Yella

We begin this film observing a young woman, neither very attractive nor unworthy of a devoted rake's attention, escaping from an invisible predator. Invisible, because although someone will soon emerge as a long-time tormentor, the pace the woman keeps and the franticness of her stride bespeak a far greater nemesis, perhaps that of time or its knight-errant, conscience. She is not clearly innocent or clearly guilty as far as our eyes can see. But we soon learn that our eyes are substantially limited in what they are allowed to perceive.

Our location is this German town and the woman is a sensitive and somewhat troubled thirtysomething by the name of Yella Fichte (Nina Hoss). Yella is pretty in the way that many German women are pretty: that is, her tough character is imprinted squarely upon her delicate features, a pattern that no amount of makeup or clothing could ever alter. She is not so much a tomboy as a woman who cannot afford to be too feminine in a harsh and unforgiving man's world. One such fellow is her ex-husband Ben (Hinnerk Schönemann), who just so happens to be tailing Yella in his Range Rover and begging for another chance on a relationship that Yella seems to regret with every ounce of her being. "You got a job," says Ben in an oddly high-pitched voice, "I can tell by the way you walk you have a really good job." Ben will often display how very well he knows his wife; yet we never get the impression of happier days past for the childless couple. Rather, Ben, unlike many men of his generation, appears once upon a time to have demonstrated decent earning potential. And in a small former East German town such lottery tickets are scarce. Our heroine breaks the news of her Hannover job to her bald, strapping father, an obvious widower, and we understand that she has been chosen by fate to smash the cycle of lucklessness and mediocrity and emigrate from Wittenberge to a more prosperous pocket of humanity. After a laconic breakfast during which Yella stares at her morose father with the glee of someone who enjoys being missed, she finds that instead of her taxi, an officious Ben has shown up to take her to the train station. 

Ben's agenda, of course, does not involve the station. Instead, Yella is subjected to a "sentimental tour" with a failed man's last business plan desperate even to the untrained ear, as well as a brown envelope stuffed with figures and calculations of a revival – numbers that Yella, an accountant by trade and demeanor, refuses to examine. What could she possibly learn now about this man whom she quite clearly abhors? What does it say about her that, once upon a time, she chose to marry him? Without the slightest verbal expression all these emotions race across her face, just as Ben loses his temper with the ease of those accustomed to violence, and just before the Range Rover swerves off a bridge and into the Elbe river – and here our film assumes a curious tenor. Yella awakes on what appears to be the other shore. Ben moves first then collapses near her. When she gets to her feet she finds, quite miraculously, that her bags have been washed ashore as well. When she arrives at the station she finds, quite miraculously, that her train has not left – even though it appears almost entirely empty. And after a quiet if nervous trip, she awakes again, this time in what must be assumed to be Hannover. It is, however, a Hannover that few will recognize, yet that is of no interest to our protagonist or any other person in her world. So many times in Yella we see one, almost trivial scene that we don't understand then later see a very similar scene and understand them both as significant, which is the sign of impeccable storytelling. A deposit on her hotel appears unpayable until she remembers the wad of cash her father silently pressed into her hand; her chance encounter with a creepy, venal man called Philipp (Devid Striesow) leads her into a business world of chicanery and double-dealings not unlike what probably bankrupted Ben; and Ben's implication of Yella's "pretty legs" having helped her secure the Hannover job are echoed by both Philipp's impression of her future employer, Dr. Schmidt-Ott, and the slimy doctor's own actions. Most of all, her notions of what belongs on this earth and what might pertain to another realm become decidedly fuzzy. Take, for example, her long stare at a kimonoed housewife and her child bidding farewell to a million-dollar husband on the driveway of their million-dollar home. This moment's inclusion early on in Yella's journey may simply manifest her wishes for a new life, but later developments suggest something far more sinister.  

It is to be expected, I suppose, that some critics have considered Yella an anti-capitalism parable; others, with no greater originality, have smugly pointed out Wittenberge's easternness and Hannover's unbroken alliance with the West. While there is some truth to these interpretations, they are hopelessly inferior to what we may term a grim character study. Why grim? Interestingly enough, the more we see of Yella, who evinces at times a doe-like quality, the less we like her. She is hard and cruel to the series of tribunals (in the form of Philipp's business partners) who, wishing to judge and dismiss her as a woman and possibly as an East German, are invariably humiliated by her methods. Once she consents to Philipp's skulduggery, she fails a test of confidence, which could spell death among thieves with an honor code. And while we do feel sorry for her when Ben reappears, more than once, to convey his understanding that the couple should reunite immediately, we also begin to suspect something deeper at work here. When Philipp informs our heroine that "a large garage, a green jaguar, kids, and a house in the suburbs" could never interest him ("What interests you, then?" asks Yella.  "Precisely not that," is the magnificent response), one has the feeling he is speaking for both of them. In fact, Philipp is quickly surpassed by his protégée in ruthlessness, as evidenced by the film's closing scenes. There is also the much belabored matter of the flashbacks Yella endures; water in particular seems to behave unusually in her presence, and in the distance she occasionally hears the caws of raptorial birds. So you may wonder why Yella never quite manages to change out of that lovely red blouse. You may also ask yourself why her last name is Fichte.

Heine, "Abenddämmerung"

A work ("Dusk") by this German poet.  You can read the original here.

Upon the wan-lit ocean beach,
I sat alone with worried thoughts.
The sinking sun beyond eyes' reach
Striped waves with burning rays so hot. 

These white and frothy mounts did shake,
Pale slaves at but the tide's command;
And closer-close, foam'd noise did make,
In oddest whispers, whistling sands.

A murmur, laugh, a sigh, a sough,
And then some secret lullaby;
Like hearing now old tales long-lost,
Sweet ancient stories cast aside.

Tales I first heard as a small lad,
From neighbors' children passed along;
When we, on summer evenings glad,
Sat on stone steps, a doorside throng,

All hunkered down to hear the words,
With tiny hearts and curious eyes;
And listen; while the older girls,
Some fragrant flowerpots nearby,

Would gaze upon the glass panes clear,
Each face just like a garden rose,
Which seems to smile, yet seems to fear
The endless moonlight as it grows. 

Novalis, "Wer einsam sitzt in seiner Kammer"

A work ("Who sits forlorn within his room") by this German poet.  You can read the original here.

Who sits forlorn within his room,
And cries such grave and bitter tears,
So will this region then appear
Besmirched by misery and gloom. 

Who, thinking of times long ago,
Too deep inspects the bleak abyss,
In which from every side persists
Sweet pain that draws him down below,  

It is as if wild treasures lay 
Beneath in heaps for him alone;
And he with breathless breast forayed  
Against their castle ramparts' stone.  

Repulsed and fearful he espies   
His future trapped in dryest dunes; 
Alone, unwell, he roves and swoons, 
And seeks himself in tumult's eye.

I cry and fall into his arms:
I, too, was once like you, it seems.
But I learned much from wicked harm, 
E'en how to find eternal peace.  

You need for comfort, as I too,
A heart that's loved, endured and died; 
Who joyfully put pain aside, 
To perish variedly for you.  

He died, and yet still every day, 
You sense his love, you sense his face; 
Consoled but by thoughts gone astray 
Of him once more in your embrace.   

With him arrives new blood, new life,
In your decaying pile of bone;
And if your heart was his alone, 
So is yours his, bereft of strife.  

What you have loved he will provide;  
What you have lost he since has found: 
Forever will remain so bound, 
What his firm hands choose not to hide.

Du fährst zu oft nach Heidelberg

I have often been to Heidelberg. I studied, as it were, not one hundred fifty miles away, in another small German town renowned for its university, and would travel north, west and south through Heidelberg to other, fabulous German cities. Those cities are fabulous because, in the most complimentary way possible, they are indistinguishable from one another. Surely many were razed in those dozen demonic years that converted Europe's most civilized nation into its most barbaric; but since Germans are sticklers for documents, details, and archives, many of the buildings were reconstructed according to the original blueprints. One can compare pre- and postwar photos and detect an uncanny continuity. That they were so akin in genteel beauty, in cleanliness, and in comfort to begin with is not lost on the circumspect historian, who smiles that they will now remain so forever.   

One thing I did not do that most people do in Baden-Württemberg is make use of that most basic of human vehicles, the proverbial two wheels on a stick, the smokeless, dirtless bipedal Draisine, invented two hundred years ago in a town immediately outside Heidelberg. Embarrassingly enough, I, an urban stripling par excellence, never quite mastered what was the only activity some of my toddling contemporaries (a few of whom could barely speak, much less read or write) could do well; heaven knows they practiced long enough. Perhaps had I bothered to rectify this problem I would have slipped more seamlessly into the green-hilled splendor of Freiburg, or the evening harbor lights of Hamburg, or even the artisan throb of Berlin. In all these places bicycles were replacing cars, the wicked metal boxes which a century ago had tried – in devastating portention – to annihilate them. The motorized death traps were ultimately unsuccessful in Germany, although they still reign supreme in countries more abstentious from democratic habits. Yet among Germany's moneyed stratum – a slim but robust layer, a bit like a champion arm wrestler – you will find some of the most exquisite cars the world has ever known, crafted for and in Drais's homeland. You see, despite its intellectual and economic clout, Germany prides itself on equality. It believes, and rightly so, that you may snarl and snicker all you want in the Kneipe, but in the public eye and print, you must champion the ideals trumpeted by their famous compatriot. A Moonlight Sonata may evoke the lonely, Romantic poet and his eternal dreams, however grandiose or wishy-washy they may be; but there is little doubt as to the meaning of the brotherhood of men. 

One such brother is a young German by the name of – well, we are never actually given his name. It may not be an important omission. I mean, when do we hear stories about people that don't have names? Doesn't everyone have a name, even if, as we get older and accumulate lists of names and faces attached to those names, we as readers automatically scrutinize a protagonist's identity? In any case, our nameless German seems to be a fine young man in his mid-twenties, the springtime of intellectual and spiritual development. He lives somewhere in the vicinity of Heidelberg – one of the most magnificent regions on our divisive planet – and makes the most of it: he keeps in shape with long, early-morning bike rides; sees his parents and his older brother Karl regularly, even if the three treat him as one might relate to a bright schoolchild who mistakes his reinventions of the wheel for epiphanies; studies for his exams, including an unusual minor – Spanish language; and is engaged to an equally fine young woman called Carola. We know he is serious about Carola because he picks tulips with which to surprise her mother, who, with that intuition unique to mothers, suspects he would be the type of young man who might do just that. And one day, as he is about to leave to see Carola and her parents, his father steps out towards our man's car, checks the tires, and poses what seems to be a "random, harmless" question: "Do you still often drive to Heidelberg?" Whether the question may safely be deemed harmless will depend on its recipient; but when our man's mother tells him, in that tone of voice unique to mothers, that he shouldn't "drive to Heidelberg that often," the notion of randomness loses a great deal of plausibility. That his mother then punctuates her warning with the afterthought "in that car" sounds just as dimly coincidental.

What car, you say? An old car, obliged to make "an eighty-kilometer round trip two or three times a week," which may be a lot to ask of such a banged-up lemon. Our hero explains to his father that one reason why he still drives such an unseemly metal box is because "it will be a while before [he] can afford a Mercedes" – not that it appears as if he would burden himself with such luxuries even if his finances permitted them. Indeed, although our narrative is in the third person, we have more than a hunch that the omniscient voice that refuses to reveal the narrator's name – perhaps now, we consider, to protect him – shares his character's world view:

The terrace was larger; the blinds, if somewhat faded, were more generous; the entire scene was more elegant; and even in the hardly noticeable decrepitude of the lawn furniture, in the grass which grew between the gaps of the red tiles, was something that irritated him as much as loose talk had at many a student demonstration. Such things and clothes in general were subjects of annoyance between him and Carola, who always accused him of dressing in too bourgeois a fashion. He talked to Carola's mother about different types of vegetables and her father about cycling, found the coffee worse than at home, and tried not to let his nervousness devolve into irritation. They were, however, nice progressive people who had accepted him without any prejudices whatsoever, even officially, when the engagement was announced. Since that time he had come to like them genuinely, even Carola's mother, whose oft-uttered epithet 'charming' had initially annoyed him.

On second thought, perhaps the narrator – he is supposed to be omniscient, after all – does know a few things our man does not. As the title work in this collection should we take the query, that is so much more of a warning than a query, at face value? Does our man really travel to Heidelberg too often? And what on earth might he be doing in that serene and scholarly town known for its cosmopolitan learning and library? If you recall, our man, apart from being a conscientious, hard-working, thoughtful, and caring fellow – just what the world needs more of, if you ask me – has for a while now studied Spanish. In fact, his parents frequently ask him whether he knows the Spanish word for this or that, even though one never gets the sense that they care about the response. Perhaps they are simply loving parents indulging their child's creative whims? This is unclear, although we come to suspect the narrator knows a lot more than he is letting on. And we haven't even mentioned a man known only as Kronsorgeler.

Der Verdacht

Novels are cumbersome beasts, for one very good reason: they are expected to coalesce into a solid shape. Modern novels have recognized this awkwardness and decided, rather stupidly, to eschew the tightness of structure altogether in favor of a hippie motto such as "life is a mess, so why shouldn't art be as well?" Surely, there are certain patterns in life, both salubrious and detrimental, and people can be wholly aware of the damage they are inflicting upon themselves and still persist in their bad habits (dating the wrong type of partners; smoking; picking arguments and criticizing others instead of ameliorating their own conditions; lamenting their lazy bourgeois fate). Yet few are those who assume the Archimedean point and absorb the wavelengths of their existence in their totality. When we reach the twilight of our days we may reflect on what has and has not passed, the opportunities forsaken or abused, the lives we touched and those we could not reach, but it takes a certain attitude to weave these threads into a tapestry. Much easier to leave it all in an untangled knot – and here I'm afraid I must dissent. I may walk the beach of my past, step gently into the spindrift, and recollect all at once every other moment in which I inhaled the sea air, but leaving the shreds of life in a corner unattended is beyond my capacity. Closure is not as important as knowing what lies at the heart of our machinations, a basic but paramount premise and one that fuels this fine novel.

Little can be expected of a dying protagonist, which might work to his advantage. We are therefore necessarily underwhelmed by the appearance of Bern police commissioner Hans Bärlach, a crusty, deathly ill old snoop whose faith in his own abilities wends its way through treacherous paths. For a large portion of the novel, Bärlach is bedridden and visited by a motley crew of colleagues: Hungertobel, his physician and friend, Gulliver, a ragamuffin behemoth and alcoholic, and Fortschig, a penniless, slightly mad writer of a feuilleton called the Apfelschuss (in the tradition of this Swiss hero). And it is precisely leafing through a magazine during bedrest that our Commissioner finds a picture of a certain Doctor Nehle who worked for some unwholesome forces at their worse outposts in the recently concluded Second World War. What is interesting about this Nehle, otherwise a common barbarian made famous by his cruelty, is his resemblance to a Doctor Emmenberger, who happens to run one of the choicest private clinics Switzerland has to offer. Sick and somewhat delirious, Bärlach pursues the likeness to the point of suggesting that this haphazard photo is anything but the residue of design and that Emmenberger and Nehle have much more in common.

Facts are then gathered: Emmenberger went off during the war to Chile, where he continued publishing esoteric articles and developing his fantastic career; Nehle, on the other hand, opted to serve the devil and would die by his own hand in a Hamburg hotel. His specialization were procedures without anesthesia, whose survival was rewarded with freedom – but he made sure that no one survived. No one, that is, except the giant Gulliver, a learned man of tremendous spirituality who one night tells Bärlach of his horrifying experiences in a torture camp:

This figure with countless victims on his conscience became something legendary, an outlaw, as if even the Nazis had been ashamed of their own. And yet Nehle lived on and no one doubted that he existed, not even the most diehard of atheists, because one most readily believes in a God who concocts devilish torments.

Putatively, Gulliver is talking about Nehle; but Emmenberger keeps surfacing as someone who could have attempted to force Nehle, a less cultured man with no classical education and an overly Berliner flavor to his German, to do his bidding. It just so happens that Hungertobel and Emmenberger were at medical school together, which leads Hungertobel to narrate a climbing accident from those years involving both doctors and three other young colleagues:

We knew full well that there was an emergency operation that could help, but no one dared think about it. Only Emmenberger understood and did not hesitate to act. He immediately examined the man from Lucerne, disinfected his knife in boiling water on the stove range and then performed an incision called a cricothyrotomy that occasionally has to be used in emergency situations in which the larynx is pierced between the Adam's apple and the cricoid to open up an air passage. This procedure was not the horrible part .... it was what was reflected in both their faces. The victim was almost numb owing to a lack of oxygen but his eyes were still open, wide open, and so he must have seen everything that happened, even if it all appeared to be a dream. And as Emmenberger made his incision, my God, Hans, his eyes also opened wide and his face became distorted; it was as if suddenly something devilish gleamed in his eyes, a kind of excessive pleasure in inflicting torture, or whatever you want to call it, a gleam so great that fear seized my every joint, if only for a second.

This description may be labeled a "filthy wealth of coincidence," and we can hope it is only that, even in the mid-twentieth century where such butchers were suddenly abundant. On the basis of the data from his two friends, Bärlach attempts to infiltrate Emmenberger's clinic as a terminally ill patient in need of special attention. Yet the attention he ultimately receives goes above and beyond any oath, Hippocratic or otherwise.

Some of us may think of Switzerland as a fecund and neutral land with persons of all ages and languages cycling around town on their red-and-white pillions (a quaint and lovely picture, and not wholly untrue). Dürrenmatt wisely refrains from destroying our paradise with hard-boiled noir based on cynicism, selfishness and skulduggery. What he presents, albeit shortly after a war in which his compatriots did not participate, is a soft haven, a reef amidst the endless storms of man's ambitions, a pocket of nature still susceptible to plots and craven silence. It is perhaps most telling that the novel does not harbor any pretense of ambiguity as to the guilty parties, nor really how matters will be settled. Suspense is replaced by the slow stream of the commissioner's suspicion, hence the title, and the elaborate details that compose its development. On several occasions the very sick Bärlach's doubts are gently dismissed as the whims of someone well on his way to his final destination, but the text's narrator never allows us for a minute to share in that doubt. One hundred twenty pages on a criminal about whose guilt we haven't the slightest reservation? Perhaps that's why the only person in the novel who claims the devil doesn't exist can neither speak nor hear.