Poldka was the name of the crazy woman who lived in the little house with the black roof … She would stir a long, rusty fork in a big kettle, like a witch … She cooked using water that she collected in bowls and buckets under her eaves and in kettles set out on her roof … She amost never came outside … I actually liked her. Despite the fact that her face was always sooty and her hair was just a black fringe. She would sit leaning out the window of her little house. I would chat with her … half using words, half with gestures … Especially about masqueraders, which would make her laugh. She was a kind woman, I could sense it. Not until during one of our conversations when I picked at the cinders did I realize that her house was built out of logs, not sheets of tin … But what was it that kept accumulating in her room behind her? Some bags or other, like in the photos of trenches at the front during the war, and rusty hoops. What was behind all of that?…
There was a little white house that stood above Karel’s turnip patch. With a fine view of the whole village. It was as though it stood there on stilts … a childless man and his wife lived in it … She was a big, fat, ruddy woman. She had a head like a red pumpkin. He was short, inconspicuous, slight … and practically bobbed around in his jacket and big, baggy pants, as though he were wrapped in a cloud. Sometimes he shouted, or sang … He drank elderberry wine. He would stand stock still out in the turnip patch. He couldn’t find the right words for his fun … he just pointed at something and kept grinning. He was his own best parody … Once I saw him standing next to an ox on some stones on the slope beneath the postman’s house … The ox was hauling logs. The little fellow was hauling off at it with the fat handle of a whip. Smack! Smack!… On its muzzle, its nostrils, on its withers and neck. The ox stayed standing amid the stones like a colossus. Smack! Smack! Something like blood streamed down its muzzle … it spurted … and the forester’s children appeared at the fence. Alongside the furious little stick puppet of a man, the ox was as beautiful as a water sprite compared to an old witch … And it had to endure that revolting elf as it kept hitting it on the muzzle … No! I picked up a stone and … ping!… it flew straight into the gargoyle’s armpit … “Oowww!” he shouted … But then the ox moved forward … and the forester’s kids attacked from the rear … They rescued me … Then one afternoon there was a sudden commotion with lots of shouting … everybody ran uphill to the house … The fat woman had taken an axe to her sadistic wimp of a husband!… Everyone came running uphill over the turnip beds … they were shouting as though they’d been skinned, as though they were late to the amusement park … Men, women wearing a hundred skirts, children. Hurry! Hurry! A gendarme was already standing there, brown and red as a cockatoo. He was shouting at them and into the entryway behind him … The woman was sitting at the table in her kitchen … half naked in her linen underthings … arms propped on the table, supporting her head, which was splotchy and red halfway down her back from the sun and from drink … with a liter bottle of brandy … and an open tin of marmalade … With one hand she spooned marmalade into her mouth … or scratched her belly … then glug, glug! from the bottle … There was a puddle under the table that kept creeping forward … Blood! The axe with its long handle, the kind Karel used to teach me to split logs and branches, stood by the door … The gendarme and forester lifted her up … She clutched onto the table as she tried to get upright … and the bottle and marmalade went crashing into the hearth … They brought her a blue coat from the main room with a little wooden heart attached to the collar … And they led her downhill. To a strange, closed wooden cart with two horses whose manes had been cut short … The woman kept scratching her big belly and holding her head back … Everyone stared … The whole hill was awash in horror … They pushed her into the cart from the rear, like some broken thing … everyone crowding around the door … Nothing was visible, except for its gray wall … The gendarme tromped back uphill … This was the first time I saw a murderer, a murderess … The whole time I was waiting for everyone to jump on her, or attack the gendarme to rescue her … I was waiting to see how far they would go in their rage … from what depths they would draw it … But nothing! For a full week that was all they talked about … They were simple … Sheer gossip-mongers … All they had inside them were bruises, cheap wine, and howls … Nothing but meaningless junk … But the women were different … They at least kept all of their music … the moments of great emotion, the moaning, the tears … Everything in my surrounding that was far off and that I didn’t know well enough stayed the same after this murder … But the pear tree in front of the house, the garden, the barn, Karel’s meadow, the turnip beds all refused to change back to the way they were before. They didn’t want to be tamped back into their shells. The shade under the pear tree was black … it ate right into the grass and deep into the dirt … It took a week for me to somehow regain my composure. But I still didn’t feel safe. Not until Sunday, when I went with Karel to mass. I had to. To Prečna on foot … Clusters of peasants were walking down the road. Wearing black shoes, neckties, hats, pocket chains. To hear the word of God … Uncle Jožef drove his carriage past us with his children and wife. He and Karel didn’t exchange greetings. They had been at each other for some time now … I only said hi to Ciril and Ivan, who saluted me back … The church was packed with people singing the holy songs. It stank of cheap wine, tobacco, lavender, and soap. And on account of the soap, that much more strongly of dung, which their shoes had tracked in … Nothing bothered them. What sort of God was it that they imagined, anyway? The priest, wearing a gold-edged scarf over his white shirt, spoke above a stove that had two books lying on it … Calmly, like a teacher who always says the same thing. His voice echoed in a way that was supremely grotesque … But he should have been scolding them, he should have shaken his fist at every last one of them down here, thrown books at their heads, or a cross, or the angels that hung from the stove … Nothing. It was only the high walls that made his voice echo and a few times his eyeglasses flashed in a way that made me think: here it comes now! No … His steady voice put me to sleep … I started to doze … After mass Karel weeded a bit around his parents’ grave … otherwise he stood with his head thrust up like a construction crane. That mound was where his mother and father were … not that far down at all … He ought to do something! Establish some contact with them!… The whole cemetery had a fine, intensely sour scent to it, despite all the flowers … If you took a deep breath of it here, it would follow you out onto the street … Then Karel tried to get me to go with him to a tavern … I didn’t want to go inside with him, I resisted, because I knew he was going to force me to drink brandy again … I stayed on a bench outside, waiting … There was a crowd in the tavern … A whole bunch of women were inside … wearing headscarves, the town ones wore straw hats with lots of flowers and hard-edged barrettes … the peasant men wearing hats … They talked like animals, like the fabled town musicians of Bremen … with loud barks and belches … They were like dogs, hens, tigers, wolves, donkeys, lice … The best you could hope for from their likes was scabies …
One Sunday the postman came by on his bicycle and hollered “Telegram!” into the kitchen. I ran outside … It was a wire from sister. “Komme Mittwoch abends ab 7 Uhr. Eure Clairi.”*
*Arriving Wednesday after 7pm. Your Clairi.
CLAIRI GOT OUT AT THE STATION. Quickly. With a suitcase and wearing her white coat, like the last time in Basel. My heart leapt at the sight of her … “Jesus, wie schaut ihr denn aus!”* she gasped in shock … Mother wearing a smock for work in the fields … me barefoot and in a ripped undershirt … She picked up Gisela, who was wearing nothing but a long undershirt … hugged her, kissed her, rubbed her face against hers … “Gisela! Gisela!… Ihr seid alle so braun!” she said over Gisela’s head, “abgemagert und älter, ganz verrunzelt …”† She had brought a lot of luggage along. Uncle Jožef, who drove all three of us back in his carriage, studied her with great curiosity and surprise. Clairi was definitely beautiful. Dark curls of
hair showed under her white hat with its wide, light brown ribbon, she was wearing white shoes with high heels and she had countless bracelets and rings on her hands … She smelled like the best and most expensive part of Basel … How old was she? She never told anyone. All I knew was that she was eighteen years older than me, so she must have been twenty-seven then … She shook Jožef’s hand energetically, though she didn’t like short men. “Ich habe auch deine Federdecke mitgebracht,”‡ she said after she gave me a big kiss. The comforter I slept under in Basel? That big, soft, fluffy bag with my name on it?… When she entered our room she closed and then opened her eyes. “Was, ein so armseliges Zimmer?… Ihr meint doch nicht im Ernst, daß wir alle vier in diesem Bett schlafen werden?”§ Mother just nodded. “Der Bubi wird auf dem Heuboden übernachten, jetzt wo es noch warm ist.”‖ Uncle Karel looked on from the side, but his eyes were practically bulging in admiration. When Clairi caught sight of him, she batted her eyelids a bit … “Ein ganz anständiger Onkel!”a Aunt Mica nodded her inflamed head … Clairi hesitated before shaking her hand. She seemed disinclined to touch anything … the bed, the door … as though every touch was a kind of boundary. Ciril and Ivan were exceptionally surprised by their new cousin. They danced attention on her … Anica was bashful and hid … Stanka and Minka looked at her with a mixture of admiration and contempt as she stood by the well outside Karel’s house in her dazzling dress sewn with dot-sized buttons … It was as though she had dropped down into our midst from out of the sky, but she was also trapped, because now she would be under their watchful eyes forever. Clairi didn’t realize this yet, but I sensed it as they milled around her and talked … As we walked through the village, they were out front, leading her like a bride. By turns Clairi’s face showed surprise, dismay, pleasure and tension … At Uncle Jožef’s house the slices of corn bread were once again out on the table. “Das ist nicht Bisquit, weißt du …” I warned her, “sondern Brot aus Kukuruz.”b I explained the photos on the wall to her: grandma, grandpa, three uncles from America … “Wohin führst du mich?”c she asked skeptically when I took her outside. “Ich werde dir alles zeigen,”d I said. We took Gisela with us. I showed her the shed, the hayrack, the dovecote, the horses … In the village I took her along the train tracks to the pit where Karel had buried foodstuffs in case of a war, and then to the washing stones. A thistle in the grass stuck her. She ought to have put on different shoes. So we went around to the path … The dung heap was too close to the house … she would have preferred it to be farther off, in the woods … And the toilet was just a plain shack without any water or chain to pull … just a board with a hole in it through which you could see a huge pile of excrement going back a full year … She entered the barn as though it were a prehistoric cave dwelling. “Ist das möglich?”e she asked. She was seeing cows for the first time and they frightened her. It would have been more natural for her if she’d been able to approach them out in the pasture … I showed her she didn’t have anything to be afraid of … and how we milked them. I took her hand and used it to stroke Liska on her withers … Was that bad? “Not at all,” she said in delight. I told her stories about Liska and Gray … what they were like out at pasture and how they behaved at the fair … She told me how many towns and villages, houses and forests she’d seen through the window of the express train … handsome towns where she would have liked to stay, where she could have just gotten off the train. “Wenn ich aber die Augen aufschlug, sah ich immer einen kupfernen Ring im Abteil, immer den gleichen. Ich denke: in vierundzwanzig Stunden werde ich die Augen auftun und ein anderer Mensch sein.”f Then she said quietly, “Wie der Vati arm lebt in einem Kellerzimmer ohne Bett. Das darfst du keinem erzählen …”g I drew her along by the arms toward the woods by the train tracks. “Ich fürchte mich vor den Tieren und Räubern, Bubi.”h “Räuber gibt es nicht!”i Even so, I showed her a place where snakes usually gathered … One just happened to be there in among the roots. “I don’t look back!” she said. I pointed out the mark that I’d carved into a tree for myself, mother, and Gisela, so that none of us would ever stumble into one of their nests by mistake … You had to feel sorry for snakes, since they were deaf and all they could do was crawl. When we reached the point where the forest almost crossed the train tracks onto Karel’s meadow … we ran into the red-haired forester in his uniform, with a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Guten Tag,” he took off his hat. “Er hütet den Wald,”j I explained. She was happy to have met someone in the forest who was wearing a uniform. The forester looked at her in a way that made me instantly aware of how he was looking at her … He showed us some places in the ferns and bushes where he had set out fox traps, but also traps for rabbits and bears. He had hidden some fox traps in the ferns and bushes. “Ich fürchte mich, Bubi,”k she whispered to me … When we came out of the forest, some Gypsies were just then driving a small wagon with a canvas roof over the crossing. Their little horse was hauling bundles and clay pots, and the Gypsy who fixed pots and umbrellas sat on the box … A few little Gypsy kids running behind the wagon raised their arms, “A dinar! Cigarettes, pretty lady!” … Claire was frightened. “Was sagen diese Leute? Ich bitte dich, gehen wir zurück in den Wald!”l … Sweat was beading up on my forehead and I angrily waved the Gypsies away … I showed her the postman’s handsome house and the even handsomer house of the engineer way out in the fields. And then the house in the turnip patch where the woman had killed her husband. “Ist das möglich? Eine regelrechte Wildnis, nicht wahr?”m she said somewhat apprehensively, but showing excitement. I took her to meet Poldka, who was leaning out the window of her little black house. I introduced her, “Zis is my zister.” Clairi liked Poldka quite a bit. “So habe ich mir immer die Hexen vorgestellt,”n she said … Then I took her to see the spring and to visit both of the elderly sisters who lived on the Krka down from Karel’s place. What pleased her most was that she could chat freely with both of them, and they were so weak that they couldn’t have aroused fear in anyone … Toward evening, when I rode Jožef’s bay past the fence where she and Gisela were picking flowers, it left her speechless. She couldn’t believe her eyes. “Spring hinunter, sonst beissen dich die Pferde, Bubi,”o she shouted. Everything showed on her broad face as if in a mirror: astonishment … joy … fear … anger. That evening she went outdoors: the barn, the house, the dung heap between. “Mir ist zumute, wie einem Gefangenen, Bubi. Mein Gott, was für ein Einfall … Werde ich am Ende ewig hier leben müssen?”p … We poured out some oil and lit both of the lanterns … She took the things she had brought with her out of the suitcases. For Gisela a doll that said “mama” and closed its eyes. For me a wind-up frog that croaked and hopped. A steel strongbox for Vati, without any money of course. A round embroidered tablecloth with fringe for mother … decked out in flowers of all colors, embroidered in the very best silk. And my feather bed! Big, white and puffy with the first letters of my name in red. Everything else was gone, but this feather bed remained. Nobody had made it the way they would a tablecloth, a frog, or a doll, at least not that I’d seen … Time itself had delivered it when I had to move from my basket into a bed. It never grew old or went out of fashion. It lasted longer than everything else … and it took me into itself and went with me, and I could count on it warming, enfolding, and protecting me for a long time to come … But when mother put it on the rustic bed, it suddenly occurred to me that I was going to live longer than it … Clairi wanted to keep one of the oil lamps burning till morning … As a result, in its light the sky outside the window remained dark blue all night, almost transparent … The next morning we were already in Karel’s vineyard in Prečna. We carried the grapes in buckets and tall baskets to a barrel standing on a cart in the road. Clairi carried her grapes in a wash basin … and she wobbled wearing somebody else’s work shoes. She didn’t complain, because the work was just as hard as any other. But something pained her that came from inside. Tears welled up in her eyes without her being aware she was so close to crying. “Warum weinst du?”q I as
ked. “Ich?”r she said, startled, her mood becoming normal again. The church bells rang noon and Clairi got carried away listening to Vati’s bell. “Ich kann das gar nicht glauben. Daß das wirklich Vatis Glocke ist, wo er doch immer so ein Heide war.”s On Sunday Karel distilled brandy outside his house. Vati, who had come for a one-day visit, drank a good deal of the hot, pure liquid … We watched him use a long beanpole with a net tied to its end to pick the last pears from the tree … He staggered all around the perimeter of its wide crown like a bad tightrope walker. Everyone laughed, even mother. Clairi couldn’t believe it. “So was … daß ich den Vati einmal betrunken sehe …”t The decision had already been made that she would work with him for Elite in Ljubljana. They would both live together in father’s tiny basement room. They would not come back on Sundays to visit, because that would use up too much money. Instead, they would send us a part of their salaries by mail.
*My God, look at you!
†You’re all so tanned. But emaciated and older, and completely disheveled.
‡I brought your down comforter from Basel
§What? Such a miserable room? You can’t possibly seriously think that all four of us are going to sleep in that bed?
‖Bubi will sleep in the hayloft while it’s still warm.
aSuch a handsome uncle!
bBe careful, that’s not sponge cake, it’s cornbread.
cWhere are you taking me?
dI’m going to show you everything.
eIs this possible?
fBut when I opened my eyes, I saw a copper ring in the train compartment, always the same one. I thought: in twenty-four hours I’m going to open my eyes and be a different person.
gYou can’t imagine how poorly father is living, in a basement room with no bed. You mustn’t tell anyone.
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