follow her into the smoke kitchen with its blackened walls, which remind me of shriveled or shining prunes depending on the light, and past the oven, which looks like it’s set in the middle of an ashen landscape after a fire storm. Behind it, the larder with its unpainted wooden shelves filled with pots and jars. On the wall, the wooden pottery board holding fired pots full of cracks and held together with twisted wires. In the kitchen, the green sideboard and the food cupboard with tiny holes in its doors and drawer-fronts sothe air can circulate, the prayer corner with the crucifix and pictures of saints, the benches along the walls, the square wooden table with inlaid decorations, the window casements and shutters with traces of mildew. Our bedroom in the back, its inner wall warmed by the tile oven in the kitchen so it’s never cold, the wardrobe, the beds, the wall cupboard in which Grandmother keeps medicines and lotions. The house doors with their doorposts and cast iron locks, the cellar with its vaulted ceiling and shelves on which fruit is stored. The compartments for potatoes, the tub for sauerkraut, the barrels of hard cider.
On the day the excavator drives up to the farm, Grandmother stands on the outbuilding balcony and sobs, now it’s all over, it’s all over! God help me, Mary, Mother of God protect me! I’m so shocked, I start to cry with her. I grab onto her apron and howl so loudly that Grandmother begins hurling reproaches at Father who watches us helplessly, even this child understands what’s happening right now, even the child! Toda, the excavator driver, lays his hand on her shoulder and pleads, calm down, Mitzi, the young ones want to have something of their own.
Grandmother stops weeping and only moans in protest as the last rafters are dropped and the excavator starts smashing the old walls. She pulls me to the front of the house and points at a number that has appeared under the yellowish plaster. 1743, this house has been inhabited since 1743 and now they say it’s not good enough, she exclaims indignantly and begins looking for objects amidst the broken walls. In the past, she assumes, objects were always enclosed in the walls to protectthe house from calamity. She scratches a few shards out of the rubble and, disappointed, tosses them away.
On his breaks, Toda sits with Grandmother. He tells her that lately he has been worried about his brother, who sometimes gets into a state in which he has no idea where he is. At night he escapes into the woods because he thinks the Germans are chasing him. He wanders about in a panic for hours, no one can calm him down. It’s the camp, Grandmother says, it can only be the camp. His brother was still a child when the two of them were deported to the Altötting internment camp, Toda says, what can a child understand? A lot, Grandmother says, a whole lot.
I imagine the excavator driver’s brother as someone who can also see the parade of ghosts and who follows those who have disappeared over hill and dale until he loses sight of them and their things in the dark forest.
When the shovel on Toda’s digger reaches the basement, Father suggests he leave the cellar with its vaulted ceiling and only dig out the area for the second cellar. Maybe he did this to calm Grandmother down and give her the feeling that the new house would stand on the foundation of the old one. The old cellar survives the demolition like a stubborn molar that won’t be extracted.
As the house’s frame rises over the cellar and the first walls are being sheathed, Father is being persuaded to add a second floor to the planned one-story house. After all, his family will grow and the children will needroom. Father agrees and asks everyone who comes to see the construction if it makes sense. He operates the monotonously grinding cement mixer, hauls the mortar to the building site in a wheelbarrow, the
cariola
, and lifts plastic buckets full of the heavy mash with a cable
On the day the excavator drives up to the farm, Grandmother stands on the outbuilding balcony and sobs, now it’s all over, it’s all over! God help me, Mary, Mother of God protect me! I’m so shocked, I start to cry with her. I grab onto her apron and howl so loudly that Grandmother begins hurling reproaches at Father who watches us helplessly, even this child understands what’s happening right now, even the child! Toda, the excavator driver, lays his hand on her shoulder and pleads, calm down, Mitzi, the young ones want to have something of their own.
Grandmother stops weeping and only moans in protest as the last rafters are dropped and the excavator starts smashing the old walls. She pulls me to the front of the house and points at a number that has appeared under the yellowish plaster. 1743, this house has been inhabited since 1743 and now they say it’s not good enough, she exclaims indignantly and begins looking for objects amidst the broken walls. In the past, she assumes, objects were always enclosed in the walls to protectthe house from calamity. She scratches a few shards out of the rubble and, disappointed, tosses them away.
On his breaks, Toda sits with Grandmother. He tells her that lately he has been worried about his brother, who sometimes gets into a state in which he has no idea where he is. At night he escapes into the woods because he thinks the Germans are chasing him. He wanders about in a panic for hours, no one can calm him down. It’s the camp, Grandmother says, it can only be the camp. His brother was still a child when the two of them were deported to the Altötting internment camp, Toda says, what can a child understand? A lot, Grandmother says, a whole lot.
I imagine the excavator driver’s brother as someone who can also see the parade of ghosts and who follows those who have disappeared over hill and dale until he loses sight of them and their things in the dark forest.
When the shovel on Toda’s digger reaches the basement, Father suggests he leave the cellar with its vaulted ceiling and only dig out the area for the second cellar. Maybe he did this to calm Grandmother down and give her the feeling that the new house would stand on the foundation of the old one. The old cellar survives the demolition like a stubborn molar that won’t be extracted.
As the house’s frame rises over the cellar and the first walls are being sheathed, Father is being persuaded to add a second floor to the planned one-story house. After all, his family will grow and the children will needroom. Father agrees and asks everyone who comes to see the construction if it makes sense. He operates the monotonously grinding cement mixer, hauls the mortar to the building site in a wheelbarrow, the
cariola
, and lifts plastic buckets full of the heavy mash with a cable
Similar Books
