Funeral for a Dog: A Novel (13 page)

Auberge la Fontaine

I first heard the name Dirk Svensson at dinner with Elisabeth’s friends in Venasque (Auberge la Fontaine). Elisabeth and I were again spending a few days in Provence, we were celebrating her thirty-sixth birthday (April 1). We return again and again to our places, we go to the same restaurants and bars, we stay in the same rooms (Brittany, Provence, the Baltic Sea). This time we flew to Marseille and rented a car there (the Renault could no longer handle long distances, said Elisabeth, even though I’d love to sit next to you again for days, Daniel). In the middle of the small restaurant stood a grand piano, around it four tables and only a few audience members. Before dinner we drank and listened to Schubert’s four-hand military marches, then Poulenc (we soaked thoughts in wine like plums). The pianist looked like Woody Allen, his accompanist wore a black evening dress (her heavy body from behind an upside-down heart). Elisabeth didn’t have to introduce me, her friends knew me: the dramatist, the writer (we already had a shared story). At the next table an old woman played along with every single note on the wooden table. They were here to think, said the dramatist, without all the networking and the usual milieu. I salted my soup, whereupon the writer stood up and with an appropriate degree of conspicuousness threw the saltshaker out the window into the village fountain. It was about the genuine gaze, he said, raising his glass: to the natural beauty of meals and women (Elisabeth’s French laugh)! At some point between foie gras and cheese tasting (plateau de fromage), he leaned over to me and asked whether I’d heard of Dirk Svensson, now that was an author a journalist like me should write an article about. A strange man, Mandelkern! Elisabeth nodded, I laughed too.

on Elisabeth’s side

Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Jahrestage
by Uwe Johnson

Kinder und Tod
by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Das Dekameron
by Giovanni Boccaccio

Die Hebammensprechstunde
by Ingeborg Stadelmann

Die Besteigung des Mont Ventoux
by Francesco Petrarca

Who exactly is Elisabeth Edda Emmerich?

the 3-step system

First we speak about visible things. Because the power is still out (Claasen set a fire, Claasen chopped down trees, Claasen this, Claasen that), we’re sitting in the kitchen and watching and listening to Svensson (a transistor radio sits silently on a shelf).
Filetto di persico con salvia,
he says, taking a heavy pan from a hook, someone should fetch the sage from the terra-cotta pot in the garden. The boy has already forgotten his cut and wound, and Tuuli allows him to pick the sage by himself (he brings back oleander flowers). From the water we hear the dog coughing. The boy should also take a look in the chicken coop, says Svensson, setting three glasses of wine on the table, maybe they laid an egg this morning. Tuuli is smoking. This is how things look: a late afternoon with friends, the sun will set, and we’ll talk, we’ll pass around Autan (against the mosquitoes), we’ll refill one another’s glasses (against the silence). Svensson takes the packet with the fish from the sink, he praises cooking with gas (the directness of the manual procedure), he explains the secret to cooking good fish, the “3-step system,” he says (filleting, souring, salting—dispels odor and refines taste). Svensson praises the boy and lays out on the table the sage leaves he’s now found (he’s a real botanist, says Svensson, a plant expert and biologist). He drops some butter in the pan and holds up to the light the egg the boy has brought. He lays the soggy wax paper on the table in front of Tuuli, she should operate on the fish, he says, that’s always been the task of the doctor in the house. Svensson laughs, and Tuuli asks whether the fish hasn’t been refrigerated all day. Yes, the power’s out, says Svensson, but the fish here on the lake are almost too fresh to eat. To celebrate the occasion, he says, raising his glass, to celebrate this special occasion (a watery red trail of blood on the table).

Elisabeth (red)

Our honeymoon lasted three days and took us to Kolberg. Everything we needed fit in the Renault. The summer of 2003 was a summer of record-breaking heat (we were wearing a wedding dress and shorts). At the Eimsbüttel marriage bureau the throwing of rice was prohibited, and the paternoster elevator tore a snag in Elisabeth’s red dress. All you have to do is stand still, she said, and it goes continuously up and down. My grandmother brought lilies (Elisabeth’s parents took her between them). After the wedding we ate lunch in the Four Seasons Hotel and set off immediately afterward (we hadn’t even reserved a table). Maybe another life is a simpler life. The language of flowers is a foreign language, Elisabeth said later on the country road. She has been married, she has lost a child, now she wants to risk it again (her bulky baggage). I drove and Elisabeth read to me from an old newspaper, it took us two hours to reach the sea at Lübeck, we’d left everything behind.

wedding dress (red)

In my head this image remains: Elisabeth and I on a Baltic Sea beach beyond the Priwall Peninsula, the red wedding dress spread out under us (sea buckthorn and stunted pines). Elisabeth is eating peppered mackerel directly from the wax paper with her fingers. I fall asleep, and when I wake up storm clouds have blotted out the sun. Lightning flashes, the beach is empty, I’m alone (the wax paper and the dress lie crumpled in the beach grass). No wind, no rain, no thunder. Suddenly Elisabeth surfaces from the completely smooth water and comes toward me (she has nothing on). Behind her the Baltic Sea begins to foam, a balloon wafts over the water (red). When she sits on me, even though she moves much slower than usual, she comes much too fast (outside wet gooseflesh and inside unexpectedly warm). I follow suit, then the thunder, then the rain (as if she were responsible for all this). Elisabeth says that she loves me and wipes herself clean with the wedding dress, I’m forbidden to use that against her. Elisabeth laughs, I laugh too.

our strange preferences

We continued with the red: Elisabeth and I at the balustrade of the Klütz Mill, the wedding dress folded in the Renault. The sun was setting (a small detail). Elisabeth was wearing a white T-shirt, her hair tied back with a rubber band. She ordered plaice with red wine, I hesitated at the thought. If I may, said the waiter, to go with the plaice we have an excellent Chateauneuf du Pape. But it’s not about tailoring things to convention, Elisabeth declared, everyone has his own strange preferences. Isn’t that right, Mandelkern? The sun clear over the fields and flying wheat husks and swarms of mosquitoes. The same for me, I said (back then I thought we were forever). Elisabeth laughed, I laughed too.

one-eyed Jack

Tuuli asks for implements and Svensson puts bowls (red plastic) and a knife block on the table. She chooses the smallest and tests the blade with her index finger, then she sharpens it and Svensson refills our wine. The passing thought of asking my questions now without warning into the silent room and waiting for clear answers (the sound of the blade on the stone). I lay my book and pen on the table quite conspicuously, but then I don’t ask after all. Instead I watch Tuuli filleting the fish: her fingers trace the creatures’ bellies, they open the backs, lay bare the hearts, gills, liver, intestines. Even Svensson stops talking (when no one replies, there’s nothing to say). Tuuli is adept, she has no inhibitions, she doesn’t hesitate, she first wipes the blood with a towel and then brushes her blonde hair from her face. She shows the dead fish to the boy, Svensson and I follow her explanations. May I have the heart,
Äiti
? asks the boy, but Tuuli throws it in the plastic bowl with the other remains, wipes the blade clean, and lights a cigarette. Hearts are not for people, she says, hearts are for the dog. Besides, Svensson adds, the fried egg is ready (may I serve, sir? one-eyed Jack?). Over the lake the heron is flying slowly, farther out is a steamer with strings of lights. Tuuli says she’s going swimming now, it will be dark soon and she doesn’t like swimming in the dark, could we manage without her for a little while?

Yes.

Of course.

Minä en pelkää
.

She kisses the boy on the forehead and stubs out her cigarette. You smoke too much, says Svensson, serving the boy his dinner. By the time I get cancer, Tuuli replies, we’ll have found a cure. Then she leaves (Tuuli believes in the future).

to celebrate the occasion

First the fried egg, later a basket of bread, the bowl of salad, a plate of fruit. Svensson sets the table. The boy stands on his chair and eats with his fingers, we’re again or still drinking wine, red and white, Barolo and Lugana, the boy gets apple juice in a wine glass. Svensson stands at the stove like a television cook, he tosses gnocchi in butter and sage, he praises the boy, he cuts his one-eyed Jack into suitable pieces, occasionally he wipes the boy’s mouth with his apron (the boy’s not afraid).

Interview (Dirk Svensson, television cook)

To the old days!

he says, but Tuuli doesn’t respond. She drinks without looking at Svensson and stubs out her cigarette in the sink (her wet hair combed back). Then the heavy pan and the fragrant fish between us (the eyes now murky), we eat without a word, only the boy asks sporadic questions and gets selective answers. (Why’s it called a one-eyed Jack? Do dogs like cold fish?) Tuuli cuts an apple for him, later the boy climbs from his chair onto his mother’s lap, lays his head on her chest, and closes his eyes (words fail me). Tuuli enfolds him in her arms and hums the Finnish song that I heard through the wall last night, she removes his shoes and holds his little feet, she herself eats with her left hand (their shared calm, my unexpected emotion). The fish is perfect, the wine a little too warm (Elisabeth would send it back). Svensson and I listen to Tuuli’s singing until our plates are empty too, until the boy has fallen asleep, then Svensson gets up and strokes the sleeping child in Tuuli’s arms on the cheek. He could teach the boy how to fish, he says, pointing to the yellow fishing rod, which is leaning, still in its plastic, in the corner of the room.

the demotion of the Fiat

Svensson rekindles the light. Tuuli has brought the boy into the room next to mine and left the door wide open, I wash the plates as if I belonged here. Tuuli is watching me as she smokes my cigarettes (Muratti 2000). These candles, says Svensson, are the last light of the day. He speaks with proud enthusiasm of his house, of the chickens and dogs and chairs, of the view of the opposite shore, he tells about Claasen and Claasen’s wife and Claasen’s sorrow, he talks about the seasons and fishing grounds and plant cycles, about the access road that’s been overgrown for years (the extension of the Via San Rocco into nothingness). He laughs about the demotion of the Fiat from small car to a pen for small animals. Svensson is a feverish storyteller, his stories intertwine, his punch lines flare up in unexpected places, our glasses clink (even Tuuli smiles occasionally). I enjoy listening to Svensson, and he seems to have been waiting for listeners. He pours wine into each of our glasses, he speaks of the local birds and trees and water snakes, there are vipers here too, he says, raising his glass with every joke and then at every sad turn (I’ve given up resistance). If the boy wouldn’t wake up, if the candles wouldn’t burn down, if the next day wouldn’t come, if I didn’t have 3,000 words to write, if Tuuli didn’t have to sleep too (a gap in her teeth when she laughs)—we could sit here forever, I think, why not? But Tuuli downs her glass in one swig and Svensson gets up. He asks for a cigarette, then he leaves. Tuuli refills the boy’s juice glass and pushes it across the table to me (
succo di mele
). Let’s conclude the evening by drinking something sensible,
Manteli
, she says, or else tomorrow will be a disaster.