by Dora Heldt
So, I’ve just ordered a cocktail as I write this. There’s no harm in having one before lunch now and again. I am on vacation after all. It’s a pretty, pale green drink with slices of lime. It doesn’t taste as good as it looks, but it’s very sweet. It has a funny name: Kai Parinya. Sounds like some Finnish bartender. Maybe he was the one who invented it. A really captivating young waitress brought it over to me. I’ll ask Anika—that’s her name—where this Kai fellow is from. Dearest Renate, I’m feeling really quite flushed now; the more you drink of this green stuff, the better it tastes.
Okay, see you soon, cheers!
Yours, Inge
Inge had just finished the letter when Anika came up to her table.
“Excuse me, would it be okay if I take your payment now? My shift will be finishing shortly.” Her face, with model-worthy cheekbones, those big eyes, and a winsome smile, was so captivating that Inge felt very thankful she was sixty-four and not in competition with this comely creature.
“Oh, of coursh,” she answered. Had the caipirinha done something to her vocal cords? Searching for her purse, she started to giggle. She suddenly couldn’t help it.
“Of coursh…” She couldn’t stop giggling, so she gave in to it. She had been prone to hysterical fits of laughter ever since she was a young girl, but unfortunately those around her had been less than sympathetic. She thought of Walter, how he would stare if he could see her now. Not to mention her brother.
“Of coursh.” She still couldn’t manage to keep a straight face, much less dig her wallet out of her purse. Inge gave up, pushed her purse toward Anika, and rested her head on the table. When she looked up again, still giggling, Anika was giving her a concerned look.
“Is everything okay?”
“Of…oh God, I’m sorry. I’d like a coffee, please.” She heard Walter’s voice in her head: Inge, pull yourself together now. How old are you? The giggling just wouldn’t stop, and now she had hiccups too. Inge put her hands over her mouth, held her breath, counted to three, then tried to swallow and be serious again.
“Mom? What’s wrong with the lady?”
A little boy had suddenly appeared next to Anika, and he was looking at Inge with his wide eyes. That brought her back to her senses. She took a deep breath.
He was just as pretty as his mother. Inge turned toward him.
“So what’s your name?”
“Till.”
“And how…old are you?” Inge’s hiccups were receding.
“Eight.”
“Mmm-hmm. And where…do you live?”
Till clambered up onto a chair. “Just around the corner. But we have to move soon, Mom says. And then I’ll have to go to handball practice on the train. And that’s really silly. What’s your name? That’s a nice necklace. And why are you laughing like that?”
“I’m not entirely sure. Sometimes it just comes over me because I find something really funny all of a sudden. I’m called Inge. Are you here to pick your mom up?”
Till nodded earnestly. “I always do when she only works until lunchtime. Otherwise, I go to Nana Hansen’s place next door.”
“Are you thirsty? Would you like a drink?”
Till looked hesitantly at Inge, then over at his mother, who was standing at the bar and putting Inge’s coffee on a tray. “I don’t know, I’m not supposed to…”
“Oh, let’s see.” Inge stood up and went over to Anika. “Excuse me, would it be okay if I treat your son to a glass of cola? Just until you’re ready, and he can keep me company.”
“My coworker is running late, so I’ll still be a little while. Are you sure he wouldn’t be disturbing you?”
“On the contrary. So, whatever he likes to drink for him then.”
Half an hour later, Inge knew the name of Till’s class teacher, his best friend, his rabbit, his favorite subjects, and that he played handball for the TSV Westerland junior team.
Anika switched her apron for a white leather jacket and sat down with them.
Inge pushed her cup aside. “And why do you have to move away?”
Anika looked at her son thoughtfully. “I see you’ve been talking too much, haven’t you?” She shrugged apologetically. “He always talks a bit too much.”
“No.” Inge shook her head. “I ask too many questions. That’s what my husband always says anyway. So why are you moving away?”
Chapter 8
* * *
After the meal, Johann suggested they cycle to Buhne 16, one of the local café bars, on their way back. He was dead set on seeing the “in” crowd. It said in his travel guide that lots of celebrities flocked to this particular stretch of beach. Christine didn’t tell him that all of that was back in the sixties, and that today it was just a completely normal stretch of white sand. It was nice, sure, but nothing out of the ordinary. She didn’t mind where they went; anywhere by the water was beautiful.
As they rode back out onto the main road, a red VW Beetle drove past them. Christine’s first car had been the very same model, so she stared sentimentally at it. The Beetle stopped a few yards ahead of them to let the vehicle in front turn left. As Johann and Christine slowly overtook it on the right, on the road’s shoulder, Christine glanced inside quickly and then, in her surprise, lost her grip on the handlebars. Aunt Inge was in the passenger seat. The red Beetle drove on, while Christine fell off her bike onto the pavement.
Startled, Johann jumped off his bike and ran over to her.
“Christine, what on earth happened? Are you okay?”
Christine rubbed her scraped knee and pointed at the car. “Did you see that Beetle? Aunt Inge was in it. I don’t know anyone with a car like that anymore. Who was it?”
Johann crouched down, looked at her knee, and shook his head. “Does it hurt?” He touched her knee cautiously.
Christine pushed his hand away grumpily. “No. Ow, leave it. Come on, let’s follow them.” She struggled to stand up. “Did you notice the license plate?”
“Christine.” He picked the bike up and straightened it out. “You are absolutely driving me mad. They’re long gone now. Can you still ride?”
“Of course,” she answered through gritted teeth. “What now? Shall we carry on?”
Johann took a deep breath. “Does it hurt anywhere else? Should we ride back home?”
“No.” Christine already had one foot on the pedal. “We’ll go to the beach. I’m not in the mood to have my relatives set me off balance anymore. Come on.”
Her knee hurt every time she moved her leg. After a few yards, Johann overtook her. “Let’s have a drink in that bar over there, at least until your knee feels better.”
They stopped just before they reached the bar. Christine actually wanted to go on, but she changed her mind when she suddenly noticed a red VW Beetle in the parking lot. And besides, her knee was throbbing.
“Okay, maybe that’s a good idea.”
She hobbled slowly forward as Johann locked up the bikes. She squinted, trying to look at the guests inside.
“Oh no.” Johann was already standing next to her. “Look, in the corner, there’s your aunt with the waitress from Badezeit. We’ll just go over right away and say a quick hello.”
He walked on, and Christine followed him as quickly as she could.
“Hi, Aunt Inge.”
Inge’s gray-blonde bob was disheveled and her mascara a little smudged, but she was beaming from ear to ear, even though she had the hiccups.
“Chris…tine, oh, that’s…How lovely. Sit down…We’re celebrating…I…oops, can’t really…talk properly.”
It wasn’t even four in the afternoon, and Aunt Inge was clearly tipsy. Her niece sat down next to her in disbelief while Johann held out his hand to the gorgeous Anika.
“Hello, I’m Johann.”
He was so well mannered! Christine quickly stretched her hand over the table and introduced herself as well.
“Christine. I hope we’re not interrupting.”
“Anika. No, we
were just having a bit of a chat. We drove my son to his match, and I was planning to drive Frau Müller home.”
“But…I…didn’t want to go…there.” Aunt Inge giggled and pressed her hands against her heaving chest. “So…I haven’t had…hiccups…like this for…ages.”
She was interrupted by a waitress, who brought over two coffees.
“Oh, could you…bring…me an herbal…liquor too? Please.”
“Aunt Inge!”
Johann gave Christine a warning look. But her tone didn’t seem to have bothered Aunt Inge.
“Sweetheart, it helps…with hiccups. And Anika is…here…after all.”
She patted her niece’s leg, but smacked her thumb against the grazed knee in the process, which made Christine groan. Inge snorted.
“Look…at…your knee, like when you…were ten, after…ice-skating. All…messed up.”
She collapsed into giggles again. Christine looked at Anika, who was staring helplessly at tipsy Aunt Inge.
“How much did she have to drink?”
“Just one cocktail. But she couldn’t stop laughing. Would that really be enough to cause that?”
“Ha-ha-ha!” Aunt Inge threw her head back and roared with laughter. “And how…and I had such a great id…ea…hic…and I’m not drunk, by the way. I feel wonderful.”
Johann couldn’t stop himself from grinning anymore, nor could Anika.
Concerned, Christine wondered whether her aunt had completely lost her mind. But Inge did look like she was in a great mood.
Johann stood up and ordered four glasses of champagne. He always knew the right thing to do.
Chapter 9
* * *
The forensic pathologist was just about to make an incision in the corpse with his dissecting knife when Heinz came into the backyard and plopped down his lawn chair right next to Christine.
“So, what are you up to?”
“I’m reading, Dad. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Aha. Good book?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it about?”
Christine clapped the book shut and took off her sunglasses. “A murder. What do you want?”
“Oh, nothing.” Feigning interest, he looked at the book. “I just wanted to see what you were doing. Where’s Johann?”
“Jogging.”
“Oh, right. He runs a lot, doesn’t he?”
“Are you bored?”
Indignant, he shifted forward in the seat. “Bored! I don’t even know what the word means. No, I just thought I should spend some time with you…After all, you’re not here that often.” He looked at her searchingly. She knew very well what he wanted to talk about, and she could feel her headache starting to come back. There was no way out of it.
“It sounds like you all had a nice afternoon together then?” asked Heinz after clearing his throat.
Christine pictured the whole tray of champagne glasses they had emptied the day before. Her head had been throbbing ever since she woke up this morning. She wondered who had paid the horrendous bill; it hadn’t been her, in any case. Aunt Inge wouldn’t have been capable by that point, and Anika surely didn’t have that much money, so that only left Johann or dine-n-dashing as viable options. She would have to ask him later.
“Yes, it was really fun.” This answer didn’t seem to be enough for Heinz. He cocked his head to the side. “And you were out for a long time too. And I guess you drank a lot? Right?”
The image of Johann swaying with laughter as he had lifted their bikes onto the bus bike rack came into her mind, along with that of her and Aunt Inge asking the driver for tickets to List, woozy and slurring their words. He had to ask them to repeat their destination twice because they were giggling so much. They would never be able to get the bus here again. And hadn’t she fallen over in the aisle too?
“Right? Christine?”
“What? Yes, we had a few glasses of champagne, that’s right.”
Aunt Inge had turned down Anika’s offer to drive her to Petra’s. Instead, she had suggested having one for the road back at Christine’s parents’ place. Anika had shaken her head regretfully, saying she had to pick her son up, but that she would happily give them all a lift en route. But Johann had remembered seeing a bus you could take bikes on. “I want to go on one to try it out, and besides, Christine will fall off her bike if we try to ride. We can take Inge with us.”
Inge had been very enthusiastic about the suggestion, as she hadn’t been on a bus in years. “Great, I’ll pay for the bus tickets. But I want to sit right at the back, in the very last row.”
Christine suddenly remembered: she really had fallen over in the aisle, hitting her already bashed-up leg! And Inge had kissed her knee afterward, as if she were a child again. Unbelievable.
“Tell me, sweetie…” Heinz was chewing on his lower lip uneasily. “All that alcohol…”
He was butting in her life again. “Dad, I’m forty-six.”
“What? I know that. No, I wanted to talk to you about something else. Do you think Inge is an…how shall I put this? So, do you think that Inge…ahem…drinks?”
He gave his daughter a worried look. She stared at him in astonishment.
“What do you mean?”
He shifted in his seat in embarrassment. “Well, whether she has a…What do they call it?…An alcohol problem. Lots of marriages break down for that reason, and there are groups, too, you know, for people whose partners drink. And if Inge is knocking a few back every night nowadays, maybe there’s a bit of a problem because of that, I mean…Don’t look at me like that. There must be a reason why she’s suddenly turned up here on Sylt by herself.”
The only part of this wild theory that rang true for Christine was the fact that her aunt had been as drunk as a skunk the evening before. But did that mean she had a problem? Or that Uncle Walter did? The pounding in her head got worse and worse as Heinz’s voice got louder and louder, and her thoughts on the matter ground to a halt.
“You needn’t look so innocent. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you were tipsy too. I didn’t say anything, but I did notice, my girl, you mark my words!”
Tipsy? That was one way of putting it.
“Dad…” Taking great pains to speak in a calm tone, Christine tried to find the right thing to say. “I’m sure Aunt Inge isn’t an alcoholic. Don’t you worry. We just had a bit of a spontaneous celebration yesterday. Nothing to worry about. It won’t happen again.”
“Nothing to worry about?” His voice was shaking with sheer indignation. “Frau Gebauer saw you all on the bus. She said Inge patted the bus driver on the head, then sat with Johann on the back row, singing! At the top of her voice. Everyone was looking at them, she said.”
“Frau Gebauer is the biggest gossip on the whole island.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t exaggerating. After all, Inge always used to sing whenever she came out into the yard.”
“And you used to think it was funny. You even joined in for the chorus.”
He waved his hand. “Yes, yes, but Mom is seething. Inge opened the expensive champagne.”
“She’s mad about that?”
Heinz sighed. “Yes, because two glasses ended up broken. Her good ones. And she’s also mad because I drove Inge over to Petra’s and then stayed there awhile. But what am I supposed to do? She’s my little sister.”
“She’s sixty-four.”
“So? She’s clearly in the middle of a midlife crisis. And maybe that’s due to the drinking or vice versa. What do you think?”
Christine stood up and stretched. “I’m really sure yesterday was an exception. In any case, it doesn’t seem like she’s having a midlife crisis to me. She’s in too good a mood for that. And you know Mom always gets really worked up about her good glasses.”
Heinz didn’t look very reassured.
“I don’t know. I just don’t understand. She can’t run away from home at her age. It’s not appropriate behavior. If everyone did tha
t…”
Christine looked at him sympathetically. “Dad, just because Aunt Inge’s doing something doesn’t mean everyone else will follow suit. And it has nothing to do with you—or with you and Mom if that’s what you’re really worried about. Just wait and see what happens. Maybe everything will resolve itself in a few days. Okay? I’m going off for a shower. See you later.”
At the door, she turned around to look at him. He was still sitting there in the chair, chewing at his fingernails, and staring into space. He was clearly worried. Was he right to be?
Johann came into the bathroom just as Christine was contorting herself in an attempt to put moisturizer between her shoulder blades. He took the lotion from her hand.
“How did you even survive before you met me?”
“Not very well. And my back was always itching.” She kissed him as she turned around. “How was your run?”
“Nice.” He rubbed her back so lovingly that Christine felt her body relax. “And I hardly even got a stitch. I managed just under six miles. How’s your hangover?”
“My head’s throbbing and feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool. Who paid last night, by the way?”
“I did. You and your aunt weren’t even capable. Okay, you’re done.”
As Christine screwed the lid back on the bottle, she turned to face him.
“We weren’t that bad. And don’t you start too. My father’s already acting like we were completely wasted. We were just tipsy, that’s all. I can’t handle alcohol in the afternoon, and Aunt Inge doesn’t normally drink at all.”
At least she hoped that was the case.
Johann pulled his T-shirt over his head and snickered. “Hmm. Not that bad? Well, you fell asleep on the patio chair at seven thirty in the evening, and your aunt went off to make fried eggs. Your mother almost had a fit when she saw the state of her kitchen afterward. So Inge patted her shoulder and said that her compulsive cleaning was just a symptom of her discontentment with her marriage.”
