Christoph Hein: Willenbrock
Bernd Willenbrock is thriving in reunified Germany. An engineer in the old East, he has adapted to capitalism by setting up as a second-hand car dealer in Berlin. He buys cheaply and sells to the Eastern Europeans who pour over the borders. While his Polish mechanic, Jurek, fixes cars and clinches deals, the boss flips through girlie magazines, seduces his most attractive customers over champagne and goes home hungry for his wife, Suzanne. He is not a bad man but his response to past hardships and present opportunities is a bloodless amorality.
It soon becomes clear that there are white ants in the new Europe. This fine, chilling novel – in a crisp, sophisticated translation - follows Willenbrock’s daily life and changing fortunes for several months through the mid-1990s. He learns that a former colleague kept files on him that undermined his engineering career. His anger at a chance encounter with the man shows that the past cannot be swept away. Apart from porn, he reads books about old aeroplanes, a passion that eventually reveals another source of resentment buried in his youth.
Insecurity has not vanished but mutated. “We used to be brave, proud and poor,” says Jurek. “But these days we are just poor.” The structures of life, from the Church to the Secret Police, have given way. The influx of customers has also brought prostitutes, thieves and other desperadoes.
Cars start disappearing from Willenbrock’s yard. The police seem more suspicious of him than interested in helping, and the insurance company simply raises his premiums. Giving up on the authorities, he hires a nightwatchman but the thieves tie the man up and kill his dog.
One of Willenbrock’s best customers, a Russian who mourns his country’s old strictures, offers the services of a thug to deal with the ex-colleague and a gun to fend off the thieves. But Willenbrock swears he will never use force.
An underlying threat of violence gives the novel a vague and constant tension. Yet the story is told in language as detached and businesslike as its protagonist. The focus of the narrative is on the details of life and business, the exercise of small freedoms, the portrait of a marriage under growing stress. A funny and almost satirical social picture emerges during a fashion show in Suzanne’s fashion boutique, where wealthy ladies clash with an unkempt trombonist. No one has the author’s entire sympathy.
During the 1980s Christoph Hein became known as one of the most political and interesting authors in the German Democratic Republic. He was a prominent commentator on reunification and has critically examined his country’s changes and relationship with its past in novels and plays.
Although his tone in Willenbrock is superficially neutral – did this begin as a necessary self-defence? – his commentary is subtly embedded in his characters’ actions and conversations. The book was a finalist for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and Willenbrock, the movie, was shown at the 2005 Festival of German Film in Sydney.
In previous books Hein has expressed disappointment that East Germans accepted speedy unification and economic change. Although he demonstrates no nostalgia for Communism, he is equally sceptical about the excesses of capitalism and here he shows that not everyone – and therefore, perhaps, no one - can enjoy the new wealth.
Locks cannot stop the attacks on Willenbrock’s property, which climax in a violent break-in at his country house while he and Suzanne are in bed. Their sense of safety is forever shattered by ruthless strangers. This is the turning point for him, fear metastasising into paranoia and vengeance.
While I was reading Willenbrock, already riveted by the thriller packaged within its restrained storytelling, burglars tried to break into my house. Twice in a week they jemmied the front door and, though unsuccessful, they gouged a large hole in the timber and in my peace of mind. Suddenly Willenbrock’s reactions made absolute sense.
As well as pitting individuals against each other, the novel is a parable of an arms race in which a gradual build-up of suspicion becomes an inevitable fight to the death. Hein finely illustrates the universal fear of strangers, exacerbated by rapid change and growing inequality.
The carpenter who comes to replace the smashed doors in Willenbrock’s country house suggests one solution: “Labor camps, like under Adolf. Not everything he did was so bad.” Hein’s disgust resonates in the bland statement itself. The trouble is, at least in this book, he can’t offer a promising alternative.
The Book
Hein, Christoph: Willenbrock / translated by Philip Boehm - New York : Holt, 2003. - 322 pages
ISBN 0-8050-6731-0
Original title.: Willenbrock (German)
