Excerpt from The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures by Jennifer Hofmann, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The brass band chugged out the national anthem and led the soldiers down the vacant boulevard. It was a newish composition, not the one he had known as a child. Germany, as it were, was no longer über alles. It had now risen from the ruins, a unified fatherland. These were aspirational lyrics; verboten, as of recently, to avoid mass embarrassment. In their most recent cross-Wall mudsling, West Germany had accused the German Democratic Republic of copying this anthem melody from Kreuder's Water for Canitoga movie score. A commission determined that the songs did indeed share their first eight chords, and that both were in turn similar to Beethoven's Bagatelle op. 119 No. 11, which had settled the dispute.

At the parade Zeiger did as he was told—took the temperature, read the crowd. He saw nothing but faces agape with stupid joy. This he later included in his report. What he did not report was the pall that descended over the scene during brass-band interludes. Thousands of onlookers, hundreds of soldiers, tanks, yet a silence so thick it made its own sound. Protesters had accumulated along side streets and they began pitching rocks and shoes at the crowd. Gorbi, Gorbi, Gorbi! they chanted into the aching silence, until the brass band resumed and drowned out their screams.

Do you have any congratulating words? the reporter was asking the Dresdner on the radio.

I would like to say all the best and happy birthday to everyone? the man replied, phrasing it like a question, as a Dresdner would do.

Even though it had been a bore and an embarrassment on an unimaginable scale, Zeiger didn't remember the day of the parade for its festivities. He remembered that day for Lara, because it was the first day he hadn't seen her at the corner café.

Excerpted from The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures by Jennifer Hofmann. Copyright © 2020 by Jennifer Hofmann. Excerpted by permission of Little Brown & Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.