Before the Feast (24 page)

Even then, Ditzsche left his home only to go to work, to get things for his chickens, and to shake a leg dancing at Blissau's. In spite of all his dancing partners, nothing ever came of Ditzsche's acquaintance with women.

“Ditzsche, you're as stiff as your chickens,” the ferryman once said, and Ditzsche replied quietly, “My chickens aren't stiff, but you're a layman, you wouldn't know.”

And stiff wasn't the right word for Ditzsche, either. Abashed was more like it. Except when he was dancing, Ditzsche looked abashed the whole time. And you can't stand the company of someone who's always abashed for long. As soon as the music stopped, Ditzsche looked down at the floor. Didn't know what to do with his elbows and his shoulders, never asked a woman a question. And that's no good, women have to be asked questions.

After that business with Durden and his act of revenge, Ditzsche lost his job and disappeared for a couple of years. Some said he was taking more dancing lessons in Cuba. Others said: you always want people to be doing something special, but on the whole people don't do anything special. We've seen Ditzsche climbing scaffolding in Prenzlau.

He came back in 2003, but there's very little to be said about that. Durden had retired, the old bigwigs wore new suits, the polka was still in fashion and was now joined in popularity by the metal band Rammstein, equally simple in principle, and they're both all right. What didn't function in the past still didn't function, or functioned in a slightly different way, and functioned either better or worse, depending on your attitude to past history.

Dietmar Dietz functioned as usual. He began rearing a new breed of chickens. If he really did read our letters, people
in the village may have shown him that they knew it, but he himself didn't get to know anyone better than before.

He will open his inner courtyard for the Feast. The enclosure will be clean, the chickens will shine beautifully in the sun. Outsiders will pay them compliments as if there were no tomorrow. And in the evening Dietmar Dietz will dance, well and unabashed.

THERE'S STILL TIME TO PASS BEFORE THE FEAST
, but it won't be long now before the first light of dawn. The Adidas man has stationed himself outside the bakery earlier than usual; perhaps he thinks the Zieschkes will open sooner today. He keeps his head bent, rubs his hands either in anticipation or because of the cold. He is wearing the white tracksuit this morning. One trouser leg is hanging in tatters, as if a beast of prey had caught him there.

We're too tired for suspicion after such a night as this. Never mind what we think of the Adidas man. All the clothes he needs are those two tracksuits, and all the nourishment he needs is orange juice and yeast pastries with vanilla filling. And those are all the words he needs to order them in the morning. Not everyone needs a history of his own.

Lada has never met the Adidas man before. Now he and silent Suzi come out into the road, both looking as if they haven't had enough sleep. Until a moment ago they were playing games of chance on their computers to stay awake. Lada is still wearing his Shell overall, Suzi runs a comb through his hair, the dragon scales on his forehead sparkle in the light of the streetlamps. The plan is: the sooner they clear up Eddie's place, the sooner they can start celebrating. They light cigarettes. Simultaneity, comradeship, happiness.

Yes, and there's that character in his tracksuit outside the bakery. Lada's mother once confessed that she was afraid
of him because he really didn't laugh, ever. Maybe Lada is thinking of that now. Thinking that a fear of his mother's is standing there, and he should have dealt with that fear long before this; he signs to Suzi to wait.

The Adidas man rubs his hands again, even after Lada positions himself between him and the shop door. After he has said something. Has repeated it in a louder voice. Has asked something. Suzi taps Lada's shoulder, walks his fingertips over it in an impatient gesture that says, “Let's get going!”

Lada puts his forefinger under the Adidas man's chin and raises it. He wants to look into his eyes. Those eyes are cornflowers. He doesn't blink. He's a field lying fallow. Lada's words pass over the field like wind. The way Lada is now, Lada is an arsehole.

Silent Suzi takes his arm. Draws him away. Helps the Adidas man up. And as he does that the Adidas man, with blood on his lip, whispers something in his ear.

Lada kicks the lamppost. The lamp goes out.

Strangers seldom come to us. They seldom stay.

Strangers who spend some time with us seldom stay strange.

We seldom make friends with the strangers, even if they do spend some time with us.

We're social. We're anti-social. We're open-minded. We're suspicious. Who likes being bothered? No one.

The slats of the Venetian blind clatter. Frau Zieschke's calves, apron, bosom and friendly round face come into view. The doorbell jingles generously. The baker's wife looks
confused by the small assembly outside. The Adidas man smooths down his hair, as if all the fall had done was disarrange it.

Frau Zieschke hesitates. He can come in if he likes, she says, but it will be a little while before the baked goods are ready to serve.

Cornflowers, Adidas stripes, we don't know his name, we don't know what he can do. The Adidas man goes into the shop. With blood on his lip, he goes straight to the corner table and stands there. Frau Zieschke puts a packet of paper napkins in front of him.

A paper napkin is dabbed on a wound.

Frau Zieschke nods to her son outside. The boys move away. She puts coffee on. The Adidas man has dabbed his split lip dry and presses his fist into his other hand so hard that the knuckles show white.

The baker's wife gives him a cup of coffee. With a biscuit on the saucer.

He breaks the biscuit in his fingers.

He closes his eyes as he munches.

We don't know where he comes from. We don't know where he is going. A stranger is eating and drinking in our bakery.

UNDER A BEECH TREE ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE
ancient forest, the injured vixen lies on damp leaves. Mist glows above the fields, enveloping the human earths. The vixen takes short, fast breaths. The little container is lying in front of her nose; she scents eggs, eggshells but no yolk yet. She gets up, limps farther into the forest with the container in her mouth.

The badger catches the vixen's scent and follows her, enquiringly; she has something that he likes, so he follows her. The vixen knows about the badger. Knows about his speed and agility and his bite. But he won't dare. The badger scents blood on the vixen, scents chicken, scents the eggs. It would be better for him if he could also scent her determination. She isn't going to let him have her catch without a fight. The badger overtakes the vixen and stops. The vixen trots toward the badger. The vixen is calm.

There is movement in the mist: the wind carries an aroma out of the forest, an aroma that displeases both the vixen and the badger. It surprises her, almost frightens her. The badger forgets about the eggs and strolls away, but the vixen calls a single clear, long-drawn-out warning, and runs on as fast as she can. Bitter and over-sweet: carrion and droppings, a member of her own family never before scented in the ancient forest. Wolf.

Reaching her earth, the vixen lets the egg container drop. It opens and an egg rolls out. She ought to have many more eggs here for her cubs. She barks softly, calls several times in quick succession. They don't come to her. She whines, she scents blood, scents wolf, snarls, she scents beech, ash, moss, blood, blood, worm, human, she scents the eggs, herself, the cubs, she scents the earthy honey of her coat, crawls into the earth, scents roots, scents play, scents cubs, can't find them anywhere, picks up their tracks, scents wolf, here, here, here, she scents stars, night, time, death, the vixen freezes rigid with her jaws wide open, snarling, calling, whining, it's over.

The vixen eats the eggs. Devours the eggs. The vixen barks. The vixen curls up in her earth. Licks her injured paw.

BATS SWIRL THROUGH THE AIR RETURNING TO
their caves. Wild boar, full-fed, grunt. The screech owl lands softly, sings tu-whit tu-whoo.

LADA WOULD LIKE TO APPEAR ON THE TV PROGRAM
You Bet!
With this particular bet: he bets he could tell, from the way a streetlamp is made, where exactly he must kick it hard to make the light go out. He bets he could get it right with nineteen out of twenty streetlamps, although only those made in Berlin, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.

Silent Suzi is trying to tell Lada something. “Was strange man say me something.”

“He's nuts,” says Lada.

Suzi shakes his head, nudges Lada impatiently, repeats his gestures.

“Hey, Suzi, what are you getting at?”

Suzi points to his trainers.

Lada doesn't look at them, he is too agitated. He would have liked to wait for that punk to come out of the bakery again “so as to show him that he couldn't cross the line.” Now he says, “Tell you what, Suzi, people think that guy is done for. Ex-druggie or some such, like Hirtentäschel, only done for. But he isn't. Because did you see how he landed? If you're done for, you don't catch yourself up like that. If you're done for you just fall down.”

Suzi shakes his head and rolls his eyes. Indicates that he wants Lada to watch his mouth, forms the words with his lips and repeats the gestures.

“There that strange man say me something.”

“The guy told you something?”

Suzi nods.

He crouches down and touches the road. They have reached Eddie's workshop.

“Road?”

Suzi shakes his head.

“Ground? What is it, man? Suzi? Asphalt?”

Suzi nods. Asphalt. With his lips and his hands, fingers spread, he mouths the words “something” and “under.”

“There's something lying under the asphalt?”

Suzi nods.

AND A FLINT AX WAS FOUND IN A STONE GRAVE
.

And a pair of tweezers was found in a tumulus grave; the tweezers were decorated at the broad end and were probably for plucking out the hairs of a beard, so it is assumed that the dead man had a well-groomed one.

And in a Slav grave a meerschaum hand spindle was found, and a coin in the dead man's mouth to pay the ferryman who would take him over to the next world.

And in another grave, the grave of a dead child, there was a hammer and a ceramic rattle. The hammer head was inside the rattle. If you shake a ceramic rattle, it makes a sound.

And when the promenade was flooded in 2004, they found the grave of a warrior who had been buried with a whetstone and a bone ax, so that he could face his enemies with a sharp blade for all eternity.

And in the year 1739 an edict was issued against
Gypsies, Vagabonds and other such Traveling Folk
, who were a thorn in the flesh of the local aristocracy, since
any Person who knowingly gives them an Abode
was threatened with a fine of 1,000 thalers. The village communities were also charged with taking travelers into custody. Once
a Rabble of Gypsies
came to Fürstenfelde. The men claimed to be horse-dealers and musicians, the women to be soothsayers. Their children moved fast. Their tools were the
horsewhip
and the
crystal
ball
. The
Gypsy gallows
of Fürstenfelde stood on
the ground of a field lying fallow
.

And Maria Wegener once protested against the exclusion of joiners and carpenters from the local guilds. She had been unable to prove that they were rightfully born of
four grandparents from Fürstenfelde
, and were thus worthy to work in our
workshops and guilds
. Frau Wegener was a wood-carver. She had done carvings for the door of our church, but they had gone up in flames, so no one knows if they looked good. Count Poppo von Blankenburg had commissioned Frau Wegener to carve him a yew-wood spoon. It was beautiful, a fine spoon with a broad bowl and an elegantly curving handle set in silver. Yew is slightly poisonous, but probably no one died of using the spoon, in fact you would have had to eat the spoon itself. A valuable spoon like that was left as a bequest when the owner died; as he passed away, it passed on. Von Blankenburg, our agricultural machinery mogul, keeps the yew-wood spoon that he inherited in a glass display case. Magdalene sometimes eats her muesli with it.

Maria Wegener's favorite tool was a
knife with a carved box-wood handle and a bone ferrule
.

And broken shards of Germanic and Slav origin were found in a rubbish tip, in the same stratum, with fragments of a comb made from deer's antlers under them.

And when diggers were working on the primary school, the building workers found an underground passage beneath the asphalt.

And one grave was that of a woman of about fifty, with two rings as worn on the temples in late-Slav costume beside her. Her head and feet were weighted with stones, probably to prevent the dead woman from returning. Anthropological examination made the reason for that obvious. Her skull showed bony excrescences as the result of benevolent tumors. The woman, who was found in a petrified condition, had a horn six centimeters long over her left eye. It may be assumed that her family were afraid of her.

Fürstenfelde is registered as an archaeological site.

THERE ARE A GOOD MANY HOUSE CLEARANCES IN
our village. Lada is in charge, and has five people working freelance for him. When Suzi doesn't have to be at Gölow's, he helps out. The two of them make a good team. Lada doesn't listen, and Suzi doesn't mind how many words he hears. On Monday it will be the turn of Anna's house, and now it's the joiner's. Eddie's house. Eddie has been on the list since January, but Lada didn't want to do it too close to his death, because when it's our joiner, who has paneled half the village's bedrooms, you don't, as part of the village, go straight to remove the paneling from his own bedroom, not even if his daughters keep phoning to ask what's going on, why hasn't the job been done yet? And you don't break up the joiner's furniture without drinking to him one last time with the other old boys, or drinking to something else entirely, but having a drink as a memento is what matters. You don't just say, here, 170 euros per ton of mixed scrap. And by the way, what are you going to do with all his tools and his old machinery? At first the daughters said they didn't mind what became of it, but then Lada hinted that it might be worth getting some of it valued, and suddenly they did mind what happened to the tools and the old machinery.