The Dance by the Canal

by Kerstin Hensel

  – Come in, said the witch.

  I felt cold, hot, cold. I knew this voice, and the scent of resin. Frau Popiol lived here. The wig lit our way.

  – We better get out of here, Katka whispered.

  – No.

  – The old bag’s crazy, she’ll eat us.

  – She’s my violin teacher.

  – You can play the violin?

  – Yes, Katka.

  Frau Popiol led us inside: a room with a low ceiling, stuffed with piles of books, a single armchair, a pale-leaved rubber plant under the window. Beside the window a piano and next to it a set of shelves with countless records and tapes.

  – I’ll play something for you.

  We stood in silence, two first-year pupils, I in my blue and white crocheted dress, Katka in a shabby skirt that belonged to her older sister. Frau Popiol picked a record from her collection.

  I was afraid once more, I could already hear all the violin virtuosos in the whole world, could already hear Frau Popiol’s sharp voice: ungifted, hopeless. Oh yes, Frau Popiol had seen us dancing the twist, dancing to rock ’n’ roll – vulgar, disreputable music that was banned at our school, in dance halls and everywhere.

  – Please, we won’t ever do it again, I said.

  And there it was once more. This small gesture of happiness. Frau Popiol’s fingers stroked my hair, and she laughed deeply and mockingly.

  – I’ve got something better than ‘the twist’.

  Inside the little moss house we listened to serious, urgent music which was far too grown up for us.

  – You’re an intelligent child, Frau Popiol said over the music, while Katka, mesmerized, swayed her body.

  – Come again if you like.

  – Yes, I said. Can Katka come too?

  Frau Popiol nodded. She opened the kitchen door. Kurt had been standing behind it, eavesdropping. He was now allowed to enter the room. He waddled in on his duck feet, grinning. Then he stood in front of Katka. His head was shaking. As he danced awkwardly and off the beat, Katka mimicked his movements.

  – Is the kid sick?

  – No, Frau Popiol said. He can really dance.

  When Frau Popiol finally sent us back to school, it was almost midday. I caught sight of Father’s company car in front of the building. Fräulein Brinkmann had called Father, she had dared to snitch on us. Father got out of the car in his white coat. Children gathered around him. Look how tall he is! What a moustache! A doctor! A real doctor!

  Father didn’t scold me. Instead he sat in on our class, observing. The little chicken tried her best during the lesson. My classmates behaved impeccably, out of respect for our guest. Father sat right at the back in the corner on a tiny school chair. White and handsome, he gave off the mysterious scent of the hospital. Fräulein Brinkmann was nervous. Her weak voice petered out into a croak. She had summoned Father to chastise me. She’d ordered punishment, righteousness.

  Father:

  – My daughter doesn’t play truant.

  Fräulein Brinkmann:

  – Unfortunately she does. She keeps bad company. But I as her teacher can’t forbid her from going around with Katka Lorenz.

  In the middle of the maths class, my father rose to his feet.

  Fräulein Brinkmann flinched.

  – Maybe Herr Doktor von Haßlau would like to tell us how he makes people better.

  – No. Then, in a more friendly tone, towards the class: Another time perhaps.

  Father employed someone to help out around the house. He went ahead with it in an act of defiance against the state.

  – State, he said at the dinner table, a word that I should take note of.

  – Repeat after me: state, the state’s against us having help at home.

  I didn’t understand why anyone would mind my mother receiving help, or not want the dirt in the villa’s countless rooms to be finally conquered. The help was called Frau Schramm. Mother gave her the kneeling cushion with the wax cloth and told her what to do. Then she had time for me. She took me to school every morning and picked me up every afternoon. The other children made fun of me. Mollycoddled, they called me. Katka was only mine now at break time. Beneath the horse chestnut in the schoolyard we made plans of escape and adventures, but we were being watched: zealous teachers on break-time duty or, even worse, older children. They stood behind us, next to us, and kept us apart:

  – Katka Lorenz, take away the wastepaper bins immediately, and Gabriela von Haßlau has blackboard duty.

  Sullenly I wiped the board in silence and waited for my mother. But Katka returned fire: staples, apple cores. She built plastic stink bombs, tore up the register.

  – She’ll end up in a home, I heard someone say.

  Mother helped me with my homework while old Frau Schramm dusted, polished and waxed our villa. I made progress and found learning to write almost enjoyable. Father came home from work later every day. He thundered through the kitchen: he wanted to start a private practice, the state wouldn’t allow it, but he, Ernst von Haßlau, would make it happen. That word state again, which belonged to Father, which came from deep within his broad chest soaked in cognac and which left barely any space for me. Mother told Father about my improving performance at school.

  – We haven’t taken enough care of her, Ernst, but everything’s fine now.

  – Everything’s fine now, babbled Father. He poured out a large Napoléon, clamped his hand around the glass, raised it, inhaled, drank.

  – Ernst!

  – From now on we’re going to throw parties, Christiane. We’re somebodies!

  Two semicircular sheets of paper made from the bags I found in the park, now filled with writing. I sense a future within me: something could come of my story, a success that could take me from this point to a better place – out from under the bridge, maybe into a little room of my own, maybe something even better. But what does that mean, better? I can’t imagine it, and if I were to write about a better world, I would be doing so as a stranger to it.

  It’s the end of the working day for the few businesses in Leibnitz that are still going. Cars surge across my bridge, the canal slowly returns to its natural colour: a grey brown. I’m clocking off too. Raise myself up. I have to admit that sitting to write under a bridge isn’t the most comfortable thing, but what can I do? It’s cool and shady down here and no one pays any attention to me. There’ll be supper at the shelter. A useful institution; they don’t let you fall into the last hole, you get food, clothing, a chance to wash. You’re still a somebody. But most people don’t know who they are. Boozing and dossing – what a life! They don’t know how to tell their story. They’ve just fallen. Right to the bottom. I’m not one of them.

  Dusk. Feels good to have worked. I’ll go and eat at the shelter, brush my teeth, then maybe a trip to the cinema. There’s always enough money for food and the cinema. The welfare office doesn’t forget us. Not completely. Not so you fall into the last hole. Not on our watch. Fellini’s playing at the Bali. The Capitol and Babylon are closed. The Bali then. La Strada. It’s nice sitting in a comfy cinema seat. An old film: the poor girl who goes mad because of her existence and because of her love. And that bastard, that Zampanò, a lonely drunkard. My eyes close. I wake up with a broom thumping against my legs.

  – Get out, you stupid Binka! Sleeping in the cinema, what’s that about?

  The broom sweeps me outside. I stagger into the summer night, my bag of things under my arm. The streets of Leibnitz are dead. The Three Roses is the only place where anyone’s still up having a beer. The man in the cinema called me a Binka. How did he know? I shouldn’t let myself go like this, dossing like that, like I’d been stacking boxes of apples in the market all day. I can’t go back to sleep straight away. You have to be dead tired to be able to sleep under a bridge. If you’re only drowsy you start to shiver and get scared of the canal and the darkness. It’s only eleven o’clock and I’m wide awake and can’t sleep. Where is there for me to go in Leibnitz? The shelter
has places to sleep. Maybe… I won’t go to the shelter. I walk into the Three Roses.

  The bar: tiny, not even twenty square metres, two high tables to stand at, the wooden bar covered with stickers for Berlin FC, Olympia 2000, Test the West. Behind the bar: Semmelweis-Märrie, weighing 300 kilos, serves Pilsner beer and clear schnapps half a centimetre under the measure line. I order a cola, then boldly join the men, Rampen-Paul and Atze, Klunker-Lupo and Noppe, the owners of the Green Bridge and the Sunday Bridge. There’s a woman among them too: Angschelick, she slobbers. A test of courage. The cola: sweet, brown, warm.

  – Wouldn’t you rather a beer?

  The Three Roses grin with the stumps of their teeth.

  – No. Don’t smoke either.

  – Who are you, then?

  – Gabriela von Haßlau.

  The Three Roses laugh, shriek, stamp their feet with joy. You don’t get a laugh like that every day, nearly fell off my stool – von Haßlau! Stand firm. Just cola. But that doesn’t make you tired either. An apricot brandy as well? Fine by me. The night will be twice as sweet.

  – Where do you live, Gabrüüüella fffon Haßlau?

  Skinny, balding Noppe, who’s doing the asking, and who always gives the guys a laugh, drops a curtsy.

  – The Wet Fart Hotel, I say. The Three Roses are in stitches. Lupo, tattooed up to the bridge of his nose, sways over to me from the neighbouring table:

  – Know anyone?

  – Nope.

  Klunker-Lupo has a hole in his forehead the size of a cherry. He sticks a lit cigarette stump in it. I bang on the table.

  – Not yet I don’t!

  The peace treaty is sealed. Another apricot brandy to get me tired. Glues your soul together. Things must be going well, Gabriela, for you to end up here. Brandy. Cola. Just to get me tired so I’m feeling fresh for work in the morning… Rampen-Paul puts his right arm around my shoulder, pushes his man boobs up against me, leads my hand holding the little schnapps glass – where? The glass falls, tinkles, apricot brandy soaks into the muck on the floor. I feel the corduroy of Rampen-Paul’s trousers stiff with filth and beer. Paul presses my fingers against his fly. A filthy snigger from Atze, who’s offering himself up too.

  – Get off!

  I tread into the brandy, grab my bag of things – out!

  The Three Roses is now behind me. Leibnitz is sleeping. The Green Bridge and the Sunday Bridge are occupied. The first night under my bridge. So tired I’m ready to drop. Lay out the corrugated cardboard, then a towel, then my body, then the new blanket from the shelter. Close my eyes, lying in the open green of nature, a little brook flows by, not malty and full of hops, but a clear forest stream, rats, deer, a little moss house, stalactites as long as sugar loafs, are you by any chance called Binka? Or Ehlchen? Too tired to say. Whoever knows falls down the last hole.

  I wake in the morning, face and blanket wet from the dripstone water. The slopes of the embankment are fresh and green, goldenrod is in bloom, wild field poppies, dandelions. I’m shivering and even though I slept straight through I have a headache. I consider what to do so I don’t get drenched again. Sleeping next to the bridge is as good as not having a place to sleep at all. Look for lodging at the shelter? They’d throw me out and send me to the welfare office – or hell. Who knows? They don’t begrudge you a breakfast, but nothing more. Crap institution. I take coffee and rusks from the shelter anyway, stick rolls and sausages up my shirt for worse times and steal a roll of grey loo paper. That’ll help me continue my story. A once-in-a-century summer! And my second day as a freelance author begins.

  – We’re somebodies!

  Party was the new word.

  – Repeat after me, Ehlchen: par-ty! It’s American.

  Father stroked his moustache. I sensed something forbidden behind this word, something similar to my dealings with Katka Lorenz. Father just did it, without fear of being caught, did what the Russians tried to spoil for you! He roared through the villa, frothing with indignity.

  Mother wrote the invitations. I was given the task of drawing something on every card: a flower or a star.

  – But no reds stars, Mother said, draw a yellow one or a blue one or a tree.

  I licked the tips of the colouring pencils so the drawings would be vibrant. At our first party, one of Father’s colleagues from the clinic brought me a real felt-tip pen.

  – Who shall we invite?

  – Esteemed colleagues and artists, decreed Father, no Party bigwigs, no assistant doctors, no nurses, no family.

  I wasn’t sure if I was included in this category and tried my best to make the stars and trees especially beautiful. I was excited to see who would come. I secretly hoped for Frau Popiol. In my eyes she was one of the artists. Leibnitz doesn’t show off its artists, I heard Father say, but they’re there!

  Frau Popiol wasn’t on the list. I was disappointed. The buffet stretched from the music room through to the living room. The double doors were taken off their hinges, the parquet was waxed. For three days Mother and Frau Schramm cooked, stirred, crafted delicacies. I was allowed to add paprika and parsley to the canapés, decorate the salad, line up the bottles of drink. I was happy. The strange shine of the villa banished my boredom. Something big was coming. On the day the buffet was fully laid out, Mother picked me up from school an hour early. I relished bunking off with permission. My parents were right: we were somebodies. We had power over Fräulein Brinkmann, who had to let me leave, we had power over all the school directors, all the assistant doctors and all the nurses in the whole world.

  Father in his grey suit and black tie was tall and handsome, almost exotic with his black hair and waxed moustache. Mother wore a green silk dress, strings of pearls and high-heeled shoes. I wore a dirndl, white knee-high socks, red leather shoes, with my braided hair up.

  And then there were the guests. There were senior doctors and actors, orchestra directors, soloists and painters. Twenty, thirty people wearing peculiar outfits and special perfumes that Mother called festive. They made their entrances and presented my parents with gifts; they brought me Sarotti chocolate or Mickey Mouse notebooks, delightfully forbidden things. Our villa filled with people. They laughed and mingled around, my father was somebody, he was mentioned often, and frequently referred to by his full name and title, Obermedizinalrat Ernst von Haßlau, and Father waved graciously each time.

  Suddenly I was sent to bed. It’s nine o’clock, that’s when children must go to bed. Frau Schramm, who up until that point had been busy in the kitchen, was given the task of undressing and washing me and bundling me off to bed. I resisted, kicked out, wanted to stay, caused a scene, threw myself onto the parquet. Mother was mortified, Father reached for the Napoléon, the guests whispered in awkwardness. I knocked a bowl of dessert off the table. Then a young man grabbed me, lifted me up and carried me out of the room. He had me in an armlock, making me defenceless.

  In the hallway, the man said that if I was a good girl he would show me something. I promised with a whimper. The man had shoulder-length curly blond hair. He was called Samuel and was an actor.

  – Watch this, kid.

  Samuel went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. All of a sudden I heard a gruesome scream, groaning, and a shiver ran down my spine. I wanted to shout for help, but then the bathroom door opened and Samuel toppled onto the floorboards with a crash. A broomstick was sticking out from under his right armpit. He was dead. I screamed and wanted to run back to the music room, but the corpse rose from the dead.

  – Did you like it?

  I nodded, embarrassed. Then Samuel ran against the hallway door and I was sure that he must have broken all his ribs and cracked his skull. But he was still in one piece. He carried me into the kitchen. Frau Schramm was polishing glasses. Samuel snatched the cloth from her and got to work. He tossed glasses and plates, juggled frying pans, knives, forks. Frau Schramm and I were in awe. Samuel balanced the knife sharpener on his nose – it fell and landed on his foot. He hopp
ed about holding his toes and I laughed so hard I cried. Frau Schramm kept watch at the kitchen door while Samuel showed us yet more incredible feats until my head felt like it was about to burst from laughing.

  The next morning was Saturday. I was the only one who had to leave the house, as I had school. I clambered over the remains of the party. The villa was a wreck. Frau Schramm was nowhere to be seen. I was still tired and picked at the leftover meat salad. Whole batteries of Napoléon and other empty bottles rolled across the parquet. I called for Father and Mother. I found Father in the bathroom sitting on the toilet – his suit trousers thrown off, his legs naked. He was leaning over the washbasin, sleeping. The basin was blocked with vomit. Father was breathing, so I knew he wasn’t dead. I retched and went into the bedroom. I stood in the doorway. In my parents’ bed lay my mother and the young, blond Samuel. Both naked. I looked at them for a long time. To tell the truth, it was a much more pleasant sight than that of my father, almost like a painting. Leaning against the glass-topped dressing table watching them sleeping, I had the urge to lie down with them. But I had to go to school. Every day I felt a more and more urgent need to be punctual and hard-working, to show what I had within me. So Mother had to be woken. I took the Flakon hairspray off the dresser, pressed the pump and sprayed the sticky haze onto my mother’s stomach. Which woke Samuel. He jumped out of bed like a tomcat.

  – Ohgodohgod, he whispered, taking my hand and leading me out of the bedroom.

  – Someone’s in the bathroom, I said.

  Samuel guffawed. He never washed anyway.

  I helped him to find his clothes strewn around the villa.

  – Ohgodohgod!

  He shook his blond thatch of hair, got dressed and said:

  – Watch this!

  He picked up an empty Napoléon, tipped it up and drank and drank all of the schnapps-scented air in the bottle. His body jerked, his eyes rolled, he swayed and fell onto the parquet like a marionette cut from its strings. I couldn’t wake him. At first I laughed, then I tickled him. Blood ran out of his mouth – I was horrified, tore out of the room. Samuel found me and pulled a tomato skin out from between his teeth.