Milk Teeth

by Helene Bukowski

  In the evening, when I brought Meisis to bed, she said the names of the plants that I had shown her, quietly to herself, until she fell asleep.

  “You should stop teaching her things that she can’t use. In the end you’re giving her false hope,” Edith said, but I didn’t listen to her.

  During our wanderings it occurred to me that everything would become even drier. The meadows and the fallow fields reminded me of the descriptions of the steppes that Edith read to me once a long time ago.

  The yellowish-brown grass, the almost leafless bushes and trees. Their branches cut into the blue sky with their sharp edges.

  Then once more whole processions of hedgerows in bloom. We could already smell them from far off. This idyll had something brutal about it. The scent pressed itself against my forehead and made me giddy.

  The landscape seemed quieter to me too. The air was motionless. The vibrating chirps of the insects seemed to be sunken in the meadows.

  In spite of everything I still assumed that it was only a matter of time until this endless summer came to an end. I often imagined how I would lead Meisis through the misty landscape. I pictured us walking in two identical raincoats through wet meadows, the blue sky hidden behind thick clouds. The light dulled; the bushes and trees a lush dark green. Water dripping from their branches.

  I still see it in my dreams.

  46.

  Meisis enjoyed going into the forest with me more than anything.

  Sometimes we would lie for hours between the pines and not move. It almost felt like we would sink into the landscape. Then I would imagine what it would be like to never get up again. How long would it take until our bodies could no longer be discerned from the surrounding nature?

  We didn’t find seagulls. They didn’t fall from the sky as often as they used to. I told Meisis about how as a child I was always on the search for them in the forest. I usually struck it lucky when the wind came from the north. What I didn’t tell Meisis was that I had to hide the gulls from Edith. Once, when she caught me in the act, she beat me black and blue. For her, even hunger wasn’t a reason to eat the birds.

  Each time before we went into the forest, Meisis would ask me for a rusk. During our wanderings she would put it on a tree stump not far from our house. When I asked her about it, she said, “For the animals.”

  I didn’t stop her from doing it, even though I was certain that the forest was as empty as if someone had turned it upside down and shaken out every living thing.

  Shortly afterward, I was proven wrong. We found a cat in a thorny snow bush. Burdock in her fur. It hissed loudly as we pushed the branches to one side.

  All the cats disappeared from the houses shortly after the bridge was blown up, Len had told me. Even saucers filled to the brim with milk placed in front of people’s doors couldn’t lure them back, they remained in the woodland. Until this day I had thought that they had all perished long ago.

  “Careful it doesn’t bite you,” I said to Meisis.

  Stooping, she moved closer to the cat and gently called to it. To my amazement the cat stopped arching its back. Meisis crouched down in front of it, and it thrust its head against her hand.

  “Come on now,” I said, and pulled her onward. The tame cat made me uneasy, and I wanted to get out of the forest as quickly as possible, but it followed us and prowled, mewing, around Meisis’s legs.

  “Can we take it home?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “It will be dead soon,” I said, without looking at Meisis. “It doesn’t belong in any house.”

  47.

  Edith no longer slept the whole day. Instead she lay on the sofa and read. In spite of this, she was scarcely available to talk to. Once I found her in the kitchen, three open books in front of her. The pages were cut in places where there used to be pictures of the sea. Her hair hung in her face; it shone, freshly combed. I leaned over her.

  “Why are you sneaking around like that?!”

  “What are you reading?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing.” Edith shut the books.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “I was at the river,” Edith said.

  “You left the plot?” I asked.

  She nodded, rooted around in her coat pocket, and laid a small gold ring in front of her on the dark wood of the table. “Know what that is?”

  I shook my head and asked, “What are you getting at?”

  Edith gave me an urgent look. “I’m now almost completely sure that Levaii’s sisters left of their own accord.”

  I sat down opposite Edith. “And you know this from a ring?”

  “They wanted to leave something behind. Who could blame them?”

  I screwed up my mouth. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “Who else would choose to leave behind their gold ring on the bank? Tell me that.”

  “And now I should run to Pesolt with the ring, as proof that Meisis is innocent? He’ll laugh at me.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What else did you think the ring would be good for?”

  Edith went quiet. Her look was dismissive. “You’re right, why am I mixing myself up in this. I didn’t take in the child. I don’t care what happens to it.”

  IN MY MIND I SEE EDITH, THE DARKNESS AS RICH AS HER COAT ALL AROUND HER, AND ONLY HER FACE ILLUMINATED BY THE LIGHT OF THE KITCHEN LAMP.

  I STAND BEFORE HER, AND ACROSS THE SCRATCHED WOOD OF THE TABLE SHE PUSHES SIX GOLD RINGS TOWARD ME, ALWAYS THE SAME SCENE AGAIN, AN ENDLESS REPETITION, UNTIL I BEND FORWARD AND PUSH THE RINGS ONTO MY FINGERS, HANDS NOW TWICE AS HEAVY.

  48.

  WE SAW THE WATER. THE CHILD WAS WITHOUT FEAR. IT SEEMED TO BE AFRAID OF NOTHING.

  I also showed Meisis the river. We went along the stony bank, and after a short time we reached what remained of the concrete bridge. Meisis paused, staring. It occurred to me for the first time how unreal the whole thing looked. The end of the bridge jutted out into emptiness. Beneath it: deep water, a strong current. The other bank was far off.

  “Can we go up there?” Meisis asked.

  I looked around—no one was in sight—and I nodded. We climbed up and walked to the road that led to the bridge. Weeds grew in the cracks in the asphalt. Some places were grimy; boulders both large and small lay all around. Without hesitating, Meisis went farther. I followed her. Before she could step even closer to the edge, I grabbed her by the collar.

  “If you fall, you’re lost,” I said. “Ove, Pesolt’s first wife, went that way.”

  Meisis only reluctantly took a couple of steps back.

  I remembered the incident like a story from one of Edith’s books. One night, Ove had sleepwalked to the bridge and had fallen. People later said they had seen Ove standing in their front garden under the elderflower bush only in her nightshirt. But when they stepped outside, Ove was already gone.

  Kurt found her the next day. They only just managed to get her out of the river.

  I imagine it all in bleached-out colors. I was ten, maybe eleven, when the incident occurred. I still clearly remember people wore black for months, and everyone cut the flowers from their gardens and brought them to Ove’s grave.

  On one of the first nights after Ove’s death, Pesolt drove to our house and parked his car with the engine running and the headlights on in our driveway. The light fell through the curtains and lit up the inside of the house. I huddled under the stairs next to the dogs. Edith was sitting cross-legged in the living room on the sofa.

  At some point Pesolt got out and shouted in front of the house: “What did you whisper in her ear, you cursed woman?”

  At this, Edith jumped up, staggered past me through the corridor, threw open the front door, and stood in the glaring light of the headlights.

  “Are you really suggesting that I’m responsible for the death of your wife?” she shouted, shaking all over. This was followed by a deep silence. Then Pesolt climbed back in his car and drove off.

  Edith shut the doo
r behind her and went into the kitchen. I followed her. She had sat at the kitchen table, and for the first time she let me surmise her pain. Following a reflex, I touched her. Edith looked up and looked at me. In a lightning-quick movement, she grabbed me and rammed her knife into my hand. I was so shocked that in the first few moments I didn’t feel any pain. A single drop of blood ran down my hand. Edith casually pulled the blade back out.

  “You’ll need to put pressure on that,” she said, wiping the knife on her coat and leaving. I looked at the wound, which had begun to bleed heavily. It was as if it weren’t my hand. From the dresser drawer I fetched a dishcloth and wrapped it tightly around the wound. I felt dizzy and had to prop myself up on the window-sill. From there I saw Edith walk through the back door, fetch the ax from the shed, and begin hacking up wood we would never need.

  Edith could never forgive the fact that Pesolt blamed her for Ove’s death.

  I later learned from Kurt that Ove used to regularly disappear at night when she was still only a child. Once Pesolt found her the next day in the quarry. She was standing completely still on a flat white rock that marked the middle of the pit.

  Another time Wolf and Levke had discovered her around noon in an abandoned barn. She was lying there in the straw sleeping with her eyes open; in her hand, the remains of a mouse.

  As a child Ove had done things that she couldn’t remember afterward. She had started sleepwalking after the bridge had been blown up, but no one wanted to see the connection.

  After Ove and Pesolt had got married, she seemed to be better for a while, but as the weather started to turn, the attacks came back.

  Once, she came to our house and had kept knocking until Edith let her in. From my hiding place under the stairs I watched the two women standing opposite each other in the hallway, Edith in her black rabbit fur coat and thick woolen socks, her bright hair twisted into a knot, her back arched. Ove wore a woolen hat, dirty rubber boots, wide-fit jeans, and a yellow raincoat dripping water onto the floor and forming a puddle. They both, in their own ways, looked undaunted.

  “I heard you sew coats?” Ove asked, and held out her hand. Edith folded her arms over her chest. I could see that she thought Ove was making fun of her.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  Ove laughed. “I’d very much like to have one.”

  “What do I get out of it?”

  “Two dogs have shown up at ours. Great Danes. My husband doesn’t want them. I would give them to you.”

  “What would I do with dogs?”

  “I thought you had a knack with them. When you arrived, they—”

  Edith interrupted her. “You want one of my coats?”

  “Yes, one would be enough.”

  Edith nodded. “I’ll go get them.”

  Ove turned to me. I pushed myself deeper into the shadow of the stairs. She smiled at me, but I was so scared I didn’t move.

  Edith came back and led Ove into the kitchen. Through the open door I saw the way she spread the coats out on the table. After long consideration, Ove decided on one with broad sleeves and a hem that reached the floor.

  “The dogs are in the car. I’ll go get them,” she said, and left.

  While waiting, Edith paced back and forth in the corridor.

  Ove came back inside with the dogs in her arms. She put the puppies on the floor. They walked, yapping, over to Edith, who crouched down and held out her hand to them.

  “Do you like them?”

  Edith nodded. The two women shook hands, and Ove left the house with the coat.

  She came to ours a couple of times after this. She and Edith withdrew into the kitchen, where they spoke to each other in whispers. I eavesdropped at the door, but I couldn’t make out a single word.

  Meisis took one more look over the edge at the water, before we climbed down from the bridge together. Below on the bank I tried to show her how to skim stones, but the waves were too high, and they only sunk.

  “What’s on the other side?” Meisis asked.

  I looked over. The distance seemed insurmountable. The water looked menacing. It drew stones into itself from the bank over and over again. And yet, on the other side grew the same bushes, and even farther off, a pine forest began.

  “That’s a different territory. If you walk far enough, you get to the sea. But it’s not safe over there,” I said.

  “Why’s it not safe there?” Meisis asked.

  “There’s no more houses over there, nowhere you could find shelter, no provisions, and no one who could help you.”

  The answer didn’t seem to satisfy Meisis; she kept staring steadfastly at the other side.

  “Show me your teeth,” I said quickly, and turned her chin toward me. “Are any of them wobbly?”

  Meisis probed her mouth with her tongue. She shook her head.

  I threw a stone. It sunk like a shot bird.

  “We should head back,” I said, taking her hand.

  Together we climbed the embankment to the top. Meisis turned one more time to the river and waved farewell to it.

  49.

  Once, I thought I saw Meisis walking through the garden at night, barefoot, her face hidden in the darkness. Then the shadows swallowed her up. I forgot about it, in the belief that I had only imagined her red head of hair, climbed up to the attic, and went to sleep. The image got lost in a dream.

  It wasn’t until much later that I remembered it again.

  50.

  A few days later I noticed one of Edith’s mother-of-pearl bracelets on Meisis’s wrist. I gripped her tightly and said, “She doesn’t like it when other people wear her jewelry, put it back before she notices.”

  Meisis pulled out of my grip. “She gave it to me,” she said.

  “No, she didn’t.”

  Meisis nodded. “I was allowed to choose something.”

  “Don’t take it outside, you’ll only lose it,” I said.

  Edith had always forbidden me from taking something from her jewelry box and threatened to stab the tires on the pickup if she ever caught me with her jewelry.

  Later, I was digging a new bit of the garden for the potato patch, and Meisis came to me wanting to help.

  “I don’t need any help,” I said, and turned my back to her. Meisis made herself scarce underneath the plum tree and played with the building blocks. From the corner of my eye I could see that she kept raising her head and looking at me, but I acted as though I hadn’t noticed.

  In the evening Edith came into the kitchen, got herself some of the soup I’d cooked, and sat with us at the table.

  “What’s up?” I asked her.

  “Am I not allowed to eat?”

  “You never eat.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “But I never see you eating.”

  “You don’t have eyes everywhere you know.”

  Meisis sat up in her chair. “I’ve seen Edith eating quite often.”

  “Oh yeah, what does Edith eat then?” I asked, leaning across the table toward Meisis.

  “Potatoes, meat …”

  Edith grinned. “You see.”

  Meisis went to sleep straightaway that evening, all four limbs stretched out on the sofa bed, breathing deeply. I looked at her unsuspecting face, leaned over, and gently pulled the bracelet off her wrist. I quietly left the room, climbed downstairs, and went into the garden. I pushed my way through the high grass up to the bramble bush and entered the forest. In the bright moonlight it wasn’t hard to find the tree stump where Meisis always put a rusk. I placed the bracelet in the middle of the flat cut surface and walked back to the house.

  The following day, Meisis looked for the bracelet.

  “I still had it when I went to sleep last night,” she said. She asked Edith too. I had a firm expectation that Edith would react indignantly, but instead she calmly listened to Meisis, staring outside into the garden, where the abandoned pool sliced into the landscape. Without looking away she said to Meisis that she could simply pic
k out something new.

  In the night I went back to the spot in the forest. But the bracelet was no longer there. I looked at the ground too, pushed aside branches and felt around in the moss, but I couldn’t find it there either.

  51.

  The next morning I saw Edith walking into the garden with a bucket, cloth, and soap. I didn’t think much of it, made Meisis breakfast, and went back to bed.

  When I got up around midday, Edith had cleaned the pool.

  It glowed blue in the bright light. The high, dry grass was almost colorless in comparison. Edith was filling it with water from the garden hose. She was wearing her fur coat, a gray satin dress, and gold earrings with sections made from mother-of-pearl. Only her lips, cracked by the heat, didn’t fit the image. Meisis was squatting at her feet. She looked fixedly at the running water. Nearby, the dogs dozed in the shade.

  “Great, isn’t it?” Edith asked, as I headed toward them through the garden. I stood next to her. Meisis raised her eyes only briefly.

  “I’m going to teach her how to swim,” Edith said, and tugged up the sleeve of her coat. The sun was at its highest point in the sky. The air was a thick mass. I felt light-headed.

  “Why would it be great?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my brow.

  Edith twisted her mouth. “I taught you too.”

  “And what did I get from it? The other children just thought I was even weirder.”

  “But Meisis wants to learn,” Edith said.

  For a moment I pictured very clearly pushing Edith’s head underwater in the half-filled pool. She wouldn’t be able to get free from my grip. How long does it take for someone to drown?

  “Is that true?” I asked Meisis.

  “It’s so hot,” she replied. I pressed my lips together.

  Edith turned to her. “Right, in with you.”

  Meisis got up and looked into the pool. There were already a couple of dead flies floating on the surface of the water.

  “Don’t be coy,” said Edith. Meisis slowly climbed down the steps. This far in, the water came up to her knees.