Matthias Wittekindt: “Red Java” – farm fire

“Die rote Jawa” is the name of the third novel by Matthias Wittekindt about the old cases of the former detective. d manz. A Jawa was a Czech-made motorcycle with a single-cylinder two-stroke engine that was so popular in the GDR that young Mannes – with his typical red paint – moved through the provinces of Mecklenburg in the summer of 1961, shortly before the wall was built. On the billion, because Jawa is led by Maja, a 19-year-old who is of great sexual interest to 16-year-old Manz.

But he is more concerned with a farm fire in which the owner couple died while his two daughters were unharmed. In fact, Mannes only came to Klein-Glevitz to do an internship with the fire brigade in preparation for his dream job of becoming a sailor. But there is something “crooked” about the fire, which was arson, because the police see the two girls as the culprits, and later a Swedish immigrant worker. Mannes senses it, takes a closer look, asks, and gathers facts. Without knowing it, there is a policeman, a homicide detective in it.

Not that he makes the case, that would be too cheap for an author of Wittekindt’s rank. And perhaps also impossible, because the fire is linked to land reform and other “modernization” projects in the GDR, which did not necessarily take into account the sensitivities of the people affected, keyword expropriation. Just in the past, years later, veteran policeman Mannes came up with another highly disruptive solution. But by then, it was already too late.

A master of soft tones, Wittekindt narrates sweetly on two levels — in the moment, Christmas 2019, when the smell of roast chicken stirs up memories of the summer of 1961; and 1961, when Mannes gradually grows older.

Matthias Wittkindt always liked to be set in the tradition of Georges Simenon, but if there is any reference to French literature in this book, it is to do with the stories of Guy de Maupassant.

Wittekindt accurately and accurately describes the landscape of the Mecklenburg Lake District around Waren an der Müritz, the special light, the vast sky, the smells, the plants, the animals, and the people. It is colorful and vigorous, as in Impressionist paintings, and as in Maupassant, it is also deeply intoxicating.

For the political situation at that time brings misfortune to those people who still want to believe in the good in “existing real socialism”, even if young Mannes, in his eagerness to seek the truth, is not really aware of it.

Wittekindt’s poisonous traps are well hidden, he doesn’t have to point them out, he doesn’t have to make his talented style more important than his story. As a result, the reading public must pay close attention to understand and enjoy the feather-light skin the novel offers. Great little novel.