The Liquid Land

by Raphaela Edelbauer

  When my aunt answered, I was suddenly struck by shame. Before she could say a word, I drowned her in a monologue that broke out of me uncontrollably: ‘I’m calling about the funeral. It took a long time to prepare everything due to unforeseen issues. It was so difficult even finding Greater Einland, and then it was almost impossible to get a grave plot here.’ As I lifted my bowed head, my face was wet with tears.

  ‘Ruth?’ my aunt asked hesitantly. ‘Ruth, is that you? Are you alright? We reported you missing a week ago, we thought you had done something to yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m doing very well, I have a job here. You see, I’m searching for clues, so I can say something about Mum and Dad at their funeral. About their hometown,’ I said, sobbing.

  ‘Ruth, Ruth, calm down, what’s the matter? Are you really alright? Listen, we didn’t know where you were, and the coroner released the both of them. I’m so sorry, we had to make a decision, and when you weren’t here — well, how shall I tell you? Your parents were buried in Vienna three days ago.’

  The surface I was standing on folded together, the room compressed, the dimensions retreated, everything shifted away from me.

  ‘You buried them in Vienna?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s no such place as Greater Einland — according to the telephone book, the guesthouse I called you at is in Kirchberg am Wechsel. The municipal offices don’t know any Greater Einland,’ my aunt was now almost shouting. ‘You have to come back.’

  ‘You ignored their wishes and didn’t have them buried in Greater Einland?’ I repeated again, clutching the receiver tightly as my hand was wet, my shirt, my cheeks, my lips, all wet.

  ‘I have no idea where you are, Ruth, but come home. I understand that you’re upset, who wouldn’t be, but … please come to us, we’re all so worried. Come home, and we’ll talk.’ I hung up. My grief had been replaced with bewilderment. Now the situation had become infinitely awkward for me, as the funeral director had followed the whole scene with growing unease.

  ‘My parents have unfortunately already been buried in Vienna,’ I explained straightforwardly, as if that was a completely normal turn of events. The woman looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘But you’ve already signed, madam,’ she said, holding out the slip of paper with my signature as proof.

  ‘Fine, I will keep the funeral for another time,’ I replied politely.

  ‘Perfect, let’s do that,’ she said, now much friendlier again and not in the least bit disconcerted by the suggestion I’d made. ‘Please transfer the two thousand euros to me and I’ll give you a voucher.’

  A two-thousand-euro funeral voucher, I thought. Two larchwood coffins; who will I ever use them for? On top of that, I was now on the verge of bankruptcy. But I wrote my credit card number in an old-fashioned chequebook, once more shook the hand of the funeral director, accepted heartfelt condolences from the secretary, and made my way back to the guesthouse.

  A week later I had a vague idea for a memorial. Even if the funeral itself had already taken place, I wanted to hold a ceremony, in spite of my relatives, in Greater Einland, and for which this destination would be absolutely essential. I would get hold of the information — poignant truths that the first funeral couldn’t have been capable of — and perhaps plan a transfer of the coffins, that is, finally, rectify a deeply felt injustice, which could ultimately restore my self-image, at least. But I lost sight of this goal as soon as the real reason for staying came out.

  In Greater Einland everything moved at a different speed, an ambrosia-like timelessness that cast the events outside of this little world in an unthinkable light. Every resident had a precisely quantified significance in this social structure that one could grasp with one’s hands, because it was hierarchical and was mostly disclosed according to its terms. The simplest of tasks had something magical about them. Nobody used the Internet, and I tacitly assumed that there simply wasn’t any here in the mountains. It would take me two full years to figure out that state-of-the-art fibre-optic cables ran through Greater Einland; it was just that no one used them. Maybe the fact that it was such a clear break with everything that I had known was the reason I integrated myself completely.

  However, what finally sealed this sense of arrival was the house.

  The perception of time has to overcome three thresholds:

  The fusion threshold permits humans to understand two events as separate from one another, whereby the various sensory organs have different minimum requirements. While the eye is more forgiving and needs twenty to thirty milliseconds to separate two elements, the ear can distinguish between elements from just two milliseconds. The second is the order threshold. This makes the sequence of two stimuli comprehensible, which requires both to be separated by about forty milliseconds. The third threshold concerns the present: this is formed by a three-second space that blocks the view of the flow of time like an endorsed barrier.

  I spent the whole weekend in bed. Awoken intermittently by the knocks of Frau Erna, who brought my meals to my room at the usual time, I hardly knew when the day ended and the next one began. I slept eight hours, was woken by the chiming of the church clocktower at noon, went to the bathroom, ate, and lay down for another eight hours, until my biorhythm had liquefied and I no longer knew whether it was day or night. It felt like the blinds had been drawn, until I realised that it was dark outside, or I gave a start because I thought I’d left a light on before realising that it was the sun.

  It wasn’t until Sunday evening that things turned around. I was lying on my squashed face, watching the sunset with indifference, when I remembered the house for no reason whatsoever. A few days before the events at the funeral home, while walking with Philipp to the salon, I had noticed an empty house. It was a beautiful old building with half-timbered gables, a carved balcony, and a garden out back with fir and walnut trees. It caught my eye because it had FOR SALE OR LEASE in almost obnoxiously large letters, red and glowing, out front.

  To own a house, a so-called home — the idea rose up into my brain like a bewitching scent — would lead me out of my misery, I suddenly suspected. I wouldn’t have to go back to Vienna, and the question of whether the university would have continued to employ me would have resolved itself. I wouldn’t have to explain to anyone why I disappeared before my inaugural lecture, wouldn’t have to count the annual output of publications, wouldn’t have to make an appearance at the despised conferences. I wouldn’t have to exchange one further word with my aunt. I would settle down, and why not here? Why not in the countryside? I thought, before I remembered that I barely had enough money to even pay my tab at the Pumpkin. Everything hurt from lying around for days on end, and I decided, in spite of my miserable financial situation, to take a walk to this very house. Although it was only November, it was snowing, and after having not left my room for three days, the light blinded me painfully as I took a right turn past the town wall towards Johannesstrasse. I found the same sign as before: FOR SALE OR LEASE. Beneath it was a number, which I noted down on the back of my hand so I could call it once back at the tavern, even though it was a Sunday and evening time. Oddly enough, someone picked up straightaway — a smarmy young real estate agent, who was able to offer me a viewing the following morning for the detached property, as he called it. A brief telephone conversation clarified that the house was dirt cheap — no wonder, I thought to myself, if the foundations sink by a foot a year and you didn’t know whether the walls would still be standing next winter. But what was the point? I didn’t even have this ridiculous amount in my account, and I would have to think carefully about whether I could apply for a loan in my position. The university would no doubt be firing me any day now. Early in the morning I met the agent, a slick and polished boy with the face of a law student who threw open the curtains with a pompous gesture and let the doors swing open on their hinges. The house was magnificent. It had seven rooms across two floors — a beauti
ful wooden staircase, herringbone parquet made of walnut (which originated from the trees in the garden, the agent assured me), bright Art Nouvelle windows, and a ground floor that looked like a former cattle shed. On that lower floor, the walls were exposed, like in a loft — the building had previously been accommodation for workers at the nearby timber factory. A small cutting machine had once stood in the so-called salon, which gave the room its factory-like appearance. Since the previous owners had only recently died, and, as the agent put it, the estate was handled a little differently in Greater Einland, the house was for sale including all the furniture: a small library filled with classics, a beautiful French kitchen, and a large double bed on the upper floor, from which one could see the firmament through a skylight.

  Most of all, however, I was impressed by the desk. It formed the central star of the study, consisting of a wood panel resting on two hand-carved trestles like those used by craftsmen, with a dark pattern, as if the tree it originated from had had to survive harsh winters during its livelier days. A black chalkboard covered the whole of one wall so that one could use a sliding ladder to distribute formulas crossways all over it, and a chaise longue on the other side invited you to reflect upon what had been written.

  The house looked like someone had climbed into my head and made a mould based on the patents to my desires. It was like the treehouse one had begged for as a child; like the big cardboard box one could crawl into and make a spaceship out of; like the tangle of interconnected compartments under the hollow hedge, which I’d pushed through with my friends and then sanctified as rooms. Here, I would be able to finish my postdoctoral thesis. It was a dream factory — a sacred place of my production.

  I asked the young man to prepare all the necessary documents straightaway; I would prefer to move in that same week. I just had to get a loan, but I would manage it somehow, with my professorial title and all the promises that went with it. I needed this house. The speed with which the agent agreed was, however, still surprising, because out from a folder he pulled the purchase contract ready for signing, and, one after the after, a notarial notice, a credit check, and confirmation of acceptance, all of which were already made out in my name.

  ‘You’re welcome to move in immediately; I had a suspicion that you wouldn’t be able to resist the property,’ he said.

  ‘But who paid the deposit?’

  ‘The Countess, of course.’

  We arranged to meet that evening for the key handover: I would in the meantime, I explained, find out more about the financial arrangements I had to make. Handshake, exchange of business cards, then I was hanging on the telephone in the Pumpkin, attempting to locate all the banking institutions in the vicinity.

  In any case I would have to, this went without saying, go to the nearest larger town, as there wasn’t even a cash machine in Greater Einland. When I put the phone down, I registered, to my surprise, that the prospect of moving around a city evoked a not inconsiderable amount of disgust in me. For one thing, I still didn’t have a car — but that was by no means the decisive factor. Rather, I was suddenly tormented by the thought of the noise, the pace, the passing of time, which lay here so wonderfully fallow, like a regenerating field after harvesttime.

  I asked Frau Erna, who was just then carrying two plates from the kitchen into the parlour, where a bus to the next town left from.

  ‘There isn’t a bus,’ she said absently, and flew away from me to the regulars’ tables.

  ‘What do you want there anyway?’ someone shouted around the corner, but I had to walk around the bar in order to see that it was Master-Builder Keinermüller who had asked.

  ‘I want to apply for a loan,’ I replied, sitting down opposite him. His hand, already raised threateningly above his head as if to knock someone over, thundered down onto the tabletop, causing his soup to spill. ‘You don’t need a loan! We always lend to each other here. You can borrow anyone’s money and you get given a borrower’s note for it. The whole thing’s settled with the Countship. It’s far less hassle than an account.’

  ‘It’s ninety thousand euros,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that’s chicken feed.’ The Master-Builder shovelled what was left of his soup into his mouth. ‘These little transactions are always going on, didn’t you know? You borrow something and are indebted to the debtor of your own debtor. Allow credit to be given and tell someone who still owes you to pay there, and so on and so forth. That means that ultimately you pay your own debtors. So capital never leaves the town, everything stays local.’

  Because I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to get to the bottom of these absurdities, I responded to his explanation: ‘Who can I ask for the amount for the moment?’

  ‘In principle anyone, even Erna here,’ Schlaf chimed in. ‘Or, for my part, me — I can issue you a borrower’s note immediately.’

  ‘And in what instalments should I repay you?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t, you issue other people borrower’s notes, which in turn relate to me.’

  My head was spinning. What kind of strange constellations was I — and everything without my direct cooperation — already involved in? Maybe someone was borrowing something in my name right now.

  At that moment Erna came around the corner. ‘Ruth, I think the Countess has already issued you a blank borrower’s note. Feudal model. Just buy whatever you want, it should be paid for.’

  ‘Where did you get that information? I never asked the Countess for that,’ I called back.

  ‘I know from hearsay. And officially, well, what can I say. Purchase agreements, rentals, loans. It all ends up on the Countess’s desk anyway,’ Erna explained. ‘And because there’s no cash points here, the withdrawal is sort of shared out.’

  ‘But to whom do you owe money when you borrow something?’

  ‘It’s not that easy to say. Could be someone different in the morning than in the evening. The best thing to do is to just borrow as much as possible yourself.’

  ‘In this case, of course, you only owe the Countess, as we also have a feudal lending model. Here’ — Master-Builder Keinermüller scribbled something on the back of his receipt — ‘I assume that the arrangement with the Countess is tied to a job? You work, receive a salary, and an interest-bearing tithe goes into the house. The employment contract is binding until you’ve paid back the money for the house, otherwise you’d be liable for the agreed advance amount.’

  ‘Tithe?’ I asked helplessly. ‘But I haven’t signed anything.’

  ‘Seems like you have,’ Schlaf said, ordering another scotch.

  When it got dark, I packed up my clothes, which were lying in every corner of the room, and arrived in front of the house at the arranged time.

  ‘Everything’s been paid for,’ the agent beamed, as he opened the door for me for the second time that day. To be on the safe side, I had fetched all of my belongings from the guesthouse and thanked Erna (unsure of for what, exactly), but as the keys were handed to me without delay, I was still astonished. Now I had to accept the job, I thought, and was suddenly happy about it. It seemed I would finish my postdoctoral thesis. After the agent had left, I lit the stove with wood already provided, barricaded myself in my new bed, and lost myself for hours in natural history books. Some longings we don’t have until we encounter them; for the first time in my life, I’d arrived.

  It was only with great reluctance, when my eyes were exhausted, that I took a look at the contract that I still had next to me on the mattress. Already pinned to it was the statement from the land register, in which I had apparently been entered at lightning speed as the new owner. In the lines above my name it stated the former owners, and when I was able to decipher the cursive script, I was stunned: Petra and Joseph Schalla. I had, without knowing it, bought my grandparents’ house. I was suddenly awake again. How could I not have noticed? This was the attic room with the window my parents had told me about: they had la
in here and determined the constellations. I ran to the balcony: the hill behind the house where they could ski! And now it made sense that the house, which had been pitched to me as ‘the former home of woodworkers, inclusive of a workshop’, had belonged to my grandfather, the owner of the timber factory. The memory map I had made three weeks ago tore itself from the imaginary and descended over the landscape down to my house, where its nodes and junctions found their position absolutely perfectly. When I was finally in bed, I imagined that one of them had just laid down here — and suddenly I was once more seized by the question of what the both of them were doing here every week. Was it something to do with the house? I made up my mind to do some research about the history of the town the following day. This issue, however, had become superfluous: when I left my house the next morning to discuss my future tasks with the Countess, I found the local chronicle hammered into my post-box. I had become a Greater Einlander.

  The following day I read the story of Pergerhannes, the mythical founding figure of the town, which had up to that point been kept from me. Remarkably it took up most of the local chronicle, even though it was obviously a legend:

  Hans Perger, Pergerhans, in other sources also Perger Hannes — a rich craftsman who occupied the post of master leather–tanner — lived close to the Market Square, where he had a workshop, between 1595 and 1636. A journeyman’s examination from 1611, and the apprenticeship of three local boys five years later, are verified. There is also evidence of the purchase of another building on the corner of today’s Hebelstrasse. In a letter from the vicar Steffan Herman it is reported that Hans Perger maintained a private library that contained sacred writings, including a minuscule from the Bamberg monastery, as well as reports on various handicraft techniques of the time. Such a book collection can be understood as an indication of extraordinary wealth, and the barely twenty-five-year-old is likely to have had a not inconsiderable influence in the area. In any case, it is indisputable that, in 1629, Perger had already started to excavate the infamous shaft that would make him immortal.