“Mama, Mama! Look what I found!” Uli emerges from the bushes with a bottle in his hand. A dragon snarls from the half-peeled paper label: Flavored vodka, bright red. The dregs of the gleaming liquid slosh around the convex bottom, and before Judith can stop him, Uli has unscrewed the top and stuck his nose in. “It smells like gummy bears!” Kilian bounces over, “What is it, Uli, can I have some too?” “Stop it—hands off!” Judith shrieks. The boy drops the bottle, eyes wide. She jumps up so quickly, tearing his discovery away and plunging it into the recycling, that his bottom lip trembles. Judith’s heart pounds in her throat—she feels only anger, not least of all at herself. How could she have missed it?
Uli stretches his arms toward it: “Mama, was it poison? Can I see it, just for a second? I won’t drink it, I know what happens, like in ‘Snow White,’ how the evil queen put poison in the apple and . . .” Judith shakes her head, her hair flying. “I threw it away and that’s that. It’s not for you. Go back to your brother. You shouldn’t be crawling around in the bushes like that. Look at your pants.” Her voice is loud and shrill. She hates the way she’s behaving, she hates herself for the incomprehension she sees in Uli’s eyes. He’s wearing garden pants—he’s allowed to get them dirty. Kilian looks despondent as well, and hangs his head like his older brother. They can tell something’s amiss, Judith thinks. She’s ashamed of herself, but her mind is made up. And so she stands up, takes their hands, and walks over to the flower bed and picks a few asters. “Look, Uli. Here’s a pretty bouquet for your room. Here’s some phlox, and rosehips would be nice too.” She cuts a bit of ivy and binds the bunch with a long yellow blade of grass. Uli takes a deep breath.
Just before lunch Judith had quietly done away with a number of rain-soaked firecrackers and the ten or so smashed eggs she’d found on the wall and on the Posselts’ living room window, cleaned up several squeezed-out tubes of mustard and toothpaste, and scrubbed the old couple’s window with ammonia. She’d noticed the devastation while she was airing out the bedsheets on the window seat. Slimy egg white dripped down the Posselts’ picture window onto the path. A few intact yolks stared up at her from the moist grass, reminding her of her mother’s “bullseyes”: when Judith was a child, she would fry eggs for lunch, and Judith was supposed to stab them with her fork. They made her nauseous.
When she looked into the Posselts’ living room, she understood that she was cleaning up not as a favor to the old neighbors, but to restore a disrupted order. She saw rubber plants and philodendron pressing against the windowpanes next to a tarnished brass watering can; farther back she saw the darkness of the embossed wallpaper, the brown velveteen armchairs, and intricately patterned oriental rugs. Schlamper lay sleeping in his basket, his snout propped on crossed forelegs. The animal’s long back rose and fell regularly. It was just before twelve. Doubtless the Posselts were eating in the dining room, which looked out on Olgastraße. Today was Wednesday, so they’d be having poppy seed sweet buns. Like Herr Posselt, the recipe came from the Sudetenland. Judith was very familiar with the long and tortuous history of Wenzel Posselt’s odyssey from Bohemia to Stuttgart. As well as the hostility his wife had faced when she had exchanged her old Swabian surname, Läpple, for the name of a refugee. “He was just the most charmin’, no Swabian could deny that.” Judith knew of Frau Posselt’s struggles with the finer points of Bohemian cuisine. “I’d never made that kinda stuff, nobody could shew me how, no mother-in-law, no nothin’. Wenzel, he tried. Agin and agin he tried ta shew me. Shook his head and laughed, he did. And now we take it in turns, one day Swabian, the next Bohemian: Mondee stewed beef’n horseradish sauce, Tuesdee lentils’n spätzle, Wednesdee buns, Thursdee Gaisburger stew . . .” Judith doesn’t know why she burdens her mind with such trivia. And yet this information nestles in her mind, displacing other things. Remembering Frau Posselt’s menu and paddling endlessly about in an ocean of murky chatter is still more pleasant than thinking about her own past. Angrily, Judith tears paper towels off a roll and scrubs away the contaminants. It was her garden that had been invaded, her children’s space that some depraved, television-addled monsters had defiled.
“Mama, can we have sweets now please?” Kilian asks, cocking his head. His right foot scuffs at the ground. Uli stands a few feet behind him, grinning. Judith knows he put his younger brother up to it. She marvels at the two of them—how quickly they fix on something else and forget the bottle of poison. She hopes that her own genes have mostly been eradicated from the chiseled, finely turned strands of their DNA, which she imagines as glowing purple and black rods, like the lighting in a club. “You can have them when Mattis comes, as I told you. Look and make sure that there’s nothing missing in the playhouse! Is there a cup and saucer for everyone?” The brothers run to the hut to check the table settings, since Mattis and his mother Hanna are supposed to arrive in a quarter of an hour.
They live next door, in a four-story, smooth-plastered, utilitarian building from the fifties with small windows—the kind of building that was so often constructed to fill bombed-out spaces. It fits the rest of the street like a rotten tooth in a healthy mouth. Judith has known Hanna and her lively son for a while now. They often run into each other on the street, where Judith hears all the latest horror stories about Mattis’s hospital visits and treatments. Mattis goes to the Catholic kindergarten on Sonnenbergstraße, but he is nonetheless a regular guest in the little garden; he’s even allowed to wreak havoc on the Ostheimer toy farm in the playroom, to the surprise and delight of Judith’s sons: “Come on, we’ll shoot the oxen, that one’s dead. Now a bomb falls through the roof and explodes on the pigs, and the farmer keels over—and then the pigs and the cow . . .”
Hanna is obviously grateful and in need of the help. On top of that, Uli and Kilian like the wild Jack-in-the-Box, as Judith secretly calls him. And so now and then she sticks a note in the neighboring mailbox: “Stop by the garden this afternoon. We’ll be there.” The fact that Mattis, whose small playroom harbors Playmobil and countless oversized stuffed animals, in addition to the usual wooden toys, is allowed to play the role of guest but never host is a tacit agreement that Hanna has never questioned. Regardless, Mattis’s health ensures that only every third playdate actually comes to pass.
Whenever she sees Hanna and her pale son rushing frantically down the street, or heaving the weekly groceries from the trunk of the Renault with the help of Hanna’s mother—under whose stream of words Hanna cowers as if under a cold shower—Judith is reminded of how cozy and secure her own life is. The fact that this woman has to do everything herself, that she can call on no one to share the burden of responsibility, fills Judith with fear and awe. She knows very well that she would never be able to raise the children, or even feed them, without Klaus; she knows that their lifestyle—sole wage earner and housewife—is on the verge of extinction. When she allows Mattis and Hanna into her world for an hour or two, she feels as if she’s making a sacrifice to angry gods. And it really is a sacrifice to hear TV-inflected battle cries coming from the otherwise peaceful playroom, and to hear her boys joining in as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It’s a sacrifice to Hanna, who sits at Judith’s table letting her tea get cold, for Judith to let herself be dragged so deep into the life of a broken family. Judith slides the plate of cake toward Hanna, hoping she’ll take some, that she’ll stuff her mouth with homemade cake and that the shredded carrots, hazelnuts, and cinnamon will form a bulwark that will halt the flow of news from Hanna’s dreary world. Of course, it doesn’t work. Hanna talks of lactose-free yogurt and soy milk, of torrents of vomit and watery stools. Judith nods and murmurs, then inserts some praise, since she doesn’t know what else to say. Hanna’s pale face reddens slightly, she smiles—a rare look for her: “Yes, that’s what everyone says, that we mothers work the hardest. My mom doesn’t quite believe that, though.” Perhaps she should jump in and draw Hanna out. Perhaps Hanna wants to pour out her heart about her mother—she clearly does much for her grandch
ild but seems to cause problems for her daughter. But then Mattis emerges from the playroom with a giant gun he’s hammered together from a Matador building set, his cheeks red and the hair on his neck dark with sweat. He sets his handiwork in his mother’s lap: “Look what Uli and I made!” Judith is horrified by the precision of the weapon her son has constructed with the old-fashioned building kit, which he usually turns into animals and all manner of buildings. She’s horrified by the trigger and magazine that Mattis is so expertly illustrating, so horrified that she barely registers the way Hanna turns from her son and begins to eat her cake and drink her tea without any comment aside from a single “Hm,” her whole body facing away from Mattis, until Kilian and Uli come to drag their guest back to the playroom.
Judith has an aversion to Mattis’s grandma, a chubby woman with rosacea who loudly bemoans her only grandson’s fate and takes responsibility for his alternative diet. Judith’s own mother-in-law had to be convinced not to give plastic cranes or Teletubby dolls as Christmas presents, but she’s helpful and friendly and doesn’t interfere too much. She admires Judith’s dedication to her household and is impressed by the children’s health: “There must be something to that Waldorf upbringing.” Judith is grateful that her children manage fine with homeopathic cures from the medicine chest. The question of stronger substances, antibiotics or cortisone, has never arisen. What would she do if their little bodies rebelled with pain, if their fevers worsened, changing from necessary and healthy bodily functions into life-threatening afflictions?
Judith looks at her watch. It’s already half past four. The walls turn dark yellow, then reddish. Soon it will be dark. Five is cleanup time in the garden. Klaus will come home and they’ll have dinner. She allows the boys another handful of cookies and thinks. Hanna must have been held up at work. Mattis’s kindergarten is open until five. The boys will be disappointed. Just as she’s thinking about starting a ball game with Uli and Killian, she hears excited voices—high chirping sounds that could only belong to little girls. And then they’re there, running around the corner of the building, rushing across the lawn to the sandbox. They’re wearing identical jean skirts with embroidered flowers, patent leather boots with pink fur lining, and glowing down jackets. A multitude of pompons dances from their hats and scarves. The outfits would be more appropriate for sixteen-year-olds. The skirts end far above their knees and display legs in pink cotton tights. The girls immediately set about opening a restaurant. Thrilled, they pluck spoons, pans, and sieves from the wooden play box while the older girl provides commentary: “That’s the blender! And this is the fryer—we can make french fries!” They holler from the house to the astonished Ulrich, who hesitates at first, but then grins and joins in, dragging his brother by the hand.
Leonie’s red hair glows against the backdrop of the ivy-covered wall. She’s wearing a suit, a light-colored tweed coat, and high-heeled boots. A leather briefcase swings from her shoulder. She walks quickly through the grass toward Judith. Judith is curious to see if she’ll sink into the wet ground, but she treads so skillfully that she reaches the bench and sits down beside Judith without the slightest mishap. “I always wanted to call you up, but somehow it never happened. And so I thought we’d just look in and see if you were here. The garden is beautiful, you’d never expect something like this back here. It’s fantastic—right in the middle of the city! And you even have a sandbox!”
Judith examines Leonie’s face—her lipstick, her bright makeup, and the delicate pink freckles on her neck. She can tell that her neighbor doesn’t feel quite as comfortable as she pretends. Unlike her children, she doesn’t take it for granted that she can just burst in. I purposely didn’t invite them, yet they showed up anyway. Judith takes a deep breath. She hates surprises. Mattis and Hanna still aren’t here. She looks surreptitiously at her watch. It’s too late now—they’re not coming. There’s great hustle and bustle between the sandbox and the hut. Uli and Leonie’s eldest have taken the reins, and they are sending the two younger children back and forth, as both waiters and customers. Rosehips, mud pies, and stones are on the menu. Uli makes ivy and grass dumplings filled with mud and Lisa does her best to imitate him. Judith is proud to see how sweetly Kilian treats the younger Felicia. “We were expecting visitors, actually—a neighbor’s son,” Judith says, purposely not mentioning any names, “but it seems they’ve been held up. Would you care for some tea?” Opening the wicker basket at her feet, pulling out the thermos, saucers, spoons, paper napkins, and the can with cubes of barley malt, and setting it all on the table restores Judith’s sense of security—the more so as she can sense Leonie’s admiration for her ability to spontaneously conjure up the makings of a tea party.
Felicia and Kilian have gotten into an altercation in the sandbox. Both are howling. Judith can’t tell what the trouble is. Leonie stands up immediately. “Feli, what’s wrong?” She translates her daughter’s wails. Kilian stands sullenly at her side. “You don’t want to be the customer? What do you want to be? The chef? And Kilian?” He mumbles something. “You want to be the chef too?” Leonie squats down with them, heedless of boots or coat. “You know what? I’ll be the customer. I’m super hungry. You guys cook me something! What do you serve here?” Kilian is already laughing again. “Dumplings and spätzle and bread pudding!” Felicia chimes in: “And cu’tard!” She doesn’t let go of her mother’s hand. The two older children join in. “I want to cook something too!” Uli cries. “Me too!” Lisa adds. Leonie takes the bucket that Uli is holding out to her. She fills the molds with the big wooden spoon. Her nose shines, she laughs. Uli chatters away eagerly, showing her the sand toys. It’s a new experience for Judith’s children, having a grown-up take part in a game, acting with them and following their directions. They like it—they laugh and talk excitedly. At the same time, they look wary, as if the situation could turn at any moment, as if the visitor might suddenly transform into a shadowy creature. At home Judith does crafts with the boys. They press flowers, braid, and weave. She lets them help her with the housework too, when they want to, but she doesn’t play with them. The world of childhood, where a fantasy land made from a few pillows and sticks can provide a whole day’s entertainment, is sacred. It shouldn’t be disturbed by a grown-up’s influence. At the Waldorf kindergarten, too, the teachers serve only as models to be imitated, working like nineteenth-century mothers in the house and garden with flour mills, mixing bowls, and washboards. The children are allowed to participate when they feel like it.
“Mmm, yummy! You’re good cooks. I want more!” Leonie cries, patting her stomach. The children bring her sand-filled containers, they pick leaves and flowers and lay them at Leonie’s feet. It reminds Judith of natives making offerings to an idol. Nonetheless, she likes the way Leonie sits on the rim of the sandbox with legs outstretched, how she closes her eyes and sniffs appreciatively when Uli holds fat mud balls served on an ivy leaf under her nose. At the same time, she knows this unwanted visit will upset things. Lisa and Felicia have temporary glitter tattoos on the backs of their hands and chewing gum in their cheeks. Now and then they fish long red gummy worms from the pockets of their jackets and share them with the boys. They chew delightedly, exuding the smell of artificial strawberry. Kilian tugs on Leonie’s bracelet: silver and multi-colored Ernie, Bert, Cookie Monster, and Grover charms jingle from Leonie’s freckled wrist. “Who are they?” With support from her girls, Leonie tells them about Sesame Street. They’re stunned when Uli exclaims: “We don’t have a television!” Tonight there will be questions: between bites of bread, called from behind the bathroom door, and whispered from under the blankets. Questions that will take energy to answer and that will bring uncertainty and confusion, maybe even awaken doubts about the fact that Judith wants to keep certain things from her children for as long as possible. Judith tosses back the now-cold fruit tea. It’s sour and makes her mouth water. She wishes she could spit it out. She’s annoyed at Hanna. Why couldn’t the stupid cow get here on time? Then she co
uld have gotten rid of Leonie gracefully. “I’m sorry, we have visitors—maybe some other time.” Instead, this redhead is sitting here letting the children ogle her, totally oblivious. Uli touches her shimmering pantyhose tentatively: “How come you’re so pretty?” She’s upset everything—she doesn’t even ask whether the children are allowed to eat sweets.
Judith stands and goes over to the sandbox. “Uli, Kilian, get the apples and the sweets. You can eat with Lisa and Felicia in the playhouse.” The prospect of cookies ends the game. Uli carries the cookie tin proudly and carefully; Lisa walks at his side, while her sister and Kilian follow slowly behind, each hand wrapped around a yellow apple. There’s a clattering from inside the hut, and Uli’s forceful voice giving orders for the seating arrangement and cookie distribution. “You even baked! I can’t bake at all. Sometimes I buy those muffin mixes. I let the girls decorate them with smarties and sprinkles.” Leonie laughs and cleans her dirty fingers with a perfumed towelette. “We think carefully about what we eat in our household,” Judith says quietly. She tries to draw a line. It would be easier to be alone again—sun on her face, walled in, just her and the children, Klaus perhaps when he comes home, briefcase under his arm, eyes shining, his joy mirrored in the children’s faces and shining back on her as well.
Meanwhile, Leonie has sensed something; she twists her towelette into a sausage and stuffs it into her coat pocket, takes two steps back, her body tilted toward the playhouse, listening: “They’re playing so nicely in there—so peacefully.”
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