A Battle of Minds Ch. 01

The following story takes place in a fictional small town in Eastern Germany, sometime in the late 1990s. Due to the German school system of that time (starting relatively late, and leading until 13th grade for those who want to attend university), most students were 18 or older during their last two years of school. This is also the case for all school students in this story.

Please forgive my mistakes, I am not a native speaker of English.

This story is fictional. Any similarities to real people or events are a coincidence.

~~~~~

At night, Lake Leskow looks like a black mirror. Its murky depths seem unfathomable. Sometimes, the wind makes its journey across the lake: Then, small waves ripple its surface and the moon's reflection dances on those tiny curls of water. The moon's big moment never lasts for more than a few minutes: The wind brings clouds that hide it from view. The trees of the Grünenberg Forest reach towards the shore and stretch their branches out over the water. There is silence all around, interrupted only occasionally by the quiet whispers of the leaves or the cry of an owl.

At the South East, the lake is forming a bay, from which one cannot see the small town of Leskow, situated to the West of the lake. The forest is less dense here. A clearing right at the bay would make this spot ideal for swimming, if the shore weren't as muddy just here, and if there wasn't as much reed growing right at this place. As it is, on summer afternoons the families of Leskow prefer to go the "Beach", which is situated much closer to the town at the South Western shore. Of course, the sandiness of the beach is owed to the destruction of the turf by many hundreds of feet, rather than to it really being a beach. Still, the people of Leskow feel almost like at the sea side here. The small bay, on the other hand, is preferred only by young couples who appreciate mainly its isolation.

Right now, however, in the middle of the night during summer break, most young couples are in the only discotheque or in one of the two bars in Leskow gearing toward a younger crowd. Some might also have taken onto themselves the long ride by regional train to the capital, to escape the boredom of their small town home for at least one evening.

The little bay is quiet and dark; untouched by the existence of loud music, smoky heat, flashing lights and the drunkenness that characterizes the weekend for most of Leskow's youth. The reed is swaying softly in the wind. Finally the moon has free view of the bay for a few moments -- one cloud just left it free, the next one will reach it only in a little while -- and in its light something is sparkling in the reed: Something is stuck between its stalks. Something silver, seemingly precious. It might be a necklace or a bracelet.

The silence is interrupted suddenly, the sound of human feet disrupting the quiet night. The clouds quickly hide the moon again, and thus only the silhouette of a man becomes visible, as he marches straight towards the shore of the lake. He sinks into the mud a bit, but he doesn't seem to mind. In the dark, the metal object between the reeds isn't sparkling any more, one can barely see it. The man finds it anyway; his hand disappears into the dark, cool water, grabs the little thing hidden there just underneath the surface of the lake, and pulls it out. Again, the sound of his footsteps in the shallow waters disturbs the silence. He reaches the shore and breaks a few twigs under his feet. Then he is gone, and Lake Leskow is once again surrounded by silence.

In the meantime, somewhere in the little town of Leskow, a young man named Martin is drunkenly swaggering towards his home, while trying with all his might to forget that he has only two more weeks left until the start of the new school year.

***

Martin was not a good student, nor did he enjoy school. He did not enjoy any kind of effort. And since open protest against the tasks life set him would have been an effort too, his attitude made him reminiscent of a thick lump of clay that with enough strength could be forced into any chosen shape, but which would never look particularly elegant in it. It was not only his behaviour, but also his looks that made him seem like a heavy, formless lump.

From his elementary school years onwards, he tried to resist all tasks, like doing his homework or studying for a test, with a stubborn silence -- but only until it started seeming probable that resistance would be harder work than doing whatever was asked from him. He had to repeat the third grade. After that, he learned he had to avoid that kind of mistake, if he wanted to continue the comfortable life he had grown accustomed to. This realization was caused not so much by the beating he took from his father after he brought home his report card. Rather, it were the annoying tutoring lessons and longwinded discussions during which his parents asked him again and again to explain his opinion towards his own failure, that convinced Martin that too many problems in school would result in more work than doing his homework in the first place would have been.

Thus, from that day onwards, his performance was remarkable in neither a positive nor a negative way. Despite not being a dismal student, though, his incapability for independent thinking, abstracting the learned facts, or forming an opinion of his own, caused at least the more committed of his teachers to worry. Martin got through a conversation about this very topic with his sixth grade German teacher by maintaining a stubborn silence and nodding his head just at the right places. The teacher let him go, full of doubt whether her charge had understood her point at all and with growing insecurities as to how to formulate her worries in a letter to his parents. In the end, she refrained from any action she had planned to face this problem, and gave Martin a grade that was high above the one he would have deserved -- maybe due to the guilt she felt about her own lethargy concerning the issue.

Martin's parents urged him to go on with school after the compulsory ten years of education, and prepare for university studies, and even though Martin wanted nothing less than study at a university, he decided it was easiest to yield to their wishes. Thus it seemed probable Martin would graduate from 13th grade in a few years, even if his grades would be well below his class' average.

Martin hated sports, and you could tell just by looking at him. However, he took care not to gain enough weight to find himself on the receiving end of his class mates' teasing and bullying, or worse, to give his mother the idea that he needed a diet. As it was, he was not only slightly taller than the average for a boy his age, but also quite burly without actually being fat. The features of his face weren't unshapely or crude, but even less could they be described as fine -- to call him ugly would have been a gross exaggeration, which would not occur to anyone anyway since his face was much too uninteresting for that type of description. His hair was of a dark, muddy grayish brown, and every other month he cut it down with a razor to a length of just a few millimeters.

For many years Martin was not interested in girls, they were simply one of the many nuisances he had to face in the class room, and he ignored them as best he could. Only when he reached adulthood, he started realizing that he was strangely drawn to these creatures. He did not give himself in to any illusions, however. He knew that the girls in his school, or any other girls he might meet in town, did not like him. They seemed to never even look at him. Nevertheless, he did not concern himself with that too much. For the time being, he contented himself with the occasional magazine he bought at a kiosk, or, since he had reached his 18th birthday, with the porn section at the local video store. On a few occasions, he had a chance for a peek into the girl's locker room after P.E. class, and he took advantage of that opportunity. Afterwards, there was one girl in particular that he could not get out of his mind, a new and disconcerting sensation for him. He thought of her for many evenings while he was lying alone in his bed, and for a while the erotic magazines he was hiding in a nondescript box remained untouched, as closing his eyes and remembering her pale skin and red hair in the greenish light of the locker room was quite enough to give him the desired climax. Eventually, however, the school year was over, and not seeing her during summer break was enough to allow Martin to stop thinking of her.

While Martin was very far from being popular, he never had a lack of friends, since he easily integrated into groups as long as they did not ask him to think independently. He had a reputation of being pleasant company for all those who liked having both the first and the last word, since he never disturbed them with suggestions of his own. In order to not have to argue, he agreed with everything, participated in everything as long as it was not too much effort. At the same time, he wasn't noticeable enough to be missed, when due to a changed balance of power and influence in the school he switched into a new group of friends, nor was his lack of loyalty ever challenged. It was just the way he was.

*

The first day back in school after the summer holidays started with horrible news: Mr. Seger, the mathematics teacher, had suffered a deadly accident the previous evening. Silence gripped the room, and twenty six pairs of eyes were staring in shock at Mrs. Jadrowski, who had entered the class room about five minutes after the bell rung, to bring the sad message to the students of the 12th grade Basic Math Course II. Twenty six pairs of eyes -- but in the room there were twenty eight students.

Two students were not looking at her, two students sitting at the last table next to the windows. One of these two was Martin, who was gazing out the window, as he did so often, the other one was a quiet, red haired girl named Laura, who was looking down at her knees. It is impossible to tell what Martin was thinking of; quite possibly he was not thinking anything at all. At the very least, though, he heard enough of what was being said, to act appropriately and not be noticed.

Laura, on the other hand, was thinking of that fateful afternoon almost two weeks ago, on which she had broken up with her boyfriend Daniel, while they were having a picnic on the small clearing at the Southeastern shore of Lake Leskow.

*

The fact that this had happened on her eighteenth birthday of all days, only seemed to make matters worse. Maybe the high expectations both of them had harbored for this highly symbolic day had played their role in the unfolding of events which had lead to their dispute. Maybe the tension both Laura and Daniel had felt in the days upcoming to this event had needed an outlet, and the worst fight in their relationship had been the inevitable result. After all, on Laura's 18th birthday "it" was supposed to happen.

Laura's parents were conservative even for the standards of their small town home, and had made sure to ingrain in their daughter the idea that sexual encounters at too early an age might have unforeseeable psychological effects -- apart from the risk of getting pregnant. When, a little more than a year earlier, her relationship with Daniel had started becoming more and more serious, the girl had told him that under no circumstances would she agree to anything in this respect before turning 18 years old. Daniel was one grade above her in school and thus more than a year older. However, he proved to be the most understanding and patient boyfriend both Laura and her parents could ever have hoped for.

Laura's parents knew Daniel's family. Not well, but the way most families in a town the size of Leskow know most other families. Laura and Daniel themselves had not had much to do with each other, going to different preschools and elementary schools, until Laura started 7th grade and thus began visiting the same school Daniel was going to for a year already. In fact, though he had never told her, Daniel had started developing a crush on her since the first time he saw her on the school yard a few days into that school year, sitting alone on a bench with her nose in a book, as Laura had been very shy at that age and had needed a few months to make friends with her new class mates. Daniel, while not a shy person in general, had needed several years to muster enough courage to ask the red-headed girl out: If he had been patient since then, what did it matter to wait another year, until she turned 18?

The maturity of both of their behavior had not gone unnoticed. A few months before the appointed day, the trust of Laura's parents had grown so much that they allowed their daughter to go out until late in the evening, as long as she was with her boyfriend. When speaking to close friends, they already jokingly referred to him as their "son in law". Those who knew them well could deduct from these remarks that they hoped he might one day really become just that.

Still, even with their new freedom, Laura and Daniel held on to their promise. Up to Laura's eighteenth birthday they had not exchanged more than kisses, even though Laura had recently felt unknown urges awaking in her, making her desire greater intimacy with the boy she loved. Accordingly, both Laura's and Daniel's expectations for the afternoon of her birthday had been big. They had decided weeks beforehand that this should indeed be the day.

Laura did not want to celebrate her birthday with her friends -- it had been years since she had last thrown a birthday party, to her, such events were childish. Instead, she told her parents that all she wished to do was going on a quiet walk in the forest, just her and Daniel. It was the end of August, a warm and sunny day. Daniel had brought a blanket and a vast variety of food for Laura's birthday picnic, he knew her well enough to choose all her favorites. Thus, after slowly strolling through the forest for a while, the two of them sat down to eat by the shore of the lake, on the small clearing near the hidden bay on the lake's Southeastern end. However, Laura was barely able to eat anything at all -- there was a strange tension in the air. Finally they put the remainder of their picnic to the side, and started kissing so timidly; a passer-by would have thought this was their first date.

Laura was not sure what had happened after that. All of a sudden, they had been in the middle of a huge fight. Of course they had had their disagreements before, but not a fight like this. How had it come to this? Vaguely Laura remembered Daniel pulling a bracelet out of his pocket. He claimed to have just found it, right at the place they had chosen for their picnic. He wanted to give it to Laura. And then? For some reason, she didn't want the bracelet. She had been angry at him, an anger that consumed her completely, that blocked out all reasonable thought. She had accused him of the strangest things. Why? It felt as if she hadn't been herself anymore. Finally she had run off, left the forest, yelling that she never wanted to see him again.

*

A soft touch on her arm jerked Laura out of her thoughts. She looked up and into Martin's round face. He returned her look with his usual, indefinable expression. Oh, how she hated him -- Laura had felt a strong aversion against this boy from her first day at this school. It wasn't like her to feel this way, really. She was the type of girl that saw something good in everyone, and she certainly was not into bullying or excluding people. But she was sure that there was something wrong with him. It wasn't just that he was stupid and seemed to have no mind of his own, it was more. He scared her. It made her uncomfortable that he had touched her. Why was she even sitting next to him? She vaguely remembered entering the room, the whole class being present, and looking for a place to sit, but she couldn't remember choosing this seat. Maybe it had been the only free seat, she thought.

"Didn't you hear?" Martin asked.

"What!?" Laura's voice came out louder than planned.

"Mr. Seger has died. We can go home. Tomorrow there is a memorial gathering in the assembly hall, and then classes continue as soon as they can find a replacement."

Laura looked around. Mrs. Jadrowski was standing near the door and talking to a few students. They all looked sad and worried; one girl was wiping tears out of her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. The others were packing their books back into their bags silently and with serious expressions.

Shocked Laura turned back to Martin, many questions on her mind, but he was already halfway to the door.

*

The memorial assembly started at ten o'clock. It was scheduled to last two hours, afterwards classes would resume -- after all, the new school year had to get started at some point. It was loud in the assembly hall; the principal had to ask for silence repeatedly. He tried to remind the students that this was a memorial service, a moment to show respect. However, for about half the school's students, those who never had had any classes with Mr. Seger, this event was nothing but a welcome distraction in those frustratingly boring first days of school after the summer break.

Laura sat near the door in the back of the assembly hall and was once again staring at her knees. Today, she was wearing a dark knee-length skirt. Normally she preferred jeans, but today seemed to be an occasion to dress a bit nicer and at the same time, as the school was in mourning, to wear black. She had discussed the issue with her mother, and both had agreed that this skirt and a dark blouse were the appropriate attire for this day.

As the assembly started with a long speech by the principle, Laura grew unsettled. She had the strange sensation that someone was watching her. Searchingly, she looked around in the hall. She discovered Daniel about fifteen meters from her. After a few more reminders by the principal to behave befitting to the situation, the students in the hall finally quieted down. Daniel was looking to the front, apparently listening attentively. Laura believed to see that he was pale and had dark rings under his eyes. But that was nonsense, of course, he was sitting much too far away for her to notice such details. She turned away.

Listening to the voice of the principal, reminding his audience of the life and achievements of Mr. Seger, who himself had once studied at this very school, was wearing her down, and making her sad. Laura had liked Mr. Seger. He hadn't been young anymore, at least from his students' point of view, and at the same time he seemed to lack experience of life in the world out there -- but it was just that which was making his students trust him and feel close to him. Most of them had hardly ever left their small town either and although some occasionally tried to rebel, their teacher's old-fashioned conservativeness had been something reassuringly familiar to them. He was just like everything they had known from their childhood onwards.

Of course, Laura had never been particularly good at mathematics. However, since Mr. Seger had once been in the same class as her mother, he had greeted the girl with a friendly smile every morning when he entered the class room, and had been as lenient as he could be when grading her performance, without it becoming unfair to the other, more talented students. And Laura had shown her gratitude by studying all the harder. She was more interested in languages, literature and social sciences; however, she was well aware that the natural sciences and especially mathematics were just as important if she wanted to succeed in life. At least, that was what she had always been told, and willingly accepted.