Letters From Prague (28 page)

‘And that's why they're looking for scapegoats,' said Harriet, thinking of events in Rostock and Mölln, last summer, all over the papers at home. ‘Guest workers. Asylum-seekers.'

‘Exactly.' He banged his fist on the seat rail, making her jump. ‘”Deutschland den Deutschen! Germany for the Germans! Foreigners out!'”

She shook her head. ‘The Jews have gone, and now – the asylum-seekers are the new Jews in a way, aren't they? For the young neo-Nazis. It's very disturbing.'

‘It is, but all the right conditions are there for it. The wrong conditions, I should say. And of course the asylum laws are crazy. Far too lax.'

She was startled. ‘Come off it.'

‘They are. You must realise that. Asylum for all – it was built into the constitution after the war as an act of guilt and atonement.'

‘Of course. So it should have been.'

‘But no one could have predicted then what would happen now. Do you know how many people applied for asylum here last year? Almost five hundred thousand. This year it'll probably be higher. There's a barracks-like place on an estate not far from Scheiber's new premises, apparently. Housing God knows how many Romanians. There are places like it in depressed towns all over East Germany, as you know. What's supposed to happen to all these people?'

‘I don't know,' said Harriet, suddenly on her mettle, ‘but I do know they're not supposed to be burned alive in overcrowded hostels.'

Christopher frowned. ‘Don't get on your high horse. Did I say they should be?'

‘No, but –'

‘But what? You sound like the person I met in Brussels.'

‘I am the person you met in Brussels.'

‘Yes, but –' His hand on the rail was trembling; he reached into his pocket. ‘I need a cigarette, sorry.'

Harriet found she was shaking too. She bit her lip. What had happened?

‘No,' she said quickly. ‘I'm sorry. I've already snapped Marsha's head off this morning, I don't quite know what's got into me.'

He was inhaling deeply. ‘Let's forget it.'

‘I think I'm actually very tired,' she said, suddenly aware that it was true.

‘And emotional.' He was looking at her, now, with renewed concern. ‘It's my fault. I did upset you last night.'

She looked out of the window. ‘I don't know. Anyway, I shouldn't have jumped down your throat.'

‘Not a problem. Let's talk about something else. We're almost there.'

But Harriet did not know what else to talk about, and a silence fell. Christopher went on smoking; she gazed out of the window at tower blocks stained with meandering brown rivers of damp, feeling ill at ease and confused.

It was true that she had over-reacted, going on the attack before he had made his position clear. And yet. A gut reaction was a gut reaction, and it told you who you were. And she was a political animal, who had always, despite the circumstances of Karel's return to Prague, been drawn to the left. Christopher, it seemed, stood on the right. How far to the right? How much did it matter? What was the point at which you might say: it matters a lot, and more than anything else?

An abandoned car with an open bonnet, the engine gutted and the seats ripped out, stood at the side of the road on sunken tyres. Beyond, a scuffed stretch of green and a concrete path led to a windswept concrete precinct, shadowed by monstrous tower blocks. They were in the heart of Marzahn, where for mile upon mile this grid was repeated: precinct, high-rise, dark connecting alleyways, parade of shops. Here and there young trees swayed in the wind, here and there were windowboxes; in some blocks bright murals had been painted round identical doorways, perhaps to help people locate their own apartment. But these signs of individuality were few. They were walking through a vast, featureless estate, stretching for miles towards the eastern edge of Berlin, a place built in the mid-seventies to house hundreds and thousands of workers brought up in decayed tenements who wanted hot water, a convenient, modem apartment. Already, it looked outdated – more than outdated: desolate. Who, with a choice, would choose to live here?

Litter blew in and out of the muggers'paradise of alleyways, in the path of young mothers wheeling pushchairs across bleak concrete spaces to the shops. There were broken windows on the lower floors; graffiti was scrawled everywhere. Harriet, holding Marsha's hand, felt that they were being stared at: by women carrying heavy shopping in plastic bags but more by the young men with close-cropped hair hanging around computer games arcades or walking four or five abreast across the precincts, in jeans and heavy boots. She could feel them looking her up and down, and looking at Christopher, in his creased linen jacket, carrying a good leather briefcase.

She remembered the first afternoon in the city, eyed by punks lolling on the steps of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche on the Ku'damm. She had wondered then if they came from the eastern districts and whether she would feel like a voyeur coming out here, and she realised now that she did, that she felt tense and uneasy, menaced by these young men with the cold stares. It seemed now unthinkable that she might ever have brought Marsha here alone, but she also felt that Christopher, though affording protection, drew attention and hostility.

They walked on. He was talking neutrally, over Marsha's head, about the activities of the
Stasi
, whose old headquarters were in the adjoining district of Lichtenberg, and who, it used to be rumoured, had penetrated the Marzahn estates so effectively that almost every other apartment had housed a paid informer. When the citizens'files were discovered and opened, after the wall came down, there were people who learned that their own mothers had been reporting on them.

This talk only served to increase Harriet's feelings of alienation. She was also aware that the easy banter which had been developing between her and Christopher had evaporated in the wake of their exchange on the tram, and that Marsha, beside her, had barely spoken six words together since they got off. She began to feel as if this might go on for ever: the two of them listening, as if to a stranger, looking about them, out of place and uncertain of their destination, and she said abruptly, hearing herself sound like Marsha:

‘When are we going to get there?'

He gave a little laugh. ‘Had enough?'

‘Well –' She looked down at Marsha, between them.

‘I thought you wanted to see all this.' He gestured at the towering blocks of flats, the mean-looking shops below. ‘If you find it unpleasant, think what it must feel like to live here.'

She was made uneasier by his tone; she bit back a sharp retort.

‘This is communism,' he said. ‘Socialism. Isn't socialism what you believe in?'

‘Christopher –'

‘What?'

She shook her head, not knowing what to do. She confronted him, and they had a full-scale argument, impossible with Marsha here, or she shut up. She shut up. They walked on.

‘We get another tram in a minute,' he said. ‘Out to the factory, but it's not far.'

‘Okay.' She looked down at Marsha. ‘All right?'

‘Yes, thanks,' said Marsha, looking straight ahead.

The railway line ran through Marzahn, and from the tram they could see goods trains being shunted into sidings, and workers in overalls and luminous jackets moving along the track. Gigantic cranes swung above building sites, clearings in the midst of a tenemented district which would soon be gone.

‘This is where Dieter's old factory was.' Christopher indicated a maze of half-demolished cobbled streets off to their right, and Harriet looked out at soot-grimed warehouses. Windows were barred; signboards swung in the wind. The double doors of one building stood open; boxes at the entrance were being loaded into a waiting lorry squeezed into the narrow street.

‘So people are still working there.'

‘Oh, yes. In pretty grim conditions – it's sweatshop land, really.' The tram moved on. ‘Dieter's new premises are on a development a couple of miles away. They moved there only at the beginning of the year: it's still something of a wasteland, but he's not complaining.' He had been talking neutrally, generally, since they left the estate; now he turned to her and said, ‘What about you? Are you complaining?'

She looked towards Marsha, across the aisle, her face turned to the window, and said carefully, ‘I don't really understand what happened, earlier on. I didn't mean to make a fuss, but you didn't need to –'

‘I know. Apologies. I get irked by your holier-than-thou-ness.' He smiled at her. ‘Have you always occupied the moral high ground?'

‘Always.' She returned the smile with caution. ‘You must forgive me–'

‘I think it's those on the moral high ground who have the power to forgive.'

The banter was returning; she gave an inward sigh of relief.

‘Let's call it quits.'

‘Let's. And later we must talk.'

‘Yes.' She looked away. Later, she must think. Across the aisle, Marsha's face was pressed to the glass. If she were travelling with two parents, she might be used to differences of opinion expressed between them; she might be used to a quarrel, and a reconciliation. In such circumstances, this, now, would be the moment for Harriet to reach over and reassure: it's blown over, you can come out now. They could all have an ice, or something, and forget about it. As it was –

‘Marsha?'

‘What?'

‘We're nearly there.'

‘Who cares?' It was spoken to the glass.

On the outskirts of the district, a piece of derelict land was crossed by a newly made road. Bulldozers were working on one side; on the other, a high wire fence surrounded a car park and low modern buildings beyond a barrier. A prefab cubicle stood at the gate and Christopher showed his card to the attendant, a thin young man in a peaked cap, who waved them through. They looked like a family, Harriet thought fleetingly, as they followed Christopher along the pedestrian path by the barrier. Businessman, wife and child. He raised his arm as they walked across the windy car park, indicating the outskirts of a small town a mile or so beyond the perimeter.

‘That's the place I was talking about, earlier on. Where the refugee hostel is.'

‘Have you ever been there?'

‘No, of course not. I've never had reason to.' He ushered them suddenly out of the way of an enormous lorry, moving towards the gate. There was lettering on the side: INDUSTRIELLE MATERIALIEN FÜR WEITERE WERARBEITUNG – RÜCKSTAND WIEDERVERWERTEN – NICHT SPEZIFIKATIONGERECHTES MATERIAL. The driver nodded towards Christopher, who briefly raised his hand, drawing them aside. ‘Somebody told me one of the hostel occupants scrawled up
Azilant gut
on the hostel door,' he went on, leading them across the car park as the lorry left the compound. ‘I shouldn't think many of the neighbours agree.'

‘What are you talking about?' asked Marsha.

‘Tell you later,' said Harriet, feeling that to give one of her state-of-the-world lectures to Marsha now would bore her and risk reopening the earlier argument with Christopher. ‘Are you okay?' she asked, trying to take her hand. ‘It's nice to hear you speak.'

‘Don't be silly.' Marsha kept her hand to herself.

They accompanied Christopher across the compound. Harriet was aware of the change in the air – a faint smell of something industrial she couldn't identify, which wasn't very pleasant. Then they were at the entrance of one of the first buildings, where a sign for Wilkendorf und Scheiber, and the logo, was nailed to the door.

Harriet said to Marsha as they went in: ‘You're being wonderful. I'll make it up to you.'

‘How?'

‘Your birthday. You name it, it's yours.'

‘A kitten? The little tabby?'

‘We can't take a kitten to Prague …'

Marsha moved away.

Christopher was talking to the receptionist. They were in an open area floored in pale vinyl, with a few low chairs upholstered in a beige moquette. Plastic flowers stood on a plastic table; there was a drinks machine.

Christopher returned as Harriet looked about her. ‘Okay, Dieter's expecting us. Follow me.'

He led them off to the right. Marsha looked longingly at the drinks machine.

‘On the way back,' said Harriet.

On one side of a corridor windows overlooked the car park; on the other was a long line of partitioned offices, featureless boxes adorned here and there by plants and postcards. The occupants sat at bright green computer screens surrounded by sheaves of print-out. Phones rang, keyboards tapped, a man in a cheap suit came out of a doorway carrying files and hurried past them, with a nod.

‘Dieter's in here,' said Christopher, and knocked on the glass of the next office. A dark-haired man in shirt sleeves swung round from his desk with the phone in his hand, and made a gesture: one minute. Then he saw Harriet and Marsha and made another: half a minute. Harriet smiled. He beckoned them in.

‘The last office we visited was Hugh's,' she said to Marsha, as they went through the door.

‘I know.' Marsha looked round the prefabricated piece of twelve-by-twelve in which she now found herself.

Dieter Scheiber finished his call and rose to greet them. He was a short, well-made man – dwarfed, like most people, by Christopher, with whom he was clearly on good terms. They were introduced; he greeted them in English.

‘Welcome. My apologies for detaining you. You would like some coffee –' he turned to Marsha ‘– some Coke, maybe?'

‘Please.'

‘This way, please.' He led them back to the reception area, making polite enquiries. They were enjoying Berlin? The hotel? His uncle was looking after them, he hoped. Good, good. And now –

‘Our dazzling choice.' He made a sweeping gesture at the vending machine. ‘And then I will show you the shop floor, if you are interested. I have the right expression?'