reel.
Since the whine of circular saws has replaced the mixer’s chewing and, in the woodshed, bags of cement have been replaced by beams, posts, and planking, I can sense Grandmother giving in. Just as the builders are topping off the house with a spruce tree attached to the highest rafter, she decides not to move into the new house. She threatens to tell everyone who asks that she was thrown out.
A few weeks before we move in, the fabric merchant comes by.
Grandmother haggles over blankets, towels, pillows, and sheets – her contribution to the household, she says.
The Gypsy’s van is filled to the brim with bed linens when he brings the ordered goods. He assures us he chose the best pieces for his best customer.
His wife can’t read the cards fast enough because the construction workers are also hoping to be told of good fortunes. The piles of sheets and towels flaunt their white, blue, and golden-red flower patterns on the balcony of the outbuilding and are admired by the recipients for days.
The new house is furnished and occupied.
One evening I hear Father arguing with Michi, who had stopped in to ask how things were coming along. Michi thinks that Father shouldn’thave cut costs and installed central heating. It’s standard these days and is less time-consuming than heating with a small oven. Besides, Michi thinks a new house without warm water is old-fashioned. Father takes offense. He didn’t want to go into debt, he protests. Furthermore, now there’s running water in the house, so he can forego the luxury of central heating. As he is taken around the house, Michi does find a few things he likes, especially the bathroom and the new bread oven that has been covered with antique tiles.
Mother puts a set of dishes in mint condition into the sideboard, the set she received on her wedding day. She sews curtains and tablecloths for the kitchen and embroiders them with red carnations. She argues with Father over the wooden closet she ordered from the carpenter to keep her books and knitting supplies along with our schoolbooks. Grandmother moves into the outbuilding, and I move into a room of my own with no heating.
The new house is built on a vulnerable foundation. The slope, into which the old house seemed to have grown, has been removed. Where once a path led so close to the back of the house that you could support yourself with your hand on the wall, there is now an escarpment. Like an open mouth from which the jaws were extracted. The new house stands in this gaping mouth with no rear cover and cannot settle down. The badly insulated walls cannot store any heat. The first blotches and traces of mold appear in the stairwell. The old cellar revives memories of the past every time we set foot in it. When the seasons change, it emits strangeodors that try to penetrate into the building above it. The new walls, however, send everything outside, eject all they cannot hold. Waves of odors waft around the courtyard, the musty smell of mold, the sour smell of apples, the sweetish smell of potatoes.
I ’M delighted I can return to the castle in my summer holidays. In Gradisch, I hop up the wooden staircase to my uncle’s apartment and plunge into the familiar mix of smells in the attic apartment. I want to play for hours with my cousins or lie in bed reading comic books.
The summer days have a glittering golden border and more of the color rubs off onto my skin every day. The days are painted with the colors of the flowers in my aunt’s garden and blended in the water of the count’s pond where we swim.
One hot day at noon, Iris, who works in the kitchen, takes Johanna and me to the pond. She is meant to keep an eye on us. In any case, she is older than we are.
We spread our towels on the dock and cautiously slip into the shallow water. Iris lets my little cousin climb onto her back and swims across the pond with her. Johanna squeals and laughs, but the pond’s depths are quickly crossed.
After Iris set
Since the whine of circular saws has replaced the mixer’s chewing and, in the woodshed, bags of cement have been replaced by beams, posts, and planking, I can sense Grandmother giving in. Just as the builders are topping off the house with a spruce tree attached to the highest rafter, she decides not to move into the new house. She threatens to tell everyone who asks that she was thrown out.
A few weeks before we move in, the fabric merchant comes by.
Grandmother haggles over blankets, towels, pillows, and sheets – her contribution to the household, she says.
The Gypsy’s van is filled to the brim with bed linens when he brings the ordered goods. He assures us he chose the best pieces for his best customer.
His wife can’t read the cards fast enough because the construction workers are also hoping to be told of good fortunes. The piles of sheets and towels flaunt their white, blue, and golden-red flower patterns on the balcony of the outbuilding and are admired by the recipients for days.
The new house is furnished and occupied.
One evening I hear Father arguing with Michi, who had stopped in to ask how things were coming along. Michi thinks that Father shouldn’thave cut costs and installed central heating. It’s standard these days and is less time-consuming than heating with a small oven. Besides, Michi thinks a new house without warm water is old-fashioned. Father takes offense. He didn’t want to go into debt, he protests. Furthermore, now there’s running water in the house, so he can forego the luxury of central heating. As he is taken around the house, Michi does find a few things he likes, especially the bathroom and the new bread oven that has been covered with antique tiles.
Mother puts a set of dishes in mint condition into the sideboard, the set she received on her wedding day. She sews curtains and tablecloths for the kitchen and embroiders them with red carnations. She argues with Father over the wooden closet she ordered from the carpenter to keep her books and knitting supplies along with our schoolbooks. Grandmother moves into the outbuilding, and I move into a room of my own with no heating.
The new house is built on a vulnerable foundation. The slope, into which the old house seemed to have grown, has been removed. Where once a path led so close to the back of the house that you could support yourself with your hand on the wall, there is now an escarpment. Like an open mouth from which the jaws were extracted. The new house stands in this gaping mouth with no rear cover and cannot settle down. The badly insulated walls cannot store any heat. The first blotches and traces of mold appear in the stairwell. The old cellar revives memories of the past every time we set foot in it. When the seasons change, it emits strangeodors that try to penetrate into the building above it. The new walls, however, send everything outside, eject all they cannot hold. Waves of odors waft around the courtyard, the musty smell of mold, the sour smell of apples, the sweetish smell of potatoes.
I ’M delighted I can return to the castle in my summer holidays. In Gradisch, I hop up the wooden staircase to my uncle’s apartment and plunge into the familiar mix of smells in the attic apartment. I want to play for hours with my cousins or lie in bed reading comic books.
The summer days have a glittering golden border and more of the color rubs off onto my skin every day. The days are painted with the colors of the flowers in my aunt’s garden and blended in the water of the count’s pond where we swim.
One hot day at noon, Iris, who works in the kitchen, takes Johanna and me to the pond. She is meant to keep an eye on us. In any case, she is older than we are.
We spread our towels on the dock and cautiously slip into the shallow water. Iris lets my little cousin climb onto her back and swims across the pond with her. Johanna squeals and laughs, but the pond’s depths are quickly crossed.
After Iris set
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