Shorter Days (14 page)

She has to open the window. She should have done it before. So his soul can escape. Wenzel's soul—where is it now? Hanging in the bedroom lamp? Hiding behind the curtains? What color would it be? Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The sun is shining. It shines on the elderberry bush in the garden, which is shedding its yellow leaves. The birds are filling their bellies with the black berries—shame! The Rapp woman doesn't want to pick the things and make elderberry soup with semolina dumplings. She's afraid of poison, only buys organic.

Marigolds are blooming down in the flower bed—yellow-orange suns. Those are the right flowers. Flowers for the dead. You can't use them for fortune-telling: He loves me, from the heart, we'll never part, a little, not at all. A few of them will go on the bedside table, with the candles next to them—that will be just right. The water is still warm—she set it down on the bedside rug. Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home!

Wenzel is wearing his light-blue pajamas—they suit him. The field mouse has gone to her nest. The daisies have shut up their sleepy red eyes and the birds and bees are at rest. First the cognac-cloth over the eyes. How art thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn! How doth thy visage languish that once was bright as morn! Never again will I look into your eyes, my love. Stuffed with rags, and into the grave. And your mouth, your half-open mouth, says nothing to me. I've brought you your teeth. Your tongue is cold and dumb, it will form no more words. You gave me my name, and now I have none—I'm not your little bird, not
milácku
, not Luiserl. Now from thy cheeks has vanished their color once so fair; from thy red lips is banished the splendor that was there. Grim death, with cruel rigor, hath robbed thee of thy life; thus thou hath lost thy vigor, thy strength in this sad strife. The glow worm is lighting her lamp; the dew's falling fast, and your fine speckled wings will flag with the close clinging damp. Your beard grew during the night, I'll have to shave you. We won't cut your fingernails, that's not done. First wash and get dressed, then shave and do your hair. What do you want to wear?

Luise goes to the closet. All Wenzel's suits are nice. Better to spend a little more, and then you can enjoy it longer. The dark suit and white shirt. Is it properly ironed: no creases, no kinks? Underwear—a shirt and shorts. And socks, black socks, those will be good, just make sure they're not darned. Black lace-ups—the soles are worn smooth, you don't like to wear them—too slippery. I'll break my neck. The hat's in the coat closet, I'll go get that now. It's a long way and she gasps for air, but everything has to be taken care of now, not later. Brush it off a bit, the rim is dusty—there. I'll put your things on the chair so I'll have everything right at hand. And now I'll take off your pajamas. Come on, don't be so heavy. Undo the buttons, you can see the scar on your chest—poorly stitched—from the shrapnel that saved you from Stalingrad. Then the appendix, 1966 in Marienhospital. I was so worried for you then. Students kept coming by with flowers and fruit. Not so strict after all, were you? You still have the stitches from the sea urchin on your left sole: Sicily, the Roman villa with the mosaic floors, a hundred degrees in the shade. You walked all over, you knew all about everything, and I could never remember a thing. Only the couple on the bedroom floor. The woman had a naked bum and the man had his hand on it.

Your chest is so strong, so wide—you're still purdy Wenzel. The hair on it has grown white, but the nipples are like two stars. I just have to lean against you once more. You're cold. Wenzel, I have to wash you now. Neck, shoulders, arms. Strong arms: Come, hold me. You smell like wine. Do you remember the wine we drank in my room, that first time? That was no Trollinger, it was a French one, a white. I got it out of a ruined building, stole it. Everyone stole back then. It was very expensive wine; we could have traded it for bread. But instead we drank the whole thing. Now I'll wash your belly. You have lint in your belly button, every day there's a little ball of fluff—how does that happen? Now down with your pants, you need fresh ones. Everything's running out of you. Poor darling, I'll clean you up. It doesn't disgust her—it's just like taking care of a little child.

Now you're naked. Who will come to you and say: Wenzel, come on, get up? Or: Wenzel, Wenzel come forth! They'd gone to St. Maria every Sunday. The two black stone towers were part of the ritual, as was hanging around afterward outside on the square, the buzzing, high chatter of the Bohemian dialect. C'mon aiver! Heya, Traudl, heya! Lots of Catholics were from “hime.” But only say the word and I shall be healed. When had the word been spoken to her, or to Wenzel? What is your faith? I am a Christian. Why are you a Christian? Because I believe in Jesus Christ and was baptized in His name. Sometimes she felt cheated—it seemed to be something that only happened to others: Saul, who fell from his horse, blinded by a light, was allowed to hear a voice: Why persecutest thou me? A poor devil like herself, he was supposed to have believed blindly, with no proof at all. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. They had never talked about it. And she could happily live for weeks without thinking of the Lord God or of Jesus Christ. Unlike her parents, her nana, and Aunt Annelies, who had radiated faith, even singing as they kneaded bread: Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices; Who from our mothers' arms has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

Catholicism was always strange to her. Dipping her hand in the little tub of holy water on the wall when she entered the church disgusted her. It reminded her of the rain barrel in Uhlbach, the standing water swarming with mosquito larvae and other creatures. She touched her dripping hand to her forehead and made the sign of the cross. She practiced in front of the mirror so she wouldn't get muddled: Forehead, breast, left shoulder, right shoulder. Another little genuflection toward the altar before entering the pew, toward the contorted Christ, and Mary, standing there in blue and gold with the crescent moon under her slender foot. Why was she stepping on the moon? And the other ones standing around in every corner: St. Anthony, St. John, St. Urban—proper idols, really. It didn't feel right to her. She felt as if she were in a strange temple, a place where forbidden things were done.

And now? What good was any of it? Wenzel's Our Father rattled in the mouth like gravel:
Santificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. You could understand that and not at the same time. She tries the prayer, as if tasting spilled soup or spoiled milk. Is it good, or will she have to spit it out? Oh mother, what I feel within, no sacrament can stay; no sacrament can teach the dead to bear the light of day.

Let me touch you one last time. That's you, that's the best part of you. That's what you always said. You couldn't manage to say anything else. Our mothers didn't teach us a word for it. There were only the dirty words you heard on the street. Or something like “down there.” I'll take it in my hand, look at it. It's heavy, it will never grow again, never blossom. It was always nice, doing it with you. Sex, as the young people say. Another stupid word, like cell phone. I always liked lying under you, even now. Remember that afternoon—it must have been the end of September. The sun was beating down so hard that we rolled down the shutters, and the two little boys were down in the garden screeching because the Rapp woman was spraying them with the hose. No one would have guessed that the two old people were lying upstairs in the shadows, naked on their marriage bed in the Indian summer. Yes, we have to go slowly. Even taking off our clothes takes forever. But it still works, and it's still nice, just as nice as it used to be. But different. I don't like to look in the mirror anymore while we do it. Then I see an old woman, a ghost with with wrinkled ass-cheeks and sagging breasts. You I can still stand—you're still strong and have that same brown skin and plenty of hair. It used to go so quick, we didn't even need a bed. Do you remember: on the kitchen floor, in the living room, against the wall in the hallway—there's not a place in this house where we haven't made love.
Milácku
,
milácku
! That's darling, to us. Come, here are your shorts. You're so cold, the warm water doesn't do any good, and it's grown quite tepid. Now I'm an old woman, it's finally happened. You still wanted me—no one else knew it, but I did. Who would ever think it to see an old woman wobbling down the street with her old man—that they could still do anything together. I was your wife, and now I'm an old woman—no one's sweetheart. The sheets—I'll have to take them off, later. Now the socks—Come on, sweetheart, come.

Your ring—Will you give it to me? I'd rather let you keep it—it's from me: Luise, 9.9.1946. It's probably barely legible by now. Did you ever take it off to betray me? I never asked. Young people talk so much—I know from Bruni, they tell each other everything, they hear each other's confessions. Purdy Wenzel, so many women had their eyes on you: not just Kopka-Edith from the teacher's college. There were chic women, skinnier than me, women with more education, who could do more than type out the chocolate girls' payroll in duplicate. If there was ever anyone else, you mercifully kept it from me. You did right. The ring is thin, cold, and smooth. It doesn't fit me, it's too loose. I have to stick it under mine—building a little tower of cheap gold for you and me. Wenzel and Luise. What a tiny wedding we had: bride and bridegroom, the priest and a handful of guests, since your people were all still “back hime.” Mother and Aunt Annelies were there from my side. Father and both brothers dead in the war—that turned them both so quiet they didn't even fuss about the Catholic ceremony. And they liked you. You were a teacher, after all, worthy of respect, friendly, charming, helpful. But will he stay with you, Luisle? Fatty celebrated her golden anniversary with the handsome man from far away, but they weren't around to see it.

Wenzel's arms and legs are stiff and unyielding. She tries to bend them to get them into the shirt and suit pants. Luise hears the stitches of her blouse ripping. She tastes sweat on her upper lip, feels it tickling down her back. She wheezes heavily. The pain in her back is unbearable. Finally she takes her husband's hand and cries out. It rings loudly in the empty room and into his face, which is losing its familiarity with every passing minute, becoming ever less Wenzel, ever more the face of some unknown. “Wenzel, g'dressed! Wenzel, I've t'dressya! Wenzel, g'dressed ferth' journey!” Her voice breaks at these last words. She's not in Uhlbach anymore, where her mother had yelled these words into the silent faces of the Schuster woman and her own mother-in-law, to make the dead limbs go more willingly into their Sunday clothes. She's alone on Constantinstraße, and her whimpering brings Schlamper to the doorway, his tail drooping between his legs.

The Rapp woman is cleaning the window. Luise can see her white face, wrinkled with effort between the eyebrows. She's a pretty woman, Rapp, but she's always sad, always anxious. Poisonous food, deadly traffic, a winter without snow. Her kind never made it through the war. There are always people like that—the kind that think too much and then give up because they can't bear it, imagining all the things that could happen. The Rapp woman has a roll of paper towels and a bucket of warm water. Steam rises into the cold autumn air. Her arm pushes the rag over the pane in a circular motion. Rapp can't see Luise sitting on the embroidered chair in the hallway, her head leaning against the doorway to the living room. Only Schlamper is visible to her. He's asleep in his basket, in the middle of the Bokhara rug. His paws twitch slightly. Luise can see Frau Rapp looking into the room, casting a quick glance over what she sees, then bending back over her bucket. Schlamper is tired, and no wonder. Poor Schlamper. So much commotion this morning, and not even a proper walk. She'd dragged him with her to the Turk's, but he hadn't been allowed to stop. She had to hurry to get the lemon for Wenzel. She laid the fruit under his chin. It's bound up tidily with Traudl's napkin. His skin is already almost as yellow as the thick, fragrant rind.

The bells from St. Markus chime two. High time for lunch. No, she won't be cooking today. Bread and butter will do. Grease slices, Wenzel called them. And she has to make coffee—coffee, bread and butter, and a few pills to make this confounded pain stop. She can sit with Wenzel to eat the bread. If you look at a dead man while you eat, your teeth will fall out. Her teeth are long gone, anyway.

The Rapp woman has long since packed it in. She's upstairs with her boys, of course. I hear the bells from St. Markus. Quarter of three already. And I can't even make it to the kitchen—I just can't get up. Come on, Wenzel, help me! Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I fell asleep and dreamt the whole thing—sometimes dreams can feel so real. Those tests at business school—I still sometimes wake up drenched in sweat dreaming of them. I just dreamt it. I'll call him and he'll come help me out of the chair, he'll bring me my pills and a glass of water. Wenzel! Wenzel! Wenzel!

He looks good. The black shoes shine like a mirror, the red-and-blue-striped tie gleams on his chest. And the white shirt. His hat lies on the pillow. She had folded his hands and wrapped rosary beads around them. His feet point toward the door, the hymnal is propped under his heels. It's his missal—he wouldn't want the Protestant one. Wenzel is freshly shaved, he has his teeth in, the cognac-cloth over his eyes, and his hair combed neatly to the side with hair lotion. She'd broken the comb and smashed the washbowl, her one-time soup tureen, to pieces outside in the kitchen. Two pink candles burn on the nightstand. Everything is right.