Before the Feast (23 page)

Frau Reiff doesn't know the life story of the plow.

She has a long day ahead of her. After the children have had their drink of water, she sees to the cat. He scurries out of the garden and into the house. Frau Reiff takes the last apple cake out of the oven; she has made six for the Feast. She drinks tap water from the hollow of her hand. The cat winds round her legs, purring.

A characteristic of
raku
pottery is the fine cracks that form
at random as the glaze cools. They never run the same way. Like breaks and cuts in our life stories that become a part of them. The glaze of
raku
pottery melts at 800 °C to 1,000 °C. Frau Reiff is experimenting with mixed colors, but pale blue predominates.

ON THIS NIGHT THERE ARE MISDEEDS ON THE
roads but no injustice. Error but no mistakes. A court of law but no verdict. A wind still blowing but no rain falling now.

It is Anna who asks questions once she has calmed down a little. Nothing surprises Herr Schramm any more. Frau Schwermuth is sniffling, her pale forehead furrowed with anxiety. She has wedged the spiked helmet under her arm. Her answer to the first question was that she wants to get back to the Homeland House as quickly as possible; she's afraid she has locked her son up in there. And to the second she replied that of course she knew what the matter with her was, but she couldn't explain why it was so bad tonight of all times. It was the stories' fault. They kept her awake when her medication made her tired and fat. But the medication kept the lid on the stories. The stories and the characters populating them.

Anna stares at Frau Schwermuth as hard as she has been staring at Herr Schramm all night. She thinks of the field on Geher's Farm. Of the characters populating it. Of those she imagined in the field as a child when she couldn't sleep. Anna says she can imagine how Frau Schwermuth feels. Frau Schwermuth says that's nice of her, but no one can imagine what she can imagine, no one. Then Frau Schwermuth says: I am empowered to call the night by its name.

Anna asks no more questions. Herr Schramm thinks about that “I am empowered.” And how he has never said a sentence beginning “I am empowered.”

The name of this night is tide, flood tide, now it is ebbing, let's see what has been washed up. We will go walking among the flotsam and jetsam, taking care not to step on anything! Frau Schwermuth has such long, beautiful eyelashes, and when she blinks waves of darkness break.

Frau Schwermuth goes into the cellar first. She quickly taps in the code and opens the door. Faint light. Books, notebooks, paper, on the shelves and in stacks. Thick folio volumes, loose pieces of parchment, the leather skins.

“Aha,” says Herr Schramm. Herr Schramm is not all that fond of reading.

There is a little light up near the ceiling, the machine beeps, regulating the temperature. It's cold. The leather on the walls shimmers and moves. It's a skin of stories growing on us.

Johann is sitting on the table with his feet on the chair, a fat book on his lap. Beside him is his bell-ringer's top hat. Johann is freezing. Frau Schwermuth drops the helmet, swerves neatly round the mountains of paper, clasps Johann's legs, sobs. Johann puts his hand on his mother's back.

“Come on, Ma.” He doesn't sound cross. It does no good when Ma is in this state. “It's all right, it's all right.”

So much paper, and not a handkerchief anywhere. Frau Schwermuth touches Johann's cheek. Is everything really all
right? No, but it will be. And how about her? No, and it probably never will be.

The pages of the book on Johann's lap are finely decorated, the print is like the print on the label of the
Unforgiving
energy drink. Johann closes the book.

Frau Schwermuth utters a short, sharp scream. “Johann! Haven't you been wearing gloves?” She has her voice back. “Heavens, don't you see what that book is?” She conjures a pair of white gloves out of the air, takes the book away from Johann and puts it carefully on the desk. The cover is charred at the edges. She opens it, her pupils wander from left to right, thunder rumbles in the pages.

On the 23rd Day of September 1613, the Spire of the Church here was struck by a Thunderbolt with a most dire and dreadful Noyse, so that a Bell in the said Tower was split in Twain, and two Houses and a Barn full of Grain caught Fire and were Burn't to the Ground
.

Frau Schwermuth closes her eyes, breathes in and out. She has sat here hundreds of times, reading and digging under what once was for signs of today, indicating plans that the past has made with us, with her.

Johann takes her hand. Frau Schwermuth opens her eyes. She looks round at the visitors: Schramm and the girl—both deep in the leather. They are searching too. Herr Schramm is caught up in the 1970s, Anna in the more recent past. Frau Schwermuth wipes away her tears. She wants to go home.

Herr Schramm speaks first when the quartet are back in the fresh air. “Listen, Johann, got any cigarettes?”

And Johann might even have some if Ma wasn't here. She is standing by the broken window that she has covered up with newspaper. And naturally there is something that we can only hope Frau Schwermuth doesn't notice: almost all the broken glass is lying outside, almost none of it inside.

“What shall we do about the window?”

Herr Schramm says, “I'll see to it.”

“The Feast mustn't be spoiled.”

“Johanna, I'll do it. We'll take you home.”

That isn't necessary, says Johann. Frau Schwermuth nods, and links arms with her son. Anna and Herr Schramm watch them go: Johann thin as a stalk of maize, and with his hair cut to match, standing out to left and right like, well, maize leaves. And she—she's Frau Schwermuth.

As they walk away she says, in a rather subdued voice, “Jo, you must do a few things for me tomorrow. I can't.”

“What are they?”

“First there's the anti-Fascist bike ride at twelve.”

That's when he has his bell-ringing exam, says Johann.

“Oh.” Frau Schwermuth stops. “I don't think anything will come of that. I know it sounds funny now, but your bells are down on the banks of the lake. . .” And so on, we don't have to listen to it all, we know those two are safe together.

We take a historical interest in Frau Schwermuth and those like her, those with her kind of head. She's had her hair done
specially for the Feast. Now it's been flattened by the spiked helmet. She puts the helmet on again. Johann puts on his top hat. They turn the corner and leave our night.

AT THE ANNA FEAST IN 1929, THE SHOOTING GUILD
was photographed outside the house of the new champion marksman, Herr Werner Schramm. Unfortunately the picture is not a success. You can't tell one face from another, our uniforms look like dressing gowns, in fact it is a disaster, that bastard Schliebenhöner who took the photograph ought to be horsewhipped out of the village. The photograph, plus frame, costs five Reichsmarks.

ON A CHIPBOARD SURFACE SURROUNDED BY
human earths and dogs' dreams, the vixen crouches in front of the container which, she knows, holds eggs. Her pelt is sticky with rain, she tastes her own blood, her paw hurts.

The vixen touches the container with her paws.

The vixen scratches its sides. Its top.

The vixen bites the container. The vixen jumps on the container, makes herself heavy, jumps and jumps and hurts herself landing, jumps and jumps and jumps. The vixen pushes her forehead against the container like a little bull. She can't get any purchase on the wet surface.

On top it is paler. She bites the pale part. The pale part moves, the dark part doesn't. The vixen waves her brush. The vixen tugs at the pale part of the container. When she lets go, the pale part snaps up. The vixen pushes her muzzle under the pale part. She lifts her muzzle, and the pale part rises. The vixen gets the idea.

The vixen is not alone.

Two male humans are leaning against the rock opposite, watching her tussle with the egg box. The vixen stops, one of them comes closer, is so close that he is within arm's reach of her, nearly there, but the vixen can't pick up any scent, no, couldn't say where he came from or went. He and his friend are loners, but they have no aromas. She stays put. The other young male
human gets into the metal box that carries humans overland, a box, a box faster than any fox. Rhythmic sounds swing through the air. The vixen waves her tail in time with them, can't help it.

The first male human reaches his tentacle out to her, its claws spread. The vixen gets behind the container, ready to retreat, her injured eye throbbing with pain. But the human just picks up the container.

She's a killer on the road
.

The human calls in a quiet human tone. Her urge to flee disappears. At last the vixen scents something in his call. She scents speech in the sounds of the human who has no scent. He is calling gently to her.

A small male human comes out of the earth. The container is marked with his scent.

A fire going cold
.

He croaks, goes toward the vixen, but the one without any aroma goes to him, calls something, the small male human stops. Good. The vixen gets up on her hind legs, propping herself on the container, the scent of egg wafts out, she tries to haul herself up by the edge of the container, slips on the wet wood, won't let go and hauls the container over with her. Its contents fall toward her. Eggs break on the stone, she can already scent the little male human's boots, she growls,

A barrel of a gun

snaps at him, no—snaps at a shell that has fallen out of the container, digs her teeth into that hard but fragile shell, runs for it with her brush held low, is off and away,

A villain on the run
.

The startled, small male human and the vixen's accomplices are left behind.

Well played, clever robber girl, we say.

ON THE 27TH DAY OF APRIL IN THE YEAR OF OUR
Lord 1611, a female Wolf in Cub was taken in our Trap on the fallow Field at Geher's Farm. Thereby was great Harm averted, for ten Wolves would have wreaked Havock among our Cattle.

DIETMAR DIETZ SOON CALMS DOWN AFTER THE
theft of the eggs. He acknowledges the fox's clever wit, and the young men agree with him. They fall into conversation. The two young men ask about the Feast, saying they've heard that there's good dancing in Fürstenfelde. Ditzsche sets them right: there's good dancing anywhere people can dance well, he says. The two of them appreciate his little boast, they say goodbye and wish the old man good music forever when he dances, which is what he likes to hear.

Ditzsche will dance, will swivel his hips without letting it look suggestive. He will smell of aftershave and Frau Reiff's apple cake. Surrounded by the stony faces of senior citizens dancing the polka, any kind of passion looks extreme.

Many of the older folk have forgotten about Ditzsche or even forgiven him. Not Imboden, who can hardly control himself when Ditzsche turns up anywhere. But last year Zieschke played a piece something like a tango, and Frau Kranz danced with Ditzsche to it. She and Zieschke were already here when Ditzsche's close relationship with our post was revealed.

But between ourselves: haven't you ever imagined, for instance on a walk and when the postman has just disappeared into the entrance hall of a building, what it would be like to take a handful of white letters out of the yellow box on the yellow bicycle, or get on the bicycle yourself, ride
away, and spend the day immersed in the lives and bills of other people?

These days, with the Internet, doing such a thing would be less interesting than in Ditzsche's time. These days we all write emails. Well, here in Fürstenfelde not all of us write emails. And other people read our emails too, viruses and Americans read them, but that doesn't bother anyone much. Back in the past only Ditzsche read other people's letters. And the Stasi, but perhaps here it really was only Ditzsche. Although everyone knew everything about everyone else anyway, and still does.

Some day, when Ditzsche is no longer around, Fürstenfelde won't dance so well. Imboden isn't getting any younger either. Dietmar Dietz speaks lovingly to his chickens in Spanish sometimes. Maybe he learned to dance in Cuba, maybe he learned at the People's University. And maybe he doesn't dance so well as all that, but someone once said with conviction that he did, so it became the truth, how would we know? Usually it's not so much a case of what's really true as what people think is true.

When he was delivering letters, Ditzsche sometimes forgot himself and did a little dance. Everyone likes to see someone who may be bringing good news forget himself and do a dance. And maybe Ditzsche was dancing for joy because he already knew the good news.

Out of a pension of 534 euros a month, Dietmar Dietz spends nearly 300 euros on his chickens. When Ditzsche is no longer here, there won't be a single pedigree chicken left in Fürstenfelde. Chickens will just be chickens. If you've ever
seen specially beautiful chickens, if you've ever seen Ditzsche's pedigree Kraienköppe chickens stalking about, you'll know what a loss that will be.

But it's a comfort to know there's someone among us who understands rare creatures, or creatures hitherto entirely unknown here, whether he's a biologist, a geneticist or a chicken-breeder. That someone, in Herr Schramm's words, has a talent for the creation of what's new and the preservation of the norm. Such a talent that Breakfast TV phones Ditzsche and calls him “Herr Dietz,” asking about his availability, and Herr Dietz hesitantly cracks a joke to the effect that he must look in his engagements diary. The Breakfast TV people say it would have to be a Saturday afternoon, and Ditzsche replies, “Then come to the Feast and you'll really have something to see, not just my chickens.”

When people still went walking on a Sunday, Ditzsche would open his inner yard and let the chickens out of their enclosure. The people out walking wanted to see the chickens, and the chickens wanted to be seen; they stalked around and children clapped their hands. Ditzsche stood to one side, doing something or other, and no chicken ever left the yard. That's all over, and the chickens didn't stalk, Ditzsche would say, the chickens just had rather prominent chests and tall, elegant figures.