For my beloved Gabi
This is fiction, no confession.
Please don't start digging.
René Antoine Fayette
© 2014 René Antoine Fayette
Cover, Illustrations: René Antoine Fayette
Translation: Sabine Warning
Publisher: tredition, Hamburg,
ISBN
| Paperback | 978-3-7323-8129-6 |
| Hardcover | 978-3-7323-8130-2 |
| eBook | 978-3-7323-8131-9 |
All rights reserved
Pistachio groves again, an endless green and brown plain with leafless trees - still leafless at this time of year -, softly ascending toward Mount Etna. These are supposed to be pistachio trees? These are dead trees, I am thinking. “Please alight!”, Giuseppe, our tour guide, shouts into the microphone. There is pistachio ice cream on sale in Bronte, a sleepy backwater place west of Mount Etna. Even the Sicilian bus driver treats himself to an ice cream. Once again, our tour guide vanishes in the restroom of the restaurant immediately. This has been going on for 3 days, probably stomach flu or something like that, old fish, rotten mussels, who knows? Even though he is Sicilian, he seems to have problems with the weather in April, or the food, or whatever.
Back in the days, I would have become restless. 'Is he making a phone call in the toilet? Is he forwarding the latest position report? Does he have to report to the State Office of Criminal Investigations? Or to the Federal Criminal Police Office? Does the mafia work by proxy of the Federal Public Prosecutor General now? Since when have they been in on this, since when have they had me on their radar?' But I remain calm, those times are over. Julius-Reisen, the tour operator, is totally harmless, they cannot know or assume anything. Right from the start of this plane and coach trip, nobody has taken interest in me. Actually, nobody has taken interest in me for many years. For I had dropped out, disappeared, escaped death. Like these pistachio trees that pretend to be dead but then somehow grow leaves again and bear fruit. They seem to be unbreakable.
We are accommodated in a super hotel, made for the tourists that are shipped from Catania airport right to the gates of Taormina in bus containers. We are the herd of cattle, easy to handle, lusting for exclusive vacations at cheap prices, we are low-maintenance, standardized. It is the norm vacation for the lower middle class. I am a part of it, at least I have been for a few days. Away from the cold dark house that has become increasingly musty during the winter months, toward the sun, the beach, the beguiling sea breeze, the scent of oranges and giant lemons. The first flowers next to the coach station at Catania airport have enchanted me, so did the foreign smells, scents and sounds. The feeling of freedom and exoticism has arisen and not vanished, not even when there were minor problems with the hot water supply at the hotel.
Actually, I had wanted to go to Sicily since my childhood days but every year, my parents only got as far as Cattolica, then they probably ran out of gas, money or courage. I never managed to find that out for they had left my life early. Just like that, overnight, on the highway. Aquaplaning near Frankfurt. In 1977, I became a complete orphan and sole heir of almost nothing. My father was a railway official, my mother a housewife, my sister had died at the age of five already under strange circumstances. She was said to have had an accident at kindergarten. I had never met my little sister. She died before I was born but there was no tombstone, no grave decorated with toys, no bills from the undertaker, no pictures. Nothing but vague hints from my childhood. Of course there were relatives but they never answered my questions. At one point in time, you just give up and reality needs to be bent and cemented.
Sicily is worth a trip, at least in April. Beautiful nature, nice people, a very interesting, heavy but tasty red wine and the awesome cultural monuments of past times. Age-old sites telling me about Sicels, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Ostrogoths. Even the Normans had once been on Sicily and, of course, the Arabs and last but not least the Germans in 1943. Was the SS not stationed in Taormina at that time? Nowadays, there are no more traces of war damage, everything was reconstructed, modernized and updated. When it comes to reconstruction, the Sicilians are just as thorough as the Germans; forget the past, suppress it, look to the future and overcome your own personal abyss, just like the young godfather in the movie of the same name. I am deeply impressed. After a few days only, my initially critical attitude toward the Sicilians has changed. They had never had it easy, surrounded by greedy neighbors, conquerors, looters, exploiters.
Operation Husky started on 10 July 1943 and was the biggest amphibian operation of the Allies in World War II, concerning the landing of troops and building the frontline. It even exceeds the landing of the Allies in Normandy, which only took place one year later. In public, however, only the landing in Normandy is heroically propagated while Operation Husky in Sicily is discreetly kept quiet, even today. Because of this American General Patton.
At that time, the English General Montgomery doggedly fought his way south along the east coast millimeter by millimeter with his 8th British Army, suffering most severe losses against the Italian and German military complex, while the ingenious General Patton and his 7th army simply went ashore left of the 8th army. He made his way around the western part of the island surprisingly easy and fast, in a typical American way, covering more than three times the distance than Montgomery, freeing and touring the Sicilian capital Palermo while he was at it. He reached the streets of Messina much too fast for Montgomery and almost broke apart the still young British-American Alliance - the sparks flew between London and Washington because of General Patton's outrageousness. He was a man of rare talent, one of the strangest generals the Americans had in World War II, believing in reincarnation, the old Egyptian mysteries, feeling the longing for repetition in his soul. Off the frontlines, he spent a lot of time visiting old places of worship in North Africa and he urged his soldiers on so relentlessly like in the old days when his immortal soul still was in the service of some pharao. That kind of ruthlessness has already inspired me at an early age, regardless if it was General Patton or Mao, Hitler or Stalin, Lenin or Trotzki, Castro or Nixon. They had all been devoted ruthless people who made history, no matter if it was unsuccessful or successful history. Mostly, however, it was unsuccessful. Thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of people died a useless death because they respected the ruthless.
This morning, Giuseppe also was relentless with our traveling party. First, a little walk on the steep grassy hills with fresh colorful flowers and new April green. We were breathless, not only because of the view but also because of the steep climb. Then, we made our way back to the narrow alley ways of Taormina on extremely steep tarmaced lanes and endless stony stairs. My feet hurt, my mouth was dry with thirst. We had been up there for four hours, the stinging sun had already reached my brain cells. What will it be like here in the summer? Free at last, three hours at our own disposal, Giuseppe had announced, before the coach will bring us back to the hotel, to the dinner buffet and the tasty red wine. We disperse in all directions looking for toilets, shade, drinks and nice shops.
I am interested in how Sicilians really live behind the facades, in the outskirts. All that mafia crap is only a commercial gag of the movie industry anyway. 5,000 mafiosi against 5 million Sicilians, a ratio that is somehow familiar to me. It was the same with us, although we definitely were no commercial gag, rather an attempt to preach the truth, to change the world, or at least Germany. Meanwhile, that is a useless endeavor, maybe ideologically justified by the finance catastrophe of 2008. Who gives a damn about communism today anyway, after all, it was responsible for countless millions of dead people in the Gulags, for starved and tortured people the youth of today does not know about or does not want to know about. The Stasi1 scheming that has been uncovered since the German reunification has meanwhile made me give up the last glimmer of hope for more humanity, justice and freedom of the spirit. Well, I preferred to bury all that or rather block it in my mind like a Stasi informant. But it is not locked away for good, there is still a tiny rest of rebelliousness left in my mind. After all, considering the given social conditions, our fight, our armed fight, our city guerilla war was the armed phase of the class struggle, the military aspect of a revolutionary theory, the social potential of violence, brought into the metropolises to break the dominance of the ruling classes, the privileged exploiters, in order to lead the proletariat to the armed seizure of power here and in the Trikont. That was what Gudrun and Ulrike had always said, written and published. We had taken this up but our tone had changed after the disastrous elimination of 1977. We no longer used Ulrike's squiggly, highly intellectual language of revolution, this rococo language the German revolutionary left-wing student was famous for. Gitte's words were short and to the point, ice cold and brutal, they were Andreas' schooling.
It was a huge mistake of history that revolution had won ahead of time in Russia of all countries, in 1917. After all, the Bavarians had been very close also in 1918 and 1919. What would have been different in Bavaria if the communists had won against the Prussian free corps, against this Bavarian emergency government in Bamberg?
The Bavarians are secret anarchists, totally socialist, humane, although they disguise themselves as conservative sometimes, they are a conniving part of the German society. It hurts my heart to remember how Andreas was worshipped in Bavaria, after all, he came from Munich. He was an accepted troublemaker who mainly stole high-class Porsches and BMWs but in the end, he was just another prisoner, one of the many forgotten condemned people the Bavarians quickly forget about and ostracize. Well, after all, Andi had been stupid enough to have got caught.
From a political point of view, the Bavarians are very oblivious. They love those who don't get caught so fast or don't get caught at all, like Montgelas, Kneissl, Strauss and, temporarily, also Andreas. They have always had a certain amount of defiance toward the establishment and a certain amount of admiration for those challenging the establishment as long as they had somewhere to hide. That's why they gladly helped the RAF2 to hide in places like the Angermühle in Egling. But as soon as those they were helping got caught, died or were imprisoned, they lose their interest and their mood turns rather to the contrary. The Baader-Meinhof-car3 became a normal BMW again. Hardly anybody knows what those letters really stand for. Many people like to drive one but hardly anybody knows about the past, when the Bayerische Motoren Werke built engines for airplanes during the war, or tin pots and cute Isettas after the war.
Taormina is really green and lively in April and the red wine is tasty and intoxicating again. I can already feel the wine a little. We have three hours to spend in the town. That's how Giuseppe wants it and he is backed up by Julius-Reisen. We don't stand a chance, that's what leisure time means on package tours. After a glass of red wine and a cup of espresso on the terrace of a restaurant in the Via Teatro Greco, I wander the cobblestone lanes aimlessly, followed by noisy mopeds and purring rich men's cars until I have to stop at a fenced tennis court for re-orientation. Being an internet user, of course I had brought a few print-outs from Maps so I would find my way in Italy, Sicily and Taormina. Make-believe security, if someone asked me where North is, I would probably point to the South. A little while ago, a discounter had a state-of-the-art cell phone with internet flat rate and navigation as a special offer, but once again, I had been to indecisive.
Somehow, I am attracted by the garden of this hotel, it must be the garden of a hotel, right in the center of the town. I simply pretend being guest of this hotel and just look around. It is a beautiful garden, exotic, mystical, almost confusing. After fifty meters I realize, that it is not the garden of a hotel at all. This is something different, with an amazing view down to the coast. Strange buildings come into my view. That must be some kind of a kids' playground, the buildings remind me of temples in Bali. Passing trees, bushes and flowers in full bloom, I come across a metal sculpture of a couple, sitting on a stone bench, wearing angels' wings. A beautiful sculpture I would not have expected here but rather in playful Austria, a country that is very open-minded to modern art. I am in a park that is more beautiful than in other cities or towns. A city park, not a hotel garden! I did not know, that Sicilian towns could afford the luxury of a park. My mind is struck by a lightning. Something here is totally wrong. A physical shock is initiated, quietly, while passing each other, rather, while floating past each other. There is no vibration, no announcement. This is not real, or is it?
This nose, this face, these eyes like shimmering gemstones. Extraterrestrial, strange, yet familiar, but why? She is just another tourist! The T-shirt, why is it red? The moments pass in split seconds, irretrievable, inevitable. It is her. She is looking at me, solidified like the metal sculptures. She is looking at me, undetermined at first, then calculating, thinking. It is useless to run away, it really is her. She turns around and runs away, leaving me full of doubt. Yes, it was her. Where did she go? She should actually be dead, entombed, emigrated or somehow dissolved, disappeared, dematerialized, burned to ashes, lifeless. She had slipped away from me in the full swing of our lives and I had tried my best to forget about her. Now, here she is again, opening old wounds I thought had healed long time. Where has this woman gone to now? I had taken too long to digest these impressions, could not act as fast as her and now she has disappeared in the green and brown of the scenery. I briskly walk further into the city park, to the left, to the right, back to the exit and once again into the park, reaching the hungry ducks, growing more and more nervous, back to the enchanted Bali-type buildings, to the canon at the war memorial. Nothing. Gone, invisible. I am always late, she has disappeared again, only a volatile phenomenon, maybe a mistake or the beginning of Alzheimer's or so.
Slowly, I feel the heat of the sun on my head. It's useless to keep searching. The city park is too big, too confusing. I lean against the handrail watching the breaking of the waves way down below me. Taormina Station is at least 150 m down, a steep path, it is situated directly at the beach. There are discolorations in the sea water where the waste water is obviously led into the sea. Behind me, there is the old canon and a terrible war memorial for the 4,325 poor fallen soldiers. Where could she be? Does she live here on Sicily? Actually, this is a good place to rest for aging legals. She probably bought an old farm, pretends to be ecological and spiritual, lives offside as an addlebrained doctor, avoided by the locals for being a crazy witch. On the other hand, she looked more like a tourist, so she must be passing through. Or maybe opening the second bottle of red wine yesterday must have been too much for my aged, wasted brain cells. For the brain cells that are still left but quietly keep diminishing daily, or rather, nightly, thanks to age, alcohol and loneliness.
“Be quiet and just listen to me, asshole.“ This voice, this gentle voice that can quickly get a piercing tone when it is not listened to. This unbearable voice that can make your blood boil. First, my blood is freezing inside my veins, the hair on my arms are standing upright, my mind is first being switched off, then back on again. I am tightening my grip on the handrail as if something frightful was about to push me down the steep slope full of cacti, to the sea. She must have sneaked up to me, she has never stopped watching me. She is really standing behind me. In the corners of my eyes, I can see the black Walther P99 with the 9 mm caliber in her right hand. She wants to shoot me! I think, I'm going insane!
“Hello Cornelia!”, I laboriously manage to squeeze out.
“Shut up! Over to the bench, sit down and just listen!”
I obey, she sits next to me in a safety distance, carefully covering her hand holding the gun with her brown handbag as a large Sicilian family is approaching. My saviors! She will have to postpone shooting me.
“Forget you ever met me here or I will blow your lights out at the next opportunity!”
Now I should just get up and leave, join the family, exchange a few trivial friendly remarks about the beautiful plants, the lush cat thorn, the wonderful weather, the noisy toddlers. Unfortunately, I hardly speak Italian and therefore, I just keep sitting on the bench, tense, still, discouraged, helpless, almost numb.
“What do you want?”, I actually wanted to say but she was faster.
“Wolfi is dead because of you and Biggi was in jail for 18 years! You shitfaced traitor!” Although she has aged and became more wrinkly, she still is beautiful. Especially her eyes sometimes shine as if she was an 11-year old girl, so childlike, so innocent, so honest.
“Listen, Cornelia, that was totally...”
“Why did you betray us?” Her hair used to be black, now it is a mixture of black and white, generally known as gray, but still she is wearing her obligatory ponytail.
“I have not betrayed anybody, I just have been damn lucky.”
“Bad Kleinen ruined us, just because of your shitty view of discipline. Nothing happened, you were just gone, disappeared, and the cops had almost discovered my practice. I'm telling you, if they lock me up, I will kill you before or when I get out of jail again, no matter how old we will be then. Anyway, what makes you think I would be stupid enough to run away from you? I almost wanted to shoot you before when you were looking for me so stupidly between the bushes.” She was as always, as usual, at full speed, not to be stopped until she came across the next verbal serpentine. Her pixyish eyes met mine. Somehow, she had always been one of us. A little off the rocker, not fully attentive, always a little off, playful and snappy, just different.
“Cornelia, please calm down. All this is so old, so many years have gone by and without Wolfi and Biggi, I had no more contact to the commandership, to the other comrades, everything was busted, the apartments 'burned', the cars 'burned', everything had collapsed all of a sudden.”
“Why didn't you just call me, you damn shitface? Or anybody else? We were so worried, you asshole!”
She was the least person I would have considered calling for, she was highly important for us. In the beginning of the inauguration it had been drummed into our heads: 'Keep your hands off Cornelia! Only contact her for urgent medical problems, if you need medication or if a surgery is required. But otherwise, leave her alone!' “I had nothing left, everything was 'burned' and what was left, I literally burned and flushed the ashes down the toilet. Your number too. All numbers, all notes, just everything! You dig?”
“You have always been a fucking traitor. Gitte and me ostracized you from jail, you know that? They should have declared open season on you. Without you, nothing would have crumbled to pieces. You cooperated with this motherfucking informer. You are a dirty defector. Treason all the way. You just trampled on the comrades' feelings like a dirty filthy pig.” Apparently, she has overcome menopause well, she still is enchanting, despite her gray hair and the wrinkles in her face. Her hands have shriveled and become skinny, just skin and bones. She must be 56 or 57 now, I am not sure. But there still is no ring on her finger, so she has not gotten married. But maybe she has always been bisexual or lesbian. Nobody had ever said something about a steady partner, male or female, anyway. She seemed to live like a nun. Lonely. Dedicated to revolution and combat.
“Please listen! Nothing about this Bad Kleinen hassle is true, nothing you have ever heard or read about. For only Wolfi, Biggi and me were there and everything else you know about it, you know from the papers or from lawyers. But I experienced it myself. It was horrible! Please believe me!”
“There had been many ways of contacting the comrades again but you just didn't. We even did research via Red Aid but you were just gone and now you are strolling around as a tourist, like some rich capitalist pig, loping about this garden of English magic with a spare tire belly, full to the brim with money, power and fatty food. You can't pretend with me, you look terrible. Betrayal is written all over you. They have filled you up with money, given you a new identity and sucked every little detail you knew about us out of you.”
“Dear Cornelia, believe me, I have never betrayed anybody or anything. It was just vital for me to disappear after they had caught Biggi. And why English? What do you mean by that?”
“Well, this park is English, I read it somewhere, donated by some English man or woman. Well, it doesn't matter now, does it? Don't give me that nonsense! You haven't even been on the search radar. The Federal Prosecutor General has never heard about you. Besides, Biggi has never cooperated with any of them. She has always kept her mouth shut while she was locked up. Damn, don't you get it, we were looking for you. We wanted to be sure you are still free. But after a few weeks, all comrades definitely thought they must have caught you, too, but wouldn't give us or the press any information because they wanted to change you into a crown witness and wanted to make us believe we were safe! Anyway, you were gone and so were our ground depots, dissolved, just non-existent, got it?”
“Cornelia, listen, nobody has ever caught me up to today. I got away unrecognized. Maybe they have never looked for me. They have never dug the whole situation, just believe me!”
Her red T-shirt bulges wonderfully, apparently, she is wearing no bra. At her age! An age some women get sagging breasts. She obviously is not one of them. Her breasts are really sharp and firm but not too big.
“Is something wrong with my T-shirt or why are you staring at me so stupidly? Why did Wolfi had to die, tell me?”
“Just forget about it, let poor Wolfi rest in peace. He knew what he was doing and he knew that our mission could be dangerous and lethal. Wolfi probably just wanted to escape after they had overpowered him right in the station underpass. Wolfi was faster, immediately checked the situation and made a bolt. But he was too fast and ran up the stairs to the station too unsuspectingly. Those young cops were also too fast and unsuspecting and ran after him stupidly. The other cops outside fired at everybody coming up the stairs from the station windows and parked wagons with their sniper guns. And so it happened quickly, one of the GSG94 cops was shot to death by some of his fellow snipers. Afterward, they executed Wolfi, who was seriously wounded. That's an old tradition: one of us for each one of their fallen comrades. You probably still remember how they unscrupulously liquidized our best people on entering the busted illegal apartments, supposedly in self-defense. Some of them were shot in the back!”
“Who is supposed to believe this bullshit? Fact is, you were there and simply didn't do anything. You were arrested and just sang. Betrayed us, our cause, the contexts. The entire resistance got paralyzed. You are a damn idiot, they turned you! Beat your brain to pulp and made you a fascist instrument who keeps babbling until it gets embarrassing.”
“You don't know a thing about the whole mission! They just killed him despite some witnesses from the kiosk! They had backup up to the Federal Chancellor!”
“Don't give me that press crap! And where did the informant go to?”
“He also got arrested so his cover wasn't blown. You know the rest from the press. This pig got a new identity but not me. Please believe me, Cornelia. Please look. Here is my ID-card, I still have the same name!”
Stunned, she is staring at my ID-card and turns it around: “So you don't live in Düsseldorf anymore but in Grassau. Where in the world is that?”
“Near Lake Chiem. In Bavaria.” Awkwardly, I put the ID-card back into my wallet.
The silence is unbearable. Despite the trees, I am getting hot, not only my head is glowing but my belly is rumbling, too. Somehow I need to get out of this magic city park. Everywhere I turn, I see ghosts talking idly to me with a loaded pistol hidden underneath a handbag.
One last attempt to soothe the ghosts: “Cornelia, it was not like you think. I just was lucky, otherwise...”
“Shut up, traitor! In the name of Biggi and Gitte, I will execute you. You only brought us disgrace, the circumstances are self-explanatory. The front process has developed in the opposite direction. Now, we need to protect what's still going on. You no longer belong to us. Since 1993, you have been an outcast, a forgotten one, a traitor of the cause. Every comrade spits on your name for you have withdrawn from the fight, sneaked out of your responsibility toward other comrades. You sabotaged and betrayed, gave up the fight. You gave us away to the dirty cops and the dirty Federal Prosecutor General.”
“You only say the same revolutionary bullshit Gudrun and Ulrike would have said if they were still alive. I beg you, just listen to my story. My life, my dreams were shattered because of one tiny mistake.”
“What tiny mistake?”, she took the bait, one tiny chance for me.
“I needed to take a piss urgently and left my site of observation at the parking lot to run over to the billiard café where Wolfi and Biggi have already met the informant. Then I saw the young men hanging out at the station, at the stairs of the underpass. They were army-type guys with short hair and lots of muscles. But somehow, they were too quiet, too concentrated and so incredibly disciplined, no beer bottles anywhere near them. The time schedule would have fit the usual departure times for army members but they didn't even carry any baggage or fresh laundry washed by mommy. Of course, I was confronted with a huge problem now. At that time, there were no modern cell phones because otherwise, one text message to Wolfi would have been enough. So I somehow needed to reach him or Biggi without these GSG9 guys noticing it. Of course this guy was not so trustworthy anymore then but we did not know he was an informant yet. But it was impossible to manage.”
“Why? You simply could have gone into the billiard café and give them a hint?”
“Do you really think I would have gone to the comrades when the GSG9 was already waiting, telling them, 'I am one of them, please aim at me too. I am the warner, I discovered the plot, I am the one who blows everything, the one to start the fight?' No thanks, I just wanted to save my own skin. Nothing could be done anymore. They came to Bad Kleinen with almost 100 people, GSG9, mobile task force, snipers all over the station, in parked wagons, storm troops at all the exits, paramedics on standby. Everything was well prepared. They even inspected my old Opel Kadett. They glanced curiously into my car as if they knew that we always have a backup insurance on hand.”
There is a long silence. She has wonderful lips. And her eyes, always her eyes. Those eye lashes, this unspoilt exposure of grace and youthfulness, it just got more and more erotic. She is a wonderous woman, a goddess in white, just like in the trashy novels of the old days.
“Your Opel Kadett?”
“Yeah sure. The trick with the doublet cars with the counterfeit license plates had hardly worked anymore as they had known about it for years. All in vain. During a vehicle inspection, only genuine car documents could help us, with real, genuine cars. And plus, I was not illegal like the others.”
“I don't believe a word you say. You have changed sides long time. Survival at all costs, included in the wanted persons search, spiritual member of their fascist philosophy, the cause of everything, the untraceable one, the disappeared screwball, the renegade asshole who was just what we needed! But it had to come to this sooner or later!”
“It was just like I say. There was no way out for the others anymore. So I did not go to the toilet in the billiard café but turned around. I just could not warn them anymore. Please believe me, I just could not find a solution. I simply was scared shitless that they would identify me as a member. So I went back to the parking lot. Meanwhile, some of them had also gathered there, unsuspiciously between the cars. I could not take a piss there, either, so I kept going on and on, as far away as possible, to some bushes at Gallentiner Chaussee. When I returned to the station some time later, shots were fired. Then there were screams, flashing blue lights from all directions, police cars, helicopters. Everything was in turmoil, everyone was running around. I had waited a little while, played the curious onlooker, then I got into my car and just drove off. There was no way back anymore, no if and when. They were lost, burned, their covers blown by this informant who must have worked on this for months, dazing then, preparing them for death. Wolfi had always been very careful with supporting comrades, almost fussy and overcareful but here, he got totally screwed and Biggi, too.”
“So why did you keep your silence, why did you disappear? Everybody thought they had killed you too or at least locked you up!”
“I was fed up with everything. I never wanted to experience something like that again. These investigations, the searches, the shots, the screams. I thought they had discovered me too, had written down my license plate number, analyzed my life, unrolled and scrutinized my entire past. I was not an illegal but had long since been active in the fight of the Third Line, right behind the hard core commandership, just another asshole like you, having kindled all that madness, pressing it forward and favoring it. At some point, your cover is blown, you have to go into the illegal underground and end up on a rail track as a perforated lump of meat. I never wanted to experience such a fucked up situation again. Everything just disgusted me!”
“Why Biggi?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did she survive the disaster? Why did she not simply pull out her gun and fight until death like all of us would have done?”
“I really don't know. The three of them had been attacked in the underpass below the rail tracks and I didn't see a thing, I wasn't with them. I only saw Wolfi running upstairs, between rail tracks 3 and 4, there was loud gunfire, he kept shooting downward behind the handrail, apparently until the magazine was empty and the whole troop came running after him, more than ten guys, everybody firing away aimlessly and randomly. There were so many shots within just a few minutes, incredibly many shots. I did not pick up on anything more, neither his execution nor Biggi's arrest or anything else. I just ducked behind the parked cars like all the other passers-by, so as not to get a ricochet bullet like this one train engineer woman. I later read in a report that Wolfi fired ten or eleven times and allegedly hit two cops six times, a hit rate of more than 50%, while the cops fired 33 times and only hit Wolfi five times.”
“Yeah, I also know this weak-minded report, that is totally wrong! Just exaggerated propaganda to publicly disqualify us as killers! I don't believe anything anymore. Buff GSG9 cops with a hit quote of only 15%, that's just a fake put in the internet by the intelligence service to make us go crazy. Maybe they didn't execute him at all!”, her face is sending me symbols, signals, all kinds of emotions I fail to read within just a few minutes. I need time. Something is dubious here, her doubts are dubious. What is she trying to tell me?
“You think Wolfi shot himself?”, it was out now. Maybe she is a defector herself and dared to put these thoughts into words even though she had not been there. Maybe she wanted to test me.
“Well, I neither saw one or the other, I was simply running for cover.” We will never learn the truth unless one of the cops blows the whistle some time.“
Will this attempted murder, this assault of my person calm down eventually? “Cornelia, please think about it. In all those years, what have I done for or against you all? Nothing, for I was simply gone and nothing happened to you. The fact that you are sitting beside me is the best proof, otherwise I would have blown your cover as defector and crown witness long time!”
Silence again. She is wearing a totally boring jeans with her red T-shirt. And matching blue socks. Just the shoes confuse me. Light blue leather shoes, like a teenager. Pretty much out of place at her advanced age.
“What mistake?”
“How you mean, mistake?”
“You just talked about your tiny mistake! You think I'm dumb!? So what tiny mistake did you make?”
Well, now the tiny mistake has to be confessed. She is slowly getting restless.
“Well, just fire away! Out with your tiny mistake!” Her voice is gradually changing into this shrieking buzz saw tone, a sign of her indecision.
“I...well, you know...I was getting doubts that there might be more informants among us...well, that's why I...I had no choice! It was just for safety! Had to happen fast...”
“Just say it, asshole!”
“I relocated the depots right away!”
“You did what?”
“Just relocated them, believe me, just for safety, because Biggi got arrested. After all, there was a chance that she might talk, might not stand the psycho pressure in jail. I didn't have much time and had completely lost all confidence into the other comrades. That was my mistake! At least, I should have coordinated it or inform someone from the commandership. That was my fucking mistake!”
“You did what? Relocate? How? What depots? When?”
“All the ground depots. As of Monday.”
“How you mean as of Monday?”
“Well, right the next day after the shooting on Sunday.”
“Who gave you the order?”
“I already said it was a spontaneous decision, just for safety, as a possible precaution for us. Biggi knew everything, her being the witch queen. She knew all the coordinates, she was the leader, the living icon, Gitte's successor, our new saint, our guiding light in the darkness of the anti-imperialistic fight.”
“How...how did you know...that is impossible! No, no, no! You are just telling me bullshit to save your miserable traitor's life!” She looks into my eyes very suspiciously, then briefly glances at her gun, then looks at the endless sea for a long while. She is looking for an anchor point at the horizon, just one little island, a seagull, a sailing ship, a mirage. “Only we knew the coordinates, only we, you dig! Only we...you did...you have... who told you...who gave you the coordinates? You were not in the inner circle! Only the commandership knew everything. Who told you? Dammit, open your fucking mouth now! That just can't be true!”
“Dani!”
“Dani Who?”
“Well, Dani! I'm sure you can remember her.”
I can't interpret that sound but it came from her direction. Was that a sigh, a moan, a suppressed scream of pain? Her lashes fluttered. “Not the young, pretty Dani? That can't be! At that time, she had only been in it for a few years, fresh and unspent and still already on the search radar. She didn't know anything, couldn't know anything!”
“Frieda was behind it!”
“No! What are you saying...but she wasn't allowed to...she has been in...since 1977...well, kind of missing...”
There was a long pause, in memory or to think? Is she concentrating on a new sound she wants to create? A scream of pain? A scream of rage? A revolutionary's orgasmic scream of perception? “Frieda gave you the coordinates, really? After 1977? Did you... how?... She is...”
“No, I had them from Dani. Damn, only Frieda was in the inner circle and allowed to give away knowledge. At some time, she gave it away to Dani, just on time!”
“But Dani was not...allowed...in the circle...”
“The two of them probably were lesbian or bisexual, please don't get me wrong, I don't mind, but Dani just got them from her, the rights and duties of managing the depots. And then, D-Day came, Biggi was burned, Wolfi dead. Dani not to be found anymore, probably disappeared, too. And Frieda was incredibly far away, at least for me, almost out of reach in Baghdad, been there for many years. You see, I had to take action. Who was I supposed to ask?”
“Did Dani call you?”
“No, Cornelia, please believe me, it was just spontaneous.”
“Dani spontaneously told you to relocate the depots?”
“No. Me and Dani saw each other occasionally. You know, we just needed that. We liked each other and we hardly had anybody else. She used to live illegally but I didn't and, we just wanted a little bit of sex, nothing more. But then, it did get more, trust, love, devotedness, readiness to make sacrifices. Do you understand? One day, when we... it just happened... she said 'Who knows if we can ever accomplish anything anymore. Everything is messed up now', and then, she gave me the coordinates confidentially. She told me voluntarily, out of love, and maybe also because she might have been scared of getting caught or perforated one day.”
“How you mean lesbian? So now, she had something going with Frieda or with you?”
“Probably with the two of us, it all went on until 1993.”
“I don't believe this! Dani was in Baghdad? Saw Frieda there? When last?”
“I don't know anything about that. About Baghdad or so. They had met a few times in Germany. At least Dani told me so.”
“Aha, and you went to bed with me, too, in 1993! Do you remember!? After the jail was blasted!? You motherfucker! You seem to have a go with every female comrade as soon as she spreads her legs out of psychic exhaustion!” She thoughtfully glances into the distance and takes a deep breath. “And she gave you the coordinates of all depots? Incredible, Frieda was not authorized to forward anything without our consent. Let alone to Dani! And besides, how did she know? I mean Frieda. She has been gone since 1977. Has never been present at meetings! She can't have told Dani everything!”
“What are you talking about? I met Frieda several times, here in Germany, last time was 1989 during a commandership mission. She told Dani everything!”
“And the coordinates were real? Clean? And the depots were full?”
“Everything was correct, all coordinates matched. Dani didn't con me.”
“Well, and now? Everything was rearranged, buried somewhere else? Secretly, without any confidants? Without ballot? Are you out of your mind?”
“Well, that was the tiny little mistake.”
“Aha, I understand. You couldn't resist and basically plundered the depots, robbed us, took all the money and hawked all the weapons and guns for a bargain in the underground? You pig, you dirty fascist capitalist, you mega asshole! You disgust me!”
“No! Don't talk bullshit! I am not like that, for real!”
“So you didn't rob the depots but told the cops? Was that your little mistake?”
“I didn't know who to trust anymore so I kept silent. Nobody has ever contacted me for the new coordinates.”
“You are the biggest...all depots? You hid all the stuff somewhere else and have never told anybody, neither the Federal Police nor us? That's unbelievable! Do you know what this means? They have never discovered our depots! Until today we kept thinking they found everything out, by coincidence or from Biggi, or whatever. We kept racking our brains why everything was gone and now you come along, have rearranged everything and never told anybody! Nobody, right, no fucking body! For 21 years, you moron! If a brick had fallen on your head or if you had been killed in a car accident, all the knowledge about the depots would have been lost forever! Then it would have been a random place of discovery for future archeologists. I think I'm going to freak out!”
“Yes, of course you are right but my conscience...”
“Your conscience? Since when do traitors have a conscience? Don't you get it, all depots were empty, plundered, uselessly empty! We were under pressure, hardly had any money, hardly any supporters, everything was highly infested by betrayal and breakdown. We were collapsing alive. And now you are here to tell me some crap about rearranging and conscience! I think I'm losing it!”
“Please. Cornelia, it was a fucked up situation. Biggi and Wolfi had been blown, they knew all the coordinates and depots. But nobody knew about me. I was legal, a confidant, I acted fast. Rearranged everything quickly. Nobody profited, nobody was executed for this.”
“Yes, asshole! You will be executed now for dumbness in front of the enemy, dumbness while being on the run and maximum furtiveness in betrayal.”
There was silence again. She is not really planning on executing me right here in the park? Without a muffler? She could hand herself over to the Sicilian police right away.
“You still know the old coordinates?”
“Sure do. The old and the new ones. And nothing's missing. I didn't take anything.”
“How am I supposed to believe that? How many were there? Five, eight or thirteen depots?”
“I don't know. What do you want from me anyway? I am on vacation here on Sicily, taking a walk in the park and all of a sudden, you attack me pointing a gun at me and telling me some crap about betrayal, babbling about suspicion. In 1998, when the whole thing had been called off, I first thought, now I don't need to ask anybody if the stuff was needed anyway. Oh, by the way! Whose dumb idea was it to call the whole thing off on 20 April of all days? On Hitler's birthday! Totally perverted, this feeble-minded devotionalism. Why don't you understand? I don't want to have anything to do with all that bullshit anymore! I have a proper job, enough money to make a living and in 20 years I will bite the dust anyway, or maybe in 25 years, whatever!”
“Or in 5 minutes, you bastard! So shoot! I want to hear the exact number! Got it? The correct number only we know and missing Frieda and apparently fucking Dani, who is missing, too!”
“Please listen to me! The whole fight has died down. You can't topple this state, this system with only a handful of courageous people. We simply have run out of people, supporters and comrades who were willing to kill or get killed for the cause. We never had a chance! Never ever! Looking back now, we had been totally lonely. We never had a real chance to change anything. Neither the first line that got killed during shootouts or in Stammheim5, nor the second line that fell into the hands of Federal Police while jogging to their depots, panting and run-down. And neither we, the third line, that had to play hide and seek in the fucking capitalist world out of fear. You are doing just the same! The uptight games we had to play!”
“Don't give me that bullshit! We were more than 200 people integrated in the fight. We could have accomplished a lot, had it not been for morons like you who freed themselves in the middle of our freedom fight. How much cash was in for you while rearranging the depots? Talk! I don't have much patience with you anymore. Plunderer, war profiteer! You are the same piece of capitalist shit we fought against and liquidized all those years!”
“The cash still is in the depots, believe me. I did not take anything! Everything is still there. I never cared about the money.”
“How much is still in the depots?”
“Well, I don't know exactly but about four million, rough estimate.”
“Wow, four million Deutschmarks! Crazy! Where does all the money come from?”
“No, Cornelia, almost four million euros, not Deutschmarks!”
“What? At that time, there was no euro. As far as I know, all the money was from bank robberies and the like, all in Deutschmarks, bundles of them, safe banknotes, unregistered, clean. Ready to use at any time, at least as far as I remember. It could be traded in for euros now without any problems at the State Bank.”
“Don't get me wrong but after the euro was introduced, I gradually replaced all the banknotes. For safety reasons! We're talking about almost four million euros. Unregistered, clean, ready to use at any time.”
“You did what? I can't believe this! You really replaced everything? Pretty slick, ingenious! But for who or what? We had called the whole thing off in 1998, quite appropriately on Hitler's birthday. Who were you waiting for? For someone to come along, pointing his loaded membership card at your head saying 'Now I need cash to continue the fight. Open the depots, it's going to get expensive now' or crap like that?”
“I had always hoped that one day, someone would contact me and claim the depots.”
“Why have you never looked for us? In every city, there are leftwing groups, squatters, spontis or whatever. You could have asked your way through.”
“Are you crazy? We were outsiders, even outlawed by all the leftwing groups, avoided and hated. There had been thousands of people only waiting for an opportunity to get a few hundreds of thousands of Deutschmarks to make their life easier. The risk had always been too high for me to get involved with people like that. And besides, they would have been just as suspicious as me.”
“Well, I'm from the inner circle as you yourself just noticed. I herewith claim the depots. In the name of the Rote Armee Fraktion! I claim the coordinates and the contents, unconditionally. Just as they were handed down to you from Gitte via Frieda and Dani.”
“For what? We are dissolved, dead, disappeared, aren't we?”
“I'm going to dissolve you any minute, fucking traitor!” Her look told more than 1,000 insults.
“But leave everything else untouched. Please leave weapons and ammunition in the depots. Ok, you can have the old blanco documents, that stuff has no value anymore anyway because of the advanced technology. The ancient paperwork, car documents and ID-cards can rot. That crap is outdated. Meanwhile, everything has been changed to forge-proof material.”
“Let's be clear about this, you fucking asshole! I want the depots from you, unconditionally! In 1998, only one half was dissolved. The others were against it and quietly separated from the dissolving commandership. We are not dissolved. We are still there. But we didn't do anything due to the lack of weapons and ammunition, due to a lack of confidence into the procedure. We have been discussing for years if it is still worthwhile to make ourselves known and start striking again. We will probably still be discussing in ten or twenty years. Unfortunately, this will still take some time.”
“How you mean, not dissolved? That was a clear decision in 1998. It's not possible that parts of the RAF have been slumbering in pseudo coma waiting to get the kiss of life!”
“Well, we did not support this decision, we didn't accept it and told the others loud and clear we consider this decision pure betrayal of the class, the fight, the fallen comrades, the whole communist idea. Only few were on our side, actually, there are only 5 of us. We never outed ourselves, we wanted to be left alone. We were through, you see. Through with the state, through with the other comrades, also with the imprisoned ones, through with all the corrupt leftwingers.”
“And now you want cash, your retirement insurance, almost 4 million to make the rest of your life easier. And what about the other 4 comrades? They are supposed to get nothing?”
“I just want access to the depots, nothing else. And I hardly will let you fucking traitor in on this! The others will get their share, you can count on that!”
“Why don't you pull the trigger, Cornelia? In your lousy opinion, my time is up. In your eyes, I had lived like a king with your money, surrounded by wealth and beauty. You will get nothing out of me. Just, pull the trigger, get it over with, satisfy your financial greed, your exceeding demands. I don't give a damn. You will have to cooperate if you want your retirement benefits! I am useless to you if I am dead!”