NORMAN MANEA
199
city, surrounded by the penal colony that called itself the German
Democratic Republic, my memory struggled against internal and exter–
nal walls. It was a year of worry, exultation, and anguish-the begin–
ning of a difficult rebirth out of the ashes.
Every morning the thick crown of the tree in front of my window
reminded me of the passing time and the indifference of nature.
I
looked
to
the sky, then to the clock, waiting for my loyal friend, the mailman.
The gentle command
"Schreib mal weider!"
("Write again!") written on
the yellow car was of particular meaning precisely because my own
writing was faltering.
As a symbol not for the capital Berlin, but rather for the hope of a
promising locus, I would choose my friend's plain mailbag. Such a gift
is to be found on every meridian of expelled dreamers.
EK:
Berlin and West Germany naturally were infinitely far removed
from the Nazi Reich. The intellectual scene was more leftist, the coun–
try, compared
to
today, more generous in its policies concerning
refugees and exi les.
NM: There were many oddities.
I
recall one experience in particular.
One Sunday evening in June the editor of
Stern
magazine introduced to
a select Jewish audience his latest book-a scandal-laden and successful
revelation of his father, General Franck, the former Nazi governor of the
Polish "protectorate." My wife Cella and
I
were among the guests. The
speaker's careless bohemian appearance was more a declaration of his
political principles, namely those of the Left, than an expression of his
financial situation. The audience, comprised of Holocaust survivors
who had established themselves in Germany after the war, wore elegant
clothing and were prosperous-to judge by the jewels of the extremely
well-dressed ladies.
The author read several moving passages: how as a small child he had
accompanied his father on an inspection of the Warsaw Ghetto; how he
had masturbated, full of triumph, when the news came of his father's
execution by the Allies; how by subtle, bogus financial transactions,
underground organizations got the brood of the former Nazi elite into
the best English schools. Questions and discussion followed. The audi–
ence was visibly indignant over the practically pornographic candor of
Illany of the book's details and treated Franck's son with skepticism.
They were the last ones ready to profit from the repulsive betrayal of a
father-even such a father.
