Jenny Erpenbeck: The End of Days

At 3 p.m. there’s coffee along with a little bowl of ice cream. Frau Buschwitz had someone wheel her out of the room, but Frau Hoffmann stays where she is, drinking the coffee and stirring the ice cream around until it melts, then she slurps it up spoonful by spoonful. There’s a knock at the door. It’s Herr Zabel from Residential Area III, who sometimes stops by for a visit when he can’t find his wife, she died twelve years ago.

Frau Hoffmann, do you happen to know where my wife is?

What does she look like?

She has curly brown hair down to her shoulders and likes to laugh.

No, she hasn’t been here, but if she shows up, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.

That’s very kind of you, Frau Hoffmann.

Herr Zabel has forgotten many times now that his wife is dead, and so again and again the horrific news of her death comes crashing down on him with all its weight whenever someone who hasn’t been paying attention replies:

Your wife? But she’s been dead for years!

He’s had to mourn his wife’s loss all over again many times now, but Frau Hoffmann — and for this she has his eternal gratitude — always promises to let him know if his wife passes by. Herr Zabel also enjoys sitting down to chat with Frau Hoffmann for a little while. She is courteous, and he can speak with her about anything that troubles him. He might say, for example:

I am slowly but sickly beginning to be an animal.

And Frau Hoffmann says:

I’m afraid of gradually becoming transparent in both directions.

And Herr Zabel says:

The sick are beginning to abandon their honor.

And Frau Hoffmann says:

It is so difficult to bear all of this.

And Herr Zabel:

Why don’t we try biting open our illnesses?

This reminds Frau Hoffmann of a verse from her childhood:

God our Father whom we love, you gave us teeth, now give us food .

And Herr Zabel adds:

God our Father whom we love, if we’re all one, make us all good.

Strange, isn’t it, Frau Hoffmann says, the way one word can find its way through the thicket of all the words.

Yes, it certainly is strange, Herr Zabel says, and he remains silent for a while.

At some point he gets up, makes a little bow in Frau Hoffmann’s direction and goes back to his room in Residential Area III; after all, his wife might be on her way there herself by now.

At 5:30, all those who are able to walk or can be pushed in wheelchairs are summoned to the dining room. At six, dinner is served. Frau Hoffmann still uses the Viennese word Nachtmahl or “night meal,” even though it’s been a lifetime since she lived there. The space for her wheelchair is between Frau Schröder and Frau Millner.

What a fuss people make about eating, Frau Hoffmann says to Sister Katrin, who is cutting an open-face sandwich into little squares for her.

People go out for fine dining , she says with a little bleat of laughter.

It’s nice to go out, Sister Katrin says, candlelight dinners, don’t you agree, Frau Hoffmann?

And really you’re only eating so you won’t die.

Goodness, Frau Hoffmann. Bon appétit!

Without eating, you die, that’s all there is to it, Frau Hoffmann says.

But Sister Katrin isn’t listening any longer, she’s moved on to one of the other tables, where she’s busy tying a bib around a woman’s neck.

It’s just because you have to eat that people make such a fuss about it, Frau Hoffmann says.

But neither Frau Schröder nor Frau Millner can hear what her neighbor is saying.

It’s just to keep people from getting bored, she says.

*

Then the evening comes.

Frau Buschwitz has put on her headphones and begun to listen to the radio. Sister Katrin helped Frau Hoffmann change into her nightgown and held the drinking glass for her while she sat on the edge of her bed and swallowed her pills. Then Sister Katrin left.

Frau Hoffman can see quite clearly that someone has meanwhile taken a seat in her armchair next to the window. And although it’s been a long time since she last saw her, she recognizes this visitor at once. Against the yellow evening sky she looks like a silhouette.

I find myself in a transitional stage, Frau Hoffmann says.

Her mother is silent.

And I don’t know what to do, Frau Hoffmann says.

Her mother is silent.

The question is whether I’ll be able to hold out against him. He’s very powerful, and he’s very cruel to me. I’d have asked for a bit more kindness. But he doesn’t know anything about kindness. He’s rough with me, and cruel.

Her mother is silent.

It’s going to be a goddamn fight. I’m not the one attacking. It’s him attacking me — him or her. He or she is attacking me, from all sides. But I don’t want — I still have so many, so many possibilities. There are many things I don’t remember, but still something.

Oh, meydele , her mother says all at once, and her voice doesn’t really sound old.

I would like to take steps against this gentleman, or this lady, don’t you know, Frau Hoffmann says. Before now, there was no one — no one! — who would have dared to fight me.

Not even me, her mother says and smiles.

Not even you, Frau Hoffmann says.

At the beginning of the week when she is going to die, the day after her ninetieth birthday, Frau Hoffman smiles together with her mother for the first time in her life.

There’s one thing you should know, child, her mother says. You can actually put a scare into him with a handful of snow.

Really? Frau Hoffmann says, relieved.

Then she remembers it’s May.

Oh come, dear May, and let

The trees all bud again.

And let us to the brook

To see violets blow again.

How dearly I am longing

To see their tiny blooms

O May, how I am longing

To stroll about again.

They were five years old, or six, or seven when they learned this song. Now they sit here singing it with voices that have grown old, locked up in old age as if in a prison, they’re still the same ones who were once five, six, and seven, but they’re also irredeemably removed from this age, perhaps they won’t even live to see the end of the month they’re singing about, perhaps by the time the gardener is raking the autumn leaves of the trees that are just now starting to bud, they’ll be lying in the ground. On Tuesday from ten to eleven, they have singing group. That’s all there is on Tuesday, there’s no Herr Zabel stopping by in the afternoon, and her son doesn’t come either, he said he’ll pick her up on Saturday and take her on an outing. What is a Tuesday? For lunch, poached eggs, and a piece of cake with whipped cream is served with the coffee, outside it begins to drizzle and keeps on into the evening. At some point Frau Hoffmann asks Sister Katrin to open the window and stays there drawing in the damp, warm air in deep breaths, it smells of leaves, just like the night she slept out in the open beside the Danube with her girlfriend. Frau Buschwitz goes to sleep with her headphones on, as she does so often.

We set out to, we’ll take care of everything.

And then it all became so shabby.

We tried to take care of everything, but we went about it wrong.

If Frau Hoffmann died tonight, these would be her last words, but there wouldn’t be anyone there to hear them.

On Wednesday Frau Millner says to Sister Renate at breakfast that she always eats two slices of toast. I know, Sister Renate says, loud enough for even Frau Millner, who is hard of hearing, to hear. Frau Millner says: One with jam and one with honey. I know, says Sister Renate. Her husband, though, only used to eat one. Well, if he wasn’t hungrier than that, Sister Renate says. Yes, but that was a mistake, Frau Millner says, otherwise he might still be alive today. Eating keeps body and soul together, Sister Renate says. Exactly, Frau Millner says.