by Dora Heldt
He needs a hot meal once a day but gets heartburn easily, so nothing spicy, not too much salt, and no cabbage. Nor anything too fatty. And under no circumstances can he have creamy desserts or pastries because they make him sick. He wouldn’t mention it himself, though. In the afternoon he likes to have some coffee and cake. But nothing too rich and no cherries. And only decaf coffee. If you’re having tea, then only fruit tea; he can’t sleep if he drinks it black.
Be a dear and have a quick glance at him before he leaves the house in the mornings. Besides being color-blind he doesn’t have the best taste, and I don’t want him going out looking like a tramp. It would reflect badly on me.
He really loves going for walks, so if you don’t have time to go with him, make sure he takes a cell phone and turns it on—he isn’t so great at getting his bearings in places he doesn’t know. And he doesn’t like asking strangers for help. Have I forgotten anything? No, I think that’s everything. He’s made plans with Kalli, so perhaps you can drive him there. I don’t know if he has the address, though.
Your father’s pretty low-maintenance really. At least he doesn’t have to take any medication—at the very most, a Tums for his heartburn.
I hope you have a wonderful vacation, and look after your father as much as you can; he’s never been on holiday by himself before.
It’ll be fine!
Love and hugs,
Mom
I folded the letter and took a deep breath. I never wore nighties. And I was beginning to dread my vacation.
A Bumpy Start
* * *
A week later I stood in Hamburg’s main train station with my eyes fixed on platform 12A, where the Intercity from Westerland was due to arrive in forty minutes. I had positioned myself at the top of the escalator, exactly as I’d explained to my father on the phone the night before.
“Once you get off the train, go to the right toward the main hall. There’s only one escalator; go up it, and I’ll be waiting for you at the top on your right.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll find you, I’m not senile, you know. But what I really don’t understand is why I have to pay more for the same journey from Westerland to Hamburg. It’s much cheaper when you take the regional service.”
“Dad! You said you didn’t want to change in Elmshorn, and you complained that the North-Ostsee train’s always delayed.”
“Well, it is. If it’s delayed a long time you get a voucher. I mean, seriously, what am I supposed to do with a voucher? It’s nonsense.”
“Well, you’re coming on the Intercity this time. So have a good journey, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Make sure you’re on time. I hate waiting around. This train won’t be late, not at exorbitant prices like that.”
To be on the safe side, I allowed an hour to get there, even though the trip only took me ten minutes so early in the day. But I was worried some accident, traffic jam, police control point, or a lack of parking spaces could mess things up right from the start. After all, things would be chaotic soon enough. After circling around the parking lot in front of the station seven times, I finally grabbed the first space right in front of the entrance. Luck must have been on my side—my father wouldn’t have liked a long walk back to the car.
Still thirty-five minutes to go.
Another thing my father didn’t like was going away. That was an understatement. He didn’t like places he didn’t know. Well, that was an understatement too. He hated leaving Sylt, period. Not just the island itself, but his bed, his place at the dining table, his morning walk to the harbor to buy the newspaper, his neighbors, his garden, his sofa. He didn’t like wearing shirts that had been folded up in a suitcase, nor using hand towels or bedding that strangers had used before him. He only ate things he was familiar with, and hated changing his daily routine. I had no idea how my mother managed to get him off the island even once a year, and I especially had no idea what she’d promised or told him to get him on the train. Actually, I didn’t want to know.
Another twenty-five minutes.
My throat felt dry. Whenever I’m nervous I get incredibly thirsty. There was a stand behind me selling hot dogs and drinks. I bought a soda, not because I particularly like it, but because my father used to forbid us from drinking it. When we were kids, he demonstrated how soda posed a danger to our health by soaking a gummi bear in it overnight. In the morning, he triumphantly showed us the deformed piece of candy bobbing up and down in the glass. “That’s exactly what the inside of your stomach will look like after drinking it,” he said. “And not just that, soda makes you stupid, too.” For a long time, I’d believed him. Feeling rebellious, I drank it down, then crushed the empty can and threw it in a waste bin. Not the one I was standing next to though, just in case.
Another ten minutes.
Standing back at my post, I could already feel the pressure on my bladder. It was a stupid move, drinking that soda. My body always wants to get rid of it immediately. But the bathrooms were at the other end of the platform. I’d have to run, and there was bound to be a line, so I’d have to wait, then get back again, so it could be cutting it a bit close. I decided to hold on.
Another three minutes.
Hopping from one foot to the other, I heard the announcement: “Attention, platform 12A. The Intercity 373 Theodor Storm, from Westerland to Bremen, is delayed by approximately ten minutes.”
I knew it. The pressure on my bladder was increasing. I imagined my father having a brief look around, then getting straight back on the next train going north. I heard the words “Christine wasn’t there,” and saw the look on my mother’s face. I held on. The truth was, my relationship with my dad was really complicated. He was sweet and meant well most of the time, but he could also push my buttons like no one else. Though I was in my midforties, an independent woman, somehow I turned back into a dutiful, obedient child whenever I was around my dad. I wanted to please him, and even though I knew he would never acknowledge his appreciation, I tried anyway.
Just over ten minutes later, the train pulled in. It came to a squealing, hissing halt, then the doors swung open and the first passengers started to get out. I spotted him in the middle of the platform. He was wearing a red windbreaker, jeans, and a blue baseball cap. I watched as he dragged his huge suitcase off the train and put it down a few feet from the platform edge. I started to wave, but it wasn’t any use; my father never paid any attention to anything going on around him. He pulled his backpack around to his front and sat down on the suitcase, staring in the opposite direction of where I was standing. I fought my way through the crowd of people coming toward me and came to a stop in front of him, short of breath. He looked up at me.
Eyes like Paul Newman, I thought.
“How on earth were we supposed to find each other in this chaos?” He sounded like he was in a huff. And was acting as helpless as Scooby-Doo.
“Hi, Dad. I explained to you, you just go toward the main hall, then up the escalators, and I was standing there on the right.”
“Well, this is the first time I’ve heard that.” He stood up and brushed his pants. “Did you hear? The train was delayed again. Do you know where I can get hold of one of those vouchers?”
I tried to take his backpack from him, but he held onto it tightly.
“I’ll take that, thank you. So, how delayed does the train have to be to get the voucher?”
“More than just ten minutes. Please give me the backpack. I can carry something, at least.”
He turned toward the escalators. “You can take the suitcase. I can’t lift it anyway, not with my hip.”
Just lifting up the suitcase took my breath away. I put it down again and tried to pull it.
“Dad, wait a minute, what’s wrong with the wheels?”
My father stopped and looked at me impatiently.
“They’re broken. But given we don’t travel that often, it still does the job. Come on.”
I dragged the suitcase along behind me, my posture
completely shot, and tried to control my breathing.
“So…Mom usually…carries it?”
“Of course she doesn’t!”
Without any further explanation, he walked over to the escalator with long strides. Just talking was an effort to me.
“Seriously, what do you have in here?”
I could only just make out his answer. He was too far ahead of me and didn’t turn around.
“My electric drill, my cordless screwdriver, and a few other bits. I can’t work with other peoples’ tools.”
Once we got to the top I had to put the suitcase down for a moment. I grabbed my father by the elbow.
“Stop for a second…I really have to go…to the bathroom. Wait here…next to your suitcase…I’ll hurry.”
“You could have done that earlier. That’s what happens when you leave at the last minute.”
“Yes, I know…”
I didn’t care. I just ran away.
I couldn’t have been gone more than fifteen minutes. I did have to change some money first, and then wait in line for the bathroom, but still, I wasn’t gone that long. When I came back, the suitcase was standing there by itself, my father was nowhere to be seen, and two uniformed policemen were standing nearby. One of them was speaking frantically into a walkie-talkie. Hearing the words “abandoned…bring the dogs…and cordon off,” I broke into a sweat. Then I saw my father. He was standing fifteen or so feet away, eating a hot dog and watching the whole thing with interest. A crowd was gathering as people stopped to see what was going on. One of the policemen lifted his arm protectively as I walked up to him. I quickly tried to explain.
“The suitcase is fine. It’s ours; I was just in the bathroom.”
I threw my father a furious glare, but he turned away. The other policeman lowered his walkie-talkie and looked at me menacingly.
“What were you playing at? You just leave your suitcase unattended and go off to the bathroom? Where on earth are you from? Have you never heard of security regulations? Or suitcase bombs?”
His colleague took a step toward me. He didn’t seem to be in a much better mood.
“I must be losing my mind! You nearly cause an evacuation of the entire station and just come back as if nothing happened? I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”
The curious expressions of the onlookers were more than I could take. I could just imagine how the scene looked to them.
“Daaaaad!”
My voice sounded shrill and a little tearful. The policemen were still glaring at me. Some in the crowd shook their heads pityingly. Trying to keep my composure, I pointed to my father, who was looking at me with a blank expression, licking mayonnaise from his fingers.
“That’s my father there. It’s his suitcase! He was supposed to be looking after it. And instead, he’s just eating hot dogs. What am I supposed to do about that?”
A woman looked first at me, then my father, then her companions, and said loudly, “Either she’s cuckoo or drunk. How embarrassing. Come on, let’s go.”
My father and I had to stay in the transport police office for about ten minutes. We had to open up the suitcase, explain everything again, and donate fifty euros to the station mission before they eventually, and rather grudgingly, let us go.
I was fuming. My father had pulled his “I can’t hear very well, I have mobility problems, and I’m just an unworldly islander” number, saying that he didn’t know what was going on and that he felt so bad about it all. And that his daughter had just suddenly disappeared, and not for the first time.
I pulled the suitcase along behind me as if it had wheels, which made a loud racket. My father looked at me hesitantly.
“But that’s—”
“Dad! If you say one more word I swear I’m going to leave you and your damn suitcase here.”
My father did actually manage to stay quiet for the next few minutes—that is, if you don’t count the complaint that “the parking spaces are a long way away here,” which I ignored because I was hauling the suitcase into the trunk of the car and slamming it shut much more loudly than I needed to. Dad jumped, which made me feel a little better.
We got in. I started the car, and without turning to look at him, I said, “We’re going to Dorothea’s now.”
It seemed he didn’t dare answer.
The car’s external thermometer showed seventy-seven degrees, and the sky was blue. Perfect vacation weather. And yet my father and I sat in angry silence. I glanced at him tentatively. No one could look as remorseful as he did at that moment. He was turning his cap over in his hands. His windbreaker was zipped up to the top, and little beads of sweat dripped from his forehead. I was already feeling sorry for him. This happened every time: he acted impossibly, I got mad at him, and then ended up feeling guilty. And, as always, I made the first move to make up.
“It’s warm, isn’t it? Why didn’t you take your jacket off?”
He looked at me innocently. “We didn’t have enough time. But I can hold out.”
A few feet in front of us I saw a free parking space at the side of the road. I drove into it and turned off the engine. My father looked around.
“Dorothea lives here? The area doesn’t look too nice.”
“She doesn’t live here, no. I stopped so you could take your jacket off.”
He beamed at me. “Oh, that’s nice of you.”
While he busied himself with undoing his seat belt, awkwardly climbing out of the car, taking his jacket off, folding it neatly on the backseat, getting back in, and belting himself up again, I came to the decision not to mention the suitcase scene again.
My father wiped his hand across his forehead, relieved. “Oh, that’s better already. It’s so warm. I think it must be because of the fumes in the city. The heat, I mean. You know, in Sylt the policemen would never wear black uniforms. I don’t like them at all; I find them too threatening.”
I looked for a music station and turned the volume up.
Dorothea was just locking her car as we drove onto the lot in front of her house. She walked toward us with a smile.
“There you are, finally! I thought you’d be here half an hour ago. Was the train really that late?”
She hugged first my father, then me. I gave him a warning look over her shoulder. He nodded back reassuringly.
“Of course it was delayed, it always is,” he said, “but not enough for a voucher. But then I wouldn’t be able to use one anyway, and—”
I interrupted him. “Come on, let’s have coffee first, and then we can pack the car. We’re taking Dorothea’s car, Dad—hers has a bigger trunk. And then we’ll have to take off pretty soon, otherwise we’ll miss the ferry.”
Dorothea looked from one of us to the other. “The coffee’s ready. Heinz, do you want lunch, or will a piece of cake be enough for you?”
“I had a hot dog at the station, that’s how the whole thing—”
“Come on, Dad.” I pushed him along in front of me. “Coffee first.”
Half an hour later Dorothea was wiping away tears of laughter for the umpteenth time. Not that it helped, because every time she looked at me she started off again. She could barely manage to get her words out.
“Oh, Heinz, I just keep picturing Christine surrounded by black-uniformed policemen pointing machine guns at her. And a pack of barking dogs. I can just imagine her poor face. And you just standing there eating a hot dog, as calm as anything. I would have been in stitches!”
She was doubled up with laughter. And Heinz, or should I say Judas, was laughing just as much. I hadn’t found it funny the first time around, and I still didn’t. I stood up.
“They didn’t have machine guns, there weren’t any dogs, and we really have to make a move if we want to catch the ferry. We still have to pack the car. So let’s stop talking about this now, shall we?”
Dorothea giggled. “She’s lovely,” my father told her, “but she can be a bit of a killjoy.”
I bit back a response.
> A little later, I opened up the trunk of Dorothea’s station wagon out in the parking lot. In front of the car were four large suitcases in addition to my father’s huge hulk of a suitcase, three tote bags, and a basket full of food. And, standing next to it all, Dorothea and my father. Neither of them looked as if they were about to make a move to pick any of it up. I looked at them.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Don’t we want to get these in?”
My father waved his hand. “Chrissie, I can’t, my hip. You know the suitcase is too heavy for me.”
Dorothea was laughing again. “I’ll help, but have no idea where to begin.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to stay calm. I didn’t want to get worked up; I was supposed to be on vacation. I hauled my dad’s suitcase up and pushed it right to the back of the trunk. Dorothea handed me both her bags, and I put them next to the suitcase. My first bag only just fit, the second wouldn’t go in at all, and the rest still sat in front of the car.
“You’ll have to put the suitcase in lengthways. Diagonally won’t work.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
I pulled everything out again and turned the suitcase around. Pain shot through my sciatic nerve. I groaned. My father reached past me and pushed the suitcase another half an inch.
“Like that,” he said confidently. “That’s much better.”
Now three bags fit side by side, and I managed to put a fourth one on top. But the trunk wouldn’t close. My father fussed with it all for a minute, then turned to look at me.