3 Partitions - Kairos, by Jenny Erpenbeck

Introduction

In Jenny Erpenbecks 2021 novel Kairos, the unlikely union of two characters--19 year old design student Katharina and writer for radio Hans, a married man with a child, barely younger that Katharina, and in his mid fifties-- masterfully reflects the decline and ultimate fall of Eastern Berlin.

It is July 11th, 1986, and Katharina and Hans meet on the bus, mirroring each other's footsteps from the Marx-Engels-Platz to the S-Bahn overpass. Hans knew Katharina, knew her mother, when she was just a child. Now, they get a cup of coffee, eat dinner, drink wine at Han's family apartment, and become lovers. The first time the sleep together, Erpenbeck scores the book to Mozart's Requiem, as the voices of the choir shout at the pair.

“Lead them to everlasting light!”

At the very start of their relationship, they seem unable to spend time apart. They spend every moment allowed together, Katharina even secretly visits Hans on the beach while he is on vacation with his family. In fact, they seem perfect for each other. They ages add up to one hundred, they work, they understand each other, they liberate each other; Hans feels young again, Katharina feel markedly mature. However, as their relationship continues, the flaws become clearer. In a suffocating march, full of deadly tension and clear cruelty, true character are revealed. During Katharina's year away from Berlin, to Frankfurt for an internship, she begins to sleep with a man named Vadim. When Hans finds out, their relationship quickly becomes abusive, with Hans choosing to inflict both physical and mental terror upon Katharina. He telling her that she is cruel, that she has betrayed his trust, and that he does not know if he can ever face her again. Despite being married, he cites that he has recieved the highest level of cruelty.

Their relationship between inherently represents East Germany. Erpenbeck uses the intense and destructive love affair between the young woman and the older man as an allegory for East Germany’s rise and fall. Their relationship, marked by passion, control, and eventual disillusionment, mirrors the trajectory of the German Democratic Republic's (GDR) idealistic beginnings to later oppressive reality, followed by it's inevitable collapse.

Context

East Germany (or the GDR) was founded in 1949 as a socialist state that was under Soviet Union, opposing the capitalist and Western backed West Germany. The GDR was initially promoted as a worker's paradise, built and run for the proletariat. However, the GDR became known for it's tight surveillance of citizens, censorship, and restrictions on freedom. Later in 1961, the Berlin Wall was built, sealing off East Germans from the west.

By the 1980s, the collective dissatisfaction, economic stagnation, and exposure to the increasingly liberal Western culture generated unrest. Protests and pushes for political change that occured in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev's reforms began to weaken the GDR's grip. By the end of the 80s, in 1989, the tipping point was reached, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the subsequent fall of East Germany. By 1990, the East and West had reuninted, eliminating and dissolving the GDR permanently.

The Relationship

Hans epitomizes East Germany, with his clear upper hand in intellect and authority within the relationship reflecting the promise of socialism. As the GDR citizens believed in their communist cause, Katharina believes in Hans, and clings to the hope that he could, just maybe, could leave his wife and son. Katharina becomes quickly devoted to Hans, seeing his role as noble.

Following the violent turn in their relationship, the theme of dominance and submission becomes obvious. As Hans exerts control over Katharina, it accurately follows the timeline of the GDR, coinciding with the increase of the GDR's authoritarian rule over its citizens. Hans uses emotional manipulation and psychological abuse tactics that mirror the oppressive state--slowly increasing censorship and restrictions on freedom.

As this abuse continues, Katharina begins to realize the clear imbalance that had been hidden under her obsession and infatuation of Hans. Her realization of this divide reflects the East German through the late 80s, as they begin to recognize the failures of their government. Tensions continue to rise, and their relationship ultimately collapses the very day the Berlin Wall falls. As the GDR breaks apart, so does the union of these two individuals. Ultimately, the end, for both, led to futures that were full of uncertainty and doubt, despite the overwhelming liberation.

Conclusion

Erpenbeck is able to create a political allegory through this troubled love affair. Through a dynamic that has been written over many times, Erpenbeck draws a connecting line between the intimate and the ideological, the personal and the historical. Across the volatile relationship between Katharina and Hans, the landscape of East Germany in it final years is delivered perfectly.

Erpenbeck renders a time so close and personal to her own life, exposing the velocity with which passion curdles into itself, turning into possession, as East German idealism slowly inches towards oppression. As Katharina wakes up into the cruely embedded in her bond with and to Hans, the East Germans begin to deal with the failed promises of the GDR. The final and fatal separation encapsulates the final point--the disintegration of a controlling relationship mirrored against an authoritarian state. In the wae of both, there is no immediate clarity. Only a raw, unsteady hope remains. The tender flesh under the rough, scarred, calloused skin built up over years, ready to begin again.