The CD player light bothered him, it was like somebody lurking behind the armchair. Every week he pulled out the blue ten-pack of classical music that Dorothea had given him — ten CDs for eighty-eight marks — and selected one. He knew the names of most of the composers, but memorizing titles and conductors and orchestras was like learning Russian vocabulary words in the old days. He couldn’t recall which CD he had heard last.
“You could’ve at least asked, before waiving our claims — as if I didn’t even exist, as if I were just air, thin air.…” She turned around, went out into the hallway, holding the glass with just her fingertips and then slamming it down on the telephone stand. With a few strides he was right behind her.
“I’m not running away,” she cried without looking around. “You blockhead, what a damn blockhead you are!”
“Doro,” he whispered. “The kids.”
“I’ve got to go!” She pulled the bathroom door behind her. He let his arms droop.
He sat down on the living-room sofa, right on the spot where a semicircular crease marked the spot he had just left.
By the time she stepped over the threshold again, he had to know how the evening was to proceed, how they would get to bed and fall asleep. Once they were in bed, the worst was over.
He followed the advice from a book he’d been reading during breaks at work: “Live in distinct units of time.” He just had to get Dorothea and himself through the evening, through the night.
He trusted mornings, the half hour in the kitchen when the kids had dressed and Dorothea came in and he poured the milk into her coffee. When he left the house with the kids, the dishes were already in the dishwasher.
He had been working on the apartment for two and a half years now, first the central heating and electricity, then sanding and sealing the floors room by room, repairing the windows. Every screw anchor, every bracket, every newly painted doorframe, gave him a greater sense of security. It was the boys, however, who gave him real security. When Dorothea would invite her university crowd over and show them the apartment, and he would appear in the living room with the two boys in his arms for a good-night kiss, and Dorothea would say: “Here they are, my three men!”—then no one had it better than he did, at least no one he knew.
Suddenly there was that melody again. It was coming from her purse. Robert knew the classical piece, knew the composer’s first and last names, even knew what name would be blinking on the display of her cell phone. He tossed the purse on the sofa, picked up a pillow, and pressed it down on the purse until the classical melody finally died away.
Robert had trained as a carpenter and switched from construction site to construction site for almost ten years. For three years he did heating installation, for eighteen months he delivered office furniture, hauling and assembling it. For two and a half years now he had been working for Magnum, a catering service. He had never been fired. The companies had all gone bankrupt. Nobody fired a man like him — he would bet you anything on that. There’s always enough work to be done. So there. And Dorothea? He’d never really counted on her, which was why he had been so nonchalant about things. She was already thirty-one when she got pregnant the first time. He had never known you could study that long. Whenever Dorothea got work for a couple of weeks, it was always without pay. She would be so happy to find work that each time he assumed it was permanent. But she didn’t really have to work. He took care of his family, he knew what was good for them. He didn’t need any advice, certainly not from these construction heinies.
The construction heinies had invited them to a renters’ meeting, kept staring at Dorothea, and had gone absolutely nuts when they heard Dorothea’s dialect. A southern German, a woman from their part of the country, evidently they hadn’t expected that, not in an apartment like theirs. But he had decided to put up a fight.
He had removed the lease from its folder only once — for thirty minutes. He had to take it to the copy shop on Wins Strasse, where he could get a discount on Dorothea’s student card. He wasn’t about to let the original get lost — or for that matter even get dog-eared — being shunted around in the mail.
He heard the toilet flush and didn’t know if he should stand up or stay put. Dorothea was well prepared now, had armed herself with complete sentences. He would only be able to repeat how in two weeks … once the plastic sheeting was down, and the scaffolding … after ninety-eight weeks, there’d be sky again, a day of celebration, of victory.… And for the first time that idea didn’t make him happy.
For the first six months nothing happened. Then came the notice about the scaffolding: Beware of Burglars! He bought mace and deposited a can in each room. And then the sheeting. Not one word had been said about sheeting. They had sweltered behind it for ten months before a single construction worker ever appeared. “We’re being pargrilled,” Dorothea had said. He told everyone, “If nobody moves out, they can’t do a damn thing.”
Once things got rolling the construction heinies rang the bell every week, and finally were at the door every day. He didn’t want any renovations. He didn’t have to go through bad experiences to know what was good for him. He had found his spot, and he wasn’t about to leave again.
“Shouldn’t we at least look at another apartment? Just look, I mean.” And he had simply asked Dorothea: “What don’t you like about our place? What does it still need? What did I forget to do? What you would have different? So there.”
The construction heinies crept through cracks just like the dust, and wet towels didn’t help either. He didn’t want the water heater removed from the bathroom, he didn’t want central hot water, he heated with coal, you could depend on coal — even in a power failure, or a war. He had rented a second cellar storage space and had briquettes delivered, as a backup. And bought candles, so many they haggled for a discount.
All these types of guys knew how to do was throw money around, and if that didn’t work, more money, and then some more. He could handle himself. They were the ones behaving badly, losing their patience and accusing him of all sorts of stuff. He didn’t care where they came from or whether the construction foreman lived in Neukölln or Hellersdorf. He knew just one thing — that much money would wreck his family, that they dared not let themselves be softened up and abandon their apartment. They had to survive the ordeal. And he would help Dorothea to be strong.
This fellow had caught on, and so slipped his business card under the door this evening. He was in his midthirties at most, even though he had so little hair left there was no part, even from up close. The skin on his head was shiny. “Anybody who toughs it out this long ain’t about to move out, right? They keep pushin’ their luck. And puttin’ me off till the bitter end.” Robert liked the guy’s Upper Lausatian accent and let him explain.
“I bought the apartment, this place, but vacant. Those guys in the West”—he meant the construction heinies—“say it’s just a matter of money, right, as to when you’ll move out. But I don’t believe that anymore. I want my money back, yeah, want out from under the contract, see? I’ve waited two years. They’ll keep on puttin’ me off to the bitter end.”
Finally somebody had caught on. They were never going to move out, not even for a hundred and eighty thousand. Why shouldn’t Robert sign? The construction heinies would have it in writing, all nice and official, so to speak.