Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything (8 page)

11

Johannes is so excited about the last few days, thank God, that he doesn't notice how quiet I am. This time he's the one talking nineteen to the dozen, about the city, which still looks horribly gray, about the people he met at the art college and the specialist photography course they run there. One of the students told him that the photos he brought with him were really good. He's got an eye for light and composition—those were the exact words. “Light and composition,” Johannes repeats reverently.

Then he wants to take my dress off and I go rigid. Since I've got my period I don't have to lie. It started yesterday at Henner's, and I didn't have anything on me. He just put some thick towels on the sheets, changing them often. He wasn't at all fazed. I don't think Johannes could have done that.

We get around to talking about the city, and about the portfolio that Johannes needs to put together if he applies. He wants to make a series about the village: its inhabitants and their houses, both inside and out. It can't be too documentary, as he puts it, it has to be art, and art looks different. I couldn't say how an artistic photograph differs from a documentary one, but Johannes is in the process of explaining it to me. And yet his words don't reach me.

Later I tell him about my summer job at the tavern. He thinks it's a good idea, because he's going to be spending most of the coming weeks taking photos and working in the darkroom. He goes in there now, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

I'm not the same girl I once was. But who am I?

The heat up in our attic rooms forces me outside; I take
The Brothers Karamazov
with me.

Lukas is down in the shop today, helping his mother. Marianne is in a shockingly bad mood. Since Frieda went off to Bavaria she's had twice as much work to do. Frieda cooks for the entire family, and now Marianne has to do it herself, even though she's not that great in the kitchen. Frieda should be back in a week. She rang once; she called the co-op and Marianne went scooting over there. Apparently Frieda didn't sound happy; in fact she just grumbled the whole time.

Marianne brings up the subject of the meat that I took, which Henner found so delicious. She says sternly, “It's sweet of you to bring your mother something, but you can't just take it without asking.” She's absolutely right, and I swear blind that next time I'll ask her permission.

Out in the meadow the grass has grown tall again. It is August, and another hay harvest is imminent. I lie on the riverbank with
The Brothers Karamazov
, and as I start reading I realize that it all
sounds familiar, even though I can't have read it before. This continues for dozens of pages. I'm quite sure I hadn't got this far—I'd used a bookmark—and yet I know what is about to happen.

Dmitry isn't the murderer. It was the servant Smerdyakov, probably an illegal child of the old—and now dead—Fyodor Karamazov. He claims that the middle brother, Ivan, gave him the idea of committing the murder. But this doesn't exonerate Dmitry in the slightest, as there's no statement, and the day before the trial begins, Smerdyakov hangs himself. People say of Grushenka that she was the undoing of both father and son. The city women are especially malicious about her.

The swallows are flying low above me—rain is on its way. I can see Siegfried by the dam in the distance. He's getting more cheerful by the day, on account of the grand plans he's been hatching. His new buzzwords are “biodynamic agriculture,” which Hartmut talked about at length. In Bavaria, he said, there were so-called “Demeter” farms, cultivating in much the same way as Siegfried on his farm, but getting a decent sum of money for their products. There was a specific philosophy behind it, and the name Rudolf Steiner cropped up. It was all about “living interactions” and “cosmic rhythms in crop farming.” At that point Marianne almost fell over laughing, and kept repeating the words “cosmic rhythms” as she danced mysteriously about the kitchen. She can be rather silly sometimes, even though she's not young anymore—well, she's younger than Henner, but that's different. But Hartmut was undeterred, and quoting this Steiner, he said, “A farm is true to its essential nature, in the best sense of the word, if it is conceived as a kind of individual entity in itself.” Siegfried grasped the meaning of this at once, while Marianne was still chortling with laughter, and Frieda and Alfred just shook their heads. “It's a philosophy, Mother,” Hartmut tried to explain, but it was no good. Then he talked about the “animal as a creature with a
soul” and the importance of the ruminant for the quality of the soil. The animal must be able, Hartmut said, “to relate to its environment via its senses.” “This means,” he concluded solemnly, because we were all looking at him with puzzled expressions, “that the cow must go to the pasture!” Marianne couldn't control herself any longer.

When Siegfried had had enough of his wife's cackling and his mother's head-shaking, he went out into the meadows with Hartmut and Gisela. Taking exception to this, Marianne said to Frieda, “They obviously think we're a little thick here in the East, them and their animals with souls.” But then she took out an encyclopedia and looked up “Demeter.” She found the picture of the goddess rather beautiful and asked us whether we agreed that she looked a little like Demeter. In truth you couldn't deny a certain similarity.

I'd love to know what Siegfried is thinking, the way he's standing there, his legs planted firmly on the ground and his eyes roaming the countryside.

That evening I join the family again at the table. Alfred has already gone to bed. Ever since Frieda left he has seemed somehow unwell. There is a lot of talk today, much more than usual. Siegfried is planning a visit to one of those farms, to see what makes them so special. “It's not magic, it's farming,” he says, and now Marianne is nodding enthusiastically. Johannes starts talking about his application to art college and his father raises no objections, which surprises us all. His only suggestion is that Johannes should take his time, have a thorough look at the college, and, if it's not right for him, he can come back home. There's going to be plenty of work on the farm in the future. Later we all drink wine, and then an argument flares up that proves uncomfortable for everyone.

Marianne seldom drinks, but when she does she has little self-control and she'll put away a whole bottle of wine by herself. Our tongues are loosened, there's much laughter, but then the
conversation turns to Henner. Siegfried says Henner's best years are behind him; there's not much left in the tank. The GDR took it all out of him. Marianne comes to Henner's defense, says he's still quite dashing, and just lately he's become much more affable. Something must have happened, she says, for him to be in such good form, and if he could just leave off the booze, surely he'd be able to whip the farm into shape again. “You like old Henner, don't you?” Siegfried says, and then Marianne says something which must have been the wine talking, but maybe there's some truth to it, deep down: “I wouldn't kick him out of bed if I didn't have you, Siggi.” Those are her exact words. This is all way too much for Siegfried, and for Johannes, too, who gives his mother a filthy look. She notices immediately and shuts up, which is all well and good, but now it's out of the bag and the evening is ruined. Another subject comes up for discussion. This one must have been brewing for a while, and Siegfried can't keep it bottled up any longer. It's about the housekeeping. Money has started disappearing from the pot, something that never used to happen. Meanwhile, small tubes of fancy face creams and bottles of perfume have appeared in the bathroom, and lying about in the sitting room are magazines with flawless-looking women on the covers. The West has given rise to these material desires, and a woman like Marianne finds it hard to resist them. But all this leaves Siegfried cold. He couldn't care less whether or not his wife's skin feels softer, or whether she smells of hay or lilac. I imagine he might prefer hay. We don't know whether it was the saucy comment about Henner or the money wasted that had made Siegfried so irate, but he gets up, takes an empty wine bottle, and smashes it against the edge of the table. Then he screams, “You're not going to make a fool of me, Marianne—others have already tried and regretted it!” He storms out of the room and into the yard, still screaming: “You just can't trust women! It'll always be the same! Damn women!” He doesn't come back until late. Johannes says he's seen his father like that only
once before. It was at the village party two years ago when Marianne danced rather too intimately with the landlord's brother, whom everybody knew was with the Stasi. Both of them were drunk, and alcohol doesn't bring out the best in Siegfried, even though he's generally a reasonable man.

That time he dragged her home, and when they were up in their room he hit her. Lukas was in bed next door and heard everything.

This scene has left me feeling miserable. I wish I were with Henner. I wish I were free. I'd live with him for as long as it worked. And when it stopped working I'd stay anyway.

12

The following morning Siegfried is in the animal sheds by five o'clock as usual. His determination, his strength, his sense of duty—these are the reasons Marianne has always admired him, and why she loves him still. Yesterday evening's outburst was an aberration in almost twenty years of marriage; by and large they have been good years. By midday the dark clouds have already blown over, only to gather again when Henner appears in the shop.

He buys meat, salami, potatoes, leeks, tomatoes, and a basket of raspberries. He's not here because of me, but he looks pleased when I come to serve him instead of Marianne. She hardly dares glance at him, even though he cannot know about last night's argument. She's relieved when Siegfried calls for her help in one of the meadows.
Maybe he just wanted to get her away. I've come to realize that in matters of the heart, older folk are just as foolish as younger ones. I'm left on my own with Henner. Johannes and Lukas have gone to town to get something for their father. There's only Alfred, and he's easy to forget, given the way he sneaks around the place so inconspicuously.

I pack his shopping into a paper bag and put it on the counter. “Come here, Maria,” he says. “I want to feel you.” He gives the door a kick and it swings closed, but doesn't shut completely. All of a sudden I am struck by an urge to sink to the ground at his feet. Where this comes from I have no idea. But he pushes aside his shopping and hoists me up onto the counter. His hands roam at will and I say, “Are you insane? What if Marianne comes in?”

This does not seem to bother him, and he asks, “When are you coming over again?” Then he pauses and whispers, “I've gotten used to having you there.” His smile is genuine, and it pains me. He strokes my hair, arms, neck, lips; he's soft, and a little sad as well. My surrender during those feverish nights was like a promise, and now he's coming and demanding it be fulfilled.

There is a movement at the door. It might have been the cat, or some other creature slinking about.

Henner rolls up my dress. “I hurt you,” he says without looking me in the eye. “But I'm not sorry for it.” His hands are resting on my legs. “Say something, Maria, say something!” But I don't know what to say. My hesitation is not for the reason he thinks. I can't find the right words; all I feel is a vague fear that rears up from some dark corner and vanishes again in a flash. Not for me, no. For him. That's all I know.

It's Alfred at the door, I'm sure of it. I think he's known for ages. He has eyes in the back of his head, because no one takes him seriously. It makes him almost invisible.

“I don't know when I can come. Here they're beginning to wonder why I keep on going home to my mother. And what happens if they bump into Mom in town and ask about me? What then?”

“I don't know, Maria,” he says with a shrug, and I'm so disappointed by his answer that I push his hands away and swing over to the other side of the counter. He must have seen his failure in my eyes, because he comes around, grabs me by the wrists, and says with the certainty I had wanted to hear, “You're coming anyway!”

Then we hear the car out in the yard. “Hi, Henner,” Johannes says as he enters. He comes behind the counter and gives me a kiss, but Henner has already gone. It's all so sordid and yet I'm still going along with it.

Johannes asks when lunch will be ready, but there's nothing happening in the kitchen. We all realize how much we're missing Frieda. I start preparing lunch; I've learned a lot over the past few weeks. Later, Siegfried praises my cooking—he said he was amazed by how good it was. Strange that I'm trying to distance myself from the family just as my place within it is becoming more secure. No one here has any sense of the finer things in life. “Maria,” Siegfried says, “who would have thought?”

I owe my name to my mother's nostalgia. As the daughter of a communist she rarely went to church, but once she saw a nativity play and the girl playing Mary made such an impression on her that she used to wish she were called Maria too. She's a northerner, my mother; she never felt at home here in Thuringia. She loathes the rolling landscape that I love so much. When she was pregnant with me, my father packed her things and simply took her with him. She cried the whole way, not stopping until they reached the village where I was born. When she went into labor she really ought to have gone to the hospital, but because my father and grandparents were not there, and she couldn't make it to the nearest telephone in the co-op, I entered this world on my grandparents' kitchen floor. Looking back, my mother wasn't at all unhappy about this. Other women had told her that in hospital they took the babies away at birth, and they
only saw them every four hours for feeding. But she was able to keep me. She didn't put me down for days, apart from the odd spell in my crib, and then only so that she could sit beside me and stare. At least this is what my grandmother told me; she wouldn't stop moaning about it at the time, but now she no longer mentions it.

We would go up north whenever we could, and there were always tears when we said our good-byes. It was on one of those holidays to visit my mother's parents that I saw the West for the first time. We took a trip to the small town of D. The border strip, with its tall, barbed wire fence, ran alongside one of the streets. One of my mother's relatives lived on the third floor of an apartment block in that street. You could see the West from her windows. Beyond the River Elbe and across the meadows stood a solitary house, which I'd never be able to visit. I can quite clearly remember what I thought and felt that day. I must have been around seven, and I couldn't take my eyes off this house. How on earth could people live only a few hundred meters away, and yet we'd never get to meet them? I mean, we could almost see them! And they us. We could have waved to each other, or signaled with lights, like I used to back home with our neighbor's son. I got stomach cramps and didn't want to eat any of the cake, even though it had strawberries on top.

When we left my uncle's apartment and came out onto the street, I ran over to the fence and stuck my nose through the wire. My mother called me back—in the end she had to drag me away—the dogs behind the fence were yelping, and a soldier raised his rifle and screamed, “Get away from the fence!”

You never forget something like that.

It's been almost a year since we were first allowed across the border, but we've only been to the West twice.

Siegfried wants to go to Bavaria on Sunday, the day after tomorrow. They've planned that when Frieda comes home, he'll go back with Hartmut for a week and visit a Demeter farm. He's completely
obsessed by the idea. Johannes will have to cover for his father, and there's also Alfred. It will make him feel important for a change.

My work begins on Monday, too. The landlord will show me the ropes and then I'll start properly on Tuesday. I'm glad to be doing this; it'll take my mind off things and I'll be earning my own money.

Marianne helps me wash up. Today she smells just like Gisela; she must have asked what the name of that perfume was. When we've finished she strokes my hair and says, “You've become a real help, Maria,” and that makes me feel dreadful all over again.