by Dora Heldt
“Heinz, please don’t make me mad. We’re starting to paint the restaurant in half an hour… What?… No, I don’t care. Make sure you’re up and ready.”
A door slammed. I pulled the bedsheet over my head. Dorothea and I had been friends for so long now, we shared so much, so why not my father too? In my opinion, it was her turn now. My door was ripped open.
“Are you awake? Heinz is playing dead. He’s driveling on about food poisoning and claims he’s dying. Would you like to see him one last time?”
Dorothea threw herself onto my bed.
“Nah, I’d like to remember him as he was. So who poisoned him?”
“You.” Dorothea sighed. “With the rice pudding. It’s just because he doesn’t want to help with the painting, but I couldn’t care less. The windows and floors need to be masked, too. You know, first he fires people, then he lies around in bed. It’s unbelievable.” She jumped up and ripped the door open again. “Heinz! We’re leaving in ten minutes! Unshaven and unwashed for all I care! Hurry up!” She sat down again. “How can you just lie there so peacefully? He’s really winding me up today.”
I smiled at her understandingly. “Sweetie, he’s been winding me up since Saturday. And if I really think about it, he’s been winding me up for the last forty years. But you learn to live with it.”
My father shuffled across the hallway in his pajamas. He coughed, a little artificially, and came into my room, both hands pressed against his stomach, with a look of suffering on his face.
“Hi.” His whisper was barely comprehensible. “Can I just throw up again first? Maybe I’ll feel better afterward.”
“Of course.” Dorothea gave him a penetrating stare. “As often as you want, but be quick about it.”
He groaned and shuffled off into the bathroom. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“I hope he’s not seriously ill.”
“Of course he isn’t.” Dorothea stood back up and went over to the terrace door. “Don’t you go after him and start mopping his brow. Oh, what’s he doing?”
“What do you mean? Did he…?” I jumped out of bed.
“No, not Heinz. That guest of Marleen’s. He’s taking photos of the guesthouse. There are certainly more exciting things to take pictures of on the island. Oh well. So, when are you heading out?”
I stood next to her and saw Johann strolling off toward the beach. He tucked the camera away in his jacket pocket. Dorothea watched me.
“He seems like a nice guy,” Dorothea said.
“Marleen thinks he’s strange. Apparently he made a mistake twice on the registration form.”
“Oh, Marleen…she works too hard and doesn’t play enough,” Dorothea said. “No, he’s fine, don’t let yourself be put off. There are far more perverse hobbies than taking photos of guesthouses. For whatever reason he’s doing it. Go to dinner with him and just ask.”
“I would have.” I gave her the lowdown on our conversation over coffee the previous day.
Dorothea was enthusiastic. “You see, my black dress did the trick. It always does. Go on, Christine, go for it. I’ll keep Heinz and Marleen from your neck, and you can step up the pace. Come on, we both wanted to have a great summer, didn’t we?”
“It’s not very sunny today.” My father was still speaking in a whimper, but he’d gotten dressed at least. “And I’m still feeling ill, in case anyone cares.”
“Good morning, Dad.”
“You’re not even washed yet. I thought you wanted to help with the painting?”
My voice was sugary sweet. “Dad, I didn’t want to paint, I have to. There’s a difference. Because you got rid of the two boys.”
“Good God, it’s like a broken record with you lot! Dorothea, what’s happening? Shall we go? I’m ready.”
It seemed he was in a really bad mood. In addition to having been poisoned.
When I got to the kitchen of the guesthouse half an hour later, Heinz and Dorothea were already over at the restaurant. Marleen handed me a cup of coffee.
“Good morning,” she said. “I’ve just come from the restaurant, and your dad and Dorothea seem grumpy. Did you guys fight?”
“No.” I stirred my coffee. “Dorothea was just mad because Heinz fired the two painters. And Heinz is convinced that someone poisoned him. He probably thought sick people and children didn’t have to pitch in. But it didn’t quite work. And apparently it’s always my fault anyway. And to top it all off, my mother’s operation is today, so he’s worried.”
“He should tell us that, then.”
“Marleen, my father is a real man. He would rather poison himself than admit he has feelings.” I drank down the coffee and put the cup in the dishwasher. “Do you still need me here, or shall I go and make a start with the painting?”
“I have four departures, so if you could handle the breakfast shift for me, that would be great. They’re only doing the masking there at the moment. It’s boring work.”
“Good.” I thought about the brown eyes again and felt my heart pounding. Hopefully Johann was the kind of person who ate breakfast. Then I could give it another go.
“Yoohoo!” Frau Weidemann-Zapek was wearing a quilted top that made her look like the Michelin Man. “There’s his daughter.”
She beamed at me while balancing her plate back over to the table. Frau Klüppersberg, in blue stripes this time, chewed and swallowed.
“How are you?”
“Good, thanks.” I smiled politely and took a half-empty platter of cheese from the buffet, relieved to find something to do. “I have to fill this up quickly.”
For the next three-quarters of an hour I made coffee, tea, and hot chocolate, and every time I went into the breakfast room I looked over at the single table by the window. No sign of Johann. And I’d soon be spending hours priming walls. As I brought Frau Klüppersberg the third pot of tea, her friend grasped my arm.
“We’re worried about your father. We haven’t seen him anywhere. Is everything okay?”
“Of course. It’s just that I buried him in cement. I didn’t have a great childhood, you see.”
By their reaction I could see that I’d been thinking out loud. Both women were staring at me, horrified. I was feverishly searching for a way to change the subject when the sound of Kalli’s bicycle bell saved me.
“Ah, that’ll be Kalli, my father’s friend. We can ask him.”
Still shocked, Frau Klüppersberg drew the curtain aside and peered out at Kalli, who was laboriously clambering off his bike and locking it up.
“Oh.” She puckered up her lips and seemed to have her composure back. “Look, Mechthild, that’s the gentleman we saw yesterday evening, the one who said hello in such a friendly way.”
Mechthild Weidemann-Zapek leaned over the table, her bosom lying on the full plate for a moment.
“Yes, that was him. A very nice man.” She straightened back up and gave me a reprimanding look. “We’ll introduce ourselves. Thank you, that will be all.”
A little speck of sausage spread fell from her top.
By the time Gesa came to take over in the breakfast room, freeing me up to help paint, Johann still hadn’t turned up. I had hoped so much that he would.
“Go on over.” Gesa poured herself a coffee and leaned against the fridge. “Almost all the guests have already been and gone, so I can handle the rest.”
The “rest” made my heart pound, I thought, throwing the cloth into the sink with frustration. Gesa misunderstood.
“I wouldn’t want to paint, either. I guess your father really is a bit of a handful.” She laughed. “Marleen told me all about it. Heinz is a funny sort, isn’t he?”
“Very funny, Gesa, and I hope your father catches you smoking next time. I’m off, and the two dames have completely destroyed their table again, by the way. Have fun. And don’t grin at me like that; concentrate on your own family, not mine.”
Holding my head high and cursing inwardly, I left the kitchen and saw that Kalli was in danger ou
t in the courtyard. He was standing between Frau Weidemann-Zapek and Frau Klüppersberg with a desperate look on his face, the two of them gabbing on at him at the tops of their voices. I didn’t even slow down. After all, he was a grown man. His cry for help sounded pathetic.
“Christine, wait. Please! I’m coming with you.”
Kalli left them both standing there and ran to catch me.
“Help. Who were they?” he whispered, linking arms with me in his search for protection.
“They, Kalli, were my father’s biggest fans. The Michelin Man is Mechthild Weidemann-Zapek, and the vision in blue is Frau Klüppersberg, whose forename I unfortunately don’t know.”
“Hannelore. Her name is Hannelore Klüppersberg, but I can call her Hanne, apparently. How long has Heinz known them? Does your mother know? And what’s this thing about you and some concrete?”
“They met Heinz on the ferry, so it’s all very recent. There’s no need to worry my mother with it. I’ll tell you about the concrete business when we have a quiet moment. In fact, I might need your help with it.”
Kalli shook his head anxiously. “Of course I’ll help you, whatever it is. You know, Heinz always did have a way with the ladies, even back then. But whenever it got a little too much, he always disappeared. Then I had to escort the ladies back to their homes, which I wasn’t too happy about. And besides, I don’t want to anymore. I’m too old for all that.”
“Then tell him that.” I opened the door to the restaurant and saw my father sitting on an upturned box with an unhappy look on his face. “There’s the daredevil himself. Go tell him right away.”
We walked over and stared down at him. Heinz looked up. Kalli knelt down.
“What’s up?”
Heinz was shaking his hand, which had sticky tape hanging off of it. “I hate getting this on my fingers.” He shook harder. “It’s horrible.”
“Heinz, I just met two ladies out in the courtyard. They—”
“Kalli, come on now. You’re seventy-four, and married, by the way. I don’t have time to discuss your love life, and I certainly don’t want to have this kind of conversation in front of the girls.”
Kalli went red. “But Heinz—”
My father was looking at him reproachfully. “Kalli, not now! We’ll talk later.”
Dorothea had come over to us. “What’s this about Kalli’s love life?”
“You see!” My father was so indignant that he jumped up onto his feet. “You could be a little more discreet, couldn’t you? Nothing, Dorothea, Kalli doesn’t have a love life; he’s seventy-four. So, shall we carry on?”
Dorothea looked around the room. “I’m hoping so. You’re not anywhere near finished with the masking. This corner here still needs to be done. Kalli and Christine, you can start with the section at the back; the paint’s already there.”
My father sat back down and carried on picking the tape from his fingers. “It’s so sticky and horrible. I don’t want to carry on. But you guys go ahead and start painting. If you do it properly, you don’t even need to mask everything.”
“Heinz! You were the one who fired the two boys, so you’re doing it. I’m not discussing this anymore, and besides, I’m off to the ferry to pick Nils up. Have fun.”
Heinz waited until she’d left the room. “Christine, I don’t like your friend Dorothea’s tone. She’s talking to me as if I were her lackey.”
“Dad, you should have—”
“You know what?” He raised his hand and threw the band of tape right across the room. “You can all just shove it. I’m going to buy a paper. And that’s that. Don’t even think about trying to stop me.”
He left, slamming the door behind him. Onno wobbled on the ladder and tried to steady himself, rubbing his arm in the place where the roll of tape had just hit him.
“Crikey, what’s up with him?”
“No idea.” Kalli looked distraught. “I didn’t even say anything. I had no idea he was in such a bad mood. What should I do?”
“Just paint, Kalli. Dad will calm down again. My mother is having her knee operated on. That must be why he’s in a bad mood.”
Onno climbed down from the ladder. “Well, that’s all pretty routine,” he said. “You don’t die of an operation like that. And besides, health insurance is paying for it, right? Okay, let’s put some music on.”
He turned on a portable radio and looked for a station. As soon as the music started blaring, Onno clambered back up his ladder to the ceiling light. Kalli bent over and picked up the roll of tape.
“You know, I think I’ll finish off the masking. It’s not nice when you’re allergic to this stuff and it gets on your hands.”
“Dad isn’t allergic, he just couldn’t be bothered.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll just do it now quickly. He can do something else later. There’s enough to do.”
I couldn’t believe that my father managed to get away with being in such a foul mood. Standing in front of the wall, I felt the urge to kick it. But that wouldn’t change anything, so I took the lid off the can of paint and plunged the roller decisively into the dark red emulsion.
When the door was flung open a little later, I’d done almost half of the wall and Kalli had masked everything and painted the edges.
“Now HSV have lost,” my father announced in a funereal tone as he walked in. “One to three, four yellow cards and one red, and Mehdi’s torn a muscle. This is the worst vacation ever.”
Kalli looked at him sympathetically. “I’m sorry. But it will get better. How did Dortmund do? And Werder?”
“No idea.” My father sat back down on his upturned box. “The two of you should look at the results yourselves if you want to know.”
I focused on the painting. I was sure he had the other results in his head too. The fresh air clearly hadn’t helped any.
“Christine, has anyone phoned?”
“No.”
“But it’s nearly midday.”
“Yes, I know. But no one’s phoned.”
I glanced out of the window and saw Dorothea driving into the parking lot.
“Our boss is coming, with the interior designer, so please get up. Otherwise she’ll think you’ve been sitting on that box all morning.”
“What nonsense. And that hippie is a fine one to talk.” My father stood up quickly anyway and peeked out of the window at exactly the moment when Nils kissed Dorothea. Heinz took a sharp intake of breath.
“What’s going on? Did you see that? Kalli, Onno, this Nils guy is smooching with Dorothea. What insolence, I don’t believe it! Christine, do something!”
“Dad, please, don’t be embarrassing.”
“Heinz, they’re young, it’s natural,” Onno said. He was much more talkative than I’d originally thought. He climbed down two rungs of the ladder to have a look outside. Kalli stood on tiptoe.
“They look really good together, him being so blond and her so dark.”
My father took a step back and barked at the two of them. “Don’t stare at them like that. You’re such nosy washerwomen, it’s terrible. And there’s still so much work to do.” He reached for Onno’s electric screwdriver and gave it a pulsing roar. “So, what needs doing?”
Dorothea held the door open for Nils, who was completely laden down with cartons and bags.
“Great stuff! It looks like everyone’s working hard.” He put the cartons down carefully and looked around him. “Where are Jan and Lars?”
“I’ll explain that particular story later, my love.” Dorothea pushed past Nils. “You’ve really done a lot. And all the masking is done. You see, Heinz, it wasn’t so bad after all, was it?”
Kalli stared intently at the tips of his shoes as my father returned Dorothea’s gaze.
“You don’t get to tell me what’s bad or not. Or what’s appropriate. I’m doing it. And my reputation is not the one being ruined.”
“Dad, please!”
Dorothea’s confused look went from me to my father.
“Did I miss something?”
My father held Onno’s electric screwdriver like a revolver, turned it on, and roared it into the air.
“Where do those baseboards need to go?”
“Dad, turn that thing off, will you?”
I watched skeptically as my father fumbled around with the screwdriver, clearly still in a foul mood.
“Leave me be,” he replied crossly.
He took a step back and stumbled into the ladder. Onno lost his balance but steadied himself on my father’s shoulder at the last moment. The ladder held, but the electric drill fell and was silenced in a second. It lay there on the floor, broken into three parts.
After a moment’s silence, Kalli spoke up. “I guess it’s broken,” he said quietly.
Onno climbed down slowly and crouched in front of the pieces.
“I hadn’t even had it six months yet.”
We all looked at my father. He pushed the pieces carefully together with his foot.
“That’s what happens when you always put the ladder in people’s way, Onno. It’s a good thing I brought my own electric screwdriver with me. It’s all intact and charged up over at the guesthouse. Christine, fetch it, will you?”
I opened my mouth to speak, just as he added “please.”
“And ask if anyone’s called.”
Dorothea picked up the pieces of the screwdriver. “Who would call?”
“Ines, about my mother.”
“Oh yes, her operation is today. But she’ll ring you or your father on your cells, surely.”
“Yes, for sure.”
“They’re off.” My father waved his hand impatiently. “I turned the cells off. I don’t want all that radiation around.”
I was dumbfounded. “You turned my cell off? And you’re waiting for a call? What on earth…”
“You can get cauliflower ear from those things. I read about it in the paper. I’m not risking that. I’m not sitting in a room with cell phones turned on. I’m not crazy.”