The Stronger Sex by Hans Werner Kettenbach Page A

at the time, at least in this region.” He shifted in his chair. “He – old Gehrke, I mean – he bought their whole crop from a few small farmers in the foothills, had the gherkins preserved in jars in a sugar-beet factory, and stuck his labels on them. Gehrke’s Gherkins.” He laughed. “And a slogan on the label too, From an old Rhineland recipe. Something like that.”
    He rubbed his chin. “In fact the recipe was his wife’s invention. You know, the flavourings in the brine for pickling gherkins. Or onions. And the grassy stuff – herbs, is it? – floating about in it. Anyway, his wife brewed it up in her kitchen. She probably gave him the whole gherkin idea. After that she went to the factory every morning and brewed up that broth or brine or whatever you call it. And before she started, everyone else had to go out of the room where she worked. She made a state secret of the recipe. Well, never mind how… the pair of them made a packet out of it anyway. With the gherkins and several other good ideas.”
    He laughed. “That way, you could say they were a lucky couple.” He stopped laughing, nodded a couple of times and then said, “There was just one fly in the ointment.”
    â€œNot their daughter, surely?”
    â€œOh yes. Their only child, Cäcilia.” He sighed. “Cilly. She had no intention of studying business administration, which was the old man’s idea. Getting her diploma and then maybe coming in to take on the family firm with a doctorate behind her. Not her, she was dead set on being a painter. And as long as that was confined to art lessons and the good marks she brought home, and exhibitions in the hall of her high school, Gehrke was even proud of her. He bought her an expensive easel, all the equipment and paints she wanted. But when she’d taken her higher
school certificate and matters were getting serious, he tried to stop all that.”
    He stopped, looked into space, smiled, nodded.
    After a while I asked, “Tried? He tried, you said?”
    â€œYes, tried, that was all. She got her own way.” He laughed. “Anyway, she had an ally who could terrify even the boss. Her mother. She was capable of more than making gherkins a popular delicacy; she told the old man she wanted their child to have a better life than hers. She didn’t want her getting up every morning to go to the factory or the warehouse and count salami sausages. She’d like Cilly to do exactly what she wanted and what she enjoyed.”
    He shook his head, smiling. “So he gave in. I don’t know if she threatened to stop sleeping with him, but I wouldn’t have put it past her. Anyway, he gave in. The one concession he did get was that their daughter should take a course of study at an art academy that would also qualify her to teach art in a high school. It meant an extra course, with educational theory and so on. But once she had her qualifications from the art academy she dropped out of the other course and set up on her own.”
    â€œCan an artist do that sort of thing, just like that? I mean, don’t you need a proper studio or something?”
    â€œNot necessarily. But anyway, Gehrke of gherkins fame bought her one.” He laughed. “He wasn’t just a clever businessman; all things considered he was a pretty good father too, I’d say. She was able to start out in a pretty studio that the old man had bought her. In a factory that was cutting production down. Her studio wasn’t enormous, but the light was good. The building had been a fitters’ workshop that had expanded hugely during the boom and then had to cut back. Well, so she was doing well. And when she had her first exhibition – I mean the first without the art academy behind her – the old man was happy and even proud of her again. Of course.”

    He stopped, looked out of the window, nodded now and then. When the