She displayed “bashed-in windows,” then resumed her normal expression and confirmed what her friend Jenny with unfailing instinct had said: “The stuff we have in our heads and everywhere, all that evil has to come out…”
No, Mother had no helpful advice for me. Her white-haired ideas were shorn too close. But where else could I go? To Gabi, by any chance?
Once more I took the beaten path from Schwerin to Mölln, and, as always happened, was struck by the unpretentious beauty of the town, which, going back in history, invokes Till Eulenspiegel, but could hardly stand his pranks today. Because my ex had recently acquired a live-in boyfriend, a “dear, gentle person, easily hurt,” as she said, we met in nearby Ratzeburg and ate at the Seehof, with a view of swans and ducks, among them an indefatigable diving duck. She ordered vegetarian, and I had the Wiener schnitzel.
She led with the statement, “God knows, I don't want to hurt your feelings,” then proceeded to blame me for everything that had gone wrong with our son. Finally she said, “You know, I haven't been able to get anywhere with the boy for a long time now. He shuts himself off. He's not receptive to love and that kind of attention. Lately I've reached the conclusion that deep inside him, and that includes his innermost thoughts, everything's ruined. But when I take your mother into consideration, I get a sense of what she passed on to her own fine son and from him to Konrad. That can't be changed. By the way, on my last visit your son broke off all contact with me.”
Then she gave me to understand that she wanted to start a new life with her “warmhearted yet smart and sophisticated” partner. She deserved this “modest opportunity” after everything she had been through. “And just think, Pauclass="underline" at last I've found the strength to stop smoking.” We skipped dessert. Out of consideration for her I refrained from lighting up another cigarette. My ex insisted on paying for her own meal.
In retrospect, my attempt to get advice from Rosi, my son's devoted girlfriend, strikes me as ludicrous, but also revealing of what the future held. The very next day, which was visiting day, we met at a cafe in Neustrelitz, shortly after she had seen Konny. Her eyes were no longer red. Her hair, which before had fallen loose to her shoulders, was now pinned up in a neat bun. Her posture, previously self-abnegating, had stiffened. Even her hands, which before had moved restlessly, as though searching for something to hold on to, now rested on the table, firmly clenched. She assured me, “How you choose to conduct yourself as a father is up to you. As for me, I'll always believe in the good in Konny, no matter what. He's so strong, such a model of strength. And I'm not the only one who believes in him firmly, absolutely firmly — and not only in thoughts.”
I told her she was right about his good core. Theoretically that was my belief, too. I wanted to say more, but she said, as if to bring the conversation to a close, “It's not him but the world that's evil.” The moment had come for me to announce my visit at the juvenile detention center.
For the first time I was allowed to visit him in his cell. Apparently Konrad Pokriefke had won this onetime special privilege as a reward for good behavior and exemplary social conduct. His fellow inmates were outdoors, I heard, working in the gardens. Konny was waiting for me in the corner he called his own.
It was an old dump, this facility, but word had it that a modern replacement was in the works. On the one hand I thought I was immune to surprises by now, on the other I was afraid of my son's sudden inspirations.
As I entered and at first saw only stained walls, he was sitting in his Norwegian sweater at a table shoved against the wall, and said, without looking up, “Well, Dad?”
With a casual gesture. My son, who had caught me unawares with his “Dad,” indicated the bookshelf, where all the framed photos were gone, removed from the wall — those of David as Wolfgang, Frankfurter young and old, the two purported images of the U-boat commander Marinesko. Nothing new had taken their place. I ran a quick eye over the spines of the books on the shelf: what one might expect — a lot of history, some works on the new technologies, in their midst two volumes of Kafka.
I did not comment on the vanished photos. And he didn't seem to have expected any comment. What happened next went quickly. Konrad stood up, lifted from its wire rack in the middle of the table the model of the ship named for Wilhelm Gustloff and marked with three red dots. He leaned the ship against the rack as if it were listing, and then began, not in haste or in anger, but rather with premediated deliberateness, to smash with his bare fist his carefully pieced-together creation.
That must have hurt. After four or five blows, the side of his right fist began to bleed. He had probably cut himself on the funnel, the lifeboats, the two masts. But he kept going. When the hull refused to give way beneath his blows, he picked up the wreck in both hands, swung it to one side, raised it to eye level, and then let it fall to the floor, which was made of oiled planks. He then trampled what was left of the model Wilhelm Gustloff, the last thing being the remaining lifeboats, which had popped out of their davits.
“Satisfied now, Dad?” After that, not a word. His gaze went to the barred window, and remained fixed on it. I babbled something, I no longer recall what. Something positive. “Never give up,” or, “Let's make a fresh start together,” or some such rubbish from American movies: “I'm proud of you, son.” When I left, my son had nothing more to say.
A few days later, no, the next day, someone — the same someone in whose name I have been doing this crabwalk and making some progress — urged me to go online. He said the mouse might lead me to a suitable conclusion. Until then I'd practiced restraint: only what I needed professionally, occasional porno, that was it. Since Konny had been locked up, the ether was silent. And David was gone, of course.
I had to surf for a long time. The name of the accursed ship appeared on the screen numerous times, but nothing new, nothing final and conclusive. Then it turned out to be worse than I had feared. At the URL www.kameradschaft-konrad-pokriefke.de, a Web site introduced itself in German and English, campaigning for someone whose conduct and thinking it held up as exemplary, someone whom the hated system had for that very reason locked up. “We believe in you, we will wait for you, we will follow you…” And so on and so forth.
It doesn't end. Never will it end.