The Taste of Apple Seeds (21 page)

On one of the last warm autumn days he asked her whether she liked smoked eel. When she nodded he said he was heading straight down to his smoking barrel; a friend had given him a bucket of fresh eels, already killed and gutted.

Inga laughed. “Interesting present.”

“I repaired the engine of his outboard motorboat. He’s got a few eel traps in the harbor. Do you want to come with me?”

“No!”

“Oh, come on! It’s lovely down there.”

“I know, I grew up around here.”

“Okay then, do it just for me.”

“Why should I?”

“Hmm, maybe because I couldn’t imagine anything nicer.”

After a pause, Inga said, “Is that so? Well then, I guess I’ll have to.”

Inga laughed at his whoops of joy and got into his car. Peter drove to a barn near the lock. Inga wasn’t worried: she knew this area like the back of her hand, her family’s pasture was just over there. Although Peter Klaasen liked to play the seducer with her, she enjoyed his cheerfulness and enthusiasm.

The rusty old barrel stood in the middle of the meadow. Peter went into the barn and returned with a black pail filled with the twisted bodies of dark eels. The dead creatures were still moving. He searched his jacket pockets, rummaging around in them with increasing urgency, then shook his head, cursed, and looked at Inga’s legs. When he looked up again, his smile was at once mischievous and coy.

“Frau Lünschen, we’re going to need your tights.”

“What?”

“I’m not joking. I’ve forgotten mine. We need nylon tights.”

“Do you want to smoke my tights or my legs?”

“Neither. We need them to get the eels. I’ll buy you a new pair, I promise.”

His smile was full of such expectancy that Inga sighed, went behind the car, and took off her fine mesh tights. “There you go. Now, if this little escapade doesn’t start getting more entertaining soon, I’m walking straight back to the petrol station.”

Peter Klaasen asked whether she would mind if he put his hand into one leg of the tights. Inga felt uneasy, but she nodded.

Peter’s hand in Inga’s flesh-colored tights no longer looked as if it belonged to his body. It moved around in the water inside the bucket like an eyeless, colorless deep-sea creature. And it had already caught the first eel. Inga bent over the pail. The dead eel twitched and Peter swiftly put a hook through it. He hung this hook on the iron rods that lay across the top of the barrel.

He pulled his hand out of Inga’s tights and offered them to her. “Your turn now.”

Inga stretched the tights over her hand, plunged it into the bucket, and grabbed for an eel, but it slipped from her grasp.

“Be brave.”

Inga was bolder with her next grab and managed to get hold of it. She screamed when she pulled the eel out of the water. She could feel it moving. Peter Klaasen took it from her, skillfully, stuck a hook through its jaw, and hung it next to the other one. Inga laughed, slightly breathlessly. She handed one eel after another to Peter. When all the eels were hung he made a small fire in the oven below, but he didn’t want roaring flames, he just needed it to glow.

Peter placed a round lid over the barrel. Then they sat in the car, laughing and drinking coffee from a thermos that Peter fished from the backseat. There was only one cup, for which he apologized. Inga said it didn’t matter; she only had one pair of tights after all. Then the two of them burst out laughing again, and Inga felt young and relaxed and for a while she was able to forget her worries about Bertha. When Peter passed her the cup of coffee, the tips of their fingers touched. He got a shock, flinched, and the hot coffee splashed on Inga’s hand. She pressed her lips together and shook her head when Peter wanted to take a look at her hand.

Later she took two freshly smoked eels back to Bremen.

Peter Klaasen offered to install a cassette player in Inga’s car, and one Friday evening he rang at the front door in Geestestrasse with his toolbox under his arm. He would get going with the installation right away so that Inga could listen to music on the drive back on Sunday. It was the Easter holidays, Mira and I were there, too; my mother had an errand to run in town.

Inga blushed when she opened the door to him, but quickly got over her embarrassment when she saw how embarrassed he was himself. She told herself that she was at least fifteen years older than this boy, and this helped her quickly regain her composure. She treated him warmly but patronizingly, with a touch of something like wistful self-mockery.

He was invited in and served tea and cake. Harriet chatted with him; she knew his boss, the owner of the petrol station, fairly well. Rosmarie was sitting at the table. In front of her stood a vase with a single dahlia, bright yellow with a pink picotee edge. She lifted her head and looked beyond the flower to Inga and her visitor. Her fine copper-red eyebrows were raised and she was eyeing up this young man with silver hair. As soon as her aunt Inga and Peter Klaasen exchanged their first words she sat bolt upright, alert and still, like an animal picking up a scent. Mira looked at Rosmarie from beneath her half-closed eyelids.

Harriet also noticed her daughter’s attentiveness and had an idea. “Herr Klaasen, we’ve been looking for ages for someone to help Rosmarie with her math. Might you consider giving up one or two afternoons a week to do that?”

Peter Klaasen looked at Rosmarie; she looked back, but said nothing.

“Would you like that, Rosmarie?” he asked gently.

Rosmarie turned her gaze from him to Inga, who immediately started tidying her hair. Then Rosmarie looked at Mira and smiled her predatory smile, which was particularly effective as her canines were slightly longer than her incisors. “Why not?”

“Excellent,” rejoiced Harriet, who couldn’t believe that Rosmarie was being so amenable. “That’s settled! I’ll pay you twenty marks an hour.”

Bertha, who was busy with her cake, looked up from her plate and said, “Oh. Twenty marks. That’s a lot of money. You could . . . couldn’t you? I mean, will . . . ? Come on, say something.”

Peter obviously knew about Bertha; at any rate he didn’t seem surprised but said pleasantly, “Yes, Frau Lünschen, it is a lot of money.” But when his eyes met Inga’s, he stopped suddenly. Inga looked away.

“Oh, good, good! Oh, Inga, he’s going to do it!” Harriet was overjoyed. “Wait, Herr Klaasen, I need to fetch my diary so we can arrange a day. Rosmarie, which afternoon do you do gymnastics on? I’ll be right back. One second, please. Okay?”

Harriet’s voice rang out from the kitchen, which she had darted into in a mild panic to hunt for the diary. Her panic must have also been in part due to the fact that she felt awkward. After all, it wasn’t every day you met younger admirers of your elder sister, let alone handsome ones who were mathematicians. We could hear Harriet scattily muttering to herself as she rifled through the drawer in the kitchen table.

“Wednesdays, Mama.” Rosmarie rolled her eyes.

Harriet came back, brandishing a pocket diary. She fell onto a chair. “Okay, you’ve got gymnastics on Wednesdays, my child, just so you know.”

Rosmarie sighed heavily and shook her head in resignation.

“So what happens on the other days?” Harriet held the diary far away from her eyes and blinked. “Oh, it’s so dark in here. I can’t make out anything.”

Peter Klaasen glanced at the dining table, took a step closer, picked up the vase with the dahlia and placed it next to Harriet’s diary. Then he took a step back again. The thick yellow-and-pink flower hung like an old-fashioned reading lamp over Harriet’s diary.

Harriet stared dumbfounded at the flower, then looked up and burst out laughing. Her eyes were gleaming as they looked from Peter Klaasen to her sister and back to Peter Klaasen. Bertha laughed, too, her eyes filling with tears.

Inga’s heart tightened. She could barely look at him; just then she felt real love for the man. It scared her.

Even Mira smiled beneath her black fringe.

Rosmarie’s eyes seemed to turn even brighter.

I couldn’t help laughing, either. Then I examined the faces of the other women. In that moment we had all fallen for him.

“How about Fridays?” he asked politely.

Harriet gave him a warm smile, snapped the diary shut, and said, “Fridays it is then.”

“Great,” Inga said, standing up.

Peter stood up, too. Rosmarie stayed sitting and watched the two of them with anticipation. Mira glanced first at Inga and Peter, and then at Rosmarie, and then with a frown poured herself some coffee.

Bertha had taken off her shoe and showed it to me. She whispered, “This isn’t mine.”

“Yes it is, Grandma, it is your shoe. Put it back on again quickly or you’ll get cold.”

“It’s very beautiful.”

“Yes. Harriet bought you these shoes.”

“But it doesn’t belong to me. Is it one of yours?”

“No, Grandma, it’s your shoe—put it on again.”

“Harriet, look. Here. Where does this go?” She lifted up the shoe helplessly.

“Yes, Mum. Wait. I’ll help you.” Harriet crawled under the table and put Bertha’s shoe back on. “That’s great, Rosmarie. You can start next week.” Harriet’s voice came from below, sounding rather strained.

Mira put down her coffee cup and said, “I’ll come along, too.” Rosmarie looked at Mira; her eyes seemed even brighter yet.

“Why not,” Harriet said, standing up. “We can share the cost. Would you like to join in, Iris?”

“No. I’m on holiday. And I’m two classes below them. I get free math lessons from my father anyhow. And more than I’d like.” I rolled my eyes and mimed being sick.

“Why aren’t my . . .” Bertha’s voice sounded agitated. She had her shoe in her hand again, the other one this time. “Why . . . Oh please, Harriet, please! Why isn’t it the same anymore? I mean. Will it ever be the same again? I don’t think it will, will it?”

So Rosmarie and Mira got math tuition from Peter Klaasen on Friday afternoons. Afterward he would drive to the petrol station in his Citroën.

For a while it worked well. Peter enjoyed the lessons. Rosmarie and Mira were not at all as capricious as he had feared. When Rosmarie improved by a whole grade in her next math assignment, he was almost more pleased than Harriet. Also, when he had finished tutoring, he often had the opportunity for a brief conversation with Inga, who would have just arrived from Bremen. These exchanges were important to him. He had fallen in love with Inga. But not simply fallen in love; he wanted to marry her, have children with her, and be her husband forever. He had written Inga a letter in which all of this had been set out. We knew this from Rosmarie, who had secretly read it. She didn’t let on to us how she had come by the letter. Inga refused to brood over her feelings. She thought she was too old or he too young, depending on how she felt at the time.

Rosmarie started hanging around the petrol station on weekends. They chatted. Peter was happy to. Whenever he talked to Inga’s niece, he felt his love coming a little closer. Rosmarie’s math kept on improving. When Peter explained something to her, she would gaze at him without blinking, which gave him the impression that she wasn’t listening at all. But then she would surprise him with the accuracy of her answers. It was completely the opposite with Mira: she appeared to be concentrating hard, she would look at her book or knit her brow, but she failed to grasp what was being said. Her math marks were now poor, which they hadn’t been before the extra lessons. But she insisted on continuing with the tuition.

Rosmarie wanted Peter. She wanted to have him. She told him she was in love with him. Said it right to his face, during a lesson and in front of Mira. Peter gaped at her, speechless. Rosmarie was a beautiful girl, tall and slim with long red hair. She had wide-set eyes. The irises were the color of glacial ice and were barely distinguishable from the bluish whites; her pupils alone stood out sharply. When I got upset with her I thought that she looked like a reptile. When we were getting on well she reminded me of a silver fairy. But either way, Mira and I found her breathtaking.

Peter was bewildered. The lesson ended earlier than usual. Inga hadn’t arrived yet. But because he didn’t want to miss her, he decided to hang around outside for a while longer. Rather than go to his car he strolled behind the house to the orchard. It was May, the blossom had fallen and the apples weren’t yet showing. Peter’s heart pounded when he saw Rosmarie approaching him from a distance.

I wasn’t on holiday then, so all I knew was that Inga had called us in tears, wanting to speak to my mother. From the drive, Inga sobbed into the phone, she had seen Rosmarie and Peter kissing. She had done an immediate about-turn and driven back to Bremen. We didn’t know whether Rosmarie was aware that Inga had arrived and seen them, but we assumed she knew perfectly well. Rosmarie must have heard Inga’s car coming up the drive and stopping under the two lime trees. A VW Beetle doesn’t have a quiet engine.

Nor did I know whether Rosmarie knew at the time that Mira was watching the kiss, too. At some point she must have found out because I heard it from my mother and she heard it from her sister Harriet, who had seen Mira witness the kiss. Mira had gone into the kitchen to fetch some lemonade, and Harriet was there. She had taken two glasses and headed into the barn. As she opened the door to the orchard and stepped outside, Rosmarie walked past her, only a few meters away, her gaze fixed on Peter. She must have spotted Mira out of the corner of her eye, but took no notice of her. Mira’s forehead shone white beneath her black fringe as Harriet watched her from the kitchen, wondering at her pallor. Rosmarie had stepped past her like a sleepwalker, Mira whispered more to herself than to Harriet when she went back into the kitchen. And she hadn’t dared call out to her. And just when she was about to call out to her after all, Rosmarie was already in the arms of the gray-haired pump attendant. Beads of sweat sat on Mira’s upper lip; her eyes seemed larger than normal. That’s what Harriet told her sister Christa, who had rung Harriet after Inga’s call. Or part of it at least; the rest I just picked up bit by bit.

If Rosmarie knew that Inga was watching, a baffled Christa asked me after she had hung up the phone, why on earth had she kissed him? I stared at my mother in silence and the furrows above the bridge of her nose deepened. She looked at me coolly and said, “Oh. Do you think so? Well, I reckon you’re letting your imagination get the better of you again.” Then she bit her lip and turned away.