Ulrich Plenzdorf - The New Sorrows of Young W.

W HEN DID YOU last see him?

In September. End of September. The night before he left.

Did you not think of getting the police to look for him?

You cant blame me for thisyou of all people! A man whod had nothing to do with his son for years, bar the odd postcard!

Im sorry! Wasnt that what you wanted, given my lifestyle choices?!

Typical! Ironic as ever! Not going to the police was probably the one thing I did right. And even that turned out to be wrong in the end. But when it first happened Id just had it up to here with him. Hed put me in an impossible position, at the college and at the factory. The directors sonalways the star apprentice and straight-A studentsuddenly turning out to be a delinquent! Dropping out of his apprenticeship! Running away from home! I mean! And then he did start to send word not long after that, fairly regularly. Not to me, God forbid. To his friend Willi. On tapes. The language he used was very strange.

So grandiose. In the end this Willi let me listen to themeven he was starting to find the whole thing a bit odd. At first he wouldnt tell me where Edgar was: in Berlin, as it turned out. And you couldnt make head nor tail of what was on those tapes. But they did at least let us know Edgar was well and even that he was working, not just loafing around. Later on there was some mention of a girl, but it didnt work out. She married someone else. In all the time he was living here he didnt have anything to do with girls. But still, it wasnt a matter for the police!

Whoah, stop right there! Bollocks I didnt! I had plenty to do with girls, if you want to know the truth. Starting when I was fourteen. Now I can say it. You used to hear all kinds of stuff, but you never knew anything for sure. So in the end I wanted to find out the details for myselfthats just what I was like. Her name was Sylvia. She was about three years older than me. It only took me sixty minutes to talk her round. Which I reckon was pretty good going at that age, especially considering that I didnt even have my full charm back then, or this distinctive chin. Im not telling you this to show off, guysI just want to make sure no one gets the wrong idea. A year later Mum enlightened me to the facts of life. She nearly burst a blood vessel. I was that much of an idiot I couldve pissed myself laughing, but I didntI played the little angel as usual. I think it was a bit harsh of me, really.

What do you mean he turned out to be a delinquent?

He broke his supervisors toe.

His toe?

He threw a heavy iron plate on his foota baseplate. I was completely gobsmacked. I mean!

Whathe just threw it, out of the blue?

I wasnt there, but my colleague Flemminghes the supervisortold me what happened. Hes an old hand. Reliable, very experienced. Anyway there he is in the workshop one morning giving out the workpieces, some baseplates that need filing. And the lads are filing away and as hes going round checking the measurements he notices that Willi, the boy next to Edgar, has got a finished plate, only he hasnt filed it himself: its come off the machine. On the factory floor all the baseplates are machine-made, obviously. And the lads got hold of this plate and is showing it offits not even a millimetre out, of course. So Flemming says to him: Thats come off the machine.

Willi: Off what machine?

Flemming: The machine in Plant 2.

Willi: Oh, is there a machine there, sir? I wouldnt know. The last time we were on the factory floor was when we first started our apprenticeship, and back then we still thought those things were egg-laying machines.

And that was Edgars cueof course theyd had the whole thing worked out beforehand: So, sposing there is a machine there. Which there could be. It does make you wonder why we have to keep filing these baseplates down by hand. In our third year of training and everything.

I did say that, its true. But only on the spur of the moment. We hadnt worked it all out beforehand. We really hadnt. I knew what Willi and the others were planning, but I wanted to stay out of it, as usual.

Flemming: What did I tell you all when you started here? I told you: Here you have a lump of iron! Once you can make a clock out of it, your training will be complete. Then and only then.

Its a sort of motto of his.

And Edgar: But even back then we knew we didnt actually want to be clockmakers.

Id been wanting to say that to Flemming for ages. It wasnt just his stupid motto, it was his whole attitudeit was like he was stuck in the Middle Ages. In the era of cottage industry. Up till then Id always bitten my tongue.

And the next thing you know Edgar went and threw this plate on his foot, so hard that it broke his toe. You could have knocked me down with a feather. I didnt want to believe it at first.

All true. Apart from two minor details. First of all I didnt throw the plate. I didnt have to. Those plates were heavy enough as it was to break a bloody toe or something, just the sheer weight of them. I only needed to drop it. Which I did. And secondly, I didnt drop it the next thing you knowI dropped it after Flemming had fired off one more little remark. He was raving like a madman: Youre the last one I would have expected this from, Wiebau!

Thats when I lost it. Thats when I dropped the plate. Just the sound of it: Edgar Wiebau! Its Edgar Wibeau! Not even a complete dimwit says chtau instead of chteau. I mean, at the end of the day everyones got the right to be correctly addressed by their correct name. If it doesnt matter to some people thats up to them. But it does matter to me. And this had been going on for years. Mum always just put up with getting called Wiebau. She reckoned people had just got used to it and it wasnt going to kill her and anyway, everything shed achieved at the factory had been under the name Wiebau. So of course then that was itboth of us got called Wiebau! Whats wrong with Wibeau, anyway? If it was Hitler or Himmler or something maybe. Then you would have a problem. But Wibeau? Its an old Huguenot nameso what? Still, it was no reason to dump that bloody plate on old Flemmings bloody toe. That was pretty heinous. I realized straight away that no bastard was going to talk about our training any more, only the plate and the toe. Sometimes I just used to get really hot and dizzy all of a sudden and then Id do things and not be able to remember them afterwards. That was my Huguenot bloodor maybe my blood pressure was too high. Too-high Huguenot blood pressure.

So you think Edgar was just afraid of the consequences, and thats why he left?