No matter how often W. thought about these gaps, nothing came to fill them. . finally he told himself he’d have to re-enact in his mind the end of his relationship with his boss. . he’d have to kick the boss out of his head — then he’d see more clearly, even at the cost of getting completely stuck on Feuerbach. — He asked himself whether he’d ever told the first lieutenant anything about the boss. . he’d passed nothing on, he’d acted properly. . or whether Feuerbach had ever sounded him out along these lines: here too the answer was no. It was strange; Feuerbach had never asked about his life in the town of A. . who his associates were there, how he had ended up in this situation in the first place. No, the back story didn’t interest the first lieutenant in the slightest (surprisingly enough, given that they had at least one mutual acquaintance, Harry Falbe, who’d dropped off the radar); no, Feuerbach asked no questions about the past. . They’re trivialists! thought W. Because how can there be a proper text that doesn’t constantly refer to its back story?
The obvious suspicion was that Feuerbach already knew it all. . and the source of this knowledge could hardly be anyone but the boss. Or the lanky guy. . the lanky ruminant, running reports back and forth between Feuerbach and the boss and pocketing a tip on top of it, probably without either one knowing about the other? — How often W. had seen crowds crowned by one lone small-headed shadow, Berlin’s petty bourgeoisie surging down the boulevards, towards the sun that blazed in the West, and in its midst a looming form: the bearer of the news, waving from afar.
The thought of the boss caused W. some chagrin; the boss had been, at least in A., something of an authority for him. Many of the boss’ remarks had sounded quite convincing to W. . now they made him shake his head. — The W. he had been at the time must have succumbed to a certain fascination; he could see how he had followed the boss defensively at first, then with increasing suspense: how the boss spoke, first in a murmur, mouth downturned, as though soliloquizing, then glancing more frequently at his listener and speaking with greater intensity, but never losing a certain elegant, breezy casualness, as though merely airing thoughts. . mere thoughts. And as his voice assumed a provocative tone, he occasionally dispensed with the canon of set terms, which must have had a liberating effect on the W. of that time. And the boss was the only one who showed interest in this W.’s ‘work as a writer’.
One time the boss had practically woken him up. Pull yourself together, old boy. You’ve got to show your face at work again tomorrow! Otherwise you’ll lose the ground beneath your feet, you’ll develop more and more dependencies. With us you can’t totally go to the dogs, don’t even try. You can’t live from collecting empty beer bottles in parked S-Bahn trains. . certainly not at the small-town station here. It’s not even enough for the last few shots of booze you need for the day. And by the way, you ought to be in a position to drink better stuff, not this rotgut; if you’ve got to ruin your liver, at least do it with the good brands. .
W. was barely capable of reacting to ambushes of this kind; it seemed he had indeed been startled from a kind of half-sleep. . he’d been trying to write poems the night before (he could barely remember how many, or what they were like); after that he’d fallen into a deep depression, skipping work, staggering into town that afternoon and through a series of pubs; in the station restaurant — his back to the dining room, staring out the window at the rail yard that sank into the fog, where hollowly rumbling freight cars were being shunted amid the workers’ muffled yells — he’d been picked up by the boss, already with a row of empty glasses in front of him, which no one cleared away in this dive; and the boss said: Are you thinking about Leipzig? It’s not far. . or have your thoughts already flown further?
By the way, if I were you I wouldn’t think of living as a freelancer, said the boss, accompanying him through town unasked. . W. had tried to shake him off but the alcohol lamed his limbs, and finally he’d even had to endure the boss thrusting a hand under his upper arm and leading him with theatrical courtesy through the pedestrian traffic. — If you do your job, the boss lectured on next to his ear, if you keep an eye out for a proper job, you’ll have plenty of time still for your work as a writer. And then you’ll be spared harassment from official quarters. . which includes me — as you know! — and you wouldn’t be completely at the mercy of these quarters. . He gave a charming grin: So watch out for us! Think of your literature. . And without missing a beat he turned earnest again: And keep behaving as usual towards any kind of recruitment attempts. . coming from our quarters. Act indifferent. Act opaque — if you give a clear yes, you’re in on the story, and if you give a clear no you’re in on it too. And really, no one needs to know the things I’m telling you, no one from our quarters either.
We’ve never let anyone starve to death. . just saying, in case you ever need support. If anything goes wrong at your factory, if they keep assigning you to the boiler room. . assuming you don’t want that any more. . or I’m just thinking of those perpetual housing issues. . or if people don’t leave you in peace, I’m thinking of these dimwits with their eternal special work details in the factories, they ought to get a grip on their factory management themselves, or send the slowpokes from the office into the production halls on Sundays. . just say the word! Or if you need a new rain gutter, or some pickets for your fence, a permit for a garage, or if you notice that you’re slowly turning impotent, we’ve got Western meds, or gold fillings, gold fillings! Just a little trip over the Oberbaumbrücke to West Berlin and you can get gold for fillings; if you have any problems, let us know. As long as you can do without support, don’t let us spoil things for you. Have a rest, and when you’ve got your strength back, keep on writing!
(Behind him the barely audible jitter of a refrigerator seemed to trickle through the concrete; the boss’ voice was slowly putting him to sleep. .)
You’ll be wondering, how come the guy’s so well informed? Where does he get his insights. . it’s all because we’re so patient. With patience you can learn everything, we’ve got time. We keep telling ourselves: One of these days a harsh winter will come, and him with his broken-down heating stove! I wouldn’t even call it insight, I’d call it my faith in literature. I’ve taken the liberty, from the stock of liberty we have, of permitting myself to read the submissions you’ve posted to publishers every now and then. I thought, I want to know who I’m dealing with here. In the long run I don’t want to be stuck dealing with a dud again, I’ve had that far too often already. . and the last attempt was the long-legged loser, where you can see it a mile off. And I didn’t even need to breach the sanctity of the post. . dear God, that sanctity of the post that doesn’t exist anywhere in the world these days. And why should it, that relic of early bourgeois sentimentality. . maybe in benighted dictatorships like South Korea they still talk about the sanctity of the post. . because the intelligence services in those countries can’t read and write anyway. No, all I needed to do was call up a few friends of mine. I’ve got some pretty good friends at a couple of publishers, and there’s a lot of things they could do for you.