nation.
Even now, looking at Philipp, what she remembered most was her escaping mind, how every minute of sitting near him or listening to his breath, she had dreamt of Amadeus. Even after so long, Amadeus was the siren song. A trance of memory overtook Margaret, as she hunched over her bicycle on the way home, the tall man running after her, his kepi from the First World War fallen into the road, and it was not of Philipp she dreamt, but a memory of the other man, of the delirium.
She could see the arching station of Alexanderplatz. She could see herself flying to meet Amadeus there.
From the station they would go to dinner, or out to a velvet bar; the night would drip, time would slow. The first glimpses of Amadeus, walking toward her on the station platform, were as beautiful later as they were the first day. It was these meetings in public places that were somehow the core of her happiness, happiness unbearably sweet.
Amadeus was always late, and it was always clear by his wet hair and soft cheeks that he had only just showered and shaved. He wore a clean shirt, usually pale—light blue or peach, with an embroidered black insignia, newly ironed. Over the fresh shirt he would wear a dark and dusty suit. The suits were ancient and worn-in, never once washed, permeated with the scent of Gauloises Rouges. He had always thought beforehand to touch himself at the corners with the products that made such an intoxicating perfume to Margaret. He put Wella hairspray in his hair, Nivea deodorant under his arms, and some sort of aftershave on his cheeks, Margaret wasn’t sure what, but she recognized it when she smelled it infrequently on other men, and she had the same feeling of weakness and submission, just as the advertisements presumably promised.
Was it the foreign smells that had made her so in love? Or was it being in love that had made her adore the scent of French smoke and German preening?
His face—drove her mad. The high forehead and skin dark and freckled, the bright, bright eyes the color of lake water, ringed with black lashes, the red-grey cheeks—his face looked like Hölderlin’s, but attached to the body of a man ready to die. One shoulder was higher than the other and this gave him a romantic gait; his legs were long and powerful, his chin had begun to double. The impression was of a man who had an old, sad story to tell. That was the first point. Not everyone looked to Margaret as if he represented a history of love and death. Secondly, whatever it was he represented was a cryptogram, a grotto shrine dedicated to a religion she did not understand but in which she yearned to believe. When he moved toward her in a crowd, and she saw his head disappearing and reappearing as he came closer to her, it was the ultimate kind of perception—slowed and stately and musical—as if she were the groom standing at the front of a church watching the approach of his bride, his woman of destiny, eyes filling with tears. This kind of perception happens infrequently, but if at all, then usually at the cinema. If it happens outside the cinema, then it is remembered forever. There is beauty everywhere at such times, you could cry when it comes, and the world around you resonates with one whining and perfect harmonic. Nothing can compete with so beautiful a feeling, and Margaret’s addiction followed naturally.
One mild, sweet summer evening in 2000, Amadeus called Margaret and suggested that they go to the outdoor cinema in the Volkspark Friedrichshain. It was showing a Russian film. Amadeus was brusque with her. He did not mention outright that his wife was gone to visit her sister on Lake Constance, and so Margaret was uncertain. It was rare that he was willing to go to a public place with her in his own neighborhood.
“But are you sure? Can we really meet there?”
“I just told you, shnooky. I wouldn’t have suggested it if we couldn’t.”
“But I thought—”
“Don’t think.”
“Aren’t you worried that—”
“I’m worried about nothing.” He cut her off. “There have been vacations taken by certain people. There. Does that make you happy?”
“Vacations?”
“Yes.”
“Great!” Margaret said, as she understood. She began to laugh, overjoyed.
She knew how she was supposed to feel, as the other woman. She was meant to feel conniving, bitter, fiercely competitive. And sometimes, it was true, she did feel that