The Taste of Apple Seeds (18 page)

Christa was attached to Bootshaven, to large skies above empty spaces, to the wind in her brown hair that she still wore short. When she read or heard Storm’s poem about the gray city “by the gray sea” her eyes would water and she would recite the third verse in a trembling voice that I didn’t like. When, as a child, and later as a teenager, I came into the living room on certain summer evenings, I might find my mother sitting there in the twilight. She would be perched on the edge of the sofa, her hands beneath her thighs, rocking back and forth. Her eyes fixed on the floor. She didn’t rock dreamily, but made short, jerky movements. Parts of her body seemed to be fighting against others. Her pointed boy’s knees kept digging into her breasts. Her teeth clamped her lower lip. Her thighs squashed her hands.

My mother would never normally sit around like this. Either she would be busy in the garden, weeding, pruning, harvesting berries, hacking, mowing, digging, or planting. Or she would be hanging up washing, filling or clearing out shelves and boxes, pressing sheets, duvet covers, and towels with the mangle in the basement. She baked cakes or made jam. Or she wasn’t there at all because she was jogging through the dusty asparagus fields, on a “forest run” as she used to call it. When Christa sat down on the sofa in the evenings it was only to watch the television news or read the paper and doze off soon afterward. At some point she would wake with a start, confused, and grumble at us. It was late and high time that we—my father and I—went to bed; she, Christa, was going up at any rate. Which was what she did.

But on those rare evenings that I found her on the sofa—there may have been seven or eight of them altogether—she had turned up the record player loud. Unusually loud. Unsuitably loud. Rebelliously loud. I knew the record. On the sleeve was a picture of a man with a beard, a fisherman’s smock, and a captain’s hat, in a meadow somewhere or on a beach, singing songs in Low German to the guitar. “
Ick wull wi weern noch kleen, Jehann!”
he boomed out to all four corners of our living room, his song more a challenge than a lament. I didn’t know whether I should leave, because it was quite clear that I was intruding. But I didn’t leave, for I wanted it to stop. I wanted my mother to become my mother again, and not Christa Lünschen, the ice-skater from Bootshaven. It broke my heart to see her sitting there, rocking back and forth, and I blamed myself, because obviously my father and I didn’t make her happy. But I was also disgusted; for me her homesickness was a betrayal.

So I stayed by the door, unable to go in to her but unable to leave, either. If it went on for too long I started fidgeting. My mother would look up in fright; sometimes she would even scream. She jumped to her feet and snatched off the record. In a voice that was supposed to sound cheerful she said, “Iris! I didn’t hear you there at all! How was Anni’s?”

It sounded clearly as if she had been caught in the act, which meant she must have something to hide. So it
was
betrayal. I said, scornfully, “What on earth were you listening to? Terrible.”

Then I went into the living room, opened the cupboard where the sweets were—which I was allowed to do only if I had asked permission—broke off a large chunk of chocolate, turned around, and went up to my room to read.

Had Bertha felt homesick, too? Bertha, who had always lived in her house. The fact that a care home was called a home was a disgrace that ensured that “home” would always top the list of “false words.”

After Bertha had been taken from her house to a home, she no longer knew where she was. And yet she seemed to know where she wasn’t. She was forever stuffing cases, bags, plastic bags, coat pockets full of things. And she asked anybody who came near her, visitors, nurses, or fellow residents, whether they could take her home. The care home upset Bertha. It was an expensive private home. But the patients with dementia were undoubtedly at the bottom of the pecking order. Health was the most prized commodity. The fact that someone may have once been a mayor, a rich society lady, or a renowned scientist was irrelevant. On the contrary, the higher someone’s former standing, the further they had to fall. People in wheelchairs might be able to play bridge, but they couldn’t go to tea dances. It was an incontrovertible fact.

Apart from a clear mind and physical health there was one other thing that could win you respect and status in the home: visitors. What counted here was the frequency of the visits, how regular they were and how long they lasted. It also helped if it wasn’t always the same people who came. Men counted more than women. Younger visitors were better than older ones. Residents of the home whose families came often were respected: they must have done something in their lives to deserve it.

Bertha’s most loyal friend from her social circle, Thede Gottfried, had come every second Tuesday morning—her sister-in-law was at the same care home. Christa only visited Bertha during school holidays, but then she came every day. Aunt Harriet came every weekday, Aunt Inga every weekend.

Bertha forgot her daughters one by one. The eldest first. Although she remembered for a long time that Christa belonged to her, the name meant nothing. First she called her Inga, then Harriet. Inga was still Inga for a while, then she became Harriet, too. Harriet remained Harriet for ages, but one day, much later, even Harriet was a stranger.

“Like the three little pigs,” Rosmarie said.

I didn’t know what she meant.

“You know, the first one’s house is blown down so it runs into the second one’s house; that’s blown down, too, so the both of them run into the third one’s house.”

Bertha’s house of stone. Was it now going to be mine?

At the time my mother took it very badly that her mother couldn’t remember her name. Maybe she felt it was unfair that she was unable to forget her home but her home could so easily forget her. Inga and Harriet were more relaxed about the matter. Inga held Bertha’s hand and stroked it and looked into Bertha’s eyes with a smile. Bertha liked that. Harriet took Bertha to the loo, wiped her, washed her hands. And Bertha told Harriet how kind she was and how glad she was to have her.

Inga didn’t care that she was called Harriet, but when Bertha once called her Christa she got annoyed. Christa wasn’t there. She didn’t hold Bertha’s hand. She didn’t go to the loo with Bertha. She had a husband. Hinnerk had loved her the most. Some things could never be forgiven. When Christa was there during school holidays and looked after Bertha, it was hard for Inga and Harriet to be civil to her and fair-minded. When Christa was sad and shocked by the deterioration of Bertha’s memory, her younger sisters found it hard to feel compassion. They felt contempt instead. Their sister had no idea how bad, strenuous, and frightening it really was.

Last Sunday, early in the afternoon, Bertha finally died of a summer flu. Her body had simply forgotten how to recover from an illness like that.

Aunt Inga held her hand. She called for a nurse. Then she phoned Harriet, who drove to the home at once, just in time to see her mother draw her final breath. Bertha’s eyebrows were pinched together slightly, as if she were trying to think of something. Her long and pointed nose stuck out from her face. A plastic beaker of apple juice stood on the white bedside table.

They didn’t call Christa until the evening. My mother put down the receiver and started crying. Afterward she asked my father over and over again, “Why did they wait so long before telling me? Why? What were they thinking of? How much can they hate me?”

There are some things you can never forgive.

At the graveside, we lined up to take turns to throw our flowers onto the oak coffin. The three sisters stood close together, Christa on the right, Inga in the middle, Harriet on the left. My mother slipped her large black bag from her shoulder and opened it. It was only then that I noticed the bag was bulging. Christa took a step forward, peered into the bag, and hesitated. She pulled out something; it had red and yellow hoops. A stocking? She threw it into the open grave. Then she took out from her bag the other stocking—or was it an oven cloth?—and threw it in. Everyone was silent, all the mourners trying to work out what Christa was doing. Her sisters also stepped forward and stood beside her. Finally, with a vigorous gesture, Christa turned the bag upside down and just tipped everything out. It was then that I recognized what she was shaking into her mother’s grave: the knitted things from the box in the wardrobe, the holes in Bertha’s memory turned into wool.

When the bag was empty my mother snapped it shut and hung it back awkwardly over her shoulder. Inga’s right hand felt for the hand of her elder sister, her left hand took Harriet’s. For a while the three of them stood like that by the hole in the ground where Bertha lay at rest beneath garish knitted items. Now they were Hinnerk’s “bonny lasses” again. And they knew that they would always be strongest together as a trio.

So what was the truth about Aunt Inga, the bonniest lass of the three? I wanted to know once and for all, so I put on the thin white dress that was lying on the chair. My black one was soaked in sweat again. I climbed onto the bike and rode off.

Herr Lexow lived right beside the school, which wasn’t far from the church, which wasn’t far from the house. Nothing here was far from anything else. I didn’t know if I would actually ring his doorbell, but as it happened he was in the garden doing a spot of weeding. He must have already watered because the pungent smell of damp, warm earth hung over the flower beds. As I got off my bike, he looked up.

“Ah, it’s you.” He sounded subdued but not unhappy to see me.

“Yes, it’s me again. I’m really sorry to disturb you, but—”

“Please come in, Iris. You’re not disturbing me at all.”

I wheeled my bike through the small gate and leaned it against the side of the house. The garden was pretty and well tended: huge cosmos billowing all over the place, marguerites, roses, lavender, and poppies. He had precisely defined beds of potatoes, runner beans, and tomatoes. I could see red currant and black currant bushes, gooseberries and a hedge of raspberry canes. Herr Lexow offered me a seat on a bench in the shade of a hazel bush, went into the house, and came out again shortly afterward with a tray and two glasses. I jumped up to help. He said there was juice and water in the kitchen. I brought out the sticky bottle of homemade elderberry juice and a bottle of mineral water. Herr Lexow filled our glasses and sat beside me on the bench. I complimented his garden and the juice, and he nodded. Then he looked at me and said, “Spit it out, then.”

I laughed. “I bet you were a good teacher.”

“Yes. I was. But most importantly I remained one for a long time. So?”

“I need to talk about Bertha again.”

“I’d be glad to. There aren’t many people I can talk to Bertha about.”

“Tell me about her. Did you help her when my grandfather was away? How was she with the children?” I wanted to find out more about Inga, of course, but I didn’t dare ask so directly.

It was pleasantly warm on the bench in the shade. After all the excitement of the morning at the lake I now felt heavy and tired. I closed my eyes and listened to Herr Lexow’s calm voice amid the humming of the bees.

There was no doubt that Bertha loved Hinnerk Lünschen, but he didn’t treat her the way she deserved. She should have been more assertive with him, but in all likelihood he wouldn’t have married her if she had. And she did love him. Did Hinnerk love her? Maybe. Definitely. In his own way. He loved her because she loved him and that may have been what he loved most about her: her love for him.

And Inga. A beautiful girl. Herr Lexow would have loved to have been her father, but ultimately he didn’t know if she was his. She may well have been, but he never spoke to Bertha about it. He didn’t dare, and he always thought it was a conversation that they could have when they were old, when Hinnerk was dead, when worldly things didn’t matter anymore, but that stage never came. And then it was too late. There came a time when Bertha didn’t want to talk to him anymore. She would gladly say hello but wouldn’t answer any questions. She said, “That was all so long ago.” And this hurt Herr Lexow. Only later did he understand that she evaded questions simply because she could no longer answer them.

Inga was born during the war, December 1941, when Hinnerk was still at home. Earlier that year, during the Easter holidays, Herr Lexow had taken the time to bring Bertha a few dahlia tubers. She had admired these flowers the previous autumn, they were absolutely stunning: powerful claret stems and thick lavender-colored blooms, a most unusual color for dahlias. Herr Lexow had never forgotten that night in the Deelwaters’ garden, just as he could never forget Bertha’s sister, Anna. He brought the basket of tubers into the kitchen. He had come in the back way through the barn; that was what you did in the village—only strangers rang the doorbell. Bertha was shelling prawns. She was wearing a blue apron, there was a bowl of prawns on the table and some newspaper on her lap that she dropped the shells into. Herr Lexow put his woodchip basket by the door to the cellar. The tubers could go into the ground the following week or the one after that. They talked about Anna. He wanted to know whether Anna had talked to Bertha shortly before she died. Bertha looked at him thoughtfully, without interrupting her shelling. Her fingers took the prawns; she snapped them with her thumb just behind the head and pulled the two halves of the shell apart—quickly, firmly, but delicately so that the legs and black spinal cord came away. Bertha said nothing and bent over the prawns again. He looked at her; a strand of blond hair had come loose from her updo. Before he could think about what he was doing he took the hair and swept it behind her ear. Startled, she reached for her hair and her hand met his. Bertha’s hand was cold and smelled of the sea. Yes, she whispered. Yes, Anna did talk. But she hadn’t really understood what she said. But yes, it did have something to do with him, Herr Lexow.

Carsten Lexow’s mind was in a spin. That night was now fifteen years ago. Since then he had thought about her every single day. He dropped to his knees in front of Bertha and stammered something; she looked at him, at a loss but full of sympathy, and took his head between her wrists. Tiny pink feelers and legs stuck to her wet prawn fingers. The newspaper with the shells slipped from Bertha’s legs. He buried his face in her lap; his body shuddered, whether from crying or something else Bertha couldn’t tell. With the underside of her forearm she stroked his back as if he were a child.