Kairos

On his vacation along the Baltic coast, Hans is unable to call Katharina, because the only telephone in the hotel would draw his family’s attention. Hans spends the vacation trying to lose himself in relaxing activities, but he struggles to control his desires. During a day visit to Barth, Hans tells his family about a poem inscribed on one of the fountains. He barely holds their interest. He and Ingrid bicker over the poem’s assertion that poets must deny their individual desires, much to Ludwig’s annoyance.

Hans fears that Katharina may want to end their relationship because he hasn’t called.

On her way back to Berlin, Katharina realizes she is free to wander around while she remains outside East Germany. She initially decides against it and returns home, but then she reads the letter that Hans sent to welcome her back.

Katharina goes to the Baltic coast to surprise Hans. She sees Hans’s family in person for the first time, though they do not realize she is there for him. Hans slips away from his family to spend an intimate moment with Katharina. Later that night, they have sex.

The next day, Hans tells Katharina about his childhood. During World War II, Hans’s father taught German values to Polish prisoners. Hans himself was in the Hitler Youth. It was not long after when he first saw footage of how the prisoners were being treated in the concentration camps. Katharina recalls her own grandfather, who escaped being killed by the Nazis and by the fascists in Spain. Had he died, Katharina would not have been born. From Katharina’s perspective, the history of Germany from before she was born has always been marked by violence and death.

Hans shows Katharina the Pergamon Altar, telling her the stories of the Greek mythological figures in the friezes from Zeus to Hercules. Hans is once again pleased by Katharina’s curiosity, which he hopes she will never lose. Katharina believes she will never feel bored as long as she is with Hans.

Amid extensive public renovations in East Berlin, Hans and Katharina spend almost every day together. Katharina’s father visits from Leipzig and is impressed by Hans. He encourages her to learn from his materialist view of history. Hans feels that the Berlin of his youth is being demolished, leaving him to hold on to his ideals as the last relic of his youth. Katharina is the only other reminder he has left of what it means to be young. Hans anticipates the inevitability of his death.

Katharina invites Hans over to the apartment she lives in with her mother and her stepfather, Ralph, while they are away. When Hans sees the bed in Katharina’s room, he gets the idea to tie her to it as a sex game. She agrees to the idea almost immediately. Once he finishes tying Katharina to the bed, Hans leaves the room to smoke. He explains that he did this to assert the exciting power of possibility, knowing that he could go to the room anytime and see her there. Katharina taunts that he is scared she will run away. Hans orders her to turn to her side, then he strikes her with his belt. Afterward, he kisses the parts he struck.

Katharina feels that she truly knows Hans now. She fantasizes about being the mother of his child.

Three months into their relationship, Katharina starts becoming possessive of Hans. Some of her habits have begun to merge with his. She adopts his writing style and gets rid of the records she used to listen to in order to feel sad. She feels she is both merging with Hans and becoming both her true self. When Hans shows her pictures of his 50th birthday party, Katharina becomes suspicious of the other women in his life. She is upset that Hans remains married to Ingrid.

While Katharina is out with friends, Hans spends an evening alone at a café called the Arkade, where he contemplates the time he has left with Katharina. He acknowledges that she is jealous about the effort she has to put into keeping their relationship secret, which none of his other lovers have to do. He writes a letter to Katharina, detailing his observations of the café. The letter includes other stray thoughts, including his hopes to make something more of their relationship. Thinking about Katharina with her male friends, Hans realizes he is possessive of her as well. The “serene” period of their relationship has ended.

While with her friends, Katharina can only talk about Hans. Her friends laugh off her reverence for his gestures. One friend, André, comments that Katharina is too dependent on Hans. Hans is only giving a part of himself to her, not the whole. Another friend, Ruth, comments that Katharina has lost her “radiance” ever since she started dating Hans. Katharina is unsure what she means.

Katharina is crestfallen with her friends’ disapproval. She now feels her relationship with Hans is necessary for her to stand “against the world” (108).

Ingrid finds a picture of Katharina in Hans’s jacket.

As Christmas comes around, Hans fears that he will have to withdraw from Katharina again to spend time with his family. Hans considers giving Katharina the excuse he typically uses when he has to neglect his lovers to spend time with his wife—“Without my marriage I wouldn’t be the man I am” (109)—but realizes that it would mean something different in their affair. The marriage and the affair mutually improve each other, making Katharina seem more exciting and Ingrid more beautiful in her anger toward Hans. For her part, Ingrid manages both their household and Hans’s practical needs from day to day. Most importantly, Ingrid has chosen to stay with him in spite of his affairs.

Hans concludes that his marriage makes him the man that Katharina loves. He worries that his excuse would lead to her continued frustration, followed by encouragements from her loved ones to leave him.

After Ingrid throws him out, Hans stays at the apartment of a friend who has fled to West Germany. He struggles to get by on the 500 marks Ingrid gave him for his expenses, though he does not feel the disposition to work. He focuses on trying to make his groceries and his budget last through the winter.

Katharina stays with him now that they no longer have to sneak around. They settle into a regular routine, in which Hans writes to her and asks her to write back about her wants. All she knows is that she wants to be with him and to have a child.

Hans supposes that he will need to end one of his relationships to save the other. He writes an idealized version of his predicament in which both relationships can mutually exist. He wonders if he needs Ingrid because she fulfills his living needs while Katharina fulfills his sexual needs. He does not share these thoughts with Katharina.