Authors: Andrea Maria Schenkel
The Dark Meadow
Translated from the German by Anthea Bell
Published in Germany as
Finsterau
by Hoffmann & Campe
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Quercus Editions Ltd
55 Baker Street
7th Floor, South Block
London
W1U 8EW
Copyright © 2012 by Andrea Maria Schenkel First published by Hoffman & Campe Verlag, Hamburg, 2012 English translation copyright © 2014 by Anthea Bell
The moral right of Andrea Maria Schenkel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
HB ISBN 978 1 78087 773 0
TPB ISBN 978 1 78087 774 7
EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78087 775 4
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
You can find this and many other great books at:
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Roswitha Haimerl stood there with her coat buttoned up and her bag under her arm. âI'm off home now, Hermann. I've cleared up the bar and stood the chairs on the tables, except for the one at the corner table. There's some no-good layabout still sitting there, he'll have to throw himself out. He's paid what he owes.'
âSteady. You can't be sure he's a drifter just because he looks like one. But off you go. We'll be busy tomorrow, the regulars will be back.'
The landlord was just rinsing out the last glasses. He put them on the draining rack beside the sink to dry and wiped his damp hands on the dish towel.
âOh, and before I forget, I was going to ask if you can get here a little earlier.'
âYes, that's OK. See you tomorrow, then.'
Roswitha Haimerl went to the door. Hermann Müller accompanied her.
âGood night, and mind you don't let anyone pick you up.'
âDon't you worry, Hermann, if anyone comes to meet me at night he'll bring me back next morning at the latest. So long, and make sure you get rid of that no-good fellow.'
Roswitha Haimerl went away, laughing, while the landlord locked up behind her. He left the key in the lock. Then he went over to the corner table.
The guest lay with his torso slumped over the table, one hand under his face, the other holding his half-full beer glass. The landlord picked up the glass and put it out of the sleeping man's reach. Then he placed a hand on his shoulder and tried to wake him.
âHey, time to go home. We're closing. Can you hear me?'
The man, obviously muzzy, straightened up. âOK, OK, just going.'
âWant me to get you a taxi? Or can you walk home?'
The stranger tried to stand up, slipped, and fell back on the chair. âYou let me be! Like I said, I'm just going. Take your great paws off of me!'
âGo easy, go easy. Like me to help you?'
âI don't need no help, I don't.'
He tried to get to his feet again, clinging to the table top with both hands. As he did so his key ring fell to the floor.
Hermann Müller bent down and picked the keys up. âTell you what, I'm getting you a taxi. You can't drive in that state, friend! Or the police will pick you up, and I'll be in the shit for not calling a taxi.'
âThe police, what a laugh!' And indeed, the guest tried laughing. âYou think they care? Someone's had one over the eight, oh yes, they'll stick their oar in then, they'll take him in, the police will, but murder someone and they don't give a damn. It's all one to them, I'm telling you.'
âWhat are you babbling on about? What's all right to who?'
Somehow or other the drunk had managed to get to his feet. He leaned slightly forward, swaying, and brought his face close to the landlord's.
âThe police let murderers go free, let me tell you that.'
He kept tapping the landlord's chest with his forefinger.
âI know about a murder. Two years after the war, that was, and no one wants to know. But
I
know, and I'm not letting it rest. I know who done it and why. But
they
don't want to know a thing about it.'
âI can't think that the police don't want to know about a murder.'
âThem? They don't want to know a thing, not a thing. It's all the same to them, they don't care. Never even investigated properly, they didn't.' He put his forefinger to his mouth. âSsh! Not a word, got to keep mum! Oh yes, I know all about it.'
He dropped back on the chair again.
âSee, it's like with them three monkeys. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. And if it looks like foreign cops got to be brought in, they don't want to touch it. Better keep their mouths shut than call the Frenchies in. Don't want to show themselves up, do they?'
âThat's a load of garbage. Why would the police do nothing just to avoid making inquiries abroad?'
But the man did not reply; his head was down on the table again and he was asleep. Hermann Müller had another shot at waking him, but after a while he abandoned the attempt, put out the light, shot the bolt on the door of the bar, picked up the day's takings and went home to his apartment upstairs.
Next morning the man had gone. Some time during the night he had climbed out of a window in the bar, leaving his wallet lying under the table.
When Roswitha Haimerl came to get the bar ready for the day, she found a few till receipts and a twenty-mark
note in the wallet, along with a yellowed old newspaper cutting. Her curiosity aroused, she unfolded it.
âTake a look at this, Hermann. Don't you know him? Surely that's Dr Augustin!'
She held the news report out to the landlord. âIn that picture â he was still young then.'
The landlord took the cutting. âLet's see it.'
Then he folded it up again and put it in his own wallet.
âTell you what, Roswitha, I'll show that cutting to Augustin when he comes in for his usual at midday. What a joke! Can't wait to hear what he says, especially when I tell him the story of that layabout drunk yesterday.'
The shutters had been half open all night, letting out the sultry heat of the day and allowing the cooler morning air to stream into the room. The mosquito came in with it, and now its high-pitched whine has woken her. Afra lies in her bed in the bedroom, listening. The sound gets louder when the insect comes closer, fainter when it moves away. Sometimes it even flies so close to her face that she feels a slight current of air on her skin. Afra lies there quietly, waiting. The humming gets louder and finally stops. She feels the mosquito on her cheek, keeps still a moment longer, then hits out with the flat of her hand. The insect's body, swollen with blood, bursts, and the sticky fluid clings to her fingers and her cheek.
*
Afra opens her eyes. Disgusted, she wipes her hand on the sheet. The light in the room is grey. The few pieces of furniture are dark shapes standing out against the walls. Just before sunrise. Time to get up. She pushes the quilt aside; feeling the cold trodden-mud floor under her bare feet, she sits on the edge of the bed a little longer, looking across the room at Albert, who is asleep in his cot. The child is dear to her, and at the same time a stranger. He is her flesh and blood, so she must love him, but sometimes, when she's sitting on her bed as she is now, she wishes he wasn't there. Then her life would be simpler. She instantly feels ashamed, tells herself it's unfair and sinful to think like that, the child can't help it, and there are good moments too, she wouldn't want to miss those. All the same, she can't shake off the thought; it torments her, it comes back again and again. There are only a few days when she's entirely free of it. Yesterday was one of them. Her parents went to Mass early, and on after that to visit relations. Afra and the child stayed behind in the house on their own. All that day, she'd felt none of the nightmare pressure that usually weighed down on her. To get out of going with her parents she had said there was laundry to do, the whites needed washing, and in spite of the drudgery it had been her best Sunday in a long time. She'd got up at four in the morning, had breakfast and went out into the yard.
Before the others in the house were awake, she was already standing at the wooden trough, taking out the things that had been soaking in soda overnight and rubbing them on the washboard one by one. When she had put the big pan containing the laundry and soft soap on the kitchen stove, her father and mother had just been getting ready to go to church. Once they had left, she woke Albert and dressed him, did the housework, and from time to time she stirred the boiling washing with the big wooden kitchen spoon. The little boy ran about energetically, and she had been afraid he might scald himself on the hot soapsuds in a careless moment. So in the end she had taken him on her lap, and together they sang the song about the little witch who gets up at six in the morning to go into the barn. They sang it over and over again, until it was time to take the washing out of the suds and rub it on the washboard in the yard again. Albert never tired of helping as far as he could. He carried the smaller items over to the trough to rinse them in cold water from the well until he was wet all over, and his hands were blue with cold. Afra took his wet clothes off, dried him, and sat him down with a piece of bread on the bench in the sun outside the house. And when she had finally wrung out the washing and spread it on the meadow to bleach, she too sat down in the sun and watched the little boy trying to drive the neighbour's
geese away with a thin switch, to keep them from walking all over the laundry on the ground. From time to time she stood up and went to sprinkle the washing lying out to bleach with water, until finally she put it all back in the tub in the evening, ready to be hung out to dry next morning.
When she was clearing everything up and was about to go indoors with the boy, two travelling journeymen came by the yard and asked if she knew where they could stay the night. One of them reminded her slightly of Albert's father; it wasn't so much his looks as the way he smiled when his eyes dwelt on her. She had talked to them for a little while, and then sent them over to the neighbour's house. After that she had gone indoors with the child to make supper. While she was busy with that, Albert had fallen asleep on the sofa in the kitchen, and she carried the sleeping child over to the bedroom without waking him.