An Offering for the Dead

by Hans Erich Nossack

"Did you moor the boat tight?" I asked again.

  "No one will steal it," he replied. I do not believe that he meant to be sarcastic, but I stopped asking, since I realized he would not be answering the questions that I actually wanted to ask.

  "There, now it will be soft enough," he said at last. "This is your bed," he added, pointing to the lower one. But I wanted to let him have it and sleep in the upper bunk myself. We argued about it for a while. "Why make a fuss?" he said. "Think of that stupid old saying: Is it not customary to leave the softer bed to the older brother?" So I gave in. I lay down, and after blowing out the lamp, he climbed into the top bed.

  But I was unable to fall asleep. The kettle kept humming for a while on the stove; then it gave up. A log collapsed. Then the cabin became utterly silent. I could not hear my brother breathing overhead. It was as if he were no longer there. But I held my tongue.

  Suddenly, there was a cry in the emptiness outside, and a yearning answer from afar.

  I jumped up. "What is that?" I asked.

  "Those are birds. They cry out so as not to lose one another in the darkness," my brother explained. The cries left me very sad.

  "It is very lonely here," I then said.

  "Yes, it is."

  "And bleak. I saw it before."

  "Not much grows here. Only moss. Sometimes it blossoms, that looks quite nice."

  After a while, he asked: "Why are you sitting up?"

  Mustering my courage, I asked him: "Could we not sleep in one bed this last night?"

  "If you prefer that, then I will come," he said. He climbed down from his bed and crept under the cover with me. We had little room, but it was better like this.

  "Tell me, brother," I began after a time, "why do they not send you to our mother? But if you find the question unpleasant, then forget it," I added, since he did not answer right away.

  "I do not find it unpleasant," he said. "but I have to think about it, so that I will not talk nonsense. That must be it, yes: I am too impatient."

  "Do you not regret it?"

  "Why should I regret it? I have been granted something else. And since you are going to her, everything is in order. One is enough."

  "Do you know her?"

  "No, I have never seen her. You need not be afraid."

  "But you know about her," I inquired further.

  "I know that she exists."

  "Have you heard that from the others?"

  "I just know it. I have always known it even though I did not care to admit it."

  "Then tell me."

  He lapsed into another silence. Then he said: "If we were not lying here as snug as twins in the womb, I would not talk about it. I do not like talking about it. You know, brother, I saw the women get pregnant and have babies. But they were reluctant to give birth. We always have to bear the burden, they scolded, and after giving birth, they would quickly dress up and go dancing. They also made it clear to the children whom they had to raise. They went so far as to demand gratitude from the children for having given birth to them. This annoyed me, and I became a nasty scoffer. It pained me because of the children, but I would have done better to hold my tongue. Naturally, they threw me out, that was their prerogative. I jeered at them and lived for myself. I lived poorly; indeed, I had to tighten my belt; and I was also surrounded by dubious people. But I was defiant, and it did me no harm. Then came Christmas. Have you ever seen what Christmas meant to them? I scoffed at that too, for I saw that they were fooling themselves. They exchanged visits, went to church, celebrated, and thought: Now we are good people! But the next day, the fight began all over again. Nevertheless, it was unjust of me to jeer; for they made an effort. And it was none of my business anyway; I did not sufficiently respect their property. So at Christmas, the woman in whose home I had been raised sent me a message. Be in church this afternoon, she notified me, so that you can be with your brothers and sisters. Good, I thought, she wants a reconciliation, and you must not be a spoilsport. So I went there. I sat in the pew with them. I saw them folding their hands. I heard the fine voices of my brothers and sisters, I heard them growing merry with the carols they were singing. The carols were good. As is customary with them, there was a tree with burning candles. And I thought: This is quite a good way of celebrating. There is nothing one could object to here. And it made me cheerful too. When it was over, we left the church and stood in the square outside it. My brothers and sisters stood on one side and I stood on the other side. A fierce east wind blasted between us. Christmas, you ought to know, comes in the middle of winter. Then the woman in whose home I had been raised said to my brothers and sisters: Shake his hand! They shook my hand and said: Goodbye! Then the woman also shook my hand and slipped something into it. Then she went home with my brothers and sisters to celebrate, and I was alone again."

  "Was there no father there?" I interrupted.

  "No," he replied. "The father never went to church. That is not my concern, he would say. When they came home, he would ask: Well, how was it? It was very beautiful, they would say. And? he asked further. Nothing, they shrugged their shoulders. And he fell silent. He was a man of few words. But why are you interrupting me? I stepped under a lantern and looked at what she had pressed into my hand. It was a five-mark piece. I threw it on the ground. I tell you, brother, it was a very cold winter, and the ground was frozen hard. I also took the word 'mother' and threw it down and trampled it, so that it crashed about and shattered forever. Just look at how my legs are twitching. It is not good to talk about it. It angers me even now. Yes, that must be it: I am too young to be kind. Such boys also have to exist. But now, let us sleep."

  I wanted to ask him something else, but I refrained. Perhaps there will be time tomorrow morning, I thought.

  When I awoke, my brother was already up. He admonished me to hurry. I was to drink my tea, which he had brewed for me. While I did so, he put the blankets back in the crates.

  Then we left the cabin. He locked the door and placed the key under the threshold. I felt chilly. It was before daybreak. The cabins and hills stood hard and plain in the crystal-clear morning air. It was always like that before daybreak on this shore; I did not know this at the time. I gazed in the direction of my road and instantly saw that it was my road. Then I turned back to my brother.

  We faced one another. It weighed heavily on my mind that I had not yet asked him about the bandage he wore around his forehead. I felt an urge to say to him: You have guided me through the thicket of times. You have warded off sorrows that were intended for me. But I, who call myself your brother, cannot vouch whether I would recognize you if I ran into you today or tomorrow. And perhaps you deliberately make a face in order to lead people astray, and I am also deceived by the mask. Are you wearing the bandage because of my unreliability?

  I also wanted to ask him a question for which I had found no opportunity at night: Tell me, brother, has any woman ever loved you?

  Boys that we were! We merely shook hands and parted wordlessly. He walked down the road between the cabins towards the dark bay, and I in my direction. After several paces, I looked back at him. He was walking alone. No one was expecting him, nor did he count on anyone's doing so. But then he too turned around. And lo and behold, my brother had removed the bandage. His forehead shone clear and relaxed, and no scar was anywhere to be seen. Now I realized that he had worn the bandage in memory of his most blissful hour.

  Then he vanished from my sight.

  I would like to say very little about my road. For those who listened to me using big words to describe the impossible would be bored. Or they would shake their heads and think: What of it?

  My road lay before me and I saw it until its end. It led upward through a gently rising valley. The valley was not narrow, and the hills left and right were not high or rugged, but softly rolling. Yet everything was quite bare, dark green and brown. Perhaps there were a few remnants of snow, but it may be that I think so now only because at first I felt chilly.

  In ba
ck, the valley was closed off by a further range of hills. My road wound and twisted in that direction, ending at the point where those hills seemed to create a small pass. Behind this small embayment formed by the pass, the air was a bit less colored than the rest of the morning. But the nuance barely perceptible. Only slightly bluer. That was all.

  That is not saying much. But I always see that road and that bleak landscape. Sometimes in the middle of conversations or in someone else's face or in a woman's eyes. At such times, I cannot help it, I have to take that road.

  But that is difficult to say. I can say this much: To see the road and to know that this is my road; I need only take it to the end, and the quest will be over. And to know: it is back there, where the road runs into the pass, back there! Is there a word to depict this feeling? Ah, while merely trying to depict it, I am already taking this road again and not thinking of words. The road sucks me in, and I do not resist. I am completely without fear.

  Up behind the pass, framed by the range of hills, the heath lay brown and lonesome before me. herever there was a moor, the water glittered glassy, and a rosy haze wafted up from the willow herbs that were blossoming there. Here and there in the plain, lone juniper trees stood like old men.

  The road dwindled into a very narrow path through the high heather. It led to a cottage standing by the moor. The roof was covered with straw and reeds and sloped all the way to the ground. The door filled nearly the entire front. Only the bottom half of the door was open; it looked as if the lower lid of an eye had been drawn before the scrutiny of the gaze. A bit of smoke poured from the roof ridge and flowed down left and right. No wind was blowing.

  Not far from the cottage stood a mulberry tree. Under it sat an old woman. A cat lay in her lap. As I drew nearer, the cat sprang up and, with its tail raised, it dashed towards the cottage, vanishing through a tiny hole at the foot of the door. Suddenly, the woman's hand, which had been resting on the fur of the cat, dropped heavily on her knee. Thus, she noticed that something was about to happen.

  She rose from the rock she was sitting on, and she looked towards me. But she did not register me, she peered through me, and her gaze was only a nonviolent waiting. She was listening too, but I must have approached very silently across the sandy ground. Her nostrils barely quivered.

  She was wearing a coarse, plain garment, which descended in careless folds past her feet. Her hair was equally colorless; her eyes too were gray and so was her skin. Her face was somewhat bloated, and the lips looked as if they had been stitched on. Presumably, her feet were also swollen from the strains of life and unwept sorrow. However, she was tall and held herself erect in an imposing manner. One instantly saw that she had once been a great lady.

  I did not know her. On the way, I had forgotten why I was coming here in the first place. So now I stood before her, waiting for her to address me. But she said nothing. She merely gazed, sniffing, at where I stood. This made me unsure of myself. I smiled sheepishly, hoping she would then speak. But my smile made no reflection on her face. It hovered helplessly between her and me; I was unable to draw it back. Now I was frightened; I feared that this smile between us would conceal me forever from her. Everything would then have been futile. That was what occurred to me at the last moment, and I said: Mother.

  One must bear in mind that I had never uttered this name before. At times, I may have been on the verge of doing so. Also, one or two women had probably noticed it and acted as if I had spoken this name. But it had not been voiced. It was merely a warm breath, hesitating for a second and then wafting by.

  When I uttered the name, a flowing quiver ran through my mother. The mulberry tree also quivered, as did the reeds along the edge of the moor, and the blue lilies there swayed to and fro. My mother's pale face began to glow like a sunset. Her eyes grew darker and colored; then they started to shimmer, and the tears flowed uncontrollably down her cheeks, dropping into the dry heather.

  I was amazed at the change that came over her: my mother no longer seemed all that old, she looked like a young woman gazing at her sleeping lover; she weeps covertly because he may have to go off to the war tomorrow, and because all security will be vanishing so quickly from her life. She does not care to think about it until daybreak and she presses his head closer to her body.

  I very gingerly stretched out my hand to caress my mother's face. I dared not do more than that, to avoid changing anything about her. Nor did I wish to stop gazing at her for even an instant. For it imbued me with such bliss. And I said to her: "How beautiful you are."

  Then I had to learn what you, my friend, to whom I am recounting this, have already told me: That looking is a suffering. For I was deeply ashamed of my words and could not then endure looking or being looked at. I had to hide my face in my mother's shoulder.

  And you, my friend, may learn from this that this is not a love story that boils down to kissing and hugging and goes no further. The span of life from birth to death may rightfully be called a love story. But what happens when it has found its fulfillment? Do you not notice that I am speaking about the span of life that stretches from death to birth? A span that we know stretches across far vaster spaces and that we normally keep silent about only because it cannot be defined with numbers.

  Why then do we begin, right at birth, to scream lamentably for love and death, thereby driving away the memory and the words that could announce those things? For the words of this other life are frightened when they hear us scream. They go down to the beach; there they turn around once again and wait to see whether we are calming down. The sea is already washing their feet; at first, they shudder slightly; then they advance cautiously; and all at once, they throw themselves into the stillness — that primal sound of space, which contains their homeland, which was also ours. But we are left only with the empty shells of words. Infrequently, in quiet hours, we put the shells to our ears and hear the stillness roaring. Then we sigh, not quite knowing the reason.

  "Mother, something terrible has happened," I, on her shoulder, talked into her. "I have always acted as if it did not concern me, and as if one could keep on living like this. But this is a lie, and now things have gone so far that I would like to scream. And it may be too late. And everything may be my fault. After all, children played in the sand and with dolls. The girls looked joyously into the morning when they shook up their beds at the window. And youths, shadowed by the blue of the evening, rode their horses, swaying, to water and dreamt about heroic deeds. And then the old people who sat outside their front doors between the flowering shrubs of their yards. All that, mother, is no more. It perished, because I had no real share in it. People will point accusing fingers at me. And the name that they used to whisper only secretly — and I acted as if I did not hear it — they will now shout it out: There he stands, Death! Oh, Mother, make me nameless."

  She let me weep; for it was her sorrow that I was weeping.

  Later, I calmed down. "Let me bring you something to eat," said my mother and hurried back and forth between the house and the mulberry tree, bringing whatever she considered necessary. She hurried, not tired or shuffling, but young and nimble, no different from a girl who, to avoid being absent too long from her visitor, dashes to the pantry and brings back something good. "I have no meat here, and also no wine for you," my mother apologized. "But I have buckwheat groats and milk. And also honey; for there are many industrious bees here."

  And she watched me eating and occasionally stroked my hand. The cat too had been given a saucer of milk. A cow, chewing its cud, looked across the closed portion of the door.

  Thus we lived there, and I thought it would be forever. My mother said nothing about it, she simply made sure that I lacked nothing. But one afternoon, I looked across the heath and was startled. Scattered here and there across the flat brown surface, the small ponds of the moor twinkled. I saw that something had fallen in there, shattering in its fall.

  It made me very uneasy, but I held my tongue. My mother likewise said nothi
ng and acted the same as before. But at times it seemed to me as if a shadow were flitting across her face from left to right. I held my tongue for six days. But on the seventh, I could stand it no longer and I said: "Mother, I must leave tomorrow."

  "Yes, I know," she answered.

  "Do not think, Mother, that I am unsatisfied. It is better here with you than anywhere else. But I must leave." "I know," she merely repeated.

  "I will also catch a new moon for you so that you may enjoy it," I said. "I have seen that the old moon is lying there shattered. This is no loss; it had already become a blind mirror and usually hung in the sky like a rotten pear. But in order to hang a new moon there, I would have to leave."

  "I know," she said once again. "Eat now and rest a little. When evening comes, I will describe how it all came about, so that you may know. But I can tell you one thing: Do not scream when you part from me tomorrow. Just think, it is your own will, and that is proper. Do try just once, child, not to scream. Otherwise you will forget everything."

  "I will not scream," I promised her.

  And I did not scream. But how hard it was for me, it is indescribable. I woke up. I found myself lying in bed in my dirty clothes. It was in the room of the house into which I had wandered when I was returning to the city. Everything around me was dismal and cold and clammy. It was difficult getting to my feet. I kept sinking back. And when I finally got up, I reeled, not knowing why I had gotten up. I stood in front of the bed for a long time, thinking: Should I not lie down again? For how good it is to sleep.

  I went to the door and back three times. I held the knob in my hand three times, but could not turn it, and I released it. Eventually, I did manage to open the door, but because of the draft, I did not dare to cross the threshold. Whenever I set foot upon it, I felt as if I were being torn to shreds. I cannot describe how painful it was. It was only with my third try that I managed to get across the threshold. And something ripped. Oh, that pain! I almost screamed. I clenched my teeth. I ran out of the hallway and out of the house and out of the city until I came back to the people among whom I am now.