FICTION

BAADER-MEINHOF BY DON DELILLO

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he knew there was someone else i n rhe r o o m . There was no o u t r i g h t noise, just an i n t i m a t i o n behind her, a faint displacement o f air. She'd been alone for a time, seated on a bench in the middle of the gallery w i t h the paintings set around her, a cycle of fifteen canvases, and this is h o w it felt to her, that she was sitting as a person does in a n lortuarv chapel, keeping watch over the body of a relative or a friend.

reading that m i g h t be more suitable. She wanted to be annoyed but felt instead a vague chagrin. I t wasn't like her to use this term—"the state"—in the ironclad context of supreme public power. T h i s was not her vocabulary: T h e two paintings o f Baader dead i n liis cell were the same size but addressed the subject somewhat differently, and this is what she d i d now—she concen tratcd on the differences, arm, shirt, u n T l i i s was sometimes called the view known! object at the edge o f the frame, ing, she believed. the disparity or uncertainty. She was looking at U l r i k e now, head "1 d o n ' t k n o w w h a t h a p p e n e d , " and upper body, her neck rope-scorched, she said. "I'm only telling you what peoalthough she didn't know for certain what ple believe. It was twentyfiveyears ago. 1 k i n d of implement had been used i n don't know what it was like then, in ( l e r the hanging. many, w i t h bombings and kidnappings." She heard the other person walk toj hev made an agreement, don't you ward the bench, a man's heavy shuffling think?" stride, and she got up and went to stand "Some people believe thcyw erc murbefore the picture of IJ hike, one of three dered in their cells." related images, Ulrike dead in each, lying "A pact. They were terrorists, weren't on the floor of her cell, head in profile. they?When they're nor killing other peoH i e canvases varied i n size.'ITic woman's ple, they're killing themselves," he said. reality, the head, the neck, the rope burn, She was looking at Andreas Baader, the hair, the facial features, were painted, first one painting, then the other, then picture to picture, i n nuances o f obscuback again. rity and pall, a detail clearer here than T donIt know. Maybe that's even worse there, the slurred m o u t h in one painting i n a way. It's so much sadden Theres so appearing nearly natural elsewhere, all of much sadness in these pictures." it unsystematic. "There's one that s smiling," he said. W h y do you think he did it this way?* T h i s was ( J u d r u n , i n "ConfrontaShe d i d not turn to look at h i m . tion 2." "So shadowy. N o color." " I don't know i f that's a smile. I t could She said, " I don t know," and went to be a smile." die next set of images, called " M a n Shot " I t s the clearest image i n the room. Down." I his was Andreas Baader. She Maybe the whole museum. She's smilthought of h i m by his full name or suring," he said. name. She thought of ^ leinhof, she saw She turned to took at Gudrun across M c i n h o f as first name only, Ulrike, and the gallery and saw the m a n o n the the same was the case w i t h ( j u d r u n . bench, half turned her way, wearing a " I ' m trying to t h i n k what happened suit w i t h tie unknotted, going premato them." turely bald. She only glimpsed h i m . He was looking at her, but she was looking "They committed suicide. O r the state past h i m t o the figure o f ( i u d r u n i n a killed them." prison smock, standing against a wall H e said, " T h e state." T h e n he said and smiling, most likely, yes, in the m i d it again, deep voiced, in a tone of melodle picture. Three paintings of G u d r u n , d r a m a t i c menace, t r y i n g o u t a line r

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maybe smiling, smiling, and probably not smiling. "You need special training to look at these pictures. I can't tell the people apart." "Yes, you can. Just look. You have to

look.* She heard a note of slight reprimand i n her voice. She went to the far wall to kx)k at the painting of one o f the jail cells, w i t h tall bookshelves covering nearly half the canvas and a dark shape,

wraithlike, that may have been a coat on a hanger. "You're a grad student. O r you teach art," he said. " I ' m frankly here to pass the time. That's what 1 do between job interviews." She d i d n ' t w a n t t o tell h i m t h a t she'd been here three straight days. She moved t o t h e adjacent w a l l , a l i t t l e closer t o his p o s i t i o n o n the bench. T h e n she told h i m . " M a j o r money," he said. "Unless

you're a member." T i n not a member." " T h e n you teach art." " I don't teach art." "You want me to shut up. Shut up, % Bob. Only my names not Bob." I n the painting of the coffins being S carried through a large crowd, she didn't § know they were coffins at first. I t took her a long moment to see the crowd i t - Q self, There was the crowd, mostly an ashy blur w i t h a few figures in the center-right 1 foreground discernible as individuals ^ standing w i t h their backs to the viewer; | and then there was a break near the top of t he canvas, a pale strip of earth or road- Yway, and then another mass of people or trees, and i t took some time to under- < stand that the three whitish objects near the center of the picture were coffins § being carried tlirough the crowd or s i m - \ ply propped on biers. £ H e r e were the bodies o f Andreas : Baader, G u d r u n Ensslin, and a m a n | whose name she could not recall. H e

had been shot i n his cell. Baader had also been shot. G u d r u n had been hanged. She k n e w that this had happened about a vear and a halt after Ulrike. U l rike dead in M a r , she knew, of 1976. T w o m e n entered the gallery, f o l lowed by a w o m a n with a cane. A l l three stood before the display of explanatory material, reading. T h e p a i n t i n g o f t h e coffins h a d something else that wasn't easy to find. She hadn't found it until the second day,

yesterday, and i t was striking once she'd found i t , and ineseapable now—an object at the top of the painting, just left of center, a tree perhaps, i n the rough shape o f a cross. She went closer to the painting, hearing the w o m a n w i t h the cane move to-

ward the opposite waU She knew that these paintings were based o n photographs, but she hadn't seen them and didn't k n o w whether there was a bare tree, a dead tree beyond

the cemetery, i n one of the photos, that consisted of a spindly trunk w i t h a sin gle branch remaining, or t w o branches forming a transverse piece near the top of the m i n k . 1 le was standing next to her now, the man she'd been talking to. "Tell me what you see. Honestly. I want to know/' A group entered, led by a guide, and she t u r n e d for a m o m e n t , watching them collect at the first painting i n the I Kit Nt>fc YORKER, APKIL I, 2 0 0 2

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cycle, the portrait o f Ulrike as a much younger woman, a girl, really, distant and wistful, her hand and face half floating i n the sombre dark around her. "1 realize now that the first dav I was only barelv l o o k i n g . T thought 1 was looking, but I was onlv ^ e t t i n £ a bare inkling of what's in these paintings. I ' m onlv just starting to look." I he}' stood looking, together, at the coffins and trees and crowd. The tour guide began speaking to her group. " A n d w h a t d o you feel w h e n y o u look?" he said. " I don't know. It's complicated." "Because T don't feel am t h i n g . " "1 t h i n k T feel helpless. These paintings make me feel how helpless a person can be." "Is that why vou're here three straight days? T o feel helpless?" he said. "I'm here because 1 love the paintings. I \e and more. A t first 1 was confused, and still am, a litde. But 1 know 1 love the paintings now." I t was a cross. She saw i t as a cross, and it made her feel, right or wrong, that there was an element o f forgiveness i n the picture, that the two men and the woman, terrorists, and Ulrike before them, terrorist, were not beyond forgiveness. B u t she didn't p o i n t o u t the cross to die man standing next to her. T h a t was not what she wanted, a discussion o n the subject. She d i d n ' t t h i n k she was i m a g i n i n g a cross, seeing a cross i n some free strokes of paint, b u t she didn't want to hear someone raise elementary doubts.

1 le took up space, a tall broad man w i t h a looseness about h i m , something off hand and shambling. Someone reached past her to snag a napkin from the dispenser. She had no idea what she was doing here, talking to this man. H e said, " N o color. N o meaning." "What they did had meaning. I t was

wrong but it wasn't blind and empty. I t h i n k the painter's searching for this. A n d how did i t end the way it did? T think he's asking this. Everybody dead." " H o w else c o u l d i t end? Tell the

truth," lie said. "You teach art to handicapped children."

She didn't know whether this was i n teresting or cruel, but saw herself i n the window wearing a grudging smile. " I don't teach art." This is fast food that I ' m trying to eat slow. I don't have an appointment until diree-thirtv. Eat slow. A n d tell me what you teach." "1 don't teach." She didn't tell h i m that she was also out of work. She'd grown tired of describing her job, administrative, with an educational publisher, so why make the effort, she thought, nc >w that the job and the compan\ no longer existed. "Problem is, it's against my nature to eat slow. I have to remind mysel£ But even then I can't make die adjustment." But that wasn't the reason. She didn't tell h i m that she was out o f work, because it would give them a simation in common. She didn't want that, an i n flection o f mutual Sympathy a comradeship. L e t the tone stay scanered. She drank her apple juice and looked hey w cnt to a snack bar and sat at the crowds moving past, at faces that on stools arranged along a narrow- seemed completely know able for half a counter that measured the length o f second or so, then were forgotten forever the front w i n d o w . She w a t c h e d the in far less time than that. crowds o n Seventh Avenue, half the H e said, *We should have gone to a w o r l d rushing bv, and barely tasted what real restaurant. It's hard to talk here. she are. You're not comfortable." " I missed the first-day pop," he said, "No, diis is fine. I'm kind of i n a rush "where the stock soars like mythically, right now." four hundred per cent i n a couple of 1 le seemed to consider this and then hours. T g o t there for the aftermarreject it, undiscouraged. She thought ot ket, w h i c h turned out to be weak, then going to the washroom and then thought weaker." no. She thought of the dead man's shirt, Andreas Baader s shirt, dirtier or more W h e n the stools were all occupied, people stood and ate. She wanted to go bloody in one picture than i n the other. " A n d you have a thxee-o'clock," she home and check her phone messages. "T make appointments now. T shave, 1 said. "Three-thirty. But that's a long way smile. My life is living hell," he said, off. That's another w o r l d , where I fix blandly, chewing as he sjioke.

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my tie and walk in and tell them w h o I am." H e paused a moment, then looked at her. "You're supposed to say, ' W h o are you?'" She saw herself smile. B u t she said nodiing. She thought that maybe U l rike's rope burn wasn't a burn b u t the rope itself, if it was a rope and not a wire or a belt or something else. 1 le said, That's your line. W h o arc 44

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you? I set you up beautifully and you totall}' miss your cue." They'd finished earing, but their papercups were not empty y e t T h e } ' talked about rents and leases, parts of town. She didn't want to tell him where she lived. She lived just three blocks away, in a faded brick b u i l d i n g whose limitations and malfunctions she'd come to understand as the texture o f her lite, to be distinguished from a normal dav's complaints. T h e n she told l u m . T h e y were talking about places to r u n and bike, and he told her where he lived and what his jogging route was, and she said that her bike had been stolen from the basement of her building, and when he asked her where she lived she told h i m , more or less nonchalantly and he drank his diet soda and looked out the window, or into i t , perhaps, at their faint reflections paired on the glass.

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hen she came out o f the bathr o o m , he was standing at the kitchen window as i f waiting for a view to materialize. There w as n o t h i n g out there but dust}' masonry and glass, the rear o f the industrial loft building on the next street. I t was a smdio apartment, w i t h the kitchen only partly w alled o f f and the bed i n a corner of the room, smallish, without posts or headboard, covered i n a bright Berber robe, the only object i n the room o f some slight distinction. She knew she had to offer h i m a drink. She felt awkward, unskilled at this, at unexpected guests. W h e r e to sit, what to say, these were matters to con sider. She didn't mention the g i n she kept in the freezer. "You've lived here, w hat?" "Just under four months. I've been a nomad," she said. "Sublets, staving w i t h friends, always short-term. Ever since the marriage failed," "The marriage." I le said this i n a modified version of r

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the baritone rumble he'd used earlier tor "the state." "I've never been married. Believe that?" he said. "ft losr ot my friends my age. A l l o f them really. M a r r i e d , children, d i vorced, d uklren. \u want kids someday?" "When is someday? Yes, 1 t h i n k so." I think ot kids. I t makes me teel selfish, to be so war}' o f having a family. Never m i n d do I have a j o b or not. I ' l l have a job soon, a good one. That s not it. I'm i n awe ot raising, basically, someone so tin\ and soft." Thev drank seltzer w i t h wedges of l e m o n , seated diagonally at the l o w wooden table, the coffee table where she ate her meals.The conversation surprised her a little. I t w as not difficult, even in the pauses. T h e pauses were unembarrassed, and he seemed honest i n his remarks. 1 lis cell phone rang. H e d u g i t out o f his body and spoke briefly, then sat w i t h the t h i n g i n his hand, l o o k i n g though tful. l shotild remember to turn i t off. B u t 1 think, I f I turn i t off, what w i l l 1 miss? Something so incredible.'' "The call that changes everything." "Something so incredible. The total liic-altering call. That's w h y 1 respect mv ceil phone. She wanted to look at the clock. " T h a t wasn't your interview just now, was it? Cancelled?" H e said i t wasn't, and she sneaked a look at the clock on the wall. She w o n dered whether she wanted h i m to miss his interview. T h a t couldn't be what she wanted. "Maybe you Ye like me," he said, J ou have to find yourself o n the verge of something happening before y o u can begin to prepare for it. That's when you get serious." "Are we talking about fatherhood?" "Actually, I cancelled the interview myself. W h e n VOU were i n there," he said, nodding toward the bathroom. She felt an odd panic. H e finished his seltzer, tipping his head back until an ice cube slid into his mouth. Thev sat awhile, letting the ice melt. 1 hen he looked d i rectly at her, fingering one ot the dangled ends of his necktie. "Tell me what you want." She sat there. "Because I sense you're not ready and U

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I don't want to do something too soon. But, you know, we Ve here."

She didn't look at h i m . T m i tot one of those controlling men. 1 don't need to control anyone. Tell me what you want." "Nothing." "Conversation, talk, whatever; A flection," he said. "This is not a major m o ment in the world. It'll come and go. But we're here, so." " I want you to leave, please." H e shrugged and said, "Whatever." T h e n he sat diere. "You said, 'Tell me what you want.' I want you t o leave." 1 le sat there. 1 le didn't move. H e said, " I cancelled the thing for a reason. I don't d i i n k this is the reason, this panic ular conversation. I'm looking at you. I'm saying to myself, You know what she's like? She's like someone convalescing."

"I'm willing to sav it was mv mistake." " I mean we're here. 1 l o w d i d this happen? There was no mistake. I ,et s be friends,' be said. " I think we have to stop now." "Stop what? What are we doing?" H e was trying to speak softly, to take the edge off the moment. "Slie's like someone convalescing. E v e n i n the museum, this is what I thought. A l l right. Fine. But now we re here. T h i s whole day, no matter what we say or do, i t ' l l come and go." "1 don't want to continue this." "Be friends." "This is not right." "No, be friends." 1 lis voice carried an intimacy so false it seemed a little threatening. She didn't know why she was still sitting here. H e

h t m past the radiator, where the cover rattled slightly, and i n the direction o f the bed. "You have to go," she said, louder now. H e wits sitting on the bed, unbuckling his belt. T h i s is what she thought she heard, the rip o f the belt sliding out o f the loop and then a little flick o f tongue and clasp. She heard the zipper coming down. She stood against the bathroom door. After a while she heard h i m breathing, a sound of concentrated work, nasal and cadenced. She stood there and waited, head down, bod}'on the door. There was nothing she could do but listen and wait. When he was finished, there was a long pause, then some rustling and slutting. She thought she heard h i m put on

his jacket. H e came toward her now. She realized she could have locked the door earlier, when he was o n the bed. Shestood there and waited. T h e n she felt h i m lean against the door, the dead weight of him, an inch awav, not pushing but sagging. She slid the bolt into the chamber, quietly. H e was pressed there, breathing, sinking into the door. 1 le said, "Forgive me." H i s voice was barely audible, c l o s e to

a moan. She stood there and waited. leaned toward her then, placing a hand lightly on her forearm. I dont try to control people. This is not me." She drew aw av and stood up, and he was all around her then. She nicked her head into her shoulder. 1 le didn't exert pressure or try to caress her breasts or hips but held her i n a k i n d of loose containment. For a moment, she seemed to disappear, tucked and still, i n breathless hiding. T h e n she pulled awav. H e let her do this and looked at her so levellv, w i t h such measuring effect, that she barely recognized h i m . H e was ranking her, marking her in some awful and withering way.

T h e n he took o i l his jacket, a set of u n hurried movements that seemed to use up the room. I n the rumpled white shirt he was bigger than ever, sweating, c o m pletely u n k n o w n to her. 1 le held the jacket at his side, arm extended. "See b o w easy. N o w you. Start w i t h the shoes," he said, " f i r s t one, then the other." She went toward the bathroom. She didn't know what t o do. She walked along the w a l l , head d o w n , a person m a r c h i n g blindly, a n d w e n t i n t o the

H e said, "Tin so sorry. Please. I don't what to say. She waited tor l i i m to leave. W h e n she heard h i m cross the room and close the door behind h i m , finally, she waited a lull minute longer. Then she came out of the bathroom and locked the front door. know

She saw everything twice now. She was where she wanted to be, and alone, b u t n o t h i n g was the same. Bastard.

Nearly everything in the room had a

double effect—what it was and the association i t carried i n her m i n d . She went bathroom. She closed the door but was out walking, and when she came back •afraid to lock it. She thought i t would die connection was still there, at the cofmake h i m angry, provoke h i m t o do iee table, o n the bed, i n the bathroom. something, wreck something, worse. Bastard. She had dinner i n a small res"Be friends," he said. She d i d not slide the bolt. She was de taurant nearby and went to bed earl}'. She found she was shaking her head, termined not to do this unless she heard hen she went back to the m u t r y i n g to disbelieve the m o m e n t , t o h i m approach the bathroom. She didn't seum the next m o r n i n g he was make i t reversible, a misunderstandt h i n k he'd m o v e d . She was certain, ing. H e watched her. She was stand- nearly certain that he was standing near alone i n the gallery, seated on the bench in the middle of the r o o m , his back i n g near the bed, and this w as precisely the coffee table. to the entranccwav, and he was look the information contained i n his look, She said, "Please leave." ing at the last painting i n the cycle, the these t w o things, her and the bed. 1 le H e r voice was unnatural, so fluted largest by far and maybe most breath shrugged as i f to say, It's only right. Beand small it scared her further. Then she taking, the one w i t h the coffins and cause what's the p o i n t of being here heard h i m move. I t sounded almost leiif we don't do what were here to do? surely It was a saunter, almost, and it Cook cross, called "Funeral." •

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