Hermann Kant wants to give up the presidency of the Writers’ Union, but it seems better for everyone — they take soundings — that he stay on as titular head, and five deputies do the work, instead of waiting for a new president to be appointed by Erich Honecker. And apropos Honecker, how long will he remain in office? Then which of the other oldsters will take over from him? In breaks between presidium meetings, there is talk of a “leaderless country.” The health minister, someone says — and this is unheard of — has asked to be relieved of his post. A colleague of Hans’s ran into a senior economist in the sauna, who proved to him that the system of state subventions for basic foodstuffs was wholly unsustainable. Supply and demand needed to be brought into alignment if the whole edifice weren’t to come crashing down. Bread rolls are still five pfennigs, but Ingrid recently paid seven hundred marks for a jacket at Exquisit. In the Party group of the Goethe Society there is a debate about evolution versus revolution. Change the system from inside or outside? Do the young have to be taught patience, or the old reminded of their former impatience? The minister provisionally put in charge of universities steps up and says Party decrees must be carried out to the letter, and the fight against “deviationists” conducted with a new ruthlessness. Then in the evening he sits in the hotel bar at the Weimar completely plastered, clutching hold of Hans’s sleeve. Hans runs off to his own room. From time to time, he takes notes of things he’s heard: The words “perestroika” and “glasnost” are no longer to be used. Or: Socialism in the colors of the GDR. Also jokes he picks up in the radio canteen: You never asked — we give you our answers anyway. Or: Why does Honecker not take the U-Bahn anymore? Because when the trains depart, someone calls out: “Step back!” Hans’s former lover Sylvia talks of “pink elephants,” which is her term for sentences and paragraphs she writes into program scripts so that there’s something to remove. [...]