Katharina Hacker: The Lifeguard
Quite simply this modest book is a narrative tour de force. It is a sustained first person narrative, which is nothing new, but the voice, that of simple Hugo the lifeguard, is superbly rendered. It is no surprise, then, to discover that Katharina Hacker has gone on to win the 2006 German Book Prize, the second time it has been awarded, for her most recent book The have-nots.
The Lifeguard is a simple story. Hugo has been made redundant after a lifetime at the Swimming Baths. The baths have been closed down and it is likely they will be destroyed because they are falling down. The baths’ destruction has been scheduled as part of the renewal of East Berlin after the fall of the Wall (the Wende). From the perspective of this review, the symbolism seems obvious; the book is about a changed way of life. But Hacker is such an able writer that this message is never overt in the text. Because Hugo’s voice is so compelling, we see everything from his point of view and we obtain a picture of his life that is disturbing and discomforting. Hugo is a man who has suffered, yet he never realises that he has.
We learn that Hugo’s father was a former fascist who kept hundreds of pairs of shoes in his cellar. He treated Hugo cruelly, beating him and demeaning him for his intellectual failings. Hugo had hoped to go to university but his is a victim of both his father’s past and his own senselessness. He is assigned the position of assistant lifeguard, moving up a position a couple of years later when the incumbent disappears, perhaps killed or beaten by the police seeking answers for the pile of bodies found in the empty pool after the war.
The pool has no voice in this story but its decay is representative of the change that has come to Germany, a change to which Hugo is unable to accustom himself. He is a victim as well of his inability to question anything about his life. Instead, he plods through life doing exactly as he is told, whether that be by his mother, his manager Frau Karpfe or his friend Cremer who runs the local newspaper stand. He has followed the exact same route to work for years, so accustomed to it that he doesn’t need a heavy coat even in winter because from home to work is such a short trip. Cremer gives his the same rolls for lunch. His mother repairs his clothes. He has no love interest and seemingly no sex life at all. His life is utterly mundane and boring.
Then, when the pool closes, he changes. Or rather he tries to retain the structure of his life. He keeps going back to the pool, finally moving in to keeps the boilers going. He locks himself inside. After seven days inside he sits himself down in the empty pool and turns on the water and waits to drown. It is a sad exit for a sad man who did what he was told and ultimately for no point at all.
In this he is a metaphor for all people who blindly work within a rotting institution. Hugo himself was no evildoer. He simply did the job he was allotted, checking the chemical composition of the water and ensuring that nobody broke the rules by jumping in the pool or entering without showering first. Yet the pool was physically decaying about him, like the government of the former East Germany. Its management was ineffective, perhaps corrupt, but they were the ones who obtained other jobs while leaving Hugo redundant. He resents being made useless, even though he has a pension and can live quite well. It’s the feeling of uselessness that brings him back the pool and his ultimate sad ending.
The saddest thing of all, though, in this wonderfully rendered work is the fact that Hugo never knows he is a victim and that his efforts to save the pool are ultimately as worthless and pointless as the rest of his life. As a lifeguard, he fails himself. As a novelist, Katharina Hacker demonstrates her strength and originality in this work, as well as the dynamism of new German fiction. Hacker was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1967 but now lives in Berlin. She has also written Morpheus and A kind of love. The lifeguard is highly recommended.
The Book
Hacker, Katharina: The Lifeguard /transl. by Helen Atkins- New Milford : Toby Press, 2002. - 199 S. ISBN 1-902881-45 Original title.: Der Bademeister (German)
