Before the Feast Page 8

  The passenger seemed pleased with his reply. “Then I’ll help you,” he cried, and he tore off one of his legs and threw it overboard. Now the rowing was easier, but soon they were making even slower progress. However hard the ferryman tried, the oars stuck fast in the black water—or was it still water?—and the boat wouldn’t move.

  Then the manikin took off his hat, which was adorned with a long, red feather, bent his knee and jumped into the lake. Under the water already, he called back to the ferryman, “Wait for me and you won’t regret it.”

  The red feather in the hat cast a flickering light all the way to land. Where the manikin had jumped into the water, horrible tangles of waterweeds wound their way, and gigantic pike swam around. But whenever the manikin came close to one of them, the plants ducked aside and the fish swam off. Only the nasty crayfish felt no fear. The one leg with which the little fellow struck out like a whip as he went diving down did not end in a human foot. Instead of a heel, it had a hoof.

  The ferryman’s heart sank. He would happily have gone without his fee, only he was a man who didn’t lightly fail to do his duty, and it was his duty to take passengers safely across the lake. At midnight the little man rose to the surface again, holding the leg he had torn off in his teeth like a valuable catch. He nodded to the ferryman as a sign that their crossing could continue.

  After a single stroke of the oars the boat came to land—day was already beginning to dawn. His passenger paid the ferryman a princely sum of money. “And since you did not give up, did not complain, and kept faith with me,” he said, “I will give you a special reward.” So he said, and then he promised to spare the ferryman’s life, but the others who had dared to settle beside his lake, he said, would not live to see harvest. “Unless,” said the little man, winking, “you can persuade them to move away from here.”

  The ferryman woke the Mayor to tell him to warn the village. But the Mayor did not care for the ferryman’s stories anyway, so he sent him off without hearing what he had to say.

  The innkeeper listened spellbound, but he thought the passenger’s hoof could be true only in a fairy tale, and gave the ferryman a drink for telling such a good story.

  And so it went on: the blacksmith advised the ferryman, who had been awake all night, to sleep off his hangover, the farmers in the fields had not noticed any red light out on the lake, and they even swore that the ferryman had come ashore alone in his boat. Some may have believed him, but said defiantly that they were well off here, and no one could drive them away.

  While the ferryman was going desperately from one to another, two fellows came to the inn. They wore hoods far down over their faces, and spoke like men in a fever. In the evening the landlord found them dead, their skin disfigured by terrible marks. Soon the landlord himself was feeling unwell, and so were others who had gone to the inn to drink.

  The prophecy of the ferryman’s passenger came true. The plague carried people away as fast as the wind. In the daytime the ferryman dug graves and wandered among the empty houses as though he thought that the story might have a different ending if he only looked for it. In the evening he bewailed his fate. But at night he put out on the lake and called his warning again, as if the water and the stars themselves might be persuaded to leave this place.

  Much time has passed since then. No Devil carries the plague to our village now. But every thirteen years, on an autumn evening, the frogs fall silent, the wind dies down, the water is still, and you can hear gasping and the sound of heavy oar strokes, and a hoarse voice calling, “Tell me, old man, are you finding it hard to row?”

  This year the ferryman said yes, because it was the truth.

  FRAU KRANZ IS STANDING KNEE-DEEP IN WATER. She props her easel up so that it is at a slanting angle, switches on the light, moves its feet until it is standing firmly on the muddy bed of the lake. Eddie fitted an umbrella to the front of the easel years ago to protect it from all weathers. Frau Kranz is well equipped. We know that the water is cold.

  Roughly here one of the six young women could have turned. Turned to the bank, to the ash trees, to the village. Perhaps she also looked at the ferry boathouse. Ana Kranz, at the boathouse window, did not move.

  On that or on some other day, a Red Army soldier, an infantryman from Belorussia, is trying to throttle a piglet under the ash trees. His comrades, shaving each other in the sunlight, egg him on. He’s not the most drunk of them, he’s the youngest, his skin still spotty, his beard still downy. The piglet is squealing. The soldier stands there upright. His cap has fallen off his head. His pale hair, his red cheeks, the piglet in his hands. Its snout is level with the soldier’s face. It all takes some time. The men shouting encouragement get tired. Only the infantryman can still be heard, gasping. His legs look like slender young trees taking root in his boots. He groans as if he were the one being throttled. The louder he groans the less noise the piglet makes, quietly putting up with this human joke.

  Ana Kranz, under the boat, didn’t move. She heard the squealing piglet, looking through a crack she saw the soldier’s legs. She stayed hidden under the boat for a day and a night. The people had run away from the fear that was advancing with the Russians, or had hanged themselves, or had been found. Ana hadn’t wanted to run away again. She spent another two days under the boat. She drank from the lake. Was found. By the ferryman, who came back. He took her in, hid her in the space under the floorboards, behind the paddles, ropes and other gear. Gave her food. Told her, from the boathouse above, about low-flying aircraft and marauding soldiers, corpses by the roadside. Down below, she heard him through the floorboards. He warned her: don’t show yourself, girl. And once she heard Russian voices. The ferryman didn’t understand them. Ana understood the boots on the floorboards. They searched the cupboard, the chest. There was nothing to be found in the sparse furnishings. They opened the hatch. The space inside was dark and full of things. Ana held her breath. They took the ferryman away with them. Only after days did she venture up from below the floorboards. Stood at the window, peering out, didn’t move. If people came to fish from the landing stage she climbed down under the boards again. The ferryman was gone for days, they had locked him up, or worse. Bells rang. Shots were fired. And then he came back after all, his face bruised and swollen. He had brought some bread, and charcoal for Ana to draw with. Ana looked out at the lake. At the promenade beside it. At spring. She drew, Ana Kranz drew all over the walls, the ferryman didn’t mind. She drew the people coming back, almost all of them old men and children, they washed in the lake. She drew the soldiers going for walks along the lakeside like lovers. She spent a lot of time alone. She ate the bread slowly, she drank from the lake, she drew. A small sketch beside the window, six figures hand in hand, on the banks of the lake. It was April, perhaps May. The soldiers were turning up less frequently. Ana stayed in the boathouse of the ferry for a month and a half. Six years later she would transfer the six women to canvas, clothe them and comb their hair, give them morning colors, and now, on such a night as this, the six take their first step, and one of them looks round.

  Frau Kranz is plagued by an almost physical desire for old stories. It comes of this place, the boathouse of the ferry, it comes of the night. It’s a thirst for the answer to her question: what could she have prevented. . . could I have prevented them from doing it?

  The rain is falling harder. The bank, the ash trees, home. Frau Kranz makes her first brush stroke. The paper is wet. She tears it off, places it on the water. Begins again. The paper drifts slowly away.

  A CARTER EXCHANGES A FEW WORDS WITH THE ferryman, the ferryman asks about his journey here. The carter describes the street fighting in Dresden. Then the ferryman gives him some of his home-distilled spirits. They look at the water, at the sky.

  Well, here we go, says the ferryman.

  The landing stage, the moorings, the ferryman’s bell.

  Rubber tires, ferry, boat.

  Boots, doormat, plant pot without any plant in it.

 
Wood, woodworm, better days.

  A low bed, one window looking out on the bank, one looking out on the water, the ferryman saw the lakes even in his dreams.

  A table on which he ate from a plate with a fork, a knife and a spoon.

  A cupboard, a towel, a razor blade.

  A chest, massive, with a lock to it and a domed lid.

  Damp, mold, mice.

  Hatch, space under it, stuff in the space.

  A ticket window for selling ferry tickets, a pencil fixed to the wall with a little chain, a visitors’ book. The ferryman lets only passengers who have deserved it during the trip write their names in the book. Just seven in seventy years. Angela Merkel is among them.

  There are no drawings left on the walls now.

  Even after the ferryman’s death a light burns, an electric bulb outside above the door, forgotten or left to burn for ever. A sheet of paper floats in its reflection on the water.

  ANNA WALKS PAST THE NEW BUILDINGS AND THE Gölow property, down to the promenade. Or rather drags herself, bending over, finding it hard to breathe out. She stops when she comes to the ferry boathouse, with her hands on her knees. It’s not the strain, it’s stupidity. She forgot to bring her asthma spray.

  Someone is standing in the water not far from the bank, faintly visible in some source of light. Rain is falling on the lake.

  “Hello? Who’s there?”

  It is Ana Kranz. Anna tries to breathe calmly, but the air wheezes in her throat.

  “Are you a ghost? That’s funny. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Frau Kranz, it’s me, Anna.” Anna gasps for air, coughs, crouches down. “Are you all right?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Come along, I’ll help. . . help you out.”

  “Keep away. Can’t a person even paint here in peace?”

  Somewhere a car engine roars. After a pause it roars again. The wind is rising. Raindrops flash in the beam of Anna’s headlight. “It’s raining,” says Anna, and would like to go on, but she doesn’t have the breath for it.

  “Excellent!” cries Frau Kranz. Anna straightens up, turns away. She can’t help the old woman now, she must help herself.

  Rain beats on the umbrella above the easel, on the lake, the drops sound like the chiming of small bells, and the lake rumbles, the lake moves.

  IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1589, IN THE MONTH of July, Kuene Gantzkow, Maidservant to our good Mayor, bore an infant Child, a Girl, which said Infant the Mayor’s Wife took from her, giving it instant Baptism for the Sake of its Immortal Soul, thereafter strangling the Babe and casting it over the Fence and into the Ditch, where we found the Carcase several Weeks later. The Mayor’s Wife told her Son, which Same had had carnal Knowledge of the Maidservant, to strike the young Woman dead, as he duly did. For her Crime, the Babe’s Grandmother was drown’d in the Deep Lake.

  HOME. SHE JUST HAS TO GET HOME. ANNA TAKES the longer way through the village; she would rather not be visible in the light of the streetlamps any more. Her coughing wakes German Shepherd dogs. When she reaches the Homeland House she can’t go any farther. She crouches down. Around Anna: dreams among buildings made of sprayed concrete. She presses her lips together and breathes against them, but it doesn’t help. She gasps, and can’t breathe any air out.

  The heart of the night is beating in the streets. Marx-Strasse rises up to the church, brightly lit, and behind the church goes on in the dark, climbing steeply to the clouds. Now headlights glide down through the clouds to the world below, where Anna is fighting for breath, and on window sills cacti stand nearby. The wind hums to the revs of the car engine, drumming out a hollow beat, carrying an aroma on it, the sweet fragrance of grapes.

  Anna presses into the gateway, and turns off her headlight as if in flight.

  The beat: reggae. The music and the car engine echo between the cloudy sky and the savings bank branch. Frau Rombach hasn’t brought her flower containers in for the night; the cats will piss in them, and she’ll have to go round with the room spray in the morning, or her customers will be in a worse mood than ever.

  Leaves sweep over the porous asphalt, and a metallic blue van makes its entrance at walking pace, bodywork clattering tinnily in the bass. Anna, caught in the headlights, freezes guiltily. Pebbles crunch under the tires and the van stops.

  Some thinking goes on, both inside and outside the van.

  Anna can’t manage to stand upright. The raindrops shimmer in the light, the calm beat makes the night no calmer. The van windows are tinted, the tires muddy, there are splashes of mud on the sides of the van.

  The number plate is UM, for the Uckermark. Well, that’s something.

  The engine stops, the bass goes on playing. The windshield wipers click softly. Nothing has been going on in the van for much too long now. Only when the song is over do the doors swing open. A new beat, a wave of German hip-hop, washes over Anna and—

  —TWO MEN GET OUT, OR RATHER BOYS, STILL growing into their limbs, but at night on the road, for all Anna knew, they could be an army of two. The taller: intriguingly good-looking. The hair of the smaller is nicely blow-dried, his glance stern, his eyebrows plucked, his skin treated with a male grooming product. Fur coats over loose trousers, bright red football shirts, on one a lightning flash and the words

  FC ENERGIE

  for Energie Kottbus Football Club, and on the other, equally unsubtle, a skull and crossbones and under it, in large letters:

  STIL

  As for Anna, she is white as a sheet. Inquisitive, helpful, low-life—they could be anything in the night she has conjured up: angels’ wings folded, hooves in their shoes? She can’t tell, she doesn’t feel well, or not well enough to judge. She wants to face her illness, not strangers. Only her voice fails her, only a hoarse croak comes out. The tall, good-looking one smiles, his speech sings, soft like a man with plenty of time.

  “Mademoiselle,” he asks, “are you okay? We saw you in trouble from far away.”

  Anna whispers, “It’s asthma.”

  “Ah, civilization making a fuss.”

  “It’s nothing at all to do with us,” the smaller youth with the glum look says.

  “Like a lift to A&E?”

  “That’s going too far, Q, if you ask me.”

  “But what if it’s an emergency?”

  Anna looks from one to the other of them.

  “Hey, do you always talk in rhyme?”

  In chorus: “Us? Where would we get the time?”

  “You—” Anna’s voice gives way, she slumps to the ground. Undaunted, the two hurry over, help her up and get her into their van.

  “Mademoiselle, we’ll take you home.”

  “You’re not fit to be out on your own.”

  Anna nods; she can hardly speak. “Geher’s Farm. Do you know it?”

  The two exchange meaning glances that Anna can’t interpret. Anna looks at the van door. It’s not locked: good.

  “We don’t know our way well in this town.”

  “The satnav went and let us down.”

  “Great.” Anna tries breathing deeply. “Down Thälmann-Strasse here, along the main road, I’ll tell you when.”

  The one called Q turns the van.

  “Where—where have you come from?” Anna wants to keep the conversation going, however difficult her voice finds it.

  “From here, from there, from up and down. Nothing to interest you tonight.”

  “Henry, you’re not being very polite.” And turning to Anna, “Take no notice of this clown. On such a night things get him down. Usually he’s so good with words he can make counts nervous and countesses amorous, or do I mean it the other way? Never mind, be that as it may, it isn’t easy with names of places, they can’t be trusted in such cases.”

  “You. . . okay. . .” Anna’s eyes are streaming, her breath is wheezing the whole time. The van speeds up on its way out of the village—

  —and at the same time Herr Schramm is stepping on the gas of his Golf. Whe
n he is doing 130 k.p.h. he switches off the headlights.

  HERR SCHRAMM IS DIVORCED, NO CHILDREN. HERR Schramm is not afraid of death, you don’t know what’s going on when you die. In summer he hadn’t been thinking of death, in summer Herr Schramm still wanted another go at life, maybe he’d fall in love.

  Frau Mahlke, manageress of the dating agency, set off on a little tour of Brandenburg to visit six men in search of a partner at home, taking stock of them on their home ground. Herr Schramm’s appointment was the last. She arrived in Fürstenfelde at five, rather tired and in a worse temper than when she left the late-summer atmosphere of Pankow behind to drive out into the country.

  Herr Schramm was waiting outside the Homeland House with a mug of coffee. His first words were, “Schramm, pleased to meet you,” followed by a calm, “Watch out, wasps,” as one of them tried to settle on Elisabeth Mahlke’s well-upholstered shoulder. Herr Schramm is a punctilious man.

  Frau Mahlke has thrown a silk scarf, golden-yellow and pale lilac, over her slightly pudgy figure and is wearing a pair of trousers that are rather tight for her age of fifty-nine. Herr Schramm looked at the trousers in a way that clearly showed he wasn’t sure whether such tight trousers were right for this occasion, but never mind.

  Frau Mahlke found herself taken out for a trip on the Deep Lake in the oldest rowing boat, which creaks romantically. She was not prepared for that. The cool breeze blowing over the lake did her hot face good, she took off her shoes and dunked her feet in the water. The ferryman owed Schramm a favor, so he rowed them out to the islands. “Come along, Elisabeth, I’ll show you the lakes and the deserted farms”—“Why don’t we just stay at your place to talk, Herr Schramm?”

  Herr Schramm wanted to show the lady from the dating agency both the good sides and the not-so-good sides of Fürstenfelde. To be honest, he wanted to do the same with himself. The ferryman had recommended it. Because if you promise a woman a lie, you’ll be bound to disappoint her sometime. “You’re not such a splendid fellow, Schramm,” the ferryman had said, “but telling lies would make you really terrible.”