In this bank, too, there was a gate on the side, but I didn’t see any cars driving in or out, even though I lingered all day, frozen to the bone, in various stores, at an Eduscho café, and in doorways. I didn’t see any young men in dark suits, either. The abundant bank clientele was made up of local people: modest savers, some in anoraks and gray loafers of the kind Karl-Heinz Ulbrich wore, some in bright and shiny tracksuits, some in pants and jackets that looked as if the blue of the East German Youth Movement shirts were vying for a second career in West European fashion.
The only remaining sign of East Germany was the people’s clothes. The stores belonged to the same chains as those in Mannheim and Heidelberg, Viernheim and Schwetzingen. I looked into side streets and saw more streets that had just been dug up, more houses that were being renovated, sometimes also a house in a state of utter ruin. On the other hand, there were fewer of the architectural sins of the sixties and seventies. The housing projects I had seen as the train headed toward the station were no worse than those in Waldhof or Boxberg. Everything was coming together.
It rained in the afternoon. My nose was running and I felt feverish, so I got myself some medicine from a drugstore that turned my mucus membranes to parchment. But the people were different here: it wasn’t only that they were wearing different, shabbier clothes. They also had different, wearier faces. They were slower, more hesitant and careful. There was none of that familiar cheeriness and resolve in their expressions and gestures. They reminded me of the old days. I saw my reflection in a storefront, shabby in my old, wet raincoat, my face tired, and any exertion seemed a strain. Was I more suited to the East than the West?
In the afternoon I managed to get hold of Georg in Strasbourg from a telephone booth outside the Sorbian Cooperative Bank. He had found a name: Paul Laban. The L was right, the dates were right, and as a professor at the University of Strasbourg and a renowned legal expert, Laban was a rich man. Furthermore, he had been offered a post at the University of Heidelberg at the very time at which the silent partner had requested information concerning a house or apartment in Heidelberg.
“Are there any heirs?”
“He didn’t have any children. I haven’t found out what became of his sister’s son and daughter, but I will.”
The bank closed at four. At five the employees left. At six the manager left, too. I followed her to the streetcar. It was empty and the two of us sat alone-she in the second row, and I behind her in the seventh. After a few stops she got up, and on her way out she stopped next to me and said, “You might as well come along.”
20 Like those men of ours
We walked in the rain through a residential area with old villas. Some of the houses had been restored to their former splendor. Plaques bore the names of the companies, law firms, and tax consultants that now occupied them. But in other villas the stucco was crumbling, the brickwork was exposed, windows and doors were rotting, and here and there a balcony or two were missing. Frau Soboda walked in silence, and I walked in silence beside her. I followed her into one of the shabby houses. The third floor had been divided into apartments. Frau Soboda unlocked the door to one and showed me into her living room.
“It’s still warm,” she said, pointing to a large green tiled stove. “The fire’s just died down a bit. But it’ll be warmer in here in a minute.” She put in some more coals and closed the fire hatch.
“I’m-”
“I know, you’re with the police.”
“How-”
“You look just like those men of ours used to. I mean the men from the Firm. The Stasi. The way you came into the bank and looked around. The way you didn’t let the bank out of your sight all day. So one wouldn’t notice right away, but if one did it didn’t matter, as the game was up, anyway.” She eyed me. “You are from the West, and are older than those men of ours used to be. And yet…”
We were still standing. “May I hang up my coat outside? I don’t want to get your rug wet.”
She laughed. “Give it to me. That’s something those former men of ours wouldn’t have asked.” When she returned she offered me a chair, and when we were seated she said: “But I’m glad it’s all over.”
I waited, but she was lost in thought. “Would you like to start from the beginning?” I asked.
She nodded. “I didn’t notice anything for a long time. I think that’s why they let me run the bank. I learned my trade in the old East German days. I had no idea about the way banking is done in the West, and had to work my way into it slowly, and with difficulty.” She patted down the cover on the little table that stood between her chair and mine. “I really thought this was the chance of a lifetime. Many of the other East German savings banks were shut down and many of my colleagues were let go, and those who were allowed to stay had to go stand at the back of the line. As for me, I went from being bank teller to bank manager. For a while I was worried that the only reason was that they wanted an old employee of the bank to fire everyone else, so that none of you guys would have to get your fingers dirty. I need not tell you that this was how things were done more often than not. And yet nobody at our Sorbian bank got fired. So I had pulled the winning ticket, and I worked my fingers to the bone, until… until… my marriage fell apart.” She shook her head. “Not that it was much of a marriage. It would have fallen apart anyway. But perhaps it wouldn’t have happened a year ago, when I was studying and reading like a maniac, when I could see that I was making it, that everything I’d read was coming together, everything I’d learned, seen, and done right. Even though it was mostly out of sheer luck. Now I’m sure I could easily run any bank of similar size in West Germany.” She looked at me with pride. “But I wouldn’t be given such a bank, especially not now.”
“If I had a bank, you’d be its manager,” I told her, to apologize for having thought when I first saw her that she looked like a tractor driver.
“But you don’t.” She smiled. While she was talking I noticed the cleverness in her tough face. Now I also saw a touch of charm.
“When did you notice what was going on?”
“About six months ago. At first I noticed only that something was wrong. It took me a while to realize what it was. I’d have been glad to go straight to the police, but the lawyer I cautiously consulted wasn’t sure if I was actually allowed to go to the authorities. By all accounts, industrial law provides for the firing of a whistle-blower, even if an employer has done something he ought not to have done and the employee was right to blow the whistle. It wasn’t only losing my job that I was frightened of. You see”-her eyes challenged me-“I have a knack for landing on my feet. But what about my colleagues at the bank? There are many of us, perhaps too many, and I don’t think the bank will stay above water if everything comes to light.”
The longer she talked the more I liked her. In the old days, I used to think that men were the realists and women the romantics. Nowadays I know it’s the other way around, and that pragmatic men and romantic women were just pretending, to themselves and to others. I also know that a pragmatic woman with a heart, and a romantic man with common sense, is a rare and wonderful thing. Vera Soboda was just such a woman.
“How did you find all this out?”