Higher Ground, Anke Stelling [historical books to read .TXT] 📗

In summer, her hair was cut in a short pixie style, and the mustard-coloured bouclé sundress she’d made herself was also very short.

So she started her job training in a small-town Swabian bookshop, where the bookshelves were made of light veneer and no higher than two metres fifty. She learned how to index and give advice, and demonstrated a knack for window dressing and calming down irate customers whose orders were late yet again. The boss should have counted himself lucky to have Marianne, and he did.

At some point, Werner came into the shop looking for a road atlas.

A road atlas? Couldn’t he have ordered Sartre?

But he would have needed the road atlas to drive to France. In his own — yes, his very own — car, a sky-blue 2CV. Or a Fiat? Not a VW, in any case: too German.

Marianne liked all things foreign. She had never been outside of Germany, still lived at home, had a penchant for the Great Wide Open and an exotic lifestyle: eating outdoors, dining after ten, brandy snifters, raffia wine bottles and candles, even when it wasn’t Christmas.

Werner invited her out for a drink. Chatted cleverly about Hermann Hesse. Ordered Trollinger. Well, it wasn’t exactly what Marianne wanted — a quarter-litre carafe with Werner over lamb in a country inn — but at least it was red wine! And the car was really nice! Driving back later, Werner let her take the wheel. Werner filled up the tank. Werner had money, a camera — and no problem seducing Marianne.

When was her last period?

Marianne didn’t tell him, just blushed instead—

No, wait:

Werner panted. ‘Is it safe now?’

Marianne guessed that he was asking about her menstruation and thought about it for a second. Embraced Werner, who took this to be consent and no longer held back. Then his sperm was in Marianne’s vagina, and later in her underwear — instead of being on Werner’s clothes or, even worse, his car seats.

Marianne worked in the bookshop. Took Van de Velde’s Ideal Marriage from the shelf when no one was looking and browsed through it—

No, wait:

They wouldn’t have stocked Van de Velde in a small-town Swabian bookshop.

Marianne consulted her best friend who heard from somebody else that it should be safe if she subtracted fourteen from twenty-eight, added two, and subtracted two again to be sure. Or switched to coitus interruptus. Which is bad for car seats.

Oh, what a tricky business!

What would Werner have done if she’d got pregnant? Given Marianne money for an abortion? Why didn’t he invest in condoms? Is it even true that Marianne was lucky not to have got pregnant? Wouldn’t that have been her ticket to move up in the world? Because then, Werner might have married her and ‘done the right thing’: Werner’s parents could have taken comfort in Marianne’s pretty ears along with her cooking and needlework skills.

No, hold on:

This isn’t Jane Austen. This is September 1963, the eve of the sexual revolution! These were Marianne’s formative years in work and in love!

In 1967, Werner dumped her, not while they were in the south of France, but just afterwards. Most relationships end after holidays, but in this case, the main reason was that Marianne wasn’t good enough for him. Didn’t speak French, had a trainee position for a meagre seventy marks a month, some of which she even had to give to her parents for food and lodging. Happened to be good at sewing and calming down customers, but could neither ski, play tennis, or order waiters about. She was timid; as pretty as the actress Anna Karina, but lacking self-confidence and ballet lessons — that certain something that nobody can pull off except real con artists or those who happen to have been born into a wealthy family. Take a good look! Use a magnifying glass and study those photographs from France!

The scarf that Marianne is wearing is clumsily tied, she’s holding her cigarette too far towards the middle, and her knees are turned in. Her expression reveals that she’s worried about things that Werner thinks are completely superfluous — like whether the petrol will last all the way to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and whether she should go to the toilet in the bar, or will it just be one of those holes in the ground again? In which case she might as well squat down by the roadside. And that way she’ll avoid having to ask ‘Où est la toilette, s’il vous plaît?’ (Is that right? Doesn’t ‘toilette’ mean make-up?) And is it okay to leave most of the pastis, or will the barman think that’s strange? How come she didn’t know that pastis tasted of aniseed?

‘Au revoir’ were Werner’s final words after that holiday.

I’d like to castrate him. Yes, really, for the first time in my life, I want to cut off a man’s dick. If Marianne was good enough to be fucked in the back of his 2CV, couldn’t he have stuck with her?

No.

You have to see Werner, too, as a victim of the class system, just like Ulf’s father, who binge-watched New Wave films on the portable TV in his study with a glass of warm whiskey in his hand.

Werner didn’t dump Marianne of his own free will. He was so under his father’s thumb that he could only see her through his eyes. It must be awful not to trust your own eyes; first trying to fight somebody’s superimposed view, before surrendering and realising your lover is inferior. Poor Werner.

That’s how Marianne saw it, but I want nothing to do with that anymore. No change of perspective, no understanding, and no pity. Just Werner’s dick.

Arthouse meets horror: Resi, a well-groomed woman in her forties, rings the bell at the gate of a sandstone villa in Frankfurt. The gate buzzes open without anyone asking via intercom who is there. The woman flinches, pushes open the door that bears Werner’s name, and crosses the front garden (in full bloom — perhaps hydrangeas?) A