Somewhere in Germany Read online

  “Good God,” Jettel accused him a week before her birthday, “I don’t want to emigrate. I just want to see something different for a couple of weeks, and no Germans.”

  “And where is that supposed to be?”

  “I was thinking of Austria,” Jettel said, and angrily slammed her keys on the table.

  She had anticipated derision, insulting remarks, even a big fight, but not the striking reaction she got. Walter slapped his forehead and smiled with such degrading irony that Jettel immediately planned to tell all the guests she had invited to the celebration not to come and not even to tell him about it. He was not even embarrassed to neigh so ridiculously and loudly that Ziri came running out of the kitchen with a meat knife in her hand so that she would not miss any detail of the unexpected merriment.

  To Jettel’s amazement, Walter slowly got up from his wing chair, saluted with élan, put his hand on her shoulder, and said almost tenderly, “You just go ahead, my dear, innocent angel. While you are gone, I will sit here all the time in my easy chair and think about what you said about the Austrians during our emigration. And when you come back, your old man will have killed himself laughing.”

  Regina’s reaction the next morning surprised Jettel even more. She had initially only suggested that she wanted to go with Regina because she knew that Walter always had an easier time spending money if he thought he could make his daughter happy. Despite all the strategic considerations, which she was very proud of, Jettel had not really liked the idea that she might cause Regina a conflict that she would be unable to talk about.

  In contrast to Walter, Jettel had, for years already, had a hunch that Regina did not spend her vacations, as she maintained, with a girlfriend in the Bavarian Alps.

  She doubted, not without sympathy, that her daughter was willing to give up this part of her private life, which she protected so carefully and obviously also found satisfying, for a trip with her mother. But Regina agreed so spontaneously that Jettel in retrospect was ashamed for using a ruse, especially since she had been aware of its egotistical nature all along.

  During the weeks after her birthday she asked herself, frequently and often quite self-consciously, if it had not just been Regina’s good nature that had brought about the unexpected yes. But the closer the trip to Mayerhofen in the Zillertal came ( Jettel was very proud that she had chosen the destination by herself and had made all the arrangements without Walter’s help), the more she felt that Regina was not only looking forward to the vacation, but without a doubt also to being together with her.

  Cheerfully, Jettel retrieved the song about the happy Tyroleans from the collection of her kitchen songs and in her afternoon coffee parties told the envious ladies, who were just experiencing difficult times with their adult children, that there was no greater joy for a mother than to take a trip with such a circumspect and caring daughter. Soon Jettel could not even believe that she ever could have been jealous of Regina.

  Regina, on the other hand, was not able to explain to herself why she had had so much less patience and tolerance for her mother than for her father in the past. It seemed that with each day, beginning with the early start of the travel preparations, a little piece of reservation was chipped away between two people who had known each other very well at some point and had lost sight of each other through circumstances they were unable to explain.

  Both first noticed the changes on the day when Jettel bought the shining, silver-gray evening blouse and Regina the tight black sweater. Walter—as usual—said “terribly beautiful” with a frown and both looked at each other and almost like conspirators started laughing sympathetically. They debated for days about shoes and sandals, and knee-high stockings and heavy socks; if they might need loden coats or even a dirndl; and in all seriousness, as if they had never lived on a farm, what they would do if a cow chased them across a meadow.

  Jettel mentioned that this reminded her of the times when she had gone on vacation with her mother and sister. She now frequently used the word “resort” and talked about the elegant young men who had courted her early-widowed, beautiful mother. While she immersed herself, smiling, in a past she had not mentioned for years, she again looked very much like the coquettish, big-eyed little girl in the sailor suit on the faded photograph in the old tea tin.

  Among the travel documents were two bright blue cardboard butterflies. On the day of their departure Regina and Jettel fastened them to their new white cardigans and giggled like young girls before their first date. The special Touropa train with the sleeper-coaches left at eleven o’clock at night. Walter insisted on coming to the station. He treated them to a porter and to Jettel’s favorite ginger chocolates for the trip, and he created confusion in the compartment, which they only found after an excited search, by self-consciously asking the fellow passengers to treat his wife and daughter with special consideration since they had just been released from a psychiatric hospital.

  “Take care of yourself,” Jettel told him, leaning out of the window, “and eat well. Ziri knows exactly what she is supposed to cook for you. I gave her a special list for each day.”

  “That just goes to show what has happened to me. Aren’t you afraid to leave me alone with a pretty young girl?”

  “You know quite well that I have never been jealous in all my life. And go with Max to see Mrs. Schlachanska. She promised she would invite you.”

  “Of all people,” Walter complained. “She always looks at me so reproachfully, as if she resents that I did not die instead of her husband.”

  “Just go. She is a good woman. And her cake is good, too.”

  “Don’t fight with your mother, Regina. And on the way make it clear to her that Tyrol is in the mountains and not on the ocean,” Walter called into the departing whistle, “and explain to her that the people there are Germans in disguise.”

  Mayerhofen in the Zillertal, accessible from Innsbruck only by bus, greeted its guests, who were exhausted from the long trip, with apricot schnapps in small, painted glass carafes; red geraniums in full bloom on the dark wooden balconies of the freshly painted houses; two cows festooned with flowers; a chapel in the marketplace; and sunshine on the meadows and new snow on the mountain tops. Regina complimented her mother so enthusiastically that Jettel instantly overcame her fatigue and mobilized an energy, unusual even for her, to explain to the surprised tour guide that she wanted to stay in the charming house with the pretty sign “Kramerwirt” or she would depart instantly.

  Regina was greatly embarrassed by this display of motherly assertiveness and avoided looking at the man in the local costume during the negotiations. But he called Jettel “Madam” several times; admired her blouse; exchanged, after some initial hesitation but without any objection, the intended quarters for the ones she demanded; and then, even with a smile, made sure that her additional wish—to have the room that overlooked the marketplace, and not the smaller one with a view of the backyard—was also fulfilled.

  “Don’t put up with everything,” Jettel laughed and sank in good spirits onto the bed with the red and white checked sheets. “Your father and you can learn a thing or two from me in that arena.”

  The first night they were served Kaiserschmarrn, which Jettel called scrambled eggs with raisins after the first helping, yet after the second helping, praised as one of those real Viennese specialties that she had learned to appreciate as a young girl. The newly arrived guests were offered a glass of wine on the house and were later invited to a small reception in the large restaurant. A bearded trio in lederhosen and green hats with long feathers played folksongs. Twice, at Jettel’s special request, they played the song about the happy Tyroleans.

  Gray-haired women in transparent white nylon blouses looked enviously at Jettel’s freshly died curls and pointedly at her low-cut black dress with its pattern of luxurious red roses. The men, in suspenders that stretched across their tight shirts, hungrily scrutinized Regina’s legs. Both of them enjoyed the glances, ordered a glass of wine th
at they drank from in turns, and made fun of the other guests, first whispering, but later speaking comfortably loud in Swahili. They even found words to express difficult concepts like “typically German” or “narrow-minded.”

  At the end of the night, they made friends with the owner’s wife’s dachshund and concurred that Walter was really a big fool because he always maintained that dachshunds were still Nazis. Before falling asleep they agreed that they had not laughed like this for years and had not felt this good either. They woke up when the rooster crowed and realized that they had not heard one since Ol’ Joro Orok.

  On the first card to Walter, Jettel wrote: “Of course, the Tyrol is a foreign country. We are reducing our expenses and this makes it possible for us to see so much that our heads are spinning.” They saved the money they had budgeted for lunch by taking two rolls from the breakfast table, and by buying two bananas and milk, and spent the leftover money on a ride on the old-fashioned little train to Jenbach and bus tours to Innsbruck, Salzburg, the Tuxer Joch, and Großglockner.

  Jettel, who at home avoided every exertion by referring to her age and her migraines, did not get tired on any of the trips, and was satisfied with everything, to Regina’s amazement. Enormously popular with the fellow travelers, Jettel flirted with the men, who fought to carry her bag and to help her off the bus, and cared in a motherly way for unaccompanied older women. All of them told her their fateful life stories, were even more interested in Jettel’s African adventures, and without exception sadly remembered Jewish friends they had helped in times of trouble.

  With her new box camera Regina took pictures of her beaming mother in front of the Goldenen Dachl in Innsbruck, in the garden of the Mirabell Castle in Salzburg, and with a bag of Mozartkugeln, the famous Austrian chocolates, in the Getreidegasse. In view of the anticipated high point of the trip, they finally bought a small bottle of rum, which they thought especially inexpensive, at a kiosk.

  They wavered for a long time over whether Bressanone, which to their surprise was also called Brixen, might already be “Italian enough” to satisfy their yearning, but they eventually booked the big, expensive trip across the Brenner with a one-hour stay in Bozen and three hours in Meran. Because the bus had a flat tire on the way, they were only able to take a quick peek and buy a pound of grapes at the fruit market in Bozen. In Meran, though, they immediately felt that they had arrived in the land of their dreams.

  “We searched for it with our souls,” Regina recited.

  “You said that beautifully,” Jettel said admiringly.

  “There was a little bit of Goethe in it.”

  They walked on the splendid promenade in front of the elegant spa center, sat on a white bench in the glowing heat, and listened with delight to the spa orchestra playing waltzes. They sat in a cafe at the babbling Passer with its own palm tree and parrot, caressed the beautiful foreign word espresso with their tongue and the tiny silver cups with their hands, and were quite amazed that the waiter spoke fluent German. Still, they agreed that they had made their way into the heart of Italy.

  In the shops under the cool, dark arbors they found a tiny glass horse with a blue mane for Ziri, and they were invited to taste wine but did not have to pay for the intoxicating mouthful of happiness. Both had red spots on their faces and in their ears they heard sounds that Regina identified as the call of the Sirens. They tried on straw hats and sunglasses and stared longingly at the certainly affordable shoes, belts, and handbags, which unfortunately were still too expensive for them. After the second espresso—this time they dared to take along the sugar in the attractive little bags—they decided to share the cost of a necklace of white porcelain beads with hand-painted pink and blue roses. Jettel paid fifty liras more than Regina and in this way ensured the right to wear the showpiece every Sunday and to wear it instantly. A soldier in an Italian uniform, who obviously did not speak German because he called Jettel signora, clicked his tongue and her cheeks turned pink.

  With their last liras they bought Max a small, genuinely Italian policeman made of “really good plastic.” He wore a blue helmet and twirled his arms in the wind. For Walter they bought two liters of Chianti in a moss-green bottle in a light-yellow woven raffia basket. They burned with excitement and joy at the thought that he had never seen anything so wonderful in all his life and would most likely not dare to open the bottle, even though the merchant had convincingly assured them that one could put a candle in the mouth of the bottle later on and that it would then be as beautiful as before.

  Before leaving, they bought a big ice-cream cone with their very last coins and took turns licking it. Regina was allowed to pick out the flavors; she interpreted her mother’s glances correctly and chose only chocolate, nougat, and mocha, even though she preferred vanilla and strawberry ice cream.

  “I feel as if I have gotten years younger in Italy,” Jettel said.

  “You have,” Regina confirmed, “but not only in Italy.”

  The bus had another flat tire in Brennerbad. The driver consoled the disgruntled tourists with red wine from his own supply. Only some overly critical older gentlemen disparaged the fact that a bus would have that many glasses, but no spare tire handy. On a meadow under an apple tree, Jettel articulated the thought that had occupied Regina since the second day of their trip.

  “This really is,” she said, “the first time that the two of us are so completely alone together ever since I was pregnant in Nakuru and was so desperate because I felt that the baby would be stillborn.”

  “And we are talking with each other the way we did then,” Regina swallowed with the same heaviness in her voice. “I thought you had forgotten about that long ago.”

  “No. I often think about it. As young as you were, you comforted me very much then. I felt that you understood me as well as I understood my mother.”

  “And you don’t think that anymore?”

  “I am not so sure. You always take your father’s side.”

  “No,” Regina answered, “I don’t. I understand you much better than you think, but I want to protect Papa. I always worry about him when he gets excited. Don’t think that I haven’t known for quite a while how difficult it is to be married to him. I am also aware that he often starts your fights.”

  “Most of the time,” Jettel sighed, “we fight about you. You only hear us squabbling, but you don’t know how things get started. Papa is obsessed with the idea that you are having an affair with your boss. Or that you cannot get over Martin and, therefore, do not want to get married. And then he gets terribly upset when I tell him that you are old enough to know what you are doing.”

  Regina felt the urge to embrace Jettel, but her parents’ old fight for her heart made her as insecure as during her childhood. Her skin glowed, and she let her arms fall down.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly and caressed Jettel’s hand.

  “For what?”

  “I should say that you understand me much better than I understand you. But I really meant thank you for the entire trip. I will never forget these days.”

  “I won’t either. I had wanted to tell you that all this time. But I am curious, too. What is the truth? The story with Martin or your boss?”

  “Both. And both not quite the way you think. You are a smart woman.”

  “That’s what I always say,” Jettel laughed, picked up a small apple from the grass, and threw it in the air, “only your father will never understand that. He just doesn’t know anything about human nature. Still, I am looking forward to seeing him, even though I am already getting aggravated with him now. I bet he never makes Max go to bed on time.”

  She had hardly ever been this right. Walter would have considered it a sinful waste of his freedom to have Max go to bed before he did. Walter, who was often ashamed about his deep bond with Regina because he thought it unfair to Max, was in the process of getting to know his son from a new perspective. During the two weeks he spent alone with him, he realized that Max was no longer a chil
d. He also recognized that Max had the same sense of humor as he did, the same appreciation for provocative jokes and earthy language, and even the same way of disguising emotions with a wryness that other people were unable to understand. He was very happy about this accord. When he was together with Max he did not become tired as quickly as usual, nor did he have gloomy thoughts. It gave him great pleasure that his cheerful, intelligent son with his evident appreciation of language and irony so obviously enjoyed their conversations.

  Walter did not miss the opportunity on any day during the two weeks to demonstrate to Max how refreshing, uncomplicated, and harmonic life could be when men did not have to pay attention to women and their tendency to busy themselves at the wrong moment with things that spoiled a man’s life. For the first time he developed the same kind of close, twinkle-in-the-eye relationship with his son that he had once had on the farm with his daughter.

  When Walter had been alone with Regina at Ol’ Joro Orok, he had always tried to make life different from other times. He had allowed her not to wash for a week and to stay up till she fell asleep in front of the fireplace and was carried to her bed by Owuor. He now encouraged Max to break away from any conventions, to do everything Jettel did not approve of, and to talk about things that were usually not mentioned in his presence.

  While sitting in the bathtub, Walter quizzed Max on the Latin vocabulary for the next day, and explained the Pythagorean axiom to him with the help of a piece of soap, a brush, and a washcloth; after that they turned to political problems, the nature of anti-Semitism, and what Max had to do if he made his father a grandfather before his time. Max was allowed to sleep in the marital bed and to accompany his father to prison and to the office after school. There he increased his appetite for life by studying divorce proceedings.