In Europe

to appreciate his old enemy. He was optimistic about competing with the West, at least in his own field. ‘They're a little complacent, those
Wessis
, a little bit spoiled. They're going to have to deal with us.’
    Meanwhile the
Sächsische Zeitung
was writing about attacks on foreigners, about the 26,000 illegal immigrants who had been rounded up on the Saxon border in 1993, and the classified ads offered work in a ‘famousnightclub’ for ladies between the ages of eighteen and thirty-three, including housing and excellent amenities. Almost everything on the supermarket shelves came from the West. As part of the local drive to ‘Buy Saxon Wares’, Inge had done her best for a time to purchase milk, vegetables and other groceries exclusively from local suppliers. But those suppliers had proved almost impossible to find. The West saw to everything, the East barely seemed to exist any more.
    In September 1994 I went to visit Gudrun. The last time I had spoken to her, she had read aloud to me from one of her old textbooks:
    We are the class of a million millionaires
Being our own dictators makes us free
For us, good work is a duty and an honour
And each of us is a part of the party …
    Four years later she was living on the other side of Germany, in a Dortmund suburb. ‘Sometimes I wish I hadn't been born in the DDR,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I feel ashamed. And sometimes I sit in the car here, I see how everyone here eats and argues, and then I hate the West.’
    For years, as though seeing something of herself in a mirror, she had been able to pick out other women from East Germany whenever she saw them on the street: by their rather subservient posture, their uncertainty, their clothing.‘For one whole year I wore the same thing to church each Sunday: a white dress with a pullover. Out of protest, but also out of insecurity.’
    They still go back to Niesky on occasion, and last time there was one thing in particular that had struck her: there were no children being born. Almost all the young people had gone west. From Gudrun's class alone, nearly half the people had left. Since 1989 the town's birth rate had decreased by a third. ‘The women have become unsure of themselves,’ Gudrun says. ‘They are the first to be laid off, the company meals and other facilities that once allowed mothers to keep working are being dismantled. The women are being sent right back to the kitchen sink.’
    Today, in autumn 1999, Niesky looks like a town where nothing has ever happened. The houses are painted in cheerful pastel tints, the new libraryis the pride of the surroundings, on Zinzendorfplatz the final chrysanthemums are blossoming in festive hues. The
Sächsische Zeitung
talks about the local high school's recent field trip to Prague: the bus was searched at the border and no less than seven children turned out to have hashish with them. Hashish! In Niesky!
    This Sunday a wedding service is being held in the church. Eckart is wearing his black cleric's garb. I sit beside little Elisabeth, she's eleven now, pretty and soft as a fawn. Two little girls in crisp starched dresses play a violin duet. The choir sings. My friend preaches – off the cuff, without much ado or outward display – on a text from the Gospel of St John about peace, meekness and acceptance. The choir sings again. Eckart addresses the bride and groom, he speaks of ‘a humble life before the eyes of God’. The bride keeps her own eyes on the floor, while the groom, a chunky blond boy in an ill-fitting black suit, wipes away his tears. They say ‘I do’, and kiss shyly.
    Now the whole congregation files past to congratulate them: Inge, Jens, Alund, Elisabeth, the catechism teacher with her purple hair, the little group of hunched widows, a pair of burly workmen from Christoph Unmack, the choirgirl with the naughty piercing in her nose. Then everyone goes outside. They throw rice, the children step forward for a song, a curtsey and flowers, the groom tosses a few coins, there's a bit of singing again, then everyone shouts:‘
Hoch!
'The bride and groom climb into an antique car and drive off. We all standing waving at the curb. ‘A 1934 Opel!’ says Eckart, always the impassioned technician, even when in his clergyman's suit. ‘If only that car could talk!’ ‘As a student, I went to Berlin once with a few friends on one of those inexpensive junkets. It was 30 April, the queen's birthday in Holland, so we decided to go on a spree in East