“It is zu verkaufen. For sale. Let’s go look, ya?”
My anger disappeared. “Okay. Ya.”
***
Every great deception calls for a great distraction, and I was up to my elbows in mine.
I spent the rest of the winter and all of spring scraping moldy, yellowing wallpaper off ancient, plaster walls and trying to direct the remodeling activities of two Polish-speaking men I suspected of being perpetually half-drunk. While Friedrich was at work, the three of us knocked down walls, built new ones, hung doors, installed sinks and tubs, and laid down new tilework and flooring. In the evening, Friedrich and I spent our time together pouring over plans and quotes for plumbing, heating, windows and kitchen designs.
We’d both put down a sizable deposit on the house. Friedrich said he would pay the mortgage and I would pay for the renovations. That had sounded good at first. But even though we did a lot of work ourselves, my money drained out of my bank account faster than I could transfer it from the US to Germany. Before I knew it, spring was gone and so was a hundred and thousand euros – about a hundred and fifty thousand US dollars of my savings.
But most of the downstairs was done. I loved my new country kitchen and the beautiful, wood-burning oven I’d designed myself. It took pride of place in the sunny living room, and kept us toasty on even the coldest days. Through the custom, wooden windows I could see purple and yellow crocus and red tulips begin to show their lovely faces amidst patches of bare mud and melting snow.
The roof was replaced in May. We still had the upstairs bedrooms and baths to go. After that, we would start on the house’s crumbling exterior, the barn, and the overgrown gardens. With renewed resolve, I set my jaw firmly to work mode and marched upstairs. I peeled more wallpaper, scraped away more grime and sanded and polished ceiling beams.
By June, I’d become a brainwashed, zombie slave to the house. Its needs were never ending. I slogged through each day, blind to everything but the task at hand. By evening, I was too tired to do anything but argue with Friedrich when he came home from work. One day, I was scheduling an appointment with a plumber when I noticed the date. It was the twenty-second of June. I’d met Friedrich exactly thirteen months ago on the twenty-second of May. I’d meant to mark the anniversary with a special evening. Where had the time gone?
I booked the plumber and shooed the Polish guys out of the house. Friedrich and I couldn’t keep going on like this. We needed a break. We were living like ships passing in the night. How long before we got torpedoed?
I showered, styled my hair, put on a dress and made up my face for the first time in months. I pinned a note to the door for Friedrich to find when he came home from work, then I walked to a small, Italian café we had nicknamed our Little Alberobello.
Dear Friedrich,
A year ago, you found me in the Hotel Bella Vista and said, “I’ll take you to lunch.” You drove me to a café in Alberobello, Italy. Today, it’s my turn to say, “I’ll take you to dinner.” I don’t have a silver Peugeot, but it’s just a short walk to Little Alberobello. Come and find me again, mein Schatz. Let’s start another wonderful year together.
Your Val
***
I was drinking a glass of wine and trying not to fall asleep when a familiar voice whispered in my ear.
“It was more than a year ago.”
I turned my head. Friedrich kissed me on the cheek.
“I know. Thirteen months. But thirteen is a lucky number in Germany, ya?”
Friedrich smiled. “Ya. And I’m a lucky guy.”
We did find each other again that evening. We talked and laughed together like we used to. It felt almost like it had before we’d bought the house. At the apartment, we’d always had time for each other. That evening we made time for each other again, and made love for the first time in what seemed like ages.
Chapter Thirty-One
Our vintage winemaker’s home turned out to be a mirage. The end of the renovations seemed to be drawing ever nearer, only to turn out to be a cruel, costly illusion. Every time we solved one problem, two more sprang up in its place. Another year went by, along with another hundred thousand euros from my bank account. But it was okay. Friedrich made enough money to pay the bills, and he had a good pension. We would be okay.
It had been Friedrich’s idea to hire the Polish workers. Technically, they had been illegals, and theoretically, they were supposed to have worked cheaper. But it had been me who paid the price for this school of hard knocks. Late in the game, I discovered that much of their work had to be redone to pass inspection. It took another year to tear out and redo their poor workmanship. I could scarcely believe that three whole years had gone by, lost in the ‘twilight renovation zone’. I was dipping into my last hundred grand in the bank. But that still seemed like plenty. After all, my money was the icing on our financial cake.
That’s what I told myself, anyway. But deep down, I was worried. Not so much about the money, but my utter reliance on Friedrich for everything. During my first year in Germany, I’d tried to learn the language and fit in. But then the house had consumed my every waking moment for the next three years. So, even after four years in Germany, the borders of my world hadn’t stretched very far beyond the gate to our old winemaker’s villa. I had worked night and day on the house, leaving little time for a social life. Besides riding my bike to the shops or going out with Friedrich, I’d become a simple hausfrau leading a very isolated life in a small village of less than a thousand people.
In Florida, I had always been confident and independent. But here in Germany I was totally reliant on my husband. He was my interpreter, legal representative, tax accountant, bill payer, and my only friend. That was a lot for him to take on. After all, the typical man versus woman barriers were hard enough in a relationship. Add to that our cultural differences, language barriers, and the fact that I was an artist and he was an engineer, and we were left with a lot of checks and not much balance.
I usually spoke with Clarice on the phone once or twice a month, but over the years our connection had faded due to the distance between us. Our lives were no longer similar, and that caused us to soon run out of things to say to each other. I hadn’t seen her in four years, and the thought of her slipping away panicked me. As my world had shrunk and shriveled over the years in Germany, Clarice had become my only American friend – my only woman friend. I didn’t want to lose her. Now that the villa was beginning to look more like a house than a construction site, I felt I could finally invite Clarice for a visit. Friedrich was fine with it, so one evening I sent my best old friend an email. The next morning, I awoke and ran to check my computer. There was a reply. Clarice had accepted with a hearty, “Hell, yes!”
“Clarice is coming!” I announced to Friedrich. He stood in the doorway of the bedroom we’d dedicated as a home office. He held a cup of cappuccino in his hand.
“I think this is the first time I find you out of bed before I bring you coffee,” he teased. “I take this as a good sign.”
“It is!” I beamed. She can come next month. June third! That’s okay, ya?”
“Ya. Sure.”
I hugged Friedrich, nearly spilling the forgotten cappuccino in his hand.
***
I waited on pins and needles to catch a glimpse of Clarice’s smiling face as it came through the arrival gate at Frankfurt. I’d taken a train to meet her. I still hadn’t found the time to get my driver’s license. I’d been too busy with renovations, then with making everything perfect for my friend’s visit. I’d spruced up the guest room with new, white sheets and a cute floral bedspread. I’d taken the train to France and stocked the fridge with some of my favorite delicacies to share with her.
The electronic board displayed that flight 844 had landed. Clarice was here at last! I waited impatiently, searching each passenger’s face for those sparkly green eyes and cute, button nose. But I couldn’t find her. After the last passengers walked by me, I asked a member of the fli
ght crew if they had seen Clarice on board.
“It’s a big plane. I couldn’t say,” said the female flight attendant. “Why don’t you check at the reservation desk? Follow me.”
The woman led me to a clerk at a reservation window. My worried look must have given her all the confirmation she needed of my sincerity.
“Could you please check the passenger list for flight 844? Clarice Whittle?”
The clerk eyed the flight attendant, then tapped on her computer screen. “She’s on the manifesto, but a note here says she never boarded.”
“That’s strange,” I said. “Does it say why?”
“No. Sorry. That’s all it says.”
I checked my phone. No texts or calls. Not knowing what else to do, I took the next train home. When I arrived, I checked my emails. Nothing from Clarice. But there was an email from an Edmund White. I clicked on it.
Dear Ms. Fremden,
The family of Clarice Whittle asked me to inform you that she was killed in a traffic accident on the way to the airport. My deepest condolences for your loss.
Sincerely,
Edmund White, Esq.
***
I fell on the floor and sobbed uncontrollably. I was still crying an hour later when Friedrich walked through the door and yelled up the stairs for me.
“Hallo! Val? I’m home, mein Schatz. Did your friend have a good trip?”
I tried to answer, but I couldn’t speak. I stumbled to the head of the stairs. Friedrich took one look at me and climbed the steps to meet me.
“What happened?” he asked, holding me by the shoulders.
“Clarice,” I said between sobs. “She’s not coming. She’s been killed. She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry. You know, I made a party for her at the pub.”
“Yes. I know. We have to cancel it.”
“It’s too late for that. I go.”
I looked up at Friedrich. Was this customary in Germany? I didn’t know. He hugged me, then went back down the stairs.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said, and disappeared out the door.
I collapsed onto the bed and cried. Another two hours passed before I heard Friedrich come in. He climbed up the stairs and crawled in bed with me. He was drunk.
“Let’s make love,” he said. He put his hand on my breast. I shot up out of the bed.
Who was this man I thought I knew? Clarice, my best friend, had just died!
In that moment, something died inside me, as well.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I’d been wrong to compare death to learning a new language. Coping on my own with the loss of Clarice had proved much harder. Now that she was gone, my ties to the US dwindled considerably, along with my blind devotion to Friedrich.
To be fair, his ardor wasn’t what it used to be, either. As we marched through our fifth year together, Friedrich’s morning cappuccino delivery lost its way, replaced with a quick, perfunctory kiss goodbye before he left for work. I’d been reduced to just another item on his morning check-off list. Find wallet. Get keys. Kiss wife. Start car. Drive to train station.
And, to my dismay, those old, 3 a.m. demons from the past had begun to make sporadic appearances, waking me up to whisper, “There has to more to life than this.”
I wondered if Friedrich felt the same. I could sense his interest in me slipping away. How could I blame him? I was boring. Had no life, and therefore nothing interesting to say. It was high time I broadened my own horizons. I needed to make a life for myself here in Germany. So I made a plan.
A few weeks into July, I took the train to Karlsruhe to attend a meetup group for English speakers. At that very first encounter, I met Rita Rudeburg, a tall, thin, neurotic lawyer. She reminded me of a praying mantis in a mannish suit and a frizzy brown wig. At the time, I didn’t have the luxury of being picky. She would have to do.
Rita was seeking a partner with whom to practice English. I needed someone to help me learn German. We were a match made in…Karlruhe. We agreed to meet once a week. I returned home excited for the first time in ages. I’d shared the news with Friedrich. He’d told me he was glad, but his words had lacked enthusiasm. He’d just taken another job and was preoccupied with sorting out problems with his new boss. He mentioned something about mobbing, but I hadn’t understood what he meant, and he didn’t want to explain.
***
For me, learning a new language and culture required just as much letting go of the past as it did embracing the new. It proved to be a long process that didn’t happen overnight. Nearly every Wednesday afternoon for the next year and a half, Rita and I met at a café near her office in Karlsruhe. I would take the train into the city, have lunch, and do a little window shopping. At precisely 3:15 p.m., I would go to the café, order a coffee and wait for Rita’s pointy, narrow face to poke through the door.
Rita was smart and accomplished, yet she was almost completely devoid of both confidence and empathy. It made for an odd combination of skills. Whenever we practiced German together, I could count on her for blunt, merciless corrective criticism on my choice of words and pronunciation. But whenever we practiced English, I had to coax the words from her like a scared puppy, employing lots of praise and encouragement at every step.
Rita’s kaffee klatch lessons, along with my own endless hours of study and practice, finally began to pay off. Toward the beginning of my sixth year in Germany, my conversation skills started to bloom.
One day, in April of our second year of meeting together, Rita did the unthinkable. She invited me to her house. Up until that point, I had been merely a bekannte to Rita – an acquaintance on probation, so to speak. The German lawyer had been deliberating the verdict on whether I would be deemed worthy of friendship status. The invitation to Rita’s home meant I’d made it. I was no longer on trial.
Rita lived on the outskirts of Karlruhe. I’d finally gotten my driver’s license, so I dropped Friedrich off at the train station that morning and borrowed the car for the day. The car had a built-in GPS, so I only got lost twice along the way. Given my sense of direction and the Germans’ unflinching expectations on punctuality, I’d left myself plenty of room for error. I arrived ten minutes early and waited in the car.
I rang the doorbell at precisely noon. Rita opened the door before the chime finished sounding.
“Hallo, Val. You are, what you say? Right on the time.”
“Hello, Rita! These are for you.”
I smiled and handed Rita a mitbringsel – a small hostess gift of a bouquet of flowers. It was considered rude to arrive empty-handed. That was one lesson I didn’t need to repeat.
“Thank you. Please, come in.”
Rita’s house was clean and orderly inside and out. The interior was typical of the scant handful of German houses I’d been invited into over the last six years. Basic, brown-wood furniture from the 1970s filled her living room, along with shelves loaded with figurines and what-nots. But Rita’s house held something I hadn’t seen before. In one corner of the living room stood a massive bar made of heavy, dark wood.
Rita played hostess and stepped behind the bar. She took two small bottles of aperitifs from a cabinet and set them on the counter. I hoped they weren’t the horrible, brown Amaro that Friedrich liked so much. I picked up one bottle and started to open it. Rita snatched it from my hand.
“Only for looking,” she scolded.
“Oh. Sorry.”
Rita put the bottles away and led me to her kitchen. There she’d set up a modest but nice lunch spread of assorted sandwiches and fruit salad, along with a pot of coffee and two strawberry tarts. I started to take a seat, but hesitated. I wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure this wasn’t “just for looking” as well.
“Please, sit,” Rita offered. “Shall we have a lesson as we eat?”
I smiled and started to take a seat.
“Not there. This one.”
I traded places with Rita and sat down. “Well, this looks lovely.”
“
Thank you,” Rita said. She reached for a sandwich with a long, thin mantis arm. “You first.”
She obviously wasn’t talking about the sandwiches. She must have meant the lesson.
“Okay. Rita, what’s the German word for happy? It’s not in my translation book. I’ve looked everywhere but I can’t seem to find it.”
“There isn’t one,” she said matter-of-factly. She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Glücklich is the closest. But it really means lucky. In Germany, you are lucky if you are happy.”
Boy, no one had to tell me that.
“Well, what about frohe?”
“That means…merry. Like merry Christmas.”
“And freud?”
“Freud is joy, not happy.” Rita took a bite of a sandwich, chewed it twice, then swallowed it. “Like shadenfreud. You know. The joy of watching another suffer.”
Geeze! No word for happy, but a word for enjoying someone else’s pain?
“How about compassion, Rita?”
“No. No German translation.”
Well, that explained a lot. I learned more about the German psyche in that five-minute conversation with Rita than I had in the prior five and a half years I’d spent living there.
***
Being a German’s friend involved a lot of obligations. Friends were expected to call at least once a week. They also had to make their very best effort to attend every event to which they were invited. They were expected to remember every name of every family member or significant person ever mentioned in conversation. And, upon dread of excommunication, a friend was obligated to never commit the unforgivable sin of forgetting another friend’s birthday.
Weirdly, it was absolutely verboten to wish someone a nice birthday before their big day. No birthday gifts were expected. In fact, the birthday person usually paid for the drinks and other festivities. But, at all costs, a friend had to call or write to wish the birthday guy or gal a good year ahead.
0.5 Absolute Zero - Misadventures From A Broad Page 23