by Mariana Leky
But I wasn’t able. It was like trying to lose something on purpose.
Selma had a brussels sprout casserole in the oven; she always made it for first-time guests because a casserole never goes wrong. Through the fogged-up window we saw that it was raining even harder. The rain fell as if all the waterfalls in the world had decided that today, for a change, they would all converge and fall on our village.
On the kitchen table, next to a package of Mon Chéris, lay one of the optician’s books about Buddhism. He quickly slipped it into one of Selma’s cutlery drawers. “May I?” Frederik asked, pointing at the package of Mon Chéris.
“Of course,” Selma replied.
“Delicious,” he said, nodding gravely, and Selma nodded back just as gravely, as if Mon Chéris were a highly specialized science known only to a few experts in all the world.
“You two are dripping,” Selma finally said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Frederik said, and picked up the bathrobe and a towel in one hand and a second Mon Chéri in the other.
The optician started to clear the table and Selma to stir the sauce on the stove. As soon as the bathroom door closed, they spun around and hurried to me.
“Is everything okay? Any tingling in your arms?” Selma asked.
“How often is your mind going blank?” the optician asked.
They peered at me as if I were a patient in the emergency room.
I stroked Selma’s hair, which we had finally recognized as Rudi Carrell’s. “Everything’s fine,” I said, “hardly any blanks; condition stable.”
“Then all’s well,” Selma said, and Frederik returned wearing her bathrobe and with his sopping-wet cowl over his arm. I went into the bathroom with one of Selma’s dresses.
* * *
While the casserole was baking, Frederik sat on the radiator in the living room, in the exact spot from which the blank and I had talked to him on the phone for the first time.
The living room was even neater than usual at Selma’s. There wasn’t a speck of dust on the perfectly straight bookshelves. The stack of magazines on the coffee table was exactly aligned. The cushions on the red sofa looked like no one had ever leaned on them.
Frederik watched Selma hang our wet things on the drying rack. “May I help?” he asked, but Selma waved him away.
“Not at all,” she replied. “You can start by drying out, you sopping-wet monk.”
Selma hung our clothing up to dry as carefully as if it were going to hang there forever, as if future generations could learn valuable lessons about hanging laundry from it.
“You’re a good Buddhist,” Frederik observed.
Selma clamped a final clothespin on my pants and turned to face him.
“Nice that someone finally noticed,” she said.
* * *
After each of us had eaten two helpings of casserole and Frederik four, the optician laid his silverware on his plate and cleared his throat.
“I wanted to ask you a quick question,” he said, giving me a sideways glance. “Is it true that something can disappear if we try to see it, but can’t disappear if we don’t try to see it?”
I kicked the optician’s shin under the table.
“I’m not at all interested in this from a Buddhist point of view,” he added quickly, “but purely for professional reasons.”
Frederik wiped his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said, “I’ll have to think about it.”
Selma pointed at the window through which we could see three silhouettes with umbrellas climbing the hill: Elsbeth, the shopkeeper, and Palm.
Selma opened the door.
“Hello,” Elsbeth said, handing her a blender. “I wanted to finally return your blender. I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“That’s right. We brought ice cream, too,” the shopkeeper said, standing behind Elsbeth with an enormous wrapped tray.
Selma stepped aside and the three came into the kitchen one after the other. I scooted closer to the optician and no longer felt sure that it really was a good idea to let more of the world in. The optician smiled at me.
“Buddhism is also about unconditionally accepting every experience life brings,” he whispered.
Elsbeth was dressed to the nines. She wore a black dress with enormous purple flowers and a purple hat with a little black veil and a bunch of violets on the brim. Frederik stood up and Elsbeth offered him her hand.
“So there you are,” she said, beaming. “We’ve all been eagerly waiting to meet you.”
“Thank you,” Frederik said. “What a lovely hat.”
Elsbeth blushed. “You think so?” she asked, and put her hand on the violets. “By the way, did you know that smelling violets either gives you freckles or makes you crazy?”
“Elsbeth, please,” I whispered, and she flushed even deeper.
“At least, that’s what some people say,” she added quickly. “Personally, I would never, that is, I think it’s…”
Elsbeth looked around, hoping that someone would help her get out of the sentence, but no one knew how.
“Aside from that, we’re experiencing a lot of turbulence with the preparations for the Christmas party in the community center. We’re wondering whether it would be better to hold it in the afternoon or the evening. It’s all…” Elsbeth looked as if she were trying to remember something learned long ago by heart. “Really very interesting.”
Frederik bent forward and sniffed the bunch of violets.
“I’m hoping for freckles,” he said. “What’s in that package?”
“Good afternoon,” the shopkeeper said, and pushed past Elsbeth. “I’m the shopkeeper.”
He unwrapped the cardboard tray, which held seven sundaes decorated with paper umbrellas.
“These are from the ice-cream parlor. We have four medium Secret Loves, one Hot Desire, and one Flaming Temptation,” he announced as he lifted the respective sundaes from the tray and placed them on the table. “And here we have a special treat: Alberto’s latest creation, Astrid’s Tropical Cup. She’ll be here in a moment.”
“Delicious,” Selma said.
She pulled out the table. We squeezed together around it. On the far end sat Palm, who still hadn’t said a word, like a shy ten-year-old. A strand of hair stood straight up on his head. For reasons of space, the optician extended his arm on the back of the kitchen bench behind Palm, careful not to touch him.
“This is Mr. Werner Palm,” Selma said, and Frederik extended his hand across the table.
“Pleased to meet you.”
Palm, still silent, smiled and nodded.
“So, tell us,” Elsbeth said, “what’s it like living in a monastery?”
“Why did you choose to become a Buddhist?” the shopkeeper asked. “Did you never consider an occupation that requires training?”
“Is there a Buddhist woman in your life?” Elsbeth asked.
“Personally, I’d like to know how flaming temptation and hot desire can be reconciled with imperturbable equanimity,” the shopkeeper said. “Are you celibate?”
“Our optician told us that sometimes, during meditation, a monk is beaten by other monks,” Elsbeth said. “Is that really true?”
“Can you say something in Japanese?” the shopkeeper asked.
“Could you please all be quiet?” I shouted, and everyone looked at me as if I’d made an extremely inappropriate remark it was best to ignore, then they all turned back to Frederik. He set his spoon down next to his Hot Desire and said that for the most part it was very quiet in the monastery and that Buddhism actually does require training. And no, he added, there was no Buddhist woman in his life, at least none that would get in the way of celibacy, and, in fact, one was sometimes struck with a stick while meditating, but with a very well-placed blow that relaxed the muscles on the back of the neck. Then he said, “Umi ni sennen, yama ni sennen.”
“What does that mean?” Elsbeth asked.
“One thousand years at sea, one thousand years in the
mountains,” Frederik translated.
“Oh, how nice,” Elsbeth said, reaching across the table to pat my hand. “That sounds like your father.”
They all smiled at Frederik as if he were a prizewinning documentary. Frederik gave them an embarrassed grin.
“You’re all very kind,” he said.
“That’s true, isn’t it?” Elsbeth said, sitting up straight.
Frederik stood up.
“I’m just going to put my robe back on,” and we nodded, astonished. We’d all thought it was a cowl.
As soon as Frederik stepped out of the room, they all turned toward me.
“He’s a good man,” the shopkeeper said.
“He’s fantastic,” Elsbeth said. “He’s not as handsome as you said, but he is incredibly smart.”
They said these things as if I had invented him. Palm nodded without a word, and the optician said in a solemn tone: “Bioluminescence.”
“What on earth is that?” Elsbeth asked.
“It’s a substance that makes animals glow from inside,” he explained.
Selma said nothing and stroked my hair.
* * *
Frederik and I went to the Uhlheck with Alaska. Frederik wore the optician’s yellow raincoat over his robe and I was still wearing Selma’s dress with her yellow raincoat over it.
“We’re a symphony in yellow,” Frederik said. We wore rubber boots. Selma had rubber boots from every era and in every size. He held Selma’s umbrella over both of us. Rain pattered down on it.
“Werner Palm doesn’t say much,” Frederik said, and I explained that he said next to nothing unless he was explaining verses from the Bible. He was always there and that was exactly the point, that Palm was there, that he was sitting at the table with us and not at home alone.
“You don’t say much, either, Luisa,” Frederik observed.
I didn’t tell him that I had my hands full just with him suddenly sitting at the table, with the world that had been let in, and with the world in the form of Selma, the optician, the shopkeeper, Elsbeth, and Palm. I didn’t mention the list in my pocket, with items that not a single one of them respected, and that under these circumstances it’s hard to say much and far better just to watch.
“Rudi Carrell,” I said.
Frederik looked around. “Where?”
“Selma,” I replied. “She looks like Rudi Carrell.”
“Exactly,” Frederik cried, “exactly like him, that’s what I was thinking.”
The rain was so heavy, you could hardly see a thing. The path and the fields had long become indistinguishable, and the rain had diluted the beauty of the landscape, which today, for once, I wouldn’t have walked past without noticing, and which I would have liked to show to Frederik as if it were my own invention. I held tightly to the edge of the umbrella, which threatened to collapse under the mass of water.
Frederik shut the worn-out umbrella and took my hand as if there’d been a time shift, as if many years had passed since he held my hand for the first time last night, and as if it were completely natural for us to hold hands.
We ran home, as I had run only as a child, only with Martin, when we were convinced that a hellhound or a death that didn’t exist was chasing us. Alaska ran alongside us, laboriously, because all the rain had made his fur even heavier than it usually was.
* * *
The optician drove Frederik and me back to the county seat. Palm had, in fact, not spoken a single word the entire visit. Only at the very end, when they were all standing by the door to wave a lengthy goodbye, did Palm step forward, take Frederik’s hand, and say, “I wish for you God’s bountiful blessings.”
“I wish them for you, too,” Frederik replied, and bowed so deeply that Palm reached out his hand to catch Frederik in case he lost his balance, but it wasn’t necessary.
* * *
When we had already reached the village border, in front of Marlies’s house, my mother came running toward us. She held a long bouquet wrapped in cellophane over her head. The optician braked and rolled down the window. The rain was still pouring down. My mother stuck her dripping head through the window.
“Dammit, once again I’m too late, I’m sorry.” She reached past the optician and shook Frederik’s hand. “I’m Astrid, her mother. I’m also now Luisa’s father’s ex-wife.”
“Good evening,” Frederik said.
My mother pulled her head back. “This is for you,” she said, and stuck the bouquet of very long-stemmed gladiolas through the window.
“Oh, thank you. They’re beautiful,” Frederik said, and awkwardly stowed it between his knees. The flowers touched the car’s ceiling. My mother knocked on the back window and smiled at me. She looked happy and very young. I nodded at her and, behind her, saw something move in Marlies’s darkened living room window. My mother held her bag over her head even though it made no difference and hurried away. I opened the car door and went up to Marlies’s house.
“Marlies, it’s me,” I called. “Do you want to come say hello?”
Nothing moved.
“You don’t need to be approachable. It was a very dumb idea.”
Marlies opened the window a crack. “Leave me in peace with your stupid visit,” she called.
“Fine, then, take care,” I said, and got back in the car.
Frederik turned and looked at me. “Anyone else coming?”
“No,” I said, “no one else.”
THE BLUE WHALE’S HEAVY HEART
The optician’s car was an orange Passat station wagon from the 1970s and it, too, could have been used in an experiment to find the secret of immortality. The optician had driven Martin and me to school in this Passat when the local train was canceled because of too much snow, and he had driven me to school every day for six months because I refused to get in the train after Martin’s death.
“Why didn’t the train door on my side open?” I’d asked the optician from the back seat two months after Martin’s death.
The optician pulled over on the shoulder. He put on the hazard lights and looked at me for a long time in the rearview mirror. I was sitting on two cushions so that the seat belt lay properly over my shoulder. Ever since Martin’s death, the optician buckled me into the back seat.
He turned to face me. “Do you remember how I taught you to tell time and explained how time zones work?”
I nodded.
“I also taught you capitalization, the ß, and arithmetic. And all about deciduous and coniferous trees. And about animals on land and in the water.”
I nodded again and thought again of how the optician could find connections between completely unrelated things, so he’d surely be able to draw one between arithmetic and the doors of a local train.
“And when you’re older, I’ll explain many more things. I can teach you the structure and function of the human eye and how to drive and how to mount a dowel. I can explain geopolitics and identify all the constellations. I can even explain things I don’t understand. If you want to know something that I have no idea about, then I’ll read everything there is on the subject and explain it to you. I am at your disposal for any topic, for this question, too,” the optician said, reaching back and stroking my cheek.
He got out, circled the Passat, and sat next to me on the back seat.
“I’ve never sat here before,” he said, looking around. “You’ve got a nice spot here, Luisa.”
He looked at his hands as if the question were lying there, as if he were holding it so that he could examine it from every angle.
“There’s no answer to your question,” he said, “not anywhere in the entire world or anywhere else, either.”
“Not even in Kuala Lumpur?” I asked. That’s where my father was at the time.
“Not even there. Looking for an answer to that question is like Vasily Alekseyev trying to lift one hundred thousand kilos.”
“No one can do that.”
“Exactly. It’s anatomically impossible. And the answe
r is also anatomically impossible.”
He placed his hand on mine. My hand disappeared under the optician’s large one.
“There will be times in your life when you’ll ask yourself if you’ve done even one thing right. That’s perfectly normal. It’s also a very heavy question. Around a hundred and eighty kilos, I’d say. But it’s one that has an answer. Mostly it comes late in life. I don’t know if Selma and I will still be around then. So I’m going to tell you now: When the time comes, when the question arises and you can’t find an answer right away, then remember that you made your grandmother and me very happy, you brought us enough happiness for an entire life from beginning to end. The older I get, the more I believe that the two of us were only invented for you. And if there ever was a good reason to be invented, then it’s you.”
I leaned against the optician’s shoulder and he rested his cheek on my head. For a while we listened to the ticking of the hazard lights.
“Now someone has to drive me to school,” I said.
The optician smiled. “That someone is me,” he said, then kissed the top of my head and got into the driver’s seat.
* * *
For a while Frederik kept trying to straighten the crackling, expansive gladiola bouquet, then he gave up. He leaned his head against the car window in order to see around the flowers. The optician glanced at him now and again, but the bouquet kept Frederik hidden.
Alaska slept. He took up almost the entire back seat. His head lay on my lap. The only sounds were the patter of raindrops outside, the windshield wipers struggling, and now and again the crackling of the cellophane.
I touched the top of the closed window where the water ran down diagonally outside. This ancient car is still waterproof, I thought.
“May I confide in you?” the optician suddenly asked without taking his eyes off the road.
“Of course,” Frederik said from behind the bouquet.