Jenny Erpenbeck - Visitation

The drainage pipe is choked with roots. Six trees have to have their branches removed. The legal right of use has shared the fate of the contract of sale for the property: Neither has gone into effect. Conferred. Nullified. Defunct. The enforcement authority is unable to determine the appropriate settlement amount on the basis of approved methods of investigation. The amount along with the interest accruing during pendency of the proceedings. Effective both retroactively and in the future.

The speculator had gotten rid of the dry rot, installed a new roof, torn out the old bathrooms with the intention of renovating them from the ground up, walled off the gardener’s room that had become extremely damp, and broken through the wall to the garage to gain an additional room — but then, when his hopes of coming to an agreement with the heirs and therefore of being able to acquire the house proved illusory, he had the electrical cable severed and left the house as it was. It has been a long time since she last spoke with her father about the property. Leg. Sect. III, No. 1, encumbrance of the land, plot, parcel, property line. Property subject to dispute. Without possibility of appeal.

The stairs leading to the upper floor are covered with dust, bits of plaster from the vaulted ceiling have fallen on the steps and broken apart, and even upstairs the once gleaming cork floor is now covered with a uniform layer of dust. Existing structures in ramshackle condition, actionable. All that remains of the bathroom is the window with its brightly colored squares, the sink, shower, toilet and tiles are gone, now she can look right through the beams supporting the floor down into the hall at the approximate location where her grandmother used to sit on television evenings in the most comfortable of the garden chairs in consequence of her exalted personal status. In the Little Bird Room where she had slept during all the summer vacations of her childhood — petition after petition opposing clearance of the property under dispute — she now opens the heavy door of the hidden closet — unlawful trespass — the secret door of her childhood whose little wheels draw a semicircle in the dust, on the clothes rod are the bare hangers she herself left behind when she vacated the house. She can now walk through the interior of the large closet directly into the cupboard-lined room used by her grandparents, the wall that once separated these spaces now being absent — lacking the qualifications to acquire this permit, this ruling will remain in effect regardless of future changes in ownership, breach of jurisdiction. The closet through which she enters the cupboard room still smells, just like during her grandmother’s lifetime, of peppermint and camphor. In her grandmother’s study the ceiling has been eaten away by the feces and urine of the martens, on the desk lie reeds from the thatch roof, and through a hole in the ceiling you can look up into the darkness. The curtains in the windows are secured in their tracks only in a few last spots, the rest of the fabric hangs down askew, trailing loosely in the dust. The window frames are so warped they can no longer be opened. Existing permeabilities. Future permeabilities. Secondary motion is hereby rejected because it contains non-executable and therefore inadmissible provisions. Objection. As opposed to a bona fide. Provided the underlying assumptions have been dismissed. Burden of proof.

Without even having to stop and think, she begins to sweep the reeds from the desk, then goes downstairs again to fetch broom, dustpan, hand brush and rags. In her grandmother’s study, in the cupboard room, in the hallway and the Little Bird Room she first sweeps the spider webs from the corners and then from the windowpanes, then wipes the dust from the moldings of the wainscoting, then sweeps the floor, one room after the other, filling the old bucket she found in the kitchen with the dust, debris, reeds and marten feces scattered here and there. Still sweeping the stairs, she descends step by step and dumps out the contents of the overflowing bucket under the bushes. Then she walks, swinging the empty bucket in her hand, between the two meadows and past the big oak tree, taking the path down to the water. Half a year ago she’d had to give the subtenants notice after the bit of shoreline in question had been reassigned to the Jewish parcel to which apparently it once belonged. The dock, therefore, is still standing disassembled in the area before the workshop — but since the fence has not yet been rectified, she nonetheless goes to the old spot, where the path that used to lead to the dock now has only its torso remaining, and squats down there to scoop water from the lake. With one hand she steadies herself against the willow tree, with the other she drags the bucket over the bottom, then she returns to the house and begins to mop the floor upstairs. Five times she has to go down to the lake for fresh water before all the rooms are clean, and with a certain amount of effort she now succeeds in at least opening the balcony door in the Little Bird Room so that the floor will dry more quickly. Through the open window, warm summer air enters the house, and when she steps out onto the balcony, everything is just as she always knew it. Sunlight is falling on the pine tree closest to the house, announcing a beautiful day.

There’s more to be done downstairs, because here the stove was torn out, the wall to the garage was broken through to provide direct access, and the gardener’s room was walled off. For this reason, washing all the windows is more than she can manage today. In the evening she cranks down the black shutters on the ground floor using the mechanism concealed inside the wall, locks the door from the inside and lies down to sleep upstairs in the closet of the Little Bird Room. The next day she washes the windows, the day after that she carries the doors up from the bathing house and hangs them back on their hinges, she even drags the table, which is very heavy, across the meadow and terrace into the house and puts it back in the hall where it always used to stand. She finds the chairs with the carved initials in the garage, but the leather cushions that go with them are moldy. She starts making it a habit to park her car up at the edge of the main road, and from there she walks down the slope of the Schäferberg, winding her way between underbrush and raspberry bushes, and crosses the sandy road when no one is in sight. She never encounters any neighbors — either their houses have already been torn down or they are standing empty just like hers. Once, on a rainy day, she watches from the Little Bird Room as her childhood friend crosses the big meadow and goes down the hill, returning shortly afterward with the long ladder that still hangs on the back wall of the workshop and props it against the roof of the bathing house. He climbs the ladder, adjusts the tarpaulin that was stretched across the rotting thatch of the roof but has gotten tangled in the wind, and ties it fast at the corners.

On the morning when the real estate agent brings clients to the house for the first time, she has fortunately not gotten up yet and is still asleep in the closet, where she has also been storing her provisions and a few spare pieces of clothing to change into. She doesn’t wake up until the real estate agent reaches for the brass knob of the shallow outer door in which the mirror is set, opens the shallow door for her clients and says: And here is a mirror. She hears the clients running their hands over the bird’s eye maple veneer, saying: Too bad it’s gotten warped. You could have it repaired, the real estate agent says, and now, apparently with some effort, she tugs open the door to the balcony and says: And look what a view you have from here. The clients say: A bit overgrown. The real estate agent says: This here is definitely the better side of the lake — after all, sunsets are always in the West, she laughs, her clients don’t laugh, and besides, says the real estate agent, the properties on the other side are separated from the lake by the promenade. They don’t have direct access to the water? No, the real estate agent says, at least most of them don’t. She says: Just look at the bird here on the railing. Hm, the clients say. It’s a loving touch, the real estate agent says. The clients don’t respond. The architect, says the real estate agent, worked with Albert Speer on the Germania project. Really, the clients say, now that’s interesting.