This House Is Mine

by Dörte Hansen

  Britta zum Felde came to the door. She was wearing a Simpsons T-shirt that reached all the way down to her knees and a pair of neon-green socks, and she had a towel wrapped into a turban around her head.

  “Oh, hi there, Burkhard. Schnuppi, leave him alone, come on, off to the kitchen with you!” She slapped the dog gently and he trotted off as though he were now finally allowed to call it a day.

  “D’you wanna come in?”

  “Hopefully I’m not disturbing you,” Burkhard replied.

  “We’ve just eaten, come on in. You can leave your shoes on the mat there.”

  On the way to the kitchen, Burkhard stepped in something wet. He very much hoped that it wasn’t from the dog, which was now lying like a Flokati shag rug on the tile floor, next to the boy in the pajamas, who was loading a small grain transporter with corn. He had laid out a farm with a large fleet of vehicles in the middle of the floor, but it didn’t seem to be bothering anyone. The kitchen was enormous.

  When Burkhard saw the table and the long bench, he was reminded of youth hostels and houses in the countryside he’d stayed in on school trips. On the plates were the remains of supper: eggshells, cheese rinds, sausage casings, and a piece of buttered bread with a bite taken out of it.

  There was a roll of paper towels on the table, and next to that was an enormous bottle of ketchup and a pan containing leftover cocoa with a skin on it.

  A girl with long blond pigtails was sitting on the corner bench. She had her chin cupped in her hands and was reading a thick book. She raised her head briefly when she saw him, mumbled, hi, then went back to her reading. Next to her, two boys who looked completely identical were trying to explain a complicated magic trick to their father. They were both talking at the same time and were waving a dish towel through the air above a saltshaker that was supposed to disappear but obviously didn’t want to.

  “Howdy, Burkhard,” said Dirk zum Felde, shaking Burkhard’s hand without taking his eyes off the saltshaker. “Just a minute, I need to concentrate right now.”

  He was sitting at the table in a thermal undershirt, wearing thermal long johns as well, as far as Burkhard could tell. It was the first time he’d seen Dirk zum Felde without his overalls, and he found it somewhat embarrassing. He felt like a Peeping Tom.

  “Take a load off,” said Britta, putting a cup down for him, and then she poured something red into it, which was steaming and smelled of gummy bears.

  The magic trick finally appeared to have worked, and the twins were now grinning, revealing more gaps than teeth. “Again! One more time!”

  Two ash-blond kids, gap-toothed magicians—Burkhard had another idea for A Taste of Country Life: rural fathers! Dirk zum Felde with his four children in the field, in the sorting shed, up on the tractor, building a tree house. And Dirk’s father was still alive as well, so he could even make a three-generation story out of it. Gender roles in the countryside, masculinity and gender in a farming context, now there was a topic.

  It was astonishing. Since he’d moved out here, the ideas were simply coming to him, they were practically hunting him down! Because he was no longer strung-out from the hubbub of the city, or distracted by posers and windbags in editorial conferences, tapas bars, theater foyers, and art galleries—the money alone that he was saving! And the time! He had all the time in the world out here, stress was passé, stress was history!

  He was a man who had cut to the chase, had gotten down to the bare essentials, was at peace with himself, grounded. He didn’t need all that nonsense anymore.

  And Eva too would reach this point of equilibrium.

  He had caught her looking at apartments in Hamburg online. She’d quickly closed the page when he’d entered the room, but he was able to check it out afterward, since she hadn’t cleared her search history: 3-Rm Condo in HH-Eppendorf.

  After that he had gone out on his bike, down to the Elbe, all the way to Stade and back, doing an average of twenty miles per hour, and that had calmed him down a bit.

  She hadn’t been looking for rental apartments at least, and there wasn’t a 1-Rm Apt for singles among them, so she didn’t seem to be thinking of leaving him. That would just be … well, he’d have noticed that.

  Other people Googled recipes, beautiful hotels, or old schoolmates. Eva simply Googled apartments in the city with a yard. It was just a hobby for winter evenings, nothing more.

  He would happily admit that this winter hadn’t been easy out here: hardly any snow, not much frost either, just the constant westerly wind whipping perpetual rain.

  Freezing rain, sleety rain, heavy rain, drizzles, showers. A sky like a gravestone, hardly a clear day from November to March. That could get you down if you were the least bit so inclined.

  And Eva’s so-called friends hadn’t been any help either. They didn’t come in winter, not a damn soul came in winter.

  At the outset, sure, they’d all come then, wanting to have a look at what the two pioneers were getting up to, all alone out there in their rubber boot world.

  The first winter the place had been packed in the evenings and on weekends. They’d taken walks, never-ending ones, in breathable jackets, along the Elbe and around the fruit farms.

  They’d eaten Eva’s sensational apple cake and sat for hours at the crackling woodstove while the rain lashed against the windowpanes. Simply fantastic. They’d raved about the tranquillity, the picturesque houses, the dreamy river-scape. They’d talked about writing books, of a life devoid of makeup, fantasized about dropping out, about little organic cafés beneath thatched roofs that were guaranteed to take off, about the spirit of these old farmers’ cottages.

  That first winter they’d all wanted to pack in their cerebral jobs, wanted to do something with their hands! “Hey, I could live out here. I mean it,” Sabine, Eva’s best friend, had said, “keep an eye out for me, will you? Doesn’t have to be anything big. Something like your place would do.”

  Nothing but hot air. The second winter Sabine had come only once, for Eva’s birthday at the end of January, and they had the same rain, the same cake, the same log fire in the stove. “Hey, in all honesty, Eva, I’d go nuts out here. How the hell do you stand it?” The optimal thing to say to yank a friend out of her seasonal depression. Thanks a lot for that.

  But their friends still came in the spring when the flowers were in bloom, or in the summer when the black currants, raspberries, and gooseberries ripened and Eva had to pick them, extract their juices, and boil them down from morning till night. Then they suddenly appeared with their bikes at the garden fence, ding-a-ling-a-ling, a little excursion. “Don’t you country folks have any coffee?”

  If you were lucky they’d call on their cell phones beforehand, on the ferry to Finkenwerder. Then Eva would have time to whip up a couple of waffles and get some cherries out of the freezer.

  She hated it when she had only a packet of butter cookies. It made her feel like she was being exposed as an imposter. Cookies from the supermarket in rubber boot world was downright embarrassing.

  With a little advance warning, she could at least run into the bathroom, put in her contact lenses, smack on some mascara, scrub the worst of the garden dirt from under her fingernails, and pack Burkhard off quickly to Nodorps farm shop for a few pounds of asparagus.

  Because once their friends were there, they simply relaxed. They had time, they were in the countryside. They wandered through the garden, picking strawberries here and nibbling on a few cherries there. “It’s like living in paradise.”

  They sat under the apple trees, took off their shoes, told stories about impossible colleagues and unbelievably bad writing, complained about the antics of those with image complexes in their morning conferences.

  “Consider yourself lucky you don’t have to put up with all that any longer, Burkhard!”

  They never turned down a small glass of white wine. Eva then went into the house and prepared asparagus for everyone. “But then we’ll have to head off!” Ding-a-ling-a-ling b
ack to Hamburg. They had tickets for the opera, wanted to catch a reading, attend a gallery opening in the Kaispeicher or a garden party on the Alster river.

  Sometimes Eva would cry on evenings like that, when she was putting the plates and glasses into the dishwasher, when she had to rush back out into the garden to pick the ripe berries before it got dark, when the juicer was still bubbling late in the evening, and she was stirring pots of jelly and jam until just before midnight.

  When at one o’clock in the morning everything in the kitchen was sticky—the stove, the floor, the tiles—and when the stuff wouldn’t set yet again, son of a bitch!

  She used agar, which was absolutely not as idiot-proof as canning sugar. Eva’s jelly factory produced only vegan spreads, jellies, and preserves.

  The idiots at the countrywomen’s club didn’t even know that such a thing existed! They were still merrily tossing canning sugar into their jellies—and turned up their noses at Eva’s zucchini and pumpkin jams. What the farmer doesn’t know, he doesn’t eat!

  No, Eva hadn’t fully acclimated to the country yet. Burkhard could see that quite clearly now. She needed a bit of support, a bit of distraction, especially in the dark season. It didn’t have to be the twelve tenors in the Stade culture center, or the Black Sea Fleet Naval Choir. But driving now and then to a morning jazz session in Agathenburg for brunch, or catching a Low German play in Ladekop—why not? That was worth doing!

  But yesterday evening hadn’t been successful. They’d gone to the Italian restaurant for no particular reason, in the middle of the week, just to get out of the house. But people in these parts went to bed very early.

  At nine thirty they were the last diners there. The waitress had already put the chairs up on the tables and had said that if they could maybe pay, she’d give them a grappa on the house. Eva’s response was out of order.

  “If your grappa tastes as shitty as your Chianti, you can go clean the john with it.”

  Even a big tip couldn’t set that right.

  Burkhard was hoping for a sunny Pentecost Monday and lots of visitors at Eva’s spring festival.

  He wasn’t very optimistic otherwise.

  * * *

  “Yuck, what is THAT?” One of the twins had discovered Eva’s jar of chutney and was holding it up with both hands.

  “Looks like Schnuppi puked in it,” the other crowed.

  “Really?” Britta took the jar away from them. “And what does Nutella look like?”

  They shrieked, “Urgh!” and ran upstairs giggling.

  Burkhard Weisswerth was very drunk when he pushed his recumbent bike home a couple of hours later. He was also very sober. It was, he realized, possible to be both at the same time. A drunken sober person and a sober drunk. What did that make you? Whatever! Not a good mixture.

  First ice cubes, then Coke. Dirk and Britta zum Felde had made a nice mixed drink out of an eighteen-year-old Glenfiddich. And when the Coke was gone, they’d moved on to Sprite. Glenfiddich-Sprite on the rocks.

  How dim-witted could you be?

  At least it was dark enough on the farm track that you could pee against one of the apple trees. That was something anyway.

  18

  Looking Away

  IN THE WINTER, HE IRONED only the collars and the cuffs. He wore sweaters over his shirts, so no one could see whether the rest was done or not.

  He put the ironing board up in the kitchen, close enough to the window that he could look outside, but not so close that he could be seen from out there. Heinrich Luehrs preferred not to be observed when he was ironing.

  It was now getting warmer out. Soon he wouldn’t need a sweater. He would just wear his work jacket over his shirt. So then he’d have to iron the entire front, for he might well open his jacket a bit when outside in springtime. But he wouldn’t bother with the back. He’d do that again only in the summer.

  Here he was, standing in the kitchen, smoothing out his wrinkled shirts as though he had nothing better to do.

  Leni Cohrs could do the ironing, she had offered to. She dropped by once a week, cleaned the windows, vacuumed, and mopped the floors. But he wouldn’t let her anywhere near his laundry. Just the thought of a strange woman fiddling around with his shirts and pants! Not to mention his bedclothes and his underwear. That’ll be the day!

  There were now shirts that didn’t need to be ironed at all; the sales associate at Holst had shown him one last summer when she’d noticed that he was on his own. A man buying shirts for himself at Holst had to be a widower or a bachelor.

  He had taken one, to please the sales associate more than anything else. It looked completely different from his gray-and-blue-checked shirts. It was striped.

  And Vera had noticed it right away, of course, had wolf whistled at him with her fingers. At first he’d thought she was whistling for her dogs, until he saw her grinning and giving him two thumbs-up.

  Vera had always been like that. She got up to stuff.

  Like the time she dove off the Lühe bridge—simply took off her clothes and dove headfirst into the river in her underwear. She was twelve at most at the time. And then, without drying herself off, she’d gotten back into her clothes and ridden home on the old bike Karl Eckhoff used for the milking.

  Nobody jumped headfirst from the Lühe bridge. They jumped feetfirst or cannonballed at the very most, and girls didn’t even do that. Only daredevils dove headfirst. And Vera Eckhoff.

  Then, later, she had shown him how she had learned to do it: from practicing in Eckhoff’s hayloft. Jumping down from the hayloft onto the little ledge and then headlong into the big haystack. The ledge was pretty high, but that wasn’t so bad.

  Heinrich just couldn’t stop thinking of Ida Eckhoff the entire time.

  He wondered what it looked like when someone hanged themselves. He had never seen anything like that.

  “Like someone who’s fallen asleep while dancing,” Vera had said, then gave him a demonstration. Let her head slump to one side, and turned back and forth with her arms dangling at her sides. Then she climbed back up onto the beam and jumped into the hay.

  Heinrich jumped then too. He sometimes wondered if Vera Eckhoff was all there.

  * * *

  The flat bits didn’t take long to iron. He used the water sprayer to dampen pillows and sheets a little. You had less fuss and bother with the large items than with the shirts.

  From his window, he could see Vera riding home from the Elbe. Yessiree, always straight over his raked sand! He ran to the window, rapped on it, and wagged his finger at her. She lifted her riding crop briefly. She seemed to be coming back around at last. It had taken a while.

  You’d think she had lost a child, not a man past ninety who was tired of life.

  They’d dragged Karl Eckhoff’s stiff body back to his bed that July morning. Vera was still quite normal then, a bit pale of course, understandably.

  But when the sister left after the funeral, she had crawled around the house, and the practice was temporarily closed. Then, as winter approached, she got to looking like a ghost.

  Even so, she still fed her horses.

  Heinrich had gone to check at some point, and she came shuffling along. In her bathrobe, at five in the afternoon.

  “Well, Hinni, come to see if I’ve hung myself?”

  She could be mean. And how!

  He had just left her standing in the horse barn in her bathrobe and rubber boots. He didn’t have to take everything Vera Eckhoff dished out.

  “Just go and die then, you nasty old hag.”

  Later he noticed that the light was on over at her place all night long again.

  * * *

  You had to grow into an empty house at first. In the beginning, you were much too small.

  After Elisabeth’s funeral, the neighboring women had come by with goulash casseroles and plates of cake every day. They took turns. They meant well.

  They gave him their leftovers and almost finished him off.

  Widower’s
meals warmed up and eaten in silence. It was so quiet he could hear himself chewing and swallowing.

  Some things tasted quite different than Elisabeth’s, which wasn’t so bad.

  If a dish tasted just like hers, he’d get upset while eating it. It was like the dream he’d had repeatedly in the early days. That she was still alive.

  And then waking up.

  In his first winter as a widower, the land behind the house also lay there as though it were dead. Silent, dark, and odorless.

  In December, he thought the trees were going to stay as they were, skeletons, their branches bones that had been stripped, forever this time.

  But they stirred themselves in March. They really did bud again.

  Then some hard frosts came in April, but most of the buds still managed to hang on.

  And by July, there were black cherries on the branches.

  Many split open in the heavy rain and hail.

  Then the apple trees produced a good crop in August, although many were broken by the September storms.

  But, all in all, his harvest hadn’t been bad in the first year without Elisabeth.

  He wondered how others did it, townsfolk, people without land, office workers who weren’t pushed through the first year by nature. Or thrashed. Who had to march through it without a taskmaster.

  * * *

  Vera hadn’t brought him soups or cakes, and she didn’t make any jellies either. Vera didn’t put her hand on his arm.

  She looked away when he kneeled in the flower beds, his eyes all red, and she didn’t listen when he spoke to himself in the cherry tree.

  Vera banged on his windowpane with her fist at six in the morning if he wasn’t able to get out of bed, when he didn’t want to enter the deathly quiet morning, when he lay in bed like a stone because he was so horrified by the single cup that stood on the kitchen table like someone bereaved.

  Hinni, get up! Every morning for nearly half a year, Vera Eckhoff had banged on his bedroom window and waited until the light came on.

  She wrote him a note to stick on the washing machine: