The Thuringian Observatory: Episode 1
It seemed simple enough. On one side of the observatory we had grown-ups: scientists, the gatekeeper, janitors, electrical engineers, the evil administrator and the overlord professor. They lived in houses, somewhere, with families and responsibilities and complicated lives. On the other side we had students: creatures who inhabited the guest rooms and only left the place to eat sausages or icecream. The observatory itself seemed simple, too, a complex of four buildings around a green circle, surrounded by miles of wood, trees over trees. The next village two miles away, the next town five miles. Behind the green circle, just a few hundred yards back, hidden in obscurity, the large dome with its white telescope. It was such a simple, beautiful place, ideal to escape from the overbearing complexities of the world.
At the beginning I worked on the second floor of the big house. Here, everybody was addressed by the formal third person plural, “Sie”, or Herr last name, no exceptions. On one end of the floor, towering Professor S behind his big desk and next to him the all-powerful administrator Herr S. On the other end of the floor, Diploma student Aleks Scholz on an unpaid internship. There were only two students in this building, me and S, who was in the fourth year of his PhD thesis. Everybody else was a grown-up. Over on the other side of the complex, in the guesthouse, it was just students, and everybody was addressed as “Du”. The difficulties began when I was moved to the building in between, named “Haus M”.
Haus M was inhabited by a variety of characters. Dr M was a very considerate man. He thought about questions for so long that I sometimes forgot that I had even asked something. Dr Z was the oldest astronomer, a former cycling expert. He was reported to switch the lights off in his house every night at exactly the same time. These two were addressed as “Sie”, and addressed everyone as “Sie”, because they were grown-ups. Dr E was the youngest astronomer. He ate strawberry jam sandwich for dinner and was addressed as “Du”, without “Herr”. Of course he became my supervisor. Haus M was also the home of U, one of the three night assistants, and like all night assistants he was addressed as “Du” and first name by students and Dr. E, but as “Sie” and Herr last name by everybody else.
The world of the night assistants was strange and luxurious. They worked one week through the night, then one week through the day, and then they had a week off. It was a pretty sweet deal. U was an optical engineer and overqualified for the job. F was a lightning enthusiast and underqualified for the job. C was normal and went fishing in his free time. The night assistant’s primary job was to wait for clear sky and to operate the telescope so that the astronomers didn’t have to do it. Because they were not astronomers they had to get detailed instructions. If the sky was not clear they were free to pursue other pastimes, designing lenses, developing photographs, drinking tea, watching thunderstorms.
The night assistant on duty was the constant reminder that we lived in an observatory, a place where the night is a time to buckle down and work. All grown-ups obeyed strict working hours, start at eight in the morning, lunch break from twelve to half past twelve, finish at half past four, a punishing schedule. The students adopted the hippie lifestyle of the observatory. We got up late and received disapproving looks when we showed up for work just before lunch. We took a long coffee break in the afternoon. We worked late into the night, the rigorously dark night of the forest, with its mysterious fauna. The animals of the night, the moths, the insects, the foxes, the owls, the badgers, the wild pigs, were bigger and louder than anywhere else.
Life at the observatory was full of explicit rules, as long as the grown-ups were around. No alcohol in the rooms. No dirty dishes in the kitchen. No bicycle inside the building. Bicycles are a fire hazard, I was told. Herr S stormed into my room and condemned the bicycle. During the night, the observatory became an anarchic paradise for stargazers and nerds. I had a thirty second walk from bed to desk, and when the grown-ups disappeared at half past four, I walked back to my bed, opened the window, and fell asleep, relieved of all rules, to the sound of the birds and trees. Only one rule remained after sunset: Close the blinds and keep the light to a minimum. The darkness is sacred.
The German habit of distinguishing between the formal “Sie” and the informal “Du” when addressing people reveals hidden structures, the implicit order of a place. It’s like throwing iron filings into an invisible magnetic field. Hidden structures, and hidden barriers. The barrier between young and old. The barrier between people with authority and people without. And in this case also the barrier between East and West Germany. It was the latter that made Dr E an outlier. In contrast to the other grown-ups in the observatory, he came from the west, a place where scientists speak English all the time and don’t care that much about authority, at least not in their language. Also from the west was Professor S, but in contrast to Dr E he was a professor and close to retirement. German professors close to retirement didn’t respond well to informality. They exhaled authority. I came from the West, too, but I had been born in a town just a half-hour drive away from the observatory. My grandmother still lived there. I had my issues with her and visited her rarely. Although I was technically closer to home than ever before, I was an outsider.
It took a while to enter the world of the technicians with their mysterious habits and interesting talents. Every other week they dismantled the big telescope and put it back together. They lived in the basement or in workshops hidden in the woods. The electricians behaved like the astronomers and were addressed like them. The mechanics didn’t seem to care about etiquette, anything goes in the mechanics workshop. It was a place that followed different rules. The computer guys B and J were perfectly content with the informal “Du”. They saved my computer several times and I’m grateful for that.
The women at the observatory filled very specific roles. They cleaned offices, wrote protocols, made coffee, and served food. Lunch was prepared in town and served in a barrack on the grounds of the observatory. Horrible stuff, overcooked, oversalted, and devoid of texture. It beared strong resemblance to the school meals in East Germany. The world was about to change. Two of the new PhD students were women, one from Venezuela, the other from Spain. The new director, the successor of Prof S, came from America and didn’t speak German. It was an era of change and awkwardness. All women in service jobs were addressed with the formal “Sie”, by everyone, which led to the problem that I said “Du” to B, a computer guy, but “Sie” to his wife, who helped cleaning the houses. Nobody ever explained this to me, but I knew it had to be done.
Whenever some student finished his thesis, he or nowadays she had to go through a ritual: exams in weird subjects, a public talk, a public defense, and the wearing of a funny hat. And then Dr K, one of the astronomers in the big house, walked up to the newly minted doctor and said: “Welcome to the club.” That was his thing. It was never quite clear what club he meant. There were so many clubs. I left the observatory after five years, having joined some club. S was still not finished with this PhD. His car had broken down and was parked behind an observatory building. After a failed attempt to replace the motor by himself, the carcass of the car was left in the woods.
