This House Is Mine

by Dörte Hansen

Shirts, pants, sweaters, socks 104˚ F

  Bedclothes, underwear, towels 140˚ F

  Wool by hand, lukewarm (don’t wring out)!

  She drove with him to the Edeka store, showed him what got weighed and what didn’t, where to put his empty deposit bottles and cans, and where to find the oatmeal and the jars of little sausages.

  But she noticed quickly that it wasn’t working. He was ashamed of his shopping cart, of the few paltry items he pushed before him, an old man who no longer had a wife. Everyone who looked in his cart could see that he was on his own. He was a man with something missing. He felt like a man with only one leg, like someone with scars all over his face.

  Heinrich Luehrs didn’t want young mothers with massive amounts of family shopping to let him go ahead of them at the checkout. It was none of their business which toothpaste he used, or what he washed his hair with, what he had for lunch, or that he liked chocolates filled with brandy.

  “Write me a list,” Vera said finally, and since then she’d picked his stuff up for him twice a week.

  He never complained when she bought the wrong thing, which rarely happened anyway. And occasionally he’d find something in the bags that he hadn’t written down, white marshmallow mice, port wine, or cheese sticks perhaps, and he’d put them on the table when Vera came over to play rummy.

  * * *

  He pulled the iron’s plug out of the socket and folded his bedclothes. He had overlooked a crease in the center, but he didn’t give a shit.

  At first he had kept changing both beds, and had also washed and ironed Elisabeth’s bedclothes. But he didn’t do that anymore. It was nonsense. Her pillow and her duvet now lay in the cupboard, had done so for several years now. What was the point?

  But going to bed in the evening, turning on the light and seeing her side empty, you didn’t get used to that. It remained something that had to be confronted every night. And a bitter awakening every morning.

  The little zum Felde kid came pedaling around the corner on his tractor. He steered clear of the raked strip of sand. Farmer boy, Heinrich Luehrs said to himself.

  Dirk zum Felde had three sons, and all of them wanted to be farmers. What else? He often saw them driving to the orchard with their father. But he’d also had three like that himself at one point.

  Me neither, Father, and then you were left here on your own.

  You raked the sand, pruned the trees, fertilized, sprayed, harvested, put everything in order in the winter, and it started all over again in the spring. You painted the windows and fetched the roofer because the thatch had to be mended in one corner, and you painted your fence for no reason at all, because there was no one to succeed you.

  But the house wasn’t built to have one solitary last person living in it.

  Fathers built houses like these for their sons, and the sons took care of them and preserved them for their sons, and a son didn’t ask himself whether he wanted it. When had the wanting begun? When had the fault crept in? When had the misunderstanding arisen that farmers’ sons were allowed to choose a life for themselves? Simply select one that was nice and colorful and comfortable? Go to Japan and cook fish, move to Hannover to sit in an office. And Georg, who was a farmer, the best of the three, had simply left it all behind and looked for a farm someplace else, just because his old man didn’t suit him. As if at any time in the past a father had ever suited his son!

  This was no longer the world that Heinrich Luehrs knew. He’d raised three sons, lived as he was told, what you inherit from your fathers, and yet he was all alone in the end regardless.

  No better off than Vera next door, who had never done the right thing, had only ever been ornery. Indeed, two people couldn’t be more different than he and she were.

  And now they were suddenly almost identical. Two old people in two old houses.

  He could simply quit, sell it lock, stock, and barrel, and get a mobile home, like others did. But what were you if you didn’t have a house? The houses remained standing even if the people left—or didn’t take care of them, like Vera Eckhoff. A half-timbered house didn’t fall down. It stayed standing.

  Heinrich Luehrs wouldn’t be standing for long without his half-timbered house. He knew that for certain.

  Nothing much had been done to Vera’s house yet, as far as he could tell. Still the same old dump.

  Apart from the fact that the niece had fidgeted around hazardously with the facade atop his forty-foot ladder.

  Just don’t look!

  The saying must run in the family.

  If living next to Vera Eckhoff for six decades had taught him anything, it was just that: Don’t look.

  * * *

  Heinrich Luehrs hadn’t looked when the Stade police had driven onto the Eckhoff farm because Ida was hanging in the hayloft in her traditional costume. And later, when the hearse had arrived, he hadn’t looked then either.

  Neither had Vera. They had played Sorry!, his mother stoking up the stove especially for her so late in the evening. “Play with her,” she’d whispered to him in the kitchen, “go off and play, Heinrich.” His brothers had played as well.

  Vera loved knocking you out of the game, especially when you had three pieces already home and only had to throw a final six in order to bring your last one in. Wham! She’d won almost every game that night. “My lucky day!”

  Back then he hadn’t yet started wondering about Vera. That had only started once she showed him what people looked like after they had hanged themselves. As though they had fallen asleep while dancing, like Grandma Ida.

  But there were others too, she explained, who looked like big black scarecrows. They hung in the trees by the roadside.

  But just where she had come from, not here in the Altland. They didn’t hang the dead outside here.

  “Just don’t look, Heinrich!” Two or three summers after Vera dove headfirst from the Lühe bridge, his mother had pulled him away from the kitchen window when a dark-blue Opel Captain had driven onto the Eckhoff farm, brand-new, six cylinders, 60 HP, if not more. And Vera’s mother had come out of the house in high heels with only a small suitcase in her hand. “Stop looking over there!”

  But Heinrich had run after the car as it was leaving the farm, to get a quick look at its rear end. You could only dream of a car like that.

  And Vera was standing next to Karl’s shed, slightly bent over, with her fist in her mouth. Don’t look.

  Word soon got around that Hildegard von Kamcke was over the hills and far away with her knight in the Opel Captain. That she had left her daughter to Karl like a consolation prize.

  But if you didn’t look very closely, life at the Eckhoffs’ seemed totally normal. Vera got straight A’s at school and cycled along the main street on Karl Eckhoff’s old bike without holding on to the handlebars. And when Heinrich rode alongside her without holding on too, she’d clasp her hands behind her head or stuff them deep down into her jacket pockets. She would have closed her eyes when riding as well, if he’d agreed to compete.

  “What on earth’s the girl going to do?” asked Minna Luehrs when February came and Hildegard still hadn’t come back for her child. Confirmation was in March; the youngest Luehrs and Vera Eckhoff were the same age. Where did a girl get a dress from if her mother wasn’t around?

  “I’ve got everything,” Vera said when Minna Luehrs went over to the Eckhoffs’ and inquired.

  Four weeks later, everyone in the church could see that no one had made a dress for Vera Eckhoff, or bought one either. She was wearing a dress that was much too large for her. The sleeves hung loose and were fastened at the ends somehow so they didn’t slip down over her wrists.

  When Vera lifted her hymnbook later on, you could see that she had secured them to her arms with rubber bands from canning jars.

  “Oh my Lord,” whispered Minna Luehrs.

  Heinrich noticed too that Vera had used shoe polish to turn her brown ankle boots black, and he quickly looked away.

  But his father, Hei
nrich Luehrs Senior, didn’t look away when they were streaming home after the service. He turned to Karl and Vera, who were walking along behind them, since they were all heading in the same direction.

  “Here comes gammy leg with his gypsy!” He’d had a drink before church already, so he said it very loudly.

  Heinrich’s brothers chuckled, but their mother suddenly started walking faster. She almost ran home in fact, and Heinrich stayed at her side.

  When the guests were seated in the parlor at the white-covered table, she sent Heinrich over to the Eckhoffs’ with soup royale and a large plate of cake. She had baked and cooked for days.

  Standing before Karl and Vera with his humble offerings, he wanted to sink into the ground or die. He should have known.

  They were sitting in the kitchen with a cream cake from Gerde’s bakery in front of them. The paper was lying on the table and they were eating the cake with big spoons and drinking red soda pop.

  Karl, who was drowning in an enormous suit, and Vera, who must have found her dress in Ida’s or Hildegard’s wardrobe, were sitting like two children playing dress-up. Two orphans playing house.

  “From Mother,” Heinrich had said. Vera had stood up, looking horrified, and not looked at him. She’d simply eyed the big dessert plate quizzically as Heinrich placed it on the table. Then he’d put the pot of soup beside it and made a quick exit.

  “Tell your mother thanks very much,” said Karl.

  Heinrich Luehrs had learned a lesson that day.

  You could be without a mother, without guests, without a white tablecloth, you could sit alone in the kitchen with a crooked little man and eat cake with soup spoons. All that wasn’t bad.

  It was bad only if you were seen doing it. Then it was very bad.

  Don’t look.

  * * *

  Heinrich had abided by this dictum when the Eckhoffs’ house and farm became run-down, when they let the garden go to seed and didn’t paint the fence or windows.

  He had only looked occasionally later on, when Vera was long grown-up, and he had a family of his own. When she walked along the Elbe with strange men, he sometimes wondered what might have been.

  If he hadn’t lain in the heap of broken glass at Vera Eckhoff’s, bleeding and howling like a little kid because his father had hit him. And if Vera hadn’t chased his old man out of her house with her shotgun.

  She’d swept away all the shards that night. He had heard her when his brothers were already asleep, and the girls from Stade were sleeping as well. He could have gone out into the hallway to help her.

  But that’s what she’d been waiting for, Hinni Luehrs, the crybaby.

  “That’s none of our business, Heinrich,” Elisabeth had said when Vera Eckhoff strolled by yet again, hand in hand with some guy from Hamburg. “Stop looking over there.”

  19

  Collapsible Crates

  CHRISTOPH TOOK THE COLLAPSIBLE CRATE containing Leon’s things from Anne—pajamas and rubber boots, clothes for two days, and his stuffed animal. He appeared to fleetingly consider kissing her on the cheek, but decided to skip it.

  He put the crate in the hallway, lifted Leon and kissed him, and just pressed Anne’s arm, as if she were his aunt.

  It was their second handover after a month’s separation. They were still getting the hang of it. Shared custody, naturally, no longer a couple, but parents who wanted the best for their child.

  They’d been having coffee together every other Friday to discuss what needed arranging—new shoes, pediatrician appointments. Civilized dealings with one another for the sake of the child, as was standard practice when relationships ended in Hamburg-Ottensen. They began with abandon and ended with handovers, went from kisses to collapsible crates, were reasonable almost to the point of asphyxiation.

  Anne was just a guest in this apartment now, not even that actually, a delivery person, nothing more. She hoped she would get used to it at some point.

  Leon ran to his room. Anne could hear him rummaging through his toy chest, his treasures, which he had almost forgotten. Every other Friday, he discovered his old room anew.

  There was a loud hammering coming from the corridor. It sounded as though old tiles were being knocked off the wall. “The Udes moved out last week,” Christoph said, “now everything’s being renovated.” He shut the door and took her jacket from her.

  “I had a look at the apartment yesterday. One more room than ours, a bigger bathroom.”

  “Why, are you looking to move?”

  He cleared his throat, and she realized what was going on as soon as she entered the kitchen.

  The photo on the bulletin board had seemingly been lying in wait for her; it pounced like a beast of prey. A fuzzy black-and-white image. You couldn’t make much out yet, something bean-shaped in a bubble.

  One more room, a bigger bathroom.

  “Yeah,” said Christoph with a shrug, “ten weeks.” He grinned at her. “Sometimes it goes fast. You had to be the first to know, that was important to me, Anne. Coffee?”

  Christoph naked at the kitchen table, Carola’s red toenails. How long ago was that? Certainly not ten weeks ago …

  It had started much earlier.

  Something snapped in her. She could feel all her strength seeping away, everything was slipping away from her, she was dissolving at the edges. Everything she had been, all that had been solid and whole, was streaming out, and a cold flood rose up around her very fast, knocked her feet out from under her, appeared to be sweeping away the chairs, the table, the cupboards, the kitchen, the entire house. The world was sinking, and only this man was swimming on top, his head, his gaze, his happiness completely unscathed.

  She could hear Leon rummaging through his CDs of children’s songs, looking for his favorite, most likely. Christoph closed the kitchen door. He poured the coffee and pushed a cup toward her, said, “Have a seat,” and leaned back in his chair without looking at her, looking instead out the balcony window into the yard, past her, shaking his head and smiling. “It’s all kinda crazy.”

  Oh to take a knife, stick it in his grin until he drowned, him too, finally, in his own blood.

  She was beginning to feel woozy. There was a bitter taste in her mouth, like poison.

  She barely made it to the bathroom, gagged like someone who’d almost drowned. Finally, there was only bile. Then she sat on the edge of the tub and leaned against the tiles, sobbing. She didn’t open up when Christoph came to the door. “Anne, jeez, are you okay?”

  His happiness was like a thick pelt. He was in love and invulnerable, warm and packed watertight, no ex could get under his skin, and collapsible crate sickness didn’t permeate it at all.

  The phone rang and she heard Christoph go into the kitchen. She washed her face with cold water and went into Leon’s room. He had taken the cars out of his crate and lined them up on the carpet. “Look, Anne, what a traffic jam!”

  She sat down beside him, wanted to grab hold of him, take him with her, run away with a little boy who didn’t belong to her.

  Who’d have a country life and a city life, two beds, and a calendar with daddy-weekends.

  And soon he would be a brother. Father, mother, two children, one more room, a bigger bathroom.

  And somewhere far afield, in a farmhouse that was falling apart, was another mother, who appeared to be merely tacked on to the family carpet, who wasn’t needed anymore. She didn’t go with the rest of it, which was beautiful and intact. A piece added on, a pastiche, a badly sewn patchwork. The stuff misery was made of. Parents keeping it together at children’s birthday parties, gulped-back sadness at family celebrations. Handing over collapsible crates to Carola in a civilized way. Then dreaming of knives and blood at night.

  Knowing that Carola with her red nail polish was lying next to Leon in the evening, reading to him, singing him songs, kissing him.

  It was a crime for which there was no punishment, not even a word.

  They hadn’t gotten married, never
promised each other a thing. Two people and a child, loosely crocheted, three chain stitches. It just hadn’t held.

  Carola had only had to pull very gently at the yarn.

  * * *

  Anne kissed Leon quickly. “Until the day after tomorrow, big guy.”

  She put on her coat and boots, took her bag, ran out of the apartment, and stumbled down the stairs. She bumped into Carola at the door and instead of pulling herself together or stopping, she pushed her off to the side, with her belly and her crappy organic leeks from the weekly market. Then she slammed the entry door so hard that its glass panels rattled.

  She managed to maneuver Vera’s Mercedes out of the parking space without ramming into another car, without running over any passers-by, managed to arrive accident-free in Hamburg-Barmbek, where the Drewe firm was waiting for her with lunch.

  When Hertha saw her she turned off the stove, and Carsten and Karl-Heinz scurried back over to the workshop.

  Hertha helped Anne out of her coat, guided her over to the table, then sat down on the corner bench, pulled her onto her lap, and pulled a Kleenex out of her sleeve. She couldn’t make out very much of what Anne was saying, but one thing was certain: the world was ending.

  It would also most likely start up again. Hertha Drewe had been through her share of Armageddons. What you asked, what you said didn’t matter. Just rock a little. “Oh, dear me.”

  She had seen him only two or three times, Anne’s joker in the white shirt, the book writer.

  Once would have been enough. It was immediately obvious that nothing good could come of it. Someone like that didn’t stay. A child here, another there. He wasn’t the faithful type. That was too restrictive for the likes of him.

  Hertha could see that in a man right away. But she hadn’t said anything because there wouldn’t have been any point. No one ever wanted to know.

  She had also known from the start that Urte wasn’t right for Carsten. I think, I think all day long, and she always had to have the last word. And a picky eater too: she didn’t want meat and couldn’t have milk, and she didn’t like coffee, just endless amounts of ginger tea, which she brought from home whenever she came over. As though she thought Hertha wanted to poison her. And if you were honest, you’d have to admit she wasn’t anything to look at either. Even Karl-Heinz had conceded that on one occasion, and he was normally very reserved: “A bit of a frump.” She wore shaggy, musty old knits all the time and skirts that almost dragged on the ground, never anything halfway fashionable.