Karl. They had nothing else in common. Despite his awkwardness, Eva adored her son.

      ‘No,’ she said in reply to Karl’s question, ‘but then I don’t need him so much. Matthias is very close to his father. They have many defects in common. Their financial condition is never stable, but they manage somehow. I am never permitted to send either of them any money. They help each other. Both of them regard me as a traitor. Matthias has written a new song about a once-radical and uncontaminated mother who joined the SPD and now thinks impure thoughts. I’m told that Stefan Heym’s supporters were singing it in the streets during his campaign. Unlike you, Karl, my Matthias hates Bonn. Hence my monthly trips to Berlin. Soon you’ll be back in Berlin, too. I’ll be left all alone. Will Monika accompany you?’

      Karl blushed. How the hell did she know about Monika? The SPD headquarters were relocating to Berlin. Karl was dreading the move. Monika was only one reason, but how had Eva found out? He asked her.

      ‘There’s no mystery. I tried to reach you a number of times. Your colleague said you were on the phone to Monika. Is it serious?’

      ‘I don’t know … She’s very big in her bank, you know. They’re fearful that she might be headhunted and taken away by rivals.’

      ‘Is she on our side?’

      ‘I don’t know. She’s not interested in politics. All politicians are liars, shits and scumbags. Her words. She spent a year in San Francisco. Her grandfather was a colonel in the SS, a great favourite of Heinrich Himmler. Her mother was a Maoist and is now a primary school teacher. Her father? He died in Stammheim. Monika is certain that he could never have committed suicide. She insists he was murdered. I don’t know.’

      ‘I can see why she is removed from politics.’

      ‘Sometimes she is cruel. When we row I’m just another shitbag desperate to get into the Bundestag, tell lies and line his pockets. When I remind her that she’s making more money than any SPD member of the Bundestag, she claims her loot is not gained through deception, but by playing the market, without breaking any rules. I love her, Eva. I want her to have my children.’

      ‘And here I was, beginning to think you were just a robot and fearful that your girl might turn out to be another robot. Some mouse or the other from the apparatus on Ollenauerstrasse. You’ve really surprised me. I wonder what she sees in you? Bring her to me next week. Supper on Wednesday?’

      ‘Fine. I do not speak for Monika.’

      ‘Tell her my Matthias sings with a crazy rock band. It might make me a little less unattractive. Tell her what you want but bring her to me.’

      Karl spent the whole day preparing a briefing paper on the possibility of a new coalition. He wanted the SPD in power. He wanted Scharping as Chancellor. He wanted to stay in Bonn till 2000. By then the scars would have healed. He could even begin to see Vlady again. He made a note in his diary. Last year, at the height of his alienation from the past, he had forgotten his father’s birthday. There must be no repetition.

      He realized how much he still loved Vlady. The discovery shocked him.

       Four

      VLADIMIR MEYER was on a high. Yesterday’s Neues Deutschland had published a long piece by him on the new trends in Russian literature. It was a polemical essay, written with a keen sense of the comic, describing how ‘socialist realism’ had been replaced by ‘market realism’, and with equally disastrous results. A precious pornography had replaced the ritual references to various First Secretaries.

      This was his first published essay since the dismissal from his post at Humboldt. The results pleased him. A minor triumph. A clear signal to the enemy that he would not take defeat lying down. He would show young Karl that they were more than flecks of foam. He was going to fight back with his literary fists.

      Several old friends had rung to congratulate him. In the old days Gerhard would have been the first to call. But Gerhard was dead. He knew me well, Vlady thought. He knew exactly how to drag me out of my melancholy. His judgements were sober and reliable. Not a trace of envy in his make-up. Gerhard, soft-hearted Gerhard, had not asked much of this world, but he had ceased to resist. Fatal. Death, in the mask of the new German order, had claimed him.

      Outside it was night and a blanket of mist covered the street. Vlady had decided to stay at home. Better to be surrounded by ghosts, he thought, than to engage in the forced frivolity of the tavern. He read, paced up and down his room, read old letters, talked to himself, to Karl, to Helge, to Gerhard and then, as the clock struck two in the morning, he fell asleep.

      That was yesterday. Today it was already late when he awoke. The day was clear, but the winter shadows were already beginning to mark the landscape. In a few hours the light would vanish. He jumped out of bed, dressed quickly and walked out into the street. Vlady wandered aimlessly, and, at the end of an hour and a half, feeling sad and lonely, he found himself in a second-hand bookshop on the Ku-Damm. The sight of bookshelves cheered him a little.

      ‘What are you doing here?’

      Evelyne was standing behind him. Surprise registered on both their faces. She smiled and hugged him with real warmth. ‘The same old overcoat. The same old Vlady. Why haven’t you shaved?’

      He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. For a moment his depression disappeared. The sight of Evelyne had despatched his anxieties to the future. They walked to a tiny art gallery which dispensed the best coffee in Berlin. Evelyne behaved as if nothing had ever happened between them. She treated him as if he were just her old professor, pressed him to attend the press preview of her first feature film that evening and join the cast and crew for a celebratory dinner afterwards. Vlady looked doubtful. He was on his guard, not at all eager to be rejuvenated.

      ‘You can meet my husband and his boyfriend. Come on Vlady. It’s obvious you’re not doing anything. My movie is a comedy. Even you will laugh.’

      He accepted her invitation, thinking to himself that he could always change his mind.

      ‘Have you found a new job?’

      Vlady shook his head.

      ‘Or a new politics?’

      He shook his head again.

      ‘Stop living in the past, Vlady. Wake up. I’ll see you later.’

      After she had left, he ordered another coffee. The next hour was spent in deep contemplation. Only a few hours ago, Vlady had ignored the beautiful autumn sun as he thought of the desperately empty day that lay ahead of him.

      Could Evelyne be the remedy to his ills? Vlady shut his eyes, remembering the time they had spent together, but it was of no use. The world he did not want to see was buried deep inside