The History of History - By Ida Hattemer-Higgins Page 0,130

looked so nice to me though, that’s something I’ll tell you. You could peg Western clothes from at least half a kilometer away. What a fine duet they were, your mom and dad! Sarah always with high color in her cheeks, and Christoph next to her was just as tall and skeletal and morose as ever, but a fine-looking man, distinguished, a bit of the medieval knight about him. And me, I’d feel silly—that summer we had nothing but rainy weather and I’d have wet hair, water dripping from the leaves of this damn tree I’d sit under, and my glasses would fog up as soon as we went inside. (God I love contact lenses! No more of that sort of thing now.)

Anyway, they’d come up to me, smiling, I’d get up from my bench. First I’d put out my cigarette, then I’d shake Christoph’s hand. Christoph was like a brother to me, I loved him, but that summer it wasn’t very good. I could tell from the first time they came over that it wasn’t going to be any good. He didn’t even feel like a friend—there was just a ringing sound in my ears when I tried to talk to him.

Well, but I’m exaggerating. We had a good time. He’d been gone for seven years, mind you, and seven years is a long time. That was the bulk of the problem. We were only nineteen when he got out, the lucky bastard, traded out after his imprisonment. The Stasi used to make those sorts of trades. I guess you must know this. I can’t say I ever found out how he ended up in New Jersey, though, or why he went to Princeton like that. Can’t say I cared very much, although now he’s dead and I wish I knew.

Oh, but who cares. It’s Wurst to me now. Better to forget.

The thing is, we were both studying Russian history, and that commonality, if you will, was pleasant at the time. By the time we’d get into my car (my dad’s actually), we’d be filling up the silences by, you know, joshing each other about Karamzin, making jokes about Lermontov. Your father fancied himself a great hero of his time. We both sort of thought of ourselves that way. I’d say something like: “You should have stayed here, Christoph, if you wanted to study Russians. We have plenty here.” He’d nod his head and frown in a serious way, wouldn’t show any recognition that my testicles were on the chopping block. He didn’t seem to take any of it in. This was the summer after the Wolf Biermann affair, and I wasn’t doing so well.

I will say this: maybe we didn’t pay enough attention to Sarah. Sometimes I think that was why things turned out the way they did. Women will go at your throat if you don’t give them attention. The thing was, she didn’t study Russian, and so she couldn’t catch the jokes. There was no help for it. Come to think of it, her German was a floperoo as well.

You know what else? I think Christoph was embarrassed by your mother, of all things. What a pretty woman she was! And so young. I remember in particular that she always wore these gold-rimmed earrings. There is a certain kind of man who’s embarrassed by having a pretty wife. Your father was that kind. These earrings, anyway, they had cameos of Lola Montez in them. Your father had given them to her. I really liked them on her.

I don’t care what Christoph thought—as far as I was concerned, your mother was fantastic. No, she was more than fantastic. She was Christoph’s prize. What he got for breaking free. Here I was, doing stinking work, slogging through theories of materialism I didn’t believe in one wit, making compromises with the university administration, and there was even this man from the Stasi whom they were making me have these meetings with from time to time; I was giving him some info here and there. I was trying hard to get into the Party, as I mentioned, although I never did get in, damn them. Ha-ha. It’s all so funny in retrospect. And maybe it was these ridiculous meetings with your parents that got in my way. I don’t know. I’m not going to read my file. To tell the truth, Margaret, I was more cynical when I was twenty-five than at any time afterward. The wound was freshest. I