In
the week I turned eleven, the world came closer to nuclear war than it had at
any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis ten years before I was born. NATO was
engaged in a major exercise testing their ability to respond to a nuclear
strike on the West; but the Soviets feared this was in fact the cover for a
genuine nuclear first strike against Moscow and her allies, and put their own
nuclear capability on alert.
The
events leading up to those ten extremely tense days form the backdrop of the brilliantly-woven
German drama Deutschland 83 (eight
episodes; recently shown in the UK), in which a young East German soldier is
sent undercover into the West German army as a Stasi spy.
It
is a study in ideology – how (every) ideology needs to create a (false) enemy
in order to justify its own existence – and of how our unquestioned beliefs
blind us to our own moral accountability and blind us to the people – ‘allies’
and ‘enemies’ – around us.
But
it is also a study in identity. In ‘becoming’ Moritz
Stamm, Martin Rauch takes on a double-life that calls his very identity into
question; but, in fact, living a double-life is the common motif
shared by every main character in the series, whether spy, soldier or
civilian, on either side of the Berlin Wall.
Having
just completed watching Deutschland 83,
we watched the film Still Alice,
which tells the story of a renowned linguistics professor at Columbia
University who develops early onset Alzheimer’s, and explores the impact of the
disease on her and her family. This, too, is a story about identity and, in a
particular way, leading a double-life.
The
double-life in question here is that, despite losing her mother and sister in a
car accident when she was in her late teens, and her father later on to the
alcoholism that towards the end robbed him of control of even the most basic
bodily functions, Alice has pursued her brilliant career as if she is immortal.
Leading
a double-life isn’t restricted to hiding an affair from our spouse, or a
gambling addiction from our family, or radicalisation from our neighbours; isn’t
restricted to the things that make for dramatic storylines in soap operas, and
destroy bystanders in real life. In certain regards we all lead double-lives; tell ourselves that this is the necessary
safety-net, the trade-off that enables us to get on with our lives at all; when
all the while it makes living additionally tiring.
I
cannot imagine what it is like to live with Alzheimer’s. But because of living
with Dyspraxia, I can identify with the deeply
painful embarrassment of – apparently randomly – not being able to recall
to mind the most familiar of names, habitual of professional acts, or the earlier
part of a current conversation. And, god, it takes so much effort to hide this
from most of the people most of the time. Too much effort.
But
we do not live super-heroic ‘gain trajectories’. Frailty is fundamental to our
human experience. We become less – confident, able – in certain ways even
alongside becoming more – confident, able – in others; in predictable and
unpredictable ways. And yes, it is especially poignant to watch a fictional
linguistics professor, an expert in human communication, have everything
stripped from her until there is nothing left but love; but Alice is an
everywoman, an everyman.
I
am not my enemy, to be out-smarted, or to have my place taken by an imposter.
(Or, if I am my enemy, Jesus told his followers to love their enemies.)
I
am my neighbour – who turns out to be just-like-me – to be reached-out to,
known, in the most perilous and ordinary of times: today.
