Newcomers (7 page)

We proceeded along some other fence toward a house that shone white in the high grass to the left. This whole meadow that stretched off toward a fog-shrouded forest, as huge as an airport … was this uncle’s? The house had to be white or at least yellow to show in the dark like that, and its windows were edged in black and had wide
ledges … The roof came down to the level of our heads as we walked past, and from the sound of it the river was close by … Vati went all around the house and came right back … “Keiner hört etwas.”
^†
 … The house was asleep. Or else there wasn’t a living soul in it. A whole bucket of water came pouring down off a tree behind us when father broke off one of its branches … Did he have a right to do that? He tapped on the nearest windowpane with his stick. A face appeared in the darkness, then a light … an actual flame in a kind of bottle. The face said something from behind the windowpane … it was a long, white face with a mustache … Uncle Karel! He opened the window, which was as small as the window on the door of a WC … and he stuck his head out. “Das its der Onkel.”
^‡
I was suddenly petrified with respect. Vati said something to him in his foreign language … while I looked at uncle, at his white, sleepy face, his long, handsome head sticking out into the darkness, his dark, close-cropped hair, and the nose that shone above his mustache. But especially his eyes, which were as big and black as buttons. “Wir müssen um das Haus.”
^§
Vati proceeded as though he were a little drunk, and walked at a slant … The house stood on a slope. When we reached it, it was even farther down. We had to go in single file, because the hill was so steep. The water sounded closer and closer … It washed up into the bushes, not too far down from the house … I went past a small window with adhesive tape still stuck to it in the shape of an X at the level of my
head. It was open and the smell of fresh mortar and sand wafted from inside … At the corner stood a strange device that was two meters tall. With a big log aimed at the sky on two stakes set far apart … and it creaked and groaned. Maybe it was some kind of machine that had no real function, maybe it was just for show … Then there was a black heap that stank nastily and two barrels that gave off the smell of carrots or vinegar … and now at our feet we no longer had water and mud, but cement … When the door opened, the light illuminated a gray vaulted ceiling. Uncle was holding it open … he was wearing a hat, an undershirt and skivvies … we went in … to the warm, sleeping darkness of the house, as though we were walking into sleep … The stone entryway was black … and warmth drifted out of some deep hole in the wall, where red coals were glowing … My whiskered uncle opened another black door … it had a big iron box on the door for a lock, like the ones that can be seen on castle doors. This door opened into a wide, warm room with a low ceiling … There were two narrow beds in it, both made high with comforters and pillows … someone was lying in one of them and next to the door there was a big stone chest with a bench around it … “Jetzt sind wir endlich zuhause,”
^‖
said Vati. He said something to uncle and pointed to mother, who laughed and offered her hand … to Gisela … and to me. I studied him when he lifted the light to his eyes. He had a genuinely handsome, pale, slightly triangular face. Emphatic black eyebrows and mustache and big eyes like two buttons. Only his bare feet sticking out of his long
underwear were strangely shapeless, as though he constantly lived in water. Otherwise he was as handsome as a film star … Only one thing was strange: such a handsome man, yet so badly dressed and living in such an impoverished shack. I would never have been able to compare him to Vati. Vati was made out of silk … fragile, small, with a goatee, wearing his broad-rimmed hat, narrow trousers, with a thin cigarette in a holder. His hair always shone blue and gray. I would never have guessed that he and Karel were brothers … “Die Tante Mizi, meine Schwester. Sie ist krank.”
^a
 … On the other bed by a window in the corner an old woman with a scarf on her head lay in her clothes … When I got close so she could look at me, too, I saw she had eruptions all over her face that were wet and as red as smeared makeup. She reached a hand out from under the quilt … Good God, it was like some inflated bird claw, its upper side covered with little sores. Vati bent down toward her, said something cheerful and laughed … She opened her mouth and I saw a few teeth, stumps and bits of gray metal … she answered in a creaky voice … She studied mother’s face carefully, very seriously … Oh, I knew instantly what she was thinking, because she took a big swallow. She looked at me and smiled, she had very bright, sharp eyes despite all the scabs and oozing eruptions … which covered her forehead, too, like boils … I had to look away. Mother sat on the bench by the chest, barefoot, holding her hand over Gisela’s eyes. She wouldn’t let her go near our aunt. I sat next to her, something stung like the devil on my back, and I stopped
coughing … “Ziehen wir uns aus,”
^b
mother said. Vati and our dark-haired uncle sat in the middle of that strange … room, one of them on a chair, the other on a footstool. Father’s speech was cheerful but timid, refined and curious, while uncle spoke loudly, as though he were talking to someone in front of the house … that was the spirit! I took off my stockings … they came off my feet like a hippopotamus hide, and the sandals were just muddy lumps … What hadn’t they seen that night!… Mother was dressing Gisela in her nightshirt straight out of the open suitcase … a bit irritated, as though she were back home in Basel. Uncle sat with the knees of his long legs pulled up under his chin, and he looked at her and said something through his mustache. Vati looked over at her. “Heute Nacht schläfst du, Lisbeth, mit der Zwetschge in diesem Bett. Du kannst das nasse Zeug über den Ofen hängen.”
^c
Father pointed past me, to where there were some rods that had rags hanging from them. “Frag den Karl …”
^d
mother said, but Vati headed her off in embarrassment, “Er wartete beim Zug um sieben, aber das Telegramm hat er später nicht bekommen wegen des schlechten Wetters. Es hat gehagelt und die Felder und viele Obstbäume sind kaputt.”
^e
I looked at uncle. There was something about him that suggested he was laughing internally. Perhaps the strange
light was at fault for that, or his mustache, or the late hour … Vati’s sister chimed in here without lifting her swaddled head from the pillow … I didn’t care to look at her a second time, because I knew that from now on I was going to have to love and respect her. “Karel wird auf dem Heuboden schlafen, ich und Bubi auf dem Ofen. Nur für heute Nacht …”
^f
Mother … who had always been fearful of touching … spread some towels over the bed that was Karel’s and that she was supposed to sleep in with Gisela. Our aunt looked at her, her cheek resting on her pillow … “Daß ihr nicht hinunterfallt,”
^g
mother said. “Nein, nein,” Vati brushed her comment aside. Uncle lifted me … upsy!… onto the stove. What hands he had! Like whips! A bag lay on the stove whose contents crinkled … straw or onion skins? “Das ist Kukuruz,”
^h
Vati reassured me. “In allen Betten sind Kukuruzblätter.”
ⁱ
I tried to catch a glimpse of uncle’s face, to see if it had that smile or if it was just a shadow … He left the room for another lamp and a blanket. The rags that hung from the rods over my head were yellow and spotted and didn’t come close to smelling of Persil. Only now, from atop this odd stove, did I get a really good look at the room. Black straw-like stalks jutted out of cracks in the white plaster. Beneath a cross in the corner above our aunt’s bed, two dark painted pictures stood on a small shelf alongside a tiny flame in a red glass … they were the woman and man from church who pointed at their bare
chests with red, bleeding hearts that emitted flames and rays of light, but also had swords and a crown of thorns planted on them. That was probably Jesus and his mother, Mary … Aunt’s eyes were closed. She was either sleeping or she was bored. Mother and Gisela lay hugging each other. Uncle Karel arrived with a thin, hole-ridden blanket. He stood in the doorway with a second, dust-covered lamp in hand. When he spoke with Vati, who was holding that first lamp, the clean one, I noticed under the mustache on his pale yellow face that grin like a taut string … I could see the very same grin in his eyes, which were even more pronounced … No, this wasn’t a smile … this was scorn. This made me sad. Vati blew out the light. He lay down beside me. The space over the stove was hard and very hot. All I could see of the desolate room were two gray windows and the red light beneath the pictures. Aunt Mica was snoring. “Bubi! Vati!” mother quietly called out. “Ja! Ja!” the two of us answered. She always worried until everyone was home and under the covers … After that there was only the sound of the corn husks crinkling in their bed. It was great to go to sleep in this African hut, even if much of what came before sleeping had resembled dreams. But there was tomorrow …

W
HEN
I
WOKE
up and looked out from under the rags, mother and Gisela were still asleep. Even our old aunt was still lying with her scarf over her face and her cane by the bed. Vati was gone from where I was. The stove had gone cold. The sun was shining outside both little windows … more brilliantly, clearly and powerfully than
I’d ever before seen it shine anywhere in the world, that could only happen somewhere near Africa … but outside the third window there stretched a long, wet, almost black shadow. I could see trees, vividly green grass, blossoms … tiny ones, big ones, of all different glorious colors. The two pictures over the little cross, of Jesus and Mary pointing to their dripping hearts, still hung there, too, but they were darker than last night, even though the red light was still burning … Wow, at last I was here!… I was just a little chilly and there was something that smelled sour and wilted. Maybe our aunt. Gisela woke up and mother started shifting around on her corn husks. Then auntie stirred and climbed out of her narrow bed … she slept in a long blue habit, similar to what nuns wear, only it was covered with crosses. She wasn’t big when she got up. Only her nose jutted far out in front of her. Her feet had been bundled up in many layers of yellow rags. The kind that were hanging from the rods over the stove … She looked up in my direction and mother signaled to me emphatically with her eyebrows. I climbed down onto the bench, bowed and said, “Guten Morgen, Tante.” She giggled out loud and the gray eyes in her red, pustular face shone radiantly, in a way that only crazy or very intelligent eyes can shine … Gisela and mother got up. “Wo ist der Vati?”
^*
I asked her. “Er ist mit dem Onkel zum Bahnhof wegen der Koffer gegangen … Ach, wir müssen zum Wasser und auch unser Zeug waschen,”
^†
she complained.… I jumped down … onto
the wide floorboards … and over to the window … Beneath it there was nothing but flowers. And such flowers! Lilac, red, orange, black with yellow stripes, tiny satiny flowers … and big ones full of little stars. Aunt was standing in the open doorway with a paring knife in her hand and her face shone in the sun like the shard of a red platter … Then we heard noise approaching the front of the house … Uncle Karel entered the room dressed in black trousers, a green jacket and wearing a hat. Instead of a lantern he was carrying a nice, fat whip over his shoulder. Now, in the daylight, his face was even whiter and his mustache and hair were jet black … His forehead shone like wax. He came up to me and tapped on the windowpane with his whip and said in his youthful voice, “Window!” Maybe he meant the flowers, aunt, the sun, or that I should should go out and wash up. Using his whip, which had little multi-colored braids at its tip, he etched out the whole pane. “Was das?”
^‡
he asked. “Oh!… Scheibe, Fenster, fenêtre …”
^§
I answered. “Window!” he said. I looked at him intently. Maybe around his mouth or his eyes or someplace else on his face he had a dot … a wrinkle … features … something that crept out of his mustache, his eyebrows, his nostrils observing someone and something about me, on my forehead, my cheek or even inside my head. “W-i-n-d-o-w!” he repeated distinctly. I repeated artlessly, hopelessly into the empty room, as though in some school where I knew absolutely nothing, “Vindoh!” … Uncle laughed his head off. I wanted out of
there as soon as possible. But he stopped me. He got down on his knees and used the whip to pull something like slippers out from under the bench … in fact they were clogs that had been made out of worn-out shoes with no upper parts. “For you,” he said … So these were for me, I understood. My sandals really were just heaps of caked mud …

What was just on the other side of the door wasn’t an entryway, but a kitchen where our suitcases were standing … Inside the black hole where last night coals had been glowing they baked bread. This ingenious device was an invention worthy of Indians … Inside that wide, dark tunnel they heated the house, baked bread, fried things, cooked them in pots, Vati explained to mother. The hole in the wall got wider the farther in it went and on the other side it expanded into a stove as big as a monument that simultaneously kept the room warm, served as a sleeping space and even a drying area … “Wenn wir uns so einen Ofen und Herd in Basel leisten könnten, hätten wir viel Geld gespart.”
^‖
That was true. But when I looked inside at its walls shimmering with heat and saw a heap of glimmering embers, I remembered the witch from the gingerbread house and I pulled my head out of there right away … From out of one corner Aunt Mica took one of several long poles that had a wide wooden ring on the end. Onto it she slapped a whole mountain of dough no smaller than an infant … She showed us how she put the paddle into the oven
and then yanked it back out from under the loaf of dough … I soon looked away …