The Taste of Apple Seeds (23 page)

Herr Ohmstedt had his work and needed to continue traveling, but Heide Ohmstedt remained here in Bootshaven. She didn’t move into town for the sake of the children. She missed the close network of German expats. Here, everybody stayed in their houses, no one was interested in her. They called their indifference discretion and were proud of it. They called their impoliteness being direct, straightforward, or honest and were proud of that, too. Frau Ohmstedt gained the reputation of being eccentric, trying, hysterical, and superficial. She said things such as, “I couldn’t give a damn about the people here, these ‘hard nuts with their soft centers.’ ” In her opinion that was just an excuse for being permanently rude. Frau Ohmstedt soon became very lonely. She couldn’t give a damn. She was particularly skilled at not giving a damn when she had had something to drink; then her abuse got keener and filthier.

Herr Ohmstedt was in despair. And helpless. And most of all, he wasn’t there.

On the day when Max came home from school and found her lying on the terrace in her pajamas, with the temperature at minus seven degrees, she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. She hadn’t frozen to death. But she was admitted to a clinic and underwent four weeks of rehab. Max was sixteen at the time, Mira was already living in Berlin. The Wall was still standing then and Berlin meant far, far away.

Frau Ohmstedt did it by herself. She started working for the church, not because she had suddenly found Jesus, but because the parish network reminded her of the solidarity of the Germans in Istanbul. There were events, excursions, and lectures to organize, visits, women’s groups, OAP functions, and walks. She tried to avoid spending too much time at home alone.

Now Max lived on his own in that house and went to the cemetery to get smashed. And he didn’t have a girlfriend anymore. By all reckoning he ought to look rougher than he actually did, I thought, scanning his face for signs. Max watched me as I did this, and screwed up his eyes.

“So?” he asked. “Found anything?”

I blushed. “What? What do you mean?”

“Well, I can see that you’re hunting for clues to implicate me as a codependent.”

Now I turned a deep shade of red. I could feel it. “You’re nuts.”

“I’d do it if I were in your shoes.” He shrugged and took a sip of wine.

I asked cautiously, “Why would you want to drink?”

“What do you want me to say? Should I say ‘to forget,’ hmm?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and looked away. All of a sudden I wanted him to leave. I wanted to decline my inheritance tomorrow morning and then go home. I didn’t want this now. I didn’t want to talk anymore, either. He should leave.

Max stroked his face again. “I’m sorry, Iris. You’re right, I
am
nuts. I didn’t mean to hurt you, you of all people. It’s just that I was getting along fine here. In my life, I mean. There was nothing missing. It wasn’t particularly exciting, but then I don’t want exciting. I didn’t want exciting. I wanted unexciting. No surprises. I do things right, I don’t hurt anybody, nobody hurts me. I’m not responsible for anybody, nobody is responsible for me. I won’t break anybody’s heart and nobody will break mine. And then you come back here after God knows how many years. You pop up all over the place—and I mean that literally—and each time it scares me witless. And, if I’m being honest, I start to enjoy it! Even though I know that in a couple of days you’ll be gone again, maybe for good. So now I can’t sleep, I can’t even cycle to the lake anymore without falling from my bike because of acute cardiac arrhythmia. Christ, I’m painting chicken sheds at night! Let me ask you: can it get any worse?”

I couldn’t help laughing, but Max shook his head.

“No. No, no, no, no. Stop it. What do you really want?”

The sun had almost disappeared. From where we were sitting we could see the lime trees on the drive. The last of the green-golden light played on their leaves.

When Mira stood watching Inga watching Rosmarie kissing Peter Klaasen on the lips, she spilled all the lemonade. She put the two glasses, hers and the one for Rosmarie, beside her on the grass and, with the teeth inside her little red mouth, bit into the back of her right hand until it bled. There was a silver glint in Rosmarie’s eyes when she told me that.

The day after the kiss, Mira went to the petrol station and waited until Peter Klaasen finished work. He had spotted her some time before and didn’t want to talk to her. He couldn’t stop reproaching himself and didn’t dare speak to Inga for fear of losing her forever. Rosmarie had simply caught him off guard. He didn’t want anything from her; he just wanted Inga.

Mira was leaning against his car when he came out to drive home. She said he ought to take her part of the way, she knew something that might interest him—it concerned Inga. What else could he do but open the passenger door? We’ll go to your place, Mira had decided; he nodded. There he showed her into his room. Mira sat on his sofa and told him what he already knew: Inga had seen him kissing Rosmarie and didn’t want him to come to the house ever again, neither for extra lessons nor for any other reason. Inga had also said that there was practically no one she despised more than the man who seduced his teenage tutee. Peter broke down. He put his head on the table and wept. Mira said nothing. She considered him with those eyes that seemed as if they were wrongly positioned on her face and thought of Rosmarie. Thought of how Rosmarie had kissed this man. Then she undid her black dress. Peter Klaasen looked at Mira without seeing her. She was wearing black underwear; her skin was very white. She undid his shirt, but he barely noticed. When Mira placed her hand on his shoulder he thought of Inga and that this odd black-and-white girl before him was the final thing that linked him to her. Mira looked at his lips, which had touched Rosmarie’s lips. Peter Klaasen realized far too late that Mira was still a virgin, but perhaps he hadn’t wanted to realize it earlier. He drove her home; she was pale and silent. When Peter Klaasen got back to his room his eyes fell on the letter with the job offer near Wuppertal. When it had arrived he hadn’t thought about it for a second. But now nothing was as it had been before. That same evening he wrote back and accepted. A week later he moved to Wuppertal. He never said another word to Inga.

Mira was pregnant. From her first time. And she hated Peter Klaasen. But he had left long ago. She told Rosmarie when they were sitting drinking apple juice in the kitchen. Everything was as it always was, the apple juice, the red oilcloth, and yet nothing was as it had been before.

Rosmarie said, “You did it because of me, didn’t you?” Mira just looked at her. Rosmarie said, “Get rid of it.”

Mira remained silent and shook her head.

“Get rid of it, Mira,” Rosmarie said. “You’ve got to.”

Mira shook her head. She looked at Rosmarie, and the white stripe between her lower lid and brown iris was particularly visible.

“Mira. You’ve got to. You’ve got to!”

Rosmarie leaned over the kitchen table and kissed Mira firmly on the mouth. It was a long kiss. Both of them gasped for breath when Rosmarie sat back down. Mira was still silent, her face was very white and she had stopped shaking her head. She stared at Rosmarie. Rosmarie returned her gaze, opened her mouth to say something, but then threw her head back and laughed.

Rosmarie also laughed when she told me about it that evening. It was August, close to the end of my summer holiday. Although it was already past ten o’clock it was not quite dark when she came upstairs. We sat on the wide window seat in our room, which had been her mother’s bedroom when she was a girl. Harriet’s study was next door. She now used the second dining room as a bedroom, right next to the front door. This gave her a better chance of hearing if Bertha was roaming around downstairs.

“When did you talk about it? Just now?” I asked Rosmarie.

“No, a few days ago.”

“And just now, were you at Mira’s?”

Rosmarie gave a slight nod and turned away.

I froze and had no idea what to say. My mind was blank. Maybe I was hoping that Rosmarie was lying as payback for the argument we had had that day in the garden playing Eat or Die. I still resented her for slapping me. But deep down I knew that she had spoken the truth. If I’d had the choice I would have run to my mother and told her everything, but I couldn’t do that. Not anymore.

Shortly afterward we went downstairs to say good night. Inga was there, too. The three sisters and their mother were sitting in the living room. Inga and Rosmarie hadn’t said much to each other since the thing with Peter Klaasen. That evening, however, Inga got up and stood facing her niece. By now they were the same height. Inga raised both her hands and with a flowing movement stroked them from the crown of Rosmarie’s head, over her untied hair, and down the sides of her arms. We could hear the electricity crackling throughout the room. Rosmarie didn’t move.

Inga smiled. “Right. Sleep well now, child.”

We went upstairs in silence. That night we told each other short tales about Rosmarie’s father. I turned my back to Rosmarie and tried to fall asleep, deciding that I would tell my mother everything the next day after all. Sleep came slowly, but it did come in the end.

I dreamed that Rosmarie was standing behind me, whispering to me. I woke up. Rosmarie was kneeling behind me on the bed, whispering to me.

“Iris, are you awake? Iris. Wake up. Are you awake, Iris? Come on, Iris. Wake up. Come on! Iris. Please.”

I had no intention of being awake again so soon. Rosmarie must have had a screw loose. First she hit me in the garden, then she did all those things with Peter Klaasen and then with Mira. And Mira did them with Peter Klaasen. I didn’t want to know about any of it. I wished they would leave me in peace.

Rosmarie’s whispers became more insistent, almost pleading. She should ask me quietly. I enjoyed being the one in control for once, even though I wasn’t doing anything apart from pretending to be asleep. And I almost didn’t have to pretend. She should go see Mira. Or the gray-haired math genius with the vase. In any event, I wasn’t available.

Although I lay with my back to her I could feel the tension in Rosmarie. My body felt as if there were spikes growing through my skin from the inside. I couldn’t go on lying motionless like this for long. I could sense that Rosmarie was on the verge of shaking me. Any second now her hand would grab my shoulder. Then I would have to scream at once. Rosmarie’s hesitation was unbearable. Now I could feel her breath on my closed eyelids; she was bent over me. I summoned all my strength to avoid opening my eyes and blinking at her. A giggle rose inside me. It reached my throat and I was about to open my mouth and let it burst free when I realized from the movements of the mattress that she had turned away and was getting out of bed. I could hear her padding around the room. The long zip of a dress rasped when Rosmarie jerked it up—I found out later that it was the purple dress with the see-through arms. So she was going out somewhere? She really should go see Mira. Perhaps they wanted to meet to knit tiny black bonnets and tiny black coats. For babies with ice-gray hair.

I heard Rosmarie creep down the stairs. I was sure that, on hearing this noise, the entire household would be waiting for Rosmarie before she had even reached the last step. But nothing happened. I heard the creak of the kitchen door, which meant she was going out the side entrance. That was smart because the brass bell would surely have woken Aunt Harriet. Then silence.

I must have fallen asleep again because I gave a start when a hand touched my shoulder, gently but firmly. My first thought was that Rosmarie had come back, but it was my grandmother standing by the bed. Rosmarie wasn’t there. I blinked sleepily at Bertha. She didn’t usually come into the upstairs rooms during her nighttime wanderings. My mother was sleeping downstairs with her: surely she ought to have noticed something.

“Come,” Bertha whispered.

Her white hair was loose. As she hadn’t put in her teeth her mouth looked as if it had swallowed itself. I struggled to be patient with her.

“Grandma, I’ll take you back to bed, okay?”

“Who are you then, young lady?”

“It’s me, Iris. Your granddaughter.”

“Is that so? I must be catching.”

I stumbled down the stairs behind Bertha: she was fast. “No, Grandma. Not outside. To bed!”

But she had already taken the key from the hook, slipped it in the lock, turned it, and pushed down on the handle. The brass bell rang out like a gunshot through the house. My mother must have been sleeping deeply. Inga must have been upstairs.

Bertha stepped outside. It was warmer out here than in the old house. And brighter. The moon shone against a dark blue sky. It was large, almost full, and cast crisp shadows in the grass. Bertha walked down the steps and stopped abruptly, as if she had run into an invisible wall. She was looking at something that seemed to be in midair, in front of her rather than above. I stiffened. Her gaze usually wandered restlessly, as if it were seeking something to fix on to. But now she could see something. And I saw it, too. A dark figure was sitting high up in the willow. It was a while before I could make out Mira and Rosmarie. They were sitting so close to each other that you couldn’t see their separate outlines. Then one figure broke away—it was Rosmarie—and slid slowly down from the bough of the willow onto the gently sloping conservatory roof. We weren’t allowed to do that. It was an old conservatory. The roof was fragile; every other pane of glass was cracked or had partly come out of its steel frame. Rosmarie was balancing as she walked along the length of the metal frame. The sleeves of her dress puffed out in the night wind. Her arms glowed white. I couldn’t call out. My mouth and tongue felt as if they were covered in dense gray cobwebs. Beside me, Bertha started to tremble.

Mira began screaming. It took me a few seconds to grasp that those sounds were really coming from a human being. For a moment I was distracted. When my eyes turned to Rosmarie once more she was looking straight at me. I was terrified. In the moonlight her eyes were practically white. She seemed to be smiling her predatory smile, but maybe her upper lip was simply curled above her incisors. Suddenly she threw her head back, lifted her foot from the metal frame and put it on the glass. Nothing happened at first, but then there was a crack. Mira fell silent. Reached out with her hand. Rosmarie took it.