I had to think about how one day in the hospital, after the pain had subsided, I looked in the mirror and imagined that everything was the same way it had always been.
I had the guest room in the attic, with angled walls and a skylight window through which you could definitely have seen the stars on a cloudless night. The house was gigantic, Claudia was on a floor below that I hadn’t even seen yet. Ferdi’s room must have been there, too, and Tamara’s, which she had until a few days ago shared with my father. There was also a sauna, a huge wine cellar, and a fitness room full of machines.
“Was it like this for us before, too?” I had asked Claudia, but she hadn’t realized I meant it approvingly. “Not quite this bad,” she had said. “I can show you our old house at some point if you’d like.”
I gratefully declined.
I put on my jeans and opened the bedroom door. A note was stuck to the outside of the door. “Maritschek, we have a lot of things to take care of. Help yourself to breakfast. Kisses, T.” I ripped off the note and stuck it in my pocket.
I walked down the stairs to the next floor. The bathroom door was open, I looked in, and I saw a colorful little toilet seat and a plastic stool in front of the sink, which was smeared with toothpaste. There were bras hanging everywhere with cats and mice and roses on them. I picked one up and let it dangle from my pointer finger, averting my eyes as usual from the bathroom mirror. I couldn’t help thinking of my father and how such a momentous wife-swap really could give you a heart attack.
On the door next to the bathroom were dancing wooden letters that spelled out FERDINAD. The second N must have been dancing at another party somewhere. I opened the door and peeked in. I tried to ignore the sting I felt as I looked at the dark wooden pirate ship bed with a giant captain’s wheel on it. There was a big Ikea rug with street markings on it that reminded me of one I’d had in my room not so long ago. On it a multi-car pileup had been staged. Flying Lego debris probably symbolized a natural disaster.
I pushed the cars aside with my foot and sat down in the middle of the rug. I picked up a little convertible and drove it along one of the streets printed on the rug. Then I began to put together the Lego pieces. The ones within my immediate reach weren’t always what I wanted. I looked around the room for the right pieces until I found a big container of Legos.
When I was finished I had built a parking garage with a fence around it and had parked all the cars inside. In front of the garage I built an avenue lined with trees and flowerbeds. When I was done I looked up at the ceiling, which was covered with a mixed-up array of clouds and stars, and then I let my eyes drop to the documents and photos the walls were papered with.
I stood up, brushed some construction materials off my pants, and went closer. Ferdi had received a commendation from the tooth fairy for good brushing and a certificate for finishing third in a ski race at a Swiss ski school. In a photo nearby he was holding up the medal he’d won and looked as if he felt personally insulted. In the photo to the right of that he was smiling in Tamara’s arms, and when my eyes lit on the next photo my heart stood still. At first I thought it was another shot of Ferdi, only looking weirdly a bit older and taller than now. And then I realized it was me.
I flew out of Ferdi’s room and closed the door a little harder than necessary. Down in the kitchen I opened the refrigerator with trembling hands. I examined rows of pickle jars, moldy cheese rinds, and cold cuts that had gone green. I tried to count how many days my father had been dead and how long he must have been traveling before that. I didn’t come to any conclusive number. I sniffed the open milk suspiciously and looked for a while for the expiration date on the egg carton.
On the stove was a pot with the dried out oatmeal leftovers. I put it in the sink, grabbed another pan from a hook on the wall, and just to be safe, washed it.
The coffee machine was as big as a spaceship and about as easy to operate. I pushed a few buttons and several things lit up red and steam came out the side. Before it could explode I pulled out the plug and opted for instant cappuccino powder and a couple slices of toast from a loaf of bread I spotted up in a cabinet.
I had just put the fork with fried egg to my mouth when the doorbell rang. I gulped down the bite of egg and hurried upstairs since my sunglasses were still sitting somewhere in my room in the attic. As I looked for them, put them on, took them off so I could pull on a T-shirt, and then ran back downstairs, it rang a few more times. I threw open the door.
On the front step was a solid woman with a strikingly small head, or maybe just a too-short haircut. I could tell she was a pro by the fact that she didn’t flinch at the sight of me. The only people who were so firm and persistent were those who had their eyes on a specific goal. I was about to learn hers. She was the headmistress of Ferdi’s school, Frau Meyerling.
Somewhat surprised, I stepped slightly to the side. Ferdi was out with his mother, I said, and wanted to close the door again and get back to my eggs, but she pushed me gently but determinedly out of the way and was suddenly standing in the house. There was nothing else I could do but close the door even though she was now on the wrong side of it. Then I repeated that neither Ferdi nor his mother were home in case she was a bit hard of hearing.
“No problem, I have time.” To my horror, she slipped her patent leather shoes off her feet and looked at me as if sizing me up. “Who are you?”
“The brother,” I mumbled.
“What brother?” She seesawed back and forth on her feet uncomfortably.
I explained — the look on her face said she was perplexed.
“A Rottweiler,” I said before she asked.
“Did you wind him up?”
“I bit him first,” I said.
“You’ll ruin your eyes wearing sunglasses indoors.”
“My mother says the same thing.”
“Listen to your mother.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her bag, turned them wistfully in her hand, and then tossed them back into the bag.
“It’s a no-smoking household, is it?” she asked in a kind of demanding tone. She probably thought that if I could wear sunglasses inside this was the type of place where anything was permitted.
“There’s a small child living here,” I said with as much disdain as if I worked for the national cancer society.
“I know, I know,” she answered, sounding irritated. “Why do you think I’m here. I’m nervous.”
I was nervous, too. I was also hungry, and my eggs were going to be as cold as the pseudo-cappuccino. But eating while this woman was sitting on the leather couch watching me was beyond my powers. Disappearing upstairs with the plate seemed impolite, and I had even less desire to offer her some of my painstakingly composed breakfast.
“Can I help you?” I finally asked. “I really have no idea how long they will be.”
“It always takes a long time,” she said. “Cases of death are time-consuming, you don’t have to tell me. But I still need to speak to your mother.”
What about, I wondered. She read the question on my face.
“It’s about the little one.”
“Did he get up to something?”
“Get up to something? No. He’s an unobtrusive child. Supposedly he can write already, but I don’t believe it. Boys pick it up more slowly. I need to tell your sister about the grief work we’ve arranged at the school. A death like this doesn’t affect only the relatives.”
“Hmm,” I said.
“We’re unsettled.” She pulled out a folded and ironed handkerchief and held it up to the bags under her eyes. “I can still picture your brother-in-law… ”