Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything (5 page)

But still, I can't help shedding a few tears. He lifts me up and sits me on the edge of the bed. I fall back, close my eyes, and feel
the warm humidity of his breath between my legs, then his lips, his tongue—I'm falling. He makes a noise like a dying animal—a furious, desperate panting. I don't dare to open my eyes. He grabs my legs, pushes them wide open, and enters me. He starts thrusting, then faster and harder. I slide backward, he grips my arms, turns me onto my stomach and pushes a pillow under my pelvis. I don't understand, I try to turn over, I want to see his face, but he puts his heavy hand on my neck and holds me down. I close my eyes.

Shortly before midnight I leave Henner's house carrying my case. As a good-bye he takes my head in his hands and plants a kiss on my forehead. Then he puts his index finger to his lips. I nod, perhaps not distinctly enough; I sense that his eyes on my back lack their usual certainty. So I turn and repeat the gesture he was looking for.

6

The following morning I get up before Johannes. He was asleep when I got back; he probably thought I was spending the night at my mother's.

I'd lain down beside him fully clothed. Shivering, sweating. My sweat mingled with Henner's odor; the cracked patches of his dried semen felt taut on my skin. I was terrified that Johannes might wake up, stroke me and realize what had happened; but I couldn't bring myself to wash off the smell. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I couldn't sleep.

Nor can I forget.

And now the morning sun with its revealing light. I creep out of the room and downstairs to the bathroom where I fill the tub.
Marianne is in the shop, Siegfried out in the animal sheds, and Frieda is standing at the gate waiting for the guests. It's just past eight o'clock; they won't be here before noon.

When I undress I see the bruises on my body. I feel desperate. What have I done? What did Henner do? Everyone's going to notice, starting with Johannes, of course. How can I hide the traces of his hands all over my neck, arms, and thighs? There's no denying it, it can't be explained away. They'll send me back to my mother and the shame will stick to me like bad luck. That's how it still is in our village, even though it's 1990.

Outside clouds are looming; it's going to rain. The air is cooling, a wind is picking up. The weather will save me! From my suitcase I take a blue dress with mid-length sleeves, blue with white spots; it covers my knees. Over it I wear a white cardigan and I wrap a scarf around my neck. My face doesn't give anything away; he spared that.

Right at the bottom of my case is an envelope; I didn't put it there. It's not sealed, and there's a note inside with the single sentence: “He lay awake at night, desiring her, and he had her.” I look over at Johannes, who's still asleep and knows nothing. I'm utterly ashamed, and yet—I keep the note.

Later, at brunch, I start talking. I babble on and on at Johannes. About my grandparents, how they're renovating the house after all these years, about how Traudel was always so envious of people who had automatic washing machines while she was still using a tub. I blather about my mother and how she's out of work, about my father and his young Russian girl, who I might make friends with, but perhaps I'll hate her, if she's pretty I'll definitely hate her, and she's supposed to be very pretty, Grandpa saw a photo and said, “not bad,” Grandpa knows all about pretty girls, he had an eye for the women, as the landlord of the local tavern once put it, but that's all in the past, I mean he's an old man now. Johannes only looks up when I'm talking about the Russian girl, and says, “She's just a year older than me.”

I nod and continue my monologue. Eventually Siegfried comes into the kitchen and says they must be here soon, the Westerners. “Yes,” I say. “It can't be long now!”

And it isn't long, which is a relief, because Frieda's had butterflies for hours. She's quite distracted. She was in the kitchen cooking at four this morning. Everything was done by the time I came down for breakfast; lunch only needs warming up. After a while we hear a soft purring in the drive—a completely new sound to us. Lukas in particular will remember it for a long time. He's never seen a car like it: a real Mercedes, we hadn't expected that. Frieda steps aside and peers into the distance as if she were expecting more visitors. But then she closes the gate and, head bowed, approaches Hartmut, who has just gotten out of the car. She clasps her hands over her large tummy, nodding all the while. “Is that you?” she asks, nodding a few more times.

Hartmut is unmistakably Siegfried's brother. Not that he's a carbon copy, but it's the movements, gestures, the way he raises his head, the fleeting grins. Like Siegfried he has a large head and bright, wide-apart eyes with thick blond eyelashes, but his nose is narrower and his lips aren't as full. He looks pale in comparison to Siegfried, whose skin is brown and leathery from his daily work on the farm and in the fields, from the biting winter wind and burning summer sun. The brothers greet each other with a firm handshake. Marianne is in tears and throws her arms around Hartmut. She's made herself look lovely, has Marianne. She's wearing a wide black skirt printed with lavish roses, and a tight-fitting, low-cut red top.

Then the wife gets out of the car. I've been watching her. She had flipped down the sun visor, which must have a mirror in it, put on some lipstick, and smoothed her eyebrows. Now she makes straight for Frieda, offers her hand, and says, “I'm Gisela. Delighted to meet you, after all these years.”

“You're telling me,” Frieda says, without really looking at her. Gisela is wearing a gray trouser suit and a white blouse. Her blond
hair is tied up. She's quite elegant. Her shoes are black, and they don't have heels; she's almost as tall as Hartmut, and therefore Siegfried, too. Although Marianne's wearing high heels—and she often wears them, even in the animal sheds—she only comes up to Gisela's nose. Then the rest of us greet each other in turn, offering our hands and introducing ourselves. We all look through the gleaming car windows at the backseat, where the children are asleep. They are seven and nine; Hartmut took his time to have children.

Frieda hurries into the kitchen to warm up the food while the rest of us stay outside. Marianne has linked arms with Gisela and is showing her the farmyard; Siegfried and Lukas are gawping into the open hood of the Mercedes. Johannes follows Hartmut, who looks as if he's about to cry. I can understand why. Alfred slinks around for a while, then goes back to his work.

No one take any notice of me, and Johannes has not commented on what I'm wearing: the scarf around my neck and the cardigan—it may have cooled down a little, but it's still almost sixty-eight degrees. I take advantage of the time before lunch and go for a walk with
The Brothers Karamazov
. So Alexey has gone to visit Grushenka after all, even though he must have been aware that her charms would be the ruin of him. But everything turned out differently.

I lie down in the grass behind the sawmill. The words dance on the page and blur.

Now, like a thief, sleep takes hold of me; it descends from the gloomy sky and sinks heavily onto my abused body, ill treated by love. I can feel Henner's hands—coarse, gentle, brutal, expectant—and I long for them . . .

When I return the children are awake. They're running around the yard, shouting in their throaty dialect. I find it hard to understand them. Gisela is watching them from the kitchen window. Then she
motions to us to come in for lunch. Hartmut is sitting beside Frieda, holding her hands in his. This moment belongs to them alone, a silent tableau that harbors all the suffering of a woman who thought she'd lost her son, and all the joy of their reunion. The kitchen feels too small, the rest of us are just intruding, how can we eat lunch now? Without a word I withdraw and go back up to the spiders' nest, my home.

Something inside me died last night.

I take the note Henner put in my case and write something on the other side. Then I return it to the envelope and run to his house as quickly as I can. The window from which I saw the Brendels' farm yesterday is still open. I throw the envelope inside.

But just then, as the envelope glides to the floor, I am overcome by terrible guilt. After making sure that no one's around, I climb in through that same window and grab the envelope. Before I can leave again Henner opens the door. It's the first time I've seen him look surprised. He stops dead, looks at the window, then at me, and I realize at once that this is my one chance to escape. A life can be changed by a single moment. His gaze rests on the envelope in my hand, he flashes a smile, and I realize that my hesitation is fatal. He comes up to me, takes the envelope, opens it, pulls out the note and reads the following words aloud: “. . . and he can have her again.”

No words can describe the dreadful feeling of shame that forces my eyes to the floor. I want the earth to swallow me whole. As I stand there he doesn't say anything. I don't know which is the strongest feeling: my urgent desire for another night like the last one, my present humiliation, fear, my girlish pride, or the wish to see this pride shattered. I don't move a muscle.

He takes a step closer; he's been drinking again. As it hits me, his boozy breath sends my head spinning, making me feel slightly sick.

“So,” he says slowly, stroking his close-cropped hair. “So, he can have her again, can he? Well.” He goes past me and closes the
window. “I see.” The dogs are sitting by the door. Even sitting they seem as big as I am. “A haughty one, this girl,” Henner says. “Granting him the favor of a final visit . . . What is she waiting for? Take those clothes off!” I look at him in disbelief, trying to understand what might have offended him, but I don't understand, not yet, and the dogs are guarding the door. He grabs the back of my head and pulls me toward him. Unwinding the scarf from my neck, he stops. He looks, opens his mouth, closes it again. His fingers touch the bruises he caused yesterday; his eyes ask whether anybody knows, whether Johannes knows, whether the police are about to turn up, what I'm going to do, whether I'll tell all, whether everything's out in the open now. Everything.

My shame subsides. I wait for him to say something. He's still looking at me, stroking my neck. His eyes are reddened from the schnapps. Maybe we're both thinking the same thing.

He's forty, I'm sixteen. Thorsten Henner and Maria Bergmann. It was not rape, even though it looks like it. I'm the one in control now. But a man like Henner is not going to let himself be dominated by a sixteen-year-old girl.

This I realize straightaway. I try to catch his eye, which is now roving restlessly around the room. “No, Henner, nobody knows, nobody. I swear,” I say to him. “And I won't tell anybody, either. I really won't.” He gives me a penetrating look, trying to read my thoughts, but he doesn't believe me. “You have to promise me, Maria!” he says, gripping my shoulders. I nod quickly and say, “Yes. Yes, I promise!”

He leaves the room and I'm standing there alone; but he comes back with some ointment. He rubs it on those areas on my neck, and then kisses them, the bruises, the marks that betray his guilt. And with every one of his caresses I feel as if I'm looking at myself through his eyes. A girl, dark blond hair in a long braid, not especially tall, slim, square-shouldered, serious face. Narrow nose, small
mouth, but with full lips, large eyes, very bright and very green in the sunlight.

As I'm about to leave he asks me to wait. I wander through some of the ancient rooms, the dogs tailing me mistrustfully; they're not used to having to share their master. I stop by a glass-fronted linen cupboard. Henner is behind me again, he slips me another note and puts his arm around me. The quietness in this house is greater than anywhere else. The dogs' growling, the creaking of floorboards, his heavy breath—I cannot hear anything else. There are sounds that have no connection with time. That's the way it is at Henner's house. I lean on him and he asks me, “What are you reading at the moment? Marianne says you read a lot . . .”

“
The Brothers Karamazov
,” I say, rather proud that it happens to be this book.

“Who do you prefer, Katarina Ivanov or Grushenka?” he asks, and I say without hesitation, “Grushenka.”

“Why Grushenka?”

“Because she's passionate. And honest. I don't believe that Katarina Ivanov loves Dmitry at all. She's a hypocrite.”

He laughs and says, “That was a good answer, Maria. It's reassuring.”

The Brendels have been waiting for me. They've been sitting at the lunch table for ages, and when I come through the door Frieda says, “Where on earth did you get to? We've all been looking for you.” I take it as a sign that I properly belong here; they missed me; I mean something. It feels good. I mutter something about being tired and going for a walk, and only Alfred looks at me searchingly. Hartmut and Siegfried are deep in conversation. Hartmut has a lot to say, about how difficult it was in Bavaria to begin with, his studies,
graduating as an engineer, his first job with a construction company, finally setting up his own planning office, and his marriage to Gisela, a teacher's daughter from Garmisch-Partenkirchen. He met her in a mountain hut while skiing, and they've been together for almost ten years. Their children were planned and Gisela doesn't have to work. Marianne is particularly interested by this; she had to put Johannes in a day care center when he was only eight weeks old, and she cried for days. This was normal, she was still working in town at the time. Marianne is not from the village. Siegfried met her at a dance in the county town. Both her parents worked at the collective paper factory, and Marianne did shift work there, too.

By the time Lukas was born she had settled at the farm. It must have taken years for her to get used to farm life. Frieda had strongly advised Siegfried against marrying her. Town girls never became proper farmers, she said, even though she herself had married a teacher's son. Marianne didn't have much time with her second baby, either, but at least he didn't have to go to day care. Frieda looked after the little one as best she could, and even Alfred helped out with the childcare sometimes. Deep down he's a good soul, Frieda likes to say. I'm not so sure.

To my left sits Johannes with his camera, to my right, Alfred, his mouth full. He has a way of eating that I find utterly repulsive, but for some reason he's allowed to get away with everything, even eating with his mouth open and bending so far over his plate that his head almost touches the rim. Frieda says this makes the distance shorter, and so there's less spillage on the table. There's still much about the Brendel family that I don't understand.

Hartmut's efforts in the West paid off. He has an office with two employees, his own house, a garden, a Mercedes, a nice wife, even if she's a little sensitive—you can see this by the way Alfred's black fingernails put her off her lunch—and two healthy children, who are “a little rough around the edges,” as Marianne will say later. Frieda
doesn't take her eyes off him and refills his plate the moment he empties it.