utterly dependent on my mood. With Hanna things felt good for weeks—in spite of our fights, in spite of the fact that she pushed me away again and again, and again and again I crawled to her. And so summer in the new class began well.
I can still see the classroom: right front, the door, along the right-hand wall the board with the clothes hooks, on the left a row of windows looking onto the Heiligenberg and—when we stood next to the glass at recess—down at the streets, the river and the meadows on the opposite bank; in front, the blackboard, the stands for maps and diagrams, and the teacher’s desk and chair on a foot-high platform. The walls had yellow oil paint on them to about head height, and above that, white; and from the ceiling hung two milky glass globes. There was not one superfluous thing in the room: no pictures, no plants, no extra chair, no cupboard with forgotten books and notebooks and colored chalk. When your eyes wandered, they wandered to what was outside the window, or to whoever was sitting next to you. When Sophie saw me looking at her, she turned and smiled at me.
“Berg, Sophia may be a Greek name, but that is no reason for you to study your neighbor in a Greek lesson. Translate!”
We were translating the
Odyssey.
I had read it in German, loved it, and love it to this day. When it was my turn, it took me only seconds to find my place and translate. After the teacher had stopped teasing me about Sophie and the class had stopped laughing, it was something else that made me stutter. Nausicaa, white-armed and virginal, who in body and features resembled the immortals—should I imagine her as Hanna or as Sophie? It had to be one of the two.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
W HEN AN airplane's engines fail, it is not the end of the flight. Airplanes don’t fall out of the sky like stones. They glide on, the enormous multi-engined passenger jets, for thirty, forty-five minutes, only to smash themselves up when they attempt a landing. The passengers don’t notice a thing. Flying feels the same whether the engines are working or not. It’s quieter, but only slightly: the wind drowns out the engines as it buffets the tail and wings. At some point, the earth or sea look dangerously close through the window. But perhaps the movie is on, and the stewards and air hostesses have closed the shades. Maybe the very quietness of the flight is appealing to the passengers.
That summer was the glide path of our love. Or rather, of my love for Hanna. I don’t know about her love for me.
We kept up our ritual of reading aloud, showering, making love, and then lying together. I read her
War and Peace
with all of Tolstoy’s disquisitions on history, great men, Russia, love and marriage; it must have lasted forty or fifty hours. Again, Hanna became absorbed in the unfolding of the book. But it was different this time; she withheld her own opinions; she didn’t make Natasha, Andrei, and Pierre part of her world, as she had Luise and Emilia, but entered their world the way one sets out on a long and dazzling journey, or enters a castle which one is allowed to visit, even stay in until one feels at home, but without ever really shedding one’s inhibitions. All the things I had read to her before were already familiar to me.
War and Peace
was new for me, too. We took the long journey together.
We thought up pet names for each other. She began not just to call me Kid, but gave me other attributes and diminutives, such as Frog or Toad, Puppy, Toy, and Rose. I stuck to Hanna, until she asked me, “Which animal do you see when you hold me and close your eyes and think of animals?” I closed my eyes and thought of animals. We were lying snuggled close together, my head on her neck, my neck on her breasts, my right arm underneath her against her back and my left hand on her behind. I ran my arms and hands over her broad back, her hard thighs, her firm ass, and also felt the solidity of her breasts and stomach against my neck
I can still see the classroom: right front, the door, along the right-hand wall the board with the clothes hooks, on the left a row of windows looking onto the Heiligenberg and—when we stood next to the glass at recess—down at the streets, the river and the meadows on the opposite bank; in front, the blackboard, the stands for maps and diagrams, and the teacher’s desk and chair on a foot-high platform. The walls had yellow oil paint on them to about head height, and above that, white; and from the ceiling hung two milky glass globes. There was not one superfluous thing in the room: no pictures, no plants, no extra chair, no cupboard with forgotten books and notebooks and colored chalk. When your eyes wandered, they wandered to what was outside the window, or to whoever was sitting next to you. When Sophie saw me looking at her, she turned and smiled at me.
“Berg, Sophia may be a Greek name, but that is no reason for you to study your neighbor in a Greek lesson. Translate!”
We were translating the
Odyssey.
I had read it in German, loved it, and love it to this day. When it was my turn, it took me only seconds to find my place and translate. After the teacher had stopped teasing me about Sophie and the class had stopped laughing, it was something else that made me stutter. Nausicaa, white-armed and virginal, who in body and features resembled the immortals—should I imagine her as Hanna or as Sophie? It had to be one of the two.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
W HEN AN airplane's engines fail, it is not the end of the flight. Airplanes don’t fall out of the sky like stones. They glide on, the enormous multi-engined passenger jets, for thirty, forty-five minutes, only to smash themselves up when they attempt a landing. The passengers don’t notice a thing. Flying feels the same whether the engines are working or not. It’s quieter, but only slightly: the wind drowns out the engines as it buffets the tail and wings. At some point, the earth or sea look dangerously close through the window. But perhaps the movie is on, and the stewards and air hostesses have closed the shades. Maybe the very quietness of the flight is appealing to the passengers.
That summer was the glide path of our love. Or rather, of my love for Hanna. I don’t know about her love for me.
We kept up our ritual of reading aloud, showering, making love, and then lying together. I read her
War and Peace
with all of Tolstoy’s disquisitions on history, great men, Russia, love and marriage; it must have lasted forty or fifty hours. Again, Hanna became absorbed in the unfolding of the book. But it was different this time; she withheld her own opinions; she didn’t make Natasha, Andrei, and Pierre part of her world, as she had Luise and Emilia, but entered their world the way one sets out on a long and dazzling journey, or enters a castle which one is allowed to visit, even stay in until one feels at home, but without ever really shedding one’s inhibitions. All the things I had read to her before were already familiar to me.
War and Peace
was new for me, too. We took the long journey together.
We thought up pet names for each other. She began not just to call me Kid, but gave me other attributes and diminutives, such as Frog or Toad, Puppy, Toy, and Rose. I stuck to Hanna, until she asked me, “Which animal do you see when you hold me and close your eyes and think of animals?” I closed my eyes and thought of animals. We were lying snuggled close together, my head on her neck, my neck on her breasts, my right arm underneath her against her back and my left hand on her behind. I ran my arms and hands over her broad back, her hard thighs, her firm ass, and also felt the solidity of her breasts and stomach against my neck
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