Newcomers (13 page)

T
WO OLD WOMEN
, tiny, white-haired sisters who were remarkably alike, lived on the riverside down from Karel’s house. Home for them was a little, half-wooden, half masonry cottage. They had one cow and somewhere far away from the village, in Prečna, a decent-sized potato field … One of them had lived in the country forever, while the other had worked much of her life in town as a servant, and she knew German … One day the two sisters ran into mother at the spring. They invited her over and encouraged her to bring Gisela and me along. The house stood right next to the Krka, which meant that their yard got flooded every now and then. It had a terrace made out of wooden battens. That’s where we sat with the little old ladies. They were so much
alike that I could only distinguish them by the fact that one of them spoke better German. Occasionally they brought supper up from their house for Gisela and me. A big slice of bread slathered with lard and cracklings … “Das ist ein slawischer Baum, das aber ein deutscher …”
^*
said the one who used to work in town as she pointed to a linden and an oak that grew in their tiny yard … I felt more strongly about the linden, although for mother’s sake I chose the oak. It was pleasant there with the breeze blowing off the water. Gisela and I would sit down by the water’s edge, next to a hole-ridden boat. How could we fix it?… It was filled with water up to the top, though you could still see its seats. A stubby, white, undamaged oar had been leaned up against the linden … That’s what intrigued me, the thought of rowing off down the Krka, far away, as far away as possible … I remembered the rowboats, sailboats and steamboats on the Rhine … The tugboat “Fleur des carrieres,” which came puffing its way out from under the bridge every day. In its belly and on its decks it transported a whole ironworks, with all manner of hellish cranes and rods sticking out … And the small boats that the water kept scooping up on all sides … The tour boat that took us on a trip through the vineyards. Even if all I had was the tiniest little boat with its prow constantly leaping up in the air!… My imagination carried me off and my head hurt from daydreaming …

Across a wide, muddy path that led from the yard of the two sisters to the inlet where we watered the horses, just behind a stand of
trees stood the woodsman’s big house … which was also masonry on the ground floor and wooden above, but imposing … There were already a lot of children living in it, mostly girls. The woodsman’s oldest son, dark-haired and pale, was always inventing something … mills, model airplanes … Following plans he assembled a radio with headphones, stretching its wires from the peak of the house to a shed by the water … on the way down the slope it was supported by trees, beanpoles, more trees … Everybody went there to listen … They put a scratchy gray headset on me. Everything outside got quiet and then from far off I heard, as though l were listening to that big seashell that we kept on the credenza at home in Basel … music, the music of violins and mandolins … It wasn’t like anything else in my world … A whole orchestra … My head was swimming in sounds … The lanky technician was in love with a blonde beauty, the girl from the new house with the red roof next to Karel’s meadow. But his parents and hers were like cats and dogs … The house belonged to the postman, who wasn’t a typical mailman, but an official who worked in a telegraph office … You got to the house over a gravel path where the veranda with the big, beautiful vase was … Their windows had dainty curtains on them … and the smells coming from their kitchen were of dishes that I’d once had at home but that the peasants here didn’t cook … Roasted potatoes, chicken, veal roulades, cutlets … the sweet smell of boiled marmalade, potica and puddings … of all possible sauces and soups with noodles … “Heute gibt es bei ihnen Kalbfleisch mit Blattspinat,”
^†
said mother, who had a nose for cooking … We ate
soured corn mush or browned flour soup … sometimes macaroni and bread, if we had it … The smell came straight out from under their pinned-up curtains … Lord, what a ravenous appetite I had when we lived there … I devoured every crust of bread I could find, turnips, carrots, every drink gone bad, fennel root, I chewed on wheat grains and corn … The smell of the puddings and meat literally became food for my head … since my goatskin of a stomach couldn’t have made sense of them, anyway … But if only I could have had a bellyful of all that abundance just once … The postman had a wife and daughter. Both were fine-looking and blonde … except the mother was older … small and as round as a wine cask. But the daughter!… Her hair, her red lips, her face like a doll’s, her eyes like blue candies … The beautiful hands that drew the curtains aside on Sundays, so you could see the brightly polished cupboard and the gold clock standing on it … Her whole head radiant amidst curls … Whenever I caught sight of her, I either froze or ran quickly away … She was studying to become a hairdresser … and sometimes she wore her blue flowing smock … She and the woodsman’s son, the technician, were in love … But the most they could do was nod at each other whenever they met. Once my two cousins and I were down by the washing stones. The woodsman’s son was beside himself, flushed, angry, tearful … He threw himself down on the grassy path, on top of one of the molehills. He began to convulse and simulate making love to a girl. Ivan and Ciril didn’t move … They stood there and watched without saying a word … until the woodsman’s son got up and put his thing, which gleamed like one of the nipples on an udder, back into his pants …

T
HE HOUSE WITH BIG WINDOWS
and a garden cottage that stood amid fields on the far side of the railway tracks belonged to the engineer … I had seen him: he wore a wide-brimmed hat and a black cloak. He knew Greek and Latin, they said … Knowing several languages meant you could change the world, your surroundings even more, and in other ways … let’s say the woods by the train tracks … In short order they could become an ancient forest with pagan gods and bulls that knew how to speak … Pavlica, his wife, wore her kerchief differently from peasant women. Just a touch higher, like the housekeepers in Basel when they came out to beat their carpets … And their rakes, hoes, shovels, and watering cans were all vividly decorated, resembling playthings … Besides blooms of all colors, shapes and kinds, the flower beds in their garden also had glass balls … that were big and all the colors of the rainbow, as though for Christmas … They changed your body and face, made you look skinny … Mother hurried over to visit the engineer’s wife with a whole armful of fashion magazines that we’d brought with us from Basel … She hoped to get an order to sew a dress for her. This time for money, not barter … And following the latest fashion, at that … Despite her nervousness she was fearful and tight-lipped. Oh, but she did know how to behave with clients. In Basel she had hosted various customers … whether wacky, wealthy, serious, or revolting … She pulled together everything she had in those old stacks … various flounces, patterns, blouses, lengths, widths, skirts, laces … even an ocean of silk. What people were wearing, what was in and what wasn’t … no more pleat on the right side, but down the middle … this sort of cuffs on the blouses, the décolleté
square now, big buttons made out of glass, a new sort of sleeve … Meanwhile Gisela and I played with the lady’s children … and others from the neighborhood … In their garden shed, which was filled with chairs, side tables, useless tools, also a big dynamo, an engine cylinder, some technical handbooks … I taught them to drum … I made faces imitating the masks that our Waggis wore and other disguises from the pre-Lenten parade … I had them bent over with laughter … Wrestlers from the amusement park, a magician, a weight-lifter, a fire swallower, contestants in the bicycle races … a canary pecking from a feedbox labeled “Zukunft …” All of it done with just sounds and gestures. They laughed so hard they sprained their mouths … Then I showed them how a bull had jumped up on one of Karel’s cows … from on top of a table, where I depicted the whole business, I leapt up onto Gisela and mimicked the bull while Gisela imitated the cow … They were rolling on the floor with laughter … guffawing like trumpets and horns. Then suddenly they were all quiet!… In the doorway the engineer’s wife had appeared … With her eyes practically bulging out of her head. “Hinaus! Out!” she shrieked, brandishing a red feather duster … All the others were on their feet staring at us. I was already familiar with scenes like this from school. I picked Gisela up and practically flew with her in my arms out of there, to the train tracks … right past the the duster’s red handle … Before long everybody had heard everything about the theater in the garden shed … mother, Karel, Mica … Ciril, Ivan, Uncle Jožef … Stanka, Anica, Minka, the woodsman … Suddenly there was nobody left who didn’t burn holes in me with their eyes whenever I met them … That was the reward for fun,
for acting silly … If I had at least been dressed for mardi gras, like a Harlequin at the fair … they would have applauded me and I would have gotten a hatful of coins …

Poldka was the name of the crazy woman who lived in the little house with the black roof … She would stir a long, rusty fork in a big kettle, like a witch … She cooked using water that she collected in bowls and buckets under her eaves and in kettles set out on her roof … She amost never came outside … I actually liked her. Despite the fact that her face was always sooty and her hair was just a black fringe. She would sit leaning out the window of her little house. I would chat with her … half using words, half with gestures … Especially about masqueraders, which would make her laugh. She was a kind woman, I could sense it. Not until during one of our conversations when I picked at the cinders did I realize that her house was built out of logs, not sheets of tin … But what was it that kept accumulating in her room behind her? Some bags or other, like in the photos of trenches at the front during the war, and rusty hoops. What was behind all of that?…

There was a little white house that stood above Karel’s turnip patch. With a fine view of the whole village. It was as though it stood there on stilts … a childless man and his wife lived in it … She was a big, fat, ruddy woman. She had a head like a red pumpkin. He was short, inconspicuous, slight … and practically bobbed around in his jacket and big, baggy pants, as though he were wrapped in a cloud. Sometimes he shouted, or sang … He drank elderberry wine. He would stand stock still out in the turnip patch. He couldn’t find the right
words for his fun … he just pointed at something and kept grinning. He was his own best parody … Once I saw him standing next to an ox on some stones on the slope beneath the postman’s house … The ox was hauling logs. The little fellow was hauling off at it with the fat handle of a whip. Smack! Smack!… On its muzzle, its nostrils, on its withers and neck. The ox stayed standing amid the stones like a colossus. Smack! Smack! Something like blood streamed down its muzzle … it spurted … and the forester’s children appeared at the fence. Alongside the furious little stick puppet of a man, the ox was as beautiful as a water sprite compared to an old witch … And it had to endure that revolting elf as it kept hitting it on the muzzle … No! I picked up a stone and … ping!… it flew straight into the gargoyle’s armpit … “Oowww!” he shouted … But then the ox moved forward … and the forester’s kids attacked from the rear … They rescued me … Then one afternoon there was a sudden commotion with lots of shouting … everybody ran uphill to the house … The fat woman had taken an axe to her sadistic wimp of a husband!… Everyone came running uphill over the turnip beds … they were shouting as though they’d been skinned, as though they were late to the amusement park … Men, women wearing a hundred skirts, children. Hurry! Hurry! A gendarme was already standing there, brown and red as a cockatoo. He was shouting at them and into the entryway behind him … The woman was sitting at the table in her kitchen … half naked in her linen underthings … arms propped on the table, supporting her head, which was splotchy and red halfway down her back from the sun and from drink … with a liter bottle of brandy … and an open
tin of marmalade … With one hand she spooned marmalade into her mouth … or scratched her belly … then glug, glug! from the bottle … There was a puddle under the table that kept creeping forward … Blood! The axe with its long handle, the kind Karel used to teach me to split logs and branches, stood by the door … The gendarme and forester lifted her up … She clutched onto the table as she tried to get upright … and the bottle and marmalade went crashing into the hearth … They brought her a blue coat from the main room with a little wooden heart attached to the collar … And they led her downhill. To a strange, closed wooden cart with two horses whose manes had been cut short … The woman kept scratching her big belly and holding her head back … Everyone stared … The whole hill was awash in horror … They pushed her into the cart from the rear, like some broken thing … everyone crowding around the door … Nothing was visible, except for its gray wall … The gendarme tromped back uphill … This was the first time I saw a murderer, a murderess … The whole time I was waiting for everyone to jump on her, or attack the gendarme to rescue her … I was waiting to see how far they would go in their rage … from what depths they would draw it … But nothing! For a full week that was all they talked about … They were simple … Sheer gossip-mongers … All they had inside them were bruises, cheap wine, and howls … Nothing but meaningless junk … But the women were different … They at least kept all of their music … the moments of great emotion, the moaning, the tears … Everything in my surrounding that was far off and that I didn’t know well enough stayed the same after this murder … But the
pear tree in front of the house, the garden, the barn, Karel’s meadow, the turnip beds all refused to change back to the way they were before. They didn’t want to be tamped back into their shells. The shade under the pear tree was black … it ate right into the grass and deep into the dirt … It took a week for me to somehow regain my composure. But I still didn’t feel safe. Not until Sunday, when I went with Karel to mass. I had to. To Prečna on foot … Clusters of peasants were walking down the road. Wearing black shoes, neckties, hats, pocket chains. To hear the word of God … Uncle Jožef drove his carriage past us with his children and wife. He and Karel didn’t exchange greetings. They had been at each other for some time now … I only said hi to Ciril and Ivan, who saluted me back … The church was packed with people singing the holy songs. It stank of cheap wine, tobacco, lavender, and soap. And on account of the soap, that much more strongly of dung, which their shoes had tracked in … Nothing bothered them. What sort of God was it that they imagined, anyway? The priest, wearing a gold-edged scarf over his white shirt, spoke above a stove that had two books lying on it … Calmly, like a teacher who always says the same thing. His voice echoed in a way that was supremely grotesque … But he should have been scolding them, he should have shaken his fist at every last one of them down here, thrown books at their heads, or a cross, or the angels that hung from the stove … Nothing. It was only the high walls that made his voice echo and a few times his eyeglasses flashed in a way that made me think: here it comes now! No … His steady voice put me to sleep … I started to doze … After mass Karel weeded a bit around his parents’ grave … otherwise he stood with his
head thrust up like a construction crane. That mound was where his mother and father were … not that far down at all … He ought to do something! Establish some contact with them!… The whole cemetery had a fine, intensely sour scent to it, despite all the flowers … If you took a deep breath of it here, it would follow you out onto the street … Then Karel tried to get me to go with him to a tavern … I didn’t want to go inside with him, I resisted, because I knew he was going to force me to drink brandy again … I stayed on a bench outside, waiting … There was a crowd in the tavern … A whole bunch of women were inside … wearing headscarves, the town ones wore straw hats with lots of flowers and hard-edged barrettes … the peasant men wearing hats … They talked like animals, like the fabled town musicians of Bremen … with loud barks and belches … They were like dogs, hens, tigers, wolves, donkeys, lice … The best you could hope for from their likes was scabies …