November Sky (2 page)

Chapter 2

The night was pitch-black. Dense clouds covered the full moon and the stars, and I felt like I was under a black cloth. My headlights cast a beam on the narrow, curvy, potholed road, snaking through the thick forest. Tall fir trees loomed in the shadows; their knotted trunks stood out against the darkness. I was glad to be in a warm car and wanted to get the woods behind me as soon as possible. I hadn’t realized that this stretch of road was so creepy at night. But even if it wasn’t the most comfortable, it was the shortest way to the highway to Munich.

I was tired and wanted to get home to bed quickly, but I still had a good hour’s drive ahead of me. I forced myself not to go over thirty miles an hour. I didn’t want to get stuck in one of the deep potholes in the crumbling pavement. I’d grown up in the area here around Chiemsee and knew every road and secret path through the woods and fields. You had to expect some animal—a marten, hare, fox, or deer—to suddenly jump in front of your car and cause you to make a risky, reflexive swerve. It had never happened to me, but my father had strongly impressed upon me never to brake sharply or jerk the wheel. Instead, he told me to hold the wheel tightly and simply concentrate on not hitting the nearest tree or winding up in the ditch. Still, I had serious doubts whether I’d have the nerve and cold-bloodedness to do all that in an emergency.

Although I grew up on a farm, I was delicately strung and felt a practically pathological empathy for the world’s powerless creatures. As a child I spent sleepless nights when classmates had been unjustly treated by their teachers or parents, and I was always particularly nice to the kids who were bullied. Every time another barn cat was run over in front of our farm, I bawled over its lifeless little body.

I would unfailingly rescue chicks that fell out of their nests and try to nurse them back to health. I was only successful in a single case. That little swallow was almost ready to fly—and after I fed it insects for two days, it was fledged. Despite my best efforts, all the other fledglings I tried to save breathed their last in my homemade nests and received a dignified burial along the border of our herb garden. I consoled myself with the thought that at least they hadn’t wound up in the claws of our cats but were allowed to pass away in peace. I also suffered terribly if I witnessed Mama slaughtering a chicken, or if the cattle truck came to the barnyard to ship the unfortunate cattle or pigs off to the slaughterhouse.

The only person in my family who understood me was my mother. As a bred-in-the-bone country girl, she admittedly had a pragmatic attitude toward the life and death of animals, but she could also understand my sentimental impulses. Whenever my father and siblings shook their heads over my “sappiness,” she’d put a loving arm around me and explain, “The child is just sensitive.”

Her understanding did reach its limits when I turned fifteen and declared I was a vegetarian, requesting only meatless dishes. Even now, ten years later, I had to smile at the way she’d put her hands on her hips and set me straight in her strong Bavarian dialect: “So, listen, girl, by the Jesus! I think you’ve got a hole in your head. Enough of that baloney! You’ll darn well eat what’s put on the table, and if you don’t like it you can lump it!” And even then she put up with my preference to eat only side dishes while she kept on cooking hearty Bavarian meals. And as she correctly predicted, it didn’t take long before I lost my appetite for eating only spaetzle, potatoes, dumplings, rice, and vegetables, while the others enjoyed Sunday schnitzels, steaks, and roasts. I reverted to my old eating habits a few days later.

Mom was a dyed-in-the-wool Upper Bavarian, born and raised in Chieming. She was energetic, practical, hands-on, and in perpetual motion. She married my father right after leaving school and brought my sister, Anna; me; and my brother, Peter, into the world at regular four-year intervals. She managed the household and the farm while educating us a little. Mama never had the opportunity to go to university or out into the big, wide world, but her healthy common sense and ability to put herself in other people’s shoes made up for it. She possessed what many so-called intelligent, highly qualified people lack: an education of the heart. Added to all this, she had a conviviality and joie
de vivre that won many people over.

She’d been in top form that day—my brother’s wedding day.

Peter married Helen, his long-time girlfriend, whom the whole family loved. Almost the entire village turned out for the big, boisterous celebration. Anna and I wrote and performed a song about our little brother, with many verses on the highlights and embarrassments in Peter’s life. The refrain was “Peter, the little kid.” Mama accompanied us on the accordion to the tune of “Men Are Pigs,” garnering huge applause when she sang her racy solos.

At the end of the evening, I—of all people—caught the bridal bouquet. Catching it was purely a reflex. I’d deliberately placed myself several feet away from Helen’s friends with their waving, outstretched hands. I had no intention of provoking fate. But when my newly minted sister-in-law tossed her gorgeous bouquet of white-and-pink roses in a high arc behind her head, it took an unexpected swerve and would have hit the ground in front of my feet. I automatically stuck out my hand to stop it from falling—and immediately heard from all sides that it was high time I looked for a potential mate.

My big sister, who was two years married, stood by me. “Now leave Laura alone. When I was her age, I didn’t have a man to marry. And besides, she can pick up all the guys she wants in Munich. There’s a huge selection.”

Anna meant well, but I was not the type to go out on regular manhunts. I was happy to be left in peace. If I noticed someone showing interest in me, I reacted with reserve and caution. It seemed like it was always the wrong ones. I didn’t like go-getters, so I mercilessly cut off those guys who thought they were the center of the universe and that every female should grovel at their feet. But shy men who couldn’t open their mouths were just as unattractive to me. I knew exactly what I didn’t want but couldn’t, at that moment, describe my dreamboat. For the most part, I thought I was better off without a boyfriend or a husband.

I’d moved to a Munich suburb after two years’ training as a business-management assistant in a bank, and now I worked in the city and lived alone, as happy as a clam. Although I definitely wanted to have a family someday, I was in no rush to meet a man or get married. I knew from watching my sister and my married friends that marriage meant negotiating a lot of compromises. Once the kids came, it was even more difficult to find time for yourself.

For the time being, I was enjoying my freedom and autonomy, which I’d never had during my childhood and teens. Our parents had been adamant about the three of us finishing school and graduating with honors. Time outside of school was all about doing our homework and pitching in with the housework and in the stables and fields. There was always something to be done, and so I could rarely indulge myself in my hobby—reading all kinds of books. It was only during long work breaks on the john or secretly under the bedcovers by flashlight that I devoured classics like
Wuthering Heights
,
Doctor Zhivago
, and
Gone with the Wind
with the same passion as most girls consumed modern romances. I loved any book as long as it had a lot of drama and stirring emotions. The problem was, Anna and I shared a room, and, to my chagrin, she needed absolute darkness to be able to sleep.

So now I enjoyed all the more my freedom and the fact that I didn’t have to share my own small garret apartment with anybody. I hardly ever went out with friends. Instead, after work and on the weekends, I rode my bike, listened to music, and read for hours. I relished sinking into other worlds, feverishly taking part as a secret observer in the love, passion, and sorrow of the protagonists—and I could turn out my reading light whenever I wanted. And thanks to my knack for speculating in the stock market, I also had a nice nest egg of stocks and was making good money. Who needed a husband? As far as I was concerned, my viewpoint was completely normal for a twenty-six-year-old woman.

I finally breathed easily when I saw a small pond glimmering through the trees. I knew that in just a few more minutes I’d reach the well-paved highway. I stepped on the gas.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw shadowy movement to the left of my car. I jammed on the brakes and gripped the steering wheel to keep my car in its lane. I came to a stop near the right side of the road. A deer stood in my headlights, rigid with fear. Its narrow head and big, staring eyes were turned in my direction. I killed the motor and wondered why in the world the animal didn’t keep going to the right and into the fir thicket, where it had obviously been headed. Then it dawned on me that my headlights had probably blinded it, so I turned them off. As soon as I did, the doe’s white rump disappeared into the underbrush in two huge leaps.

It was only then that I realized I’d damn well come within a whisker of hitting a deer—and on a relatively cool May night at 1:30 a.m., in a pitch-black, eerie forest, with no cell phone reception and nobody on the road besides me.

I shuddered at the idea of lying there injured or struggling through the dark on foot if I’d escaped from a crash unscathed but the car was immobilized. My heart beat as rapidly as if I were rushing through the woods. I tried to prevent my hands and feet from trembling and rolled down my window to get some air. A few deep breaths settled me down.

Just as I was about to start my motor, I heard a deep, full roar that sounded faraway at first before it quickly grew louder. Headlights appeared in my rearview mirror, lighting up the car’s interior. I instantly realized that I was blocking part of the right-hand lane with no lights. Quick as a flash, I turned on the parking lights and heard the revving of a sports car’s engine as the driver saw my car, presumably at the last minute, swerved, and shot by me on the left. The streamlined fire-engine-red vehicle was traveling much too fast and started to fishtail. Its thin brake lights were on, but the driver couldn’t gain control. The taillights danced madly back and forth until the car snaked around the next sharp curve. After a dull bang, the obnoxious engine noise stopped, and it became disturbingly quiet.

“Oh, my God!” I muttered, and started my compact car. I drove slowly and carefully around the bend, my mind racing with crazy, mixed-up thoughts. I had caused an accident and maybe injured people. I didn’t want to think the worst. Right after the long curve—where the forest ended and transitioned to field and meadow—the road straightened out. My headlights caught the red sports car. To my horror, it was lying on its roof in the ditch, its rear end pointing toward me. I recognized the American make by its stylized logo. I parked on the shoulder some distance away, and this time I had the presence of mind to turn on my hazard lights. I ran to the scene of the accident, filled with fear at what to expect inside the overturned car.

Meanwhile, the clouds covering the night sky had moved on. The pale moonlight created a ghostly atmosphere. When I was several feet away from the car, a phantom hand pushed open the driver’s side door. I stayed still, shocked, and watched a man crawl out. He stood up and stretched himself to his full height, and then stared at the car. “What a fucking piece of shit!” he said, and then turned toward me. I was relieved. Apparently, nothing had happened to him, and judging by his actions, no one else was in the car.

My common sense warned me not to get any nearer. I figured that from his point of view I was the reason his expensive, high-horsepower toy had shot off the road, turned a somersault, and was lying upside down in the ditch. I was afraid his anger and frustration would concentrate on me, and he’d lash out. I figured anyone who could afford a car like that must not have the sense to know he was going too fast.

It occurred to me then that it was extremely reckless and a bit stupid of me, a lone woman in the Upper Bavarian wilds in the middle of the night, to leave the relative safety of my car. Given how he drove, the guy could be wasted and could become violent. And even if he were lying in the car, badly injured and unconscious, what could I have done, given my complete absence of medical knowledge? It would have been smarter to drive for a few more miles until I had cell phone reception and then call the police. I cursed the lifelong helper syndrome that had put me in this precarious predicament.

But it was too late for any of that. The injured sports-car driver jumped up onto the shoulder and walked toward me with long, energetic strides. I noted his clothes with some relief: jeans, a white shirt, and a light-colored jacket. He looked normal enough, not like a criminal or crazed ax-murderer. Of course, it’s illogical to judge a person by appearances. Take Ted Bundy, the American serial killer who raped and murdered about thirty women. According to all sources, he was an extremely good-looking, well-dressed, and charming man.

I was worried that my intact physical condition was hanging by a thread because the rather nice-looking man in front of me looked absolutely furious. All I could hope was that he had some self-control and that his mother had drilled into him that under no circumstances was he to hit a woman.

He stopped right in front of me, too close for my liking, and looked down accusingly—I was a good head shorter than him. I estimated he was in his late twenties. The aroma of his cinnamon-and-cedar-scented aftershave was the only pleasant thing about him at that moment. His angry eyes blazed, his lips formed a thin line, and I could tell by the way he clenched and unclenched his fists that he was absolutely beside himself. He stared at me as though I were a cockroach. Good lord! The guy looked like he was in great shape. He could knock me out with one swing if he wanted to. I was seized with the courage of desperation. Following the maxim that “offense is the best defense,” I snapped at him—sounding far spunkier than I felt—at the very moment he started to open his mouth.

“Don’t you take your anger out on me! You can thank your stupid driving for this accident. Why are you speeding around like a crazy person? This is
not
the Nürnburgring Grand Prix! You’re damn lucky that only your car’s damaged and not you.”