by Dörte Hansen
He, on the other hand, was all alone in his house, took care of his yard for nothing and no one, and his grandchildren trampled his flower beds and pelted him with chocolate chicks.
On Easter Sunday, Heinrich Luehrs must have decided to become a different person, the stupid kid no more.
He’d told Steffi there would be no more Easter egg hunts in his yard, nor any birthday or Christmas visits. He didn’t even find it difficult. Only Jochen should come, on his own, for three or four days in September. That was enough for him.
It was possible to say things like that. You could decide to no longer invite your grandchildren and daughter-in-law over and nothing bad happened, life just carried on.
* * *
Heinrich built a big pen for Leon’s pygmy rabbit behind Vera’s shed. Willy was no longer alone because Theis zum Felde had taken the matter into his own hands.
He had lent Leon a rabbit and put it in the hutch with Willy, and now they had six little ones.
Heinrich picked dandelions every morning because Leon couldn’t manage it on his own yet.
And also because he liked sitting on an overturned pail next to the rabbits, as he had done as a boy, breeding German Giants. Back then, the rabbits couldn’t be big enough, and today everyone wanted dwarves. Heinrich Luehrs didn’t understand it, but he liked the little ones too.
Vera saw him sitting on his pail with two rabbits on his lap. Heinrich Luehrs, the best.
He had taught Anne how to dance in the hallway. Put his cards down and rolled up his sleeves, then shook his head at her socks with the large holes in them.
“What can you young women actually do? You can’t mend socks and you can’t dance!”
Carsten fiddled around with the kitchen radio until he found the Hits Station.
“May I have the pleasure?”
Heinrich was a good dancer, always had been.
And it only had to be good enough for the party at the Cherry Orchard Dance Bar, the volunteer fire department’s ball. Anne had received a written invitation from a blond man with dimples, and sure enough, she wanted to go.
“Nothing serious, Vera,” she said with a grin. “Just a bit of fun.”
Dirk and Britta went every year. The local fire department turned out in force, its members in formal uniform. It was an important event in the village, even bigger than the hunters’ ball.
People would have something to look at this year: a woman with dark curls in a dress that wasn’t all that long.
Vera hadn’t ever been to a ball. Who would have danced with her anyway? She had given most of the men her age a pounding behind the school or out on the street at some time or other when she was young, because they had called her names.
On one occasion, Vera had danced with Heinrich, a Viennese waltz in the hallway. Karl had had to play it three, four, five times over, before she started to get the hang of it.
And before she had worked it out completely, Hinni’s father had arrived and drunk the strawberry punch from the bowl.
Vera Eckhoff couldn’t waltz to this day.
Watching Heinrich Luehrs dance with Anne, she wished she were young again, but properly this time.
* * *
At the beginning of September, the days became bright and cool, the sky turned a serious shade of blue, and there was a rasp in the air, as if someone were about to make a farewell speech.
The apples turned red, and in the mornings, the first plums started falling onto the damp grass. Only the swallows and bumblebees were acting as though they didn’t yet sense that it was autumn.
It was very quiet in the house. All of the journeymen had left, and Anne hadn’t hired any new ones yet, because Vera needed to listen to the walls again for a few days.
Only Carsten was allowed to come, on the weekends as usual, since he never disturbed anyone during his rounds of the house.
Toward evening, Vera and Anne would fetch the horses from the paddock and ride to the Elbe. They’d encounter Heino Gerdes on his folding bike. He never raised his eyes when he saw them, just looked at the road, but he always tipped his cap with one finger by way of greeting.
They saw Hedwig Levens with her skinny dog. Both of them looked as though they were afraid of being beaten, as if they were running away to avoid being punished.
Gradually Anne was starting to remember everyone’s names. Vera always repeated them for her, including the names of all the birds they met along the way. She explained their forms and characteristics to Anne. She classified people in the same way as animals. She didn’t differentiate between them.
When they got to the sandy shore, they would let the horses gallop.
Anne played requests on the weekends, when the others were playing skat in the kitchen. “Für Elise” over and over, although Heinrich also liked Chopin, but not the wild pieces. Carsten wanted to hear boogie, while Vera made no requests. She liked hearing everything except the “Turkish March.”
One time when Anne played the opening bars, Vera jumped up, ran out into the hallway, and slammed the piano lid shut. “NOT THAT!”
Anne had just managed to get her hands out of the way. For a couple of seconds everything seemed to stop. Carsten and Heinrich sat rigid at the kitchen table, and Anne’s hands hung in the air.
“Not that,” said Vera.
“Are there any other pieces that are banned?” Anne asked once she had pulled herself together. “If so, tell me now!”
“No,” Vera said, “just that one.”
* * *
During the week, Anne played lullabies for Leon. She would leave his door ajar and play until he fell asleep.
And she continued playing if she saw Vera sitting in the kitchen, flipping through some sort of travel magazine with her blue hands. Anne played until Vera sank back in her chair, took off her reading glasses, placed her hands in her lap, and fell asleep, as only Vera Eckhoff was capable of sleeping, sitting up, with her back perfectly straight. Only her eyes closed.
She often had to play for a long time, and some nights only Satie helped, in halting three-four time, lent et douloureux. Anne would almost fall asleep herself while playing it.
It was a while before she finally dared to send Vera off to bed. “Vera, go lie down. I’ll hold the fort.”
Vera just laughed at first and shook her head, as though Anne were joking. She had to repeat it the next day, and the day after that. It wasn’t until the winter, in fact, that Vera Eckhoff finally got up the nerve to go to bed.
Two doors were left open in her house, two people slept—an old woman, a little boy. Someone stayed awake and watched over their dreams.
The house stood still.
Acknowledgments
Thanks!
Barbara Dobrick (Eight till twelve and not in the summer!)
Alexandra Kuitkowski (I’m meeting up with Anja anyhow.)
Sabine Langohr (Let’s just keep our cool for a bit.)
Claudio Vidoni (It’s not the house’s fault.)
About the Author
Dörte Hansen was born in Husum in northern Germany. She studied languages and completed a Ph.D. in linguistics. She then turned to journalism, spent several years working as a radio editor, and is now an author for radio and print. This House Is Mine is her first novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
1. Cherry Trees
2. The Magic Flute
3. Staying Put
4. Fine Woodworking
5. Silent Movie
6. Chain Stitches
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7. Winter Moth
8. Peasant Theater
9. Refugees
10. Venison Sausage
11. Order
12. Hunting Accident
13. Elbe Frogs
14. Apple Diplomas
15. Nesting Instinct
16. Drift Ice
17. Rural Plagues
18. Looking Away
19. Collapsible Crates
20. No Sound
21. Iceland
22. Resurrection
23. Man Oh Man Oh Man
24. Miracles of Light
25. Brain Drain
26. Shut-eye
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THIS HOUSE IS MINE. Copyright © 2015 by Dörte Hansen. Translation copyright © 2016 by Anne Stokes. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut, which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Cover design by Kerri Resnick
Cover illustrations: cherry blossom © Fresher/Shutterstock; bird © Ihnatovich Maryia/Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hansen, Dörte, 1964– author.|Stokes, Anne Marie, translator.
Title: This house is mine / Dörte Hansen; translated by Anne Stokes.
Other titles: Altes Land. English
Description: First U.S. edition.|New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016.|“Originally published in Germany under the title Altes Land by Albrecht Knaus Verlag”—Verso title page.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016021591|ISBN 9781250100856 (hardcover)|ISBN 9781250106469 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Aunts—Fiction.|Nieces—Fiction.|Women—Family relationships—Fiction.|Belonging (Social psychology)—Fiction.|Hamburg Region (Germany)—Fiction.|Domestic fiction.|Psychological fiction.|BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women.
Classification: LCC PT2708.A655 A4813 2016|DDC 833/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021591
e-ISBN 9781250106469
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecial [email protected].
Originally published in Germany under the title Altes Land by Albrecht Knaus Verlag
First U.S. Edition: November 2016
* Translator’s note: Low German (Plattdeutsch) is the West Germanic language spoken in the Hamburg area, where most of the novel is set. There are a number of variants of Plattdeutsch in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is descended from Old Saxon, so has affinities with English in terms of grammar and pronunciation. In the novel, the dialect is used by locals of the Altland, representing not only regional belonging but also the warmth and earthiness of the people living there. I have thus rendered their Low German speech in colloquial English, while I’ve rendered the old inscriptions in Old Scots.
