The Short End of the Sonnenallee by Thomas Brussig

Author:Thomas Brussig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Picador

Avanti Popolo

The Kuppisches’ quartered guests, who slept on the air mattresses that Mrs. Kuppisch had borrowed from their Stasi neighbor, were two Saxons from Pirna, near Dresden: “the Olaf” and “the Udo.” Without exception, they introduced every first name with a definite article. Until the Kuppisches figured this out, they thought Udo’s girlfriend was named Theanna, but her name was simply Anna; Olaf and Udo always referred to her as the Anna. They weren’t exactly the brightest bulbs. This might have been related to their coming from the Valley of the Clueless, the area where there was no reception for Western television. When the Olaf and the Udo saw that the Wall was directly outside the window, they asked if West Berlin was over there, and Mrs. Kuppisch answered, with a sigh, “Yes, unfortunately.” The Olaf and the Udo were slack-jawed with amazement. Finally one of them confessed: “We couldn’t do it, this life of constant danger.” The other one remarked that, with all the “criminality over that way,” there were bound to be stray bullets. Mrs. Kuppisch sighed again, saying, “Yes, you just have to learn to live with it.” She didn’t feel like setting them straight. And yet, if only she’d looked after them a little bit, there might never have been a nighttime border incident in which the Olaf and the Udo shut down all traffic to the West. Afterward, the Kuppisches were summoned to police headquarters for clarification of a circumstance. “You don’t have to explain it to me,” Mr. Kuppisch said grimly, as he read his summons. “It’s the Stasi!” Mrs. Kuppisch’s nerves were completely shot. “I only let them stay with us so Misha could go to the Red Monastery! There was no way I could have known…”

No, there was no way of knowing that the Olaf and the Udo would try to ignite a global communist revolution. They took it upon themselves to agitate among the West Berlin drivers at the Sonnenallee border crossing, supposing that the drivers would start a revolution in West Berlin out of sheer socialist enthusiasm. The Olaf and the Udo were so sure of their plan, they actually laid twenty marks on the victory of global communism in the next ten days. The only problem was that the plan had been hatched with blood-alcohol levels between point one two and point one six. Olaf and Udo had sat with their district delegation in Lichtenberg Park, boozing and arguing about politics, at first in general terms, later about the chances of victory in a global communist revolution. “If the workers could see what our life is really like … they’d rise up against their systematic exploitation!” cried the Olaf and the Udo. One of them slurring his words, the other one seeing double, they peeled off to the Sonnenallee border crossing, flagged down late-model Mercedes sedans, and performed what they imagined was agitation. They extolled the blessings of socialism to the Westerners.

“FREE EDUCATION!”

“FREE HEALTH CARE!”

“STABLE PRICES!”

Even to them, it seemed bizarre, and they were soon at the point of giving up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.