When I got home from the boat party the flat had been sealed up. I hitchhiked to Mecklenburg. A derelict barn, covered in moss right up to the gabled roof, offered me shelter. I found a job in the cattle shed of a small farming cooperative near Crivitz. My tasks were: cart dung, scrape dung from udders, keep dung separate from feed. Get up at four every morning, head to the shed reeling from lack of sleep. The creatures roared. Their swollen udders were sore and resistant to medication. Two of the milkers at the cooperative milked the twenty cows by hand before stoppering the teats with the milking machine’s cups. The milkers, still half asleep, would squat on the stool, had no age, no face. Barked in my direction:
– The teats have to be clean!
I washed the udders with mineral water, cut off any gummed-up hair on the cows’ stomachs, cleaned their snotty noses with muslin. The animals objected, their tails hit me around the ears. Straw was scarce and was spread over the encrusted faeces only twice a year before the state inspection. They were fed with pellets that stank of fish, and a mix of cabbage and turnips. The animals chomped on it for milk and meat, for the milkers, for the cooperative. The milk, thin and watery, shot into the hoses of the milking machine. Cowpats slapped onto the slats. I swung the five-pointed fork, stuck it into the sludge, lifted the steaming excrement, loaded it into the wheelbarrow. A third man came, threw pellets into the feeding troughs, poured water on top of them, woke up the milkers. I stood up to my knees in manure. Maria and Agathe snorted on the back of my neck, Suse stepped on my boots, Anna unleashed a jet of piss from above. I carted the muck outside, where it was thinned out with water and tipped onto the fields. And that’s how it went, day in day out. After four weeks of back-breaking work I had three days off; I slept through them in deep unconsciousness. At the village pub, the cattle farmers’ dialect reigned supreme. They wouldn’t let me sit with them. I would just toddle off to bed. One day all twenty of the cows in the shed were dead. The corpses lay in the muck as if sedated. Schit! the farmers said. I left Crivitz in the night, fled across the paddocks in the direction of Teterow. Had had enough of working in cattle sheds. I made it through by stealing and working as a labourer. Katka’s training came in handy. If they caught me, I knew the game would be up. There were no more last chances. I got work with a farmer by the name of Rieck. My tasks were to peel potatoes and clean carrots ready to hand to the farmer’s wife. Then Farmer Wilken, the neighbour, entered the Riecks’ kitchen one evening in his heavy work boots.
– The streets in Teterow are full of people. They’re marching through the town. It’s all happening!
– What is?
– I don’t know, but I reckon we should join them!
Farmer Rieck said:
– What’s that got to do with me?
Farmer’s wife:
– Horst, you have to!
Wilken left a streak of dirt behind in the kitchen, grumbling as he went. I scrubbed the tiles, the potatoes, grated carrots and apples till my fingers bled.
– You say something?
The farmer’s wife, a blue apron around her protruding hips, eyed me suspiciously. I wanted to ask what was happening, what was going on in Teterow or wherever it was, but the question stuck in my throat. I’d got used to never saying anything to anyone, not even my name, and if I did introduce myself I called myself Binka or Katka or Maria Elke Popiol.
– Pisspot! The farmer’s wife poked the farmer.
– Wilken’s talking sense.
I left the Riecks’ farm in the night, headed for Teterow. Standing on the outskirts, I saw thousands of people making their way through the streets of the town. The sight swam before my eyes. They won’t be looking for you any more, I thought to myself. Your time has come.
I hitchhiked my way back to Leibnitz. Told every driver my name: Gabriela von Haßlau.
– From the West?
– No.
– And where do you come from?
– Anhaltinian nobility.
– Either you’re telling the truth or I’m driving you straight to the madhouse.
No one believed me. I searched for those I still hoped to find: Katka, Samuel, Frau Popiol. I found nobody. No one that knew me. What’s more, they were after me. The whole city knew my name. After a few days of restless searching, and a few nights of sleeping at the Christian hospice, I handed myself in at the police station.
– Gabriela von Haßlau.
– Identification card?
– Don’t have one.
– We’ve got more pressing problems at the moment. Gabriela von Haßlau. We get all sorts here…
They kept me in overnight, reported me to the social welfare office, held their noses whenever they came near me.
– Get that out of here! complained one of the uniforms. That’s all we need, the top dossers round our necks.
They drove me to the psychiatric ward.
– Schizo, the driver explained, delivering me like a package.
– I’m the daughter of Chief Medical Officer Ernst von Haßlau.
– Let’s start off by lying down very calmly.
– I’m the daughter of Chief Medical Officer Ernst von Haßlau.
– We don’t know of any Chief Medical Officer Ernst von Haßlau. How about you give us your real name?
– Gabriela von Haßlau.
– And do we know your year of birth?
– Well, I do.
– Would we say this pencil is yellow or red?
– I’m not crazy.
– We’re all going to stay very calm. What have we been up to recently?
– I’ve been hitchhiking. You?
After three hours of anamnesis, the psychiatric ward decided to release me. I stood out in the street. Someone was banging on the windows inside the mental hospital behind me. Kurt had it good, I thought to myself, he didn’t have to go through the revolution. Then I had to find a place to sleep, sign up at the welfare office and the homeless shelter. The summer was hot and dry, a once-in-a-century summer.
Paffrath closes the door to the apartment.
– I’ve bought you some clothes, he says. Takes off his uniform, takes off his shoes, stretches his stiff toes. He brings me two plastic bags emblazoned with Henry & Moritz.
– Put these on.
The bags stay where they are on the floor. I approach the Chief Inspector, my hands slip under the olive-yellow police shirt, it’s warm, a throbbing tone like a swallowed watch signals signs of life.
– Don’t you like them? Paffrath gestures to the bags of clothes.
– I like everything you do.
Paffrath’s hand moves nervously to his nose. He scratches it. The shirt slides out of his trousers, I gather it up to his chest. White stomach, a hairy chest and back, my hands patrol the area.
– Ah, Paffrath says.
He carries me to the sofa. I lie on my stomach. He kneels in front of my face. No! I want to shout. Paffrath’s smooth hand grasps me underneath my hair, lifts my head. White legs, chest, stomach, white, all white. I recognize every little hair on his body.
– Mygoodgirlmydarlingmybeauty.
No! Paffrath lays my head back against the cushions. I turn over, pull my knees up to my chest, my arms embrace my thighs and calves. I make myself small, invisible. Paffrath lends a hand, raises my backside and shows me what he wants in depth. I roll on my side, stay lying there. Inert.
– Your first time?
Bewildered, Paffrath rises from the sofa, smiles, goes out into the hallway, brings the bags in.
– Trousers or a skirt?
Something must have happened. The story stops short. It wasn’t bad. Wasn’t pleasant either. Paffrath puts a bright, floral skirt on my naked stomach. Then he makes himself a sandwich in the kitchen. Wine to toast the day. A dark, snowy afternoon. He sits in the armchair draped in his dressing gown. He puts both his feet up on the edge of the sofa. His eyes twinkle like a tomcat’s. I lie there in silence. How warm it is. Paffrath eats his bread and sausage,
raises his wine glass, lights a cigarette.
I throw the skirt on the floor, unroll myself, look Paffrath in the face. The twinkle flares up green and hot, then Paffrath closes his eyes and it goes out.
* * *
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Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi
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White Hunger by Aki Ollikainen
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The Man I Became by Peter Verhelst
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Her Father’s Daughter by Marie Sizun
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The Empress and the Cake by Linda Stift
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The Last Summer by Ricarda Huchhat promotes the creative arts by and about refugees and migrants in the UK
Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch
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The Orange Grove by Larry Tremblay
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Dance by the Canal by Kerstin Hensel
Translated from the German by Jen Calleja
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About the Author and Translator
AUTHOR
Kerstin Hensel was born in 1961 in Karl-Marx-Stadt in former East Germany and studied in Leipzig. She has published over thirty books: novels, short-story collections, poetry and plays. She has won numerous prizes, including the Anna Seghers Prize, as well as the Lessing Prize for her entire body of work.
TRANSLATOR
Jen Calleja is a writer, literary translator from German, editor and musician. She has translated book-length works for Fitzcarraldo Editions and Bloomsbury, as well as short fiction, essays, articles and poetry. Dance by the Canal is her first book for Peirene.
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by
Peirene Press Ltd
17 Cheverton Road
London N19 3BB
www.peirenepress.com
First published under the original German-language title Tanz am Kanal
Copyright © Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1994
All rights reserved by and controlled through Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin
This translation © Jennifer Calleja, 2017
Kerstin Hensel asserts
her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut, which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.
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