Sasa Stanisic - Before the Feast

Frau Kranz is plagued by an almost physical desire for old stories. It comes of this place, the boathouse of the ferry, it comes of the night. It’s a thirst for the answer to her question: what could she have prevented. . could I have prevented them from doing it?

The rain is falling harder. The bank, the ash trees, home. Frau Kranz makes her first brush stroke. The paper is wet. She tears it off, places it on the water. Begins again. The paper drifts slowly away.

A CARTER EXCHANGES A FEW WORDS WITH THE ferryman, the ferryman asks about his journey here. The carter describes the street fighting in Dresden. Then the ferryman gives him some of his home-distilled spirits. They look at the water, at the sky.

Well, here we go, says the ferryman.

The landing stage, the moorings, the ferryman’s bell.

Rubber tires, ferry, boat.

Boots, doormat, plant pot without any plant in it.

Wood, woodworm, better days.

A low bed, one window looking out on the bank, one looking out on the water, the ferryman saw the lakes even in his dreams.

A table on which he ate from a plate with a fork, a knife and a spoon.

A cupboard, a towel, a razor blade.

A chest, massive, with a lock to it and a domed lid.

Damp, mold, mice.

Hatch, space under it, stuff in the space.

A ticket window for selling ferry tickets, a pencil fixed to the wall with a little chain, a visitors’ book. The ferryman lets only passengers who have deserved it during the trip write their names in the book. Just seven in seventy years. Angela Merkel is among them.

There are no drawings left on the walls now.

Even after the ferryman’s death a light burns, an electric bulb outside above the door, forgotten or left to burn for ever. A sheet of paper floats in its reflection on the water.

ANNA WALKS PAST THE NEW BUILDINGS AND THE Gölow property, down to the promenade. Or rather drags herself, bending over, finding it hard to breathe out. She stops when she comes to the ferry boathouse, with her hands on her knees. It’s not the strain, it’s stupidity. She forgot to bring her asthma spray.

Someone is standing in the water not far from the bank, faintly visible in some source of light. Rain is falling on the lake.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

It is Ana Kranz. Anna tries to breathe calmly, but the air wheezes in her throat.

“Are you a ghost? That’s funny. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Frau Kranz, it’s me, Anna.” Anna gasps for air, coughs, crouches down. “Are you all right?”

“Are you all right?”

“Come along, I’ll help. . help you out.”

“Keep away. Can’t a person even paint here in peace?”

Somewhere a car engine roars. After a pause it roars again. The wind is rising. Raindrops flash in the beam of Anna’s headlight. “It’s raining,” says Anna, and would like to go on, but she doesn’t have the breath for it.

“Excellent!” cries Frau Kranz. Anna straightens up, turns away. She can’t help the old woman now, she must help herself.

Rain beats on the umbrella above the easel, on the lake, the drops sound like the chiming of small bells, and the lake rumbles, the lake moves.

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1589, IN THE MONTH of July, Kuene Gantzkow, Maidservant to our good Mayor, bore an infant Child, a Girl, which said Infant the Mayor’s Wife took from her, giving it instant Baptism for the Sake of its Immortal Soul, thereafter strangling the Babe and casting it over the Fence and into the Ditch, where we found the Carcase several Weeks later. The Mayor’s Wife told her Son, which Same had had carnal Knowledge of the Maidservant, to strike the young Woman dead, as he duly did. For her Crime, the Babe’s Grandmother was drown’d in the Deep Lake.

HOME. SHE JUST HAS TO GET HOME. ANNA TAKES the longer way through the village; she would rather not be visible in the light of the streetlamps any more. Her coughing wakes German Shepherd dogs. When she reaches the Homeland House she can’t go any farther. She crouches down. Around Anna: dreams among buildings made of sprayed concrete. She presses her lips together and breathes against them, but it doesn’t help. She gasps, and can’t breathe any air out.

The heart of the night is beating in the streets. Marx-Strasse rises up to the church, brightly lit, and behind the church goes on in the dark, climbing steeply to the clouds. Now headlights glide down through the clouds to the world below, where Anna is fighting for breath, and on window sills cacti stand nearby. The wind hums to the revs of the car engine, drumming out a hollow beat, carrying an aroma on it, the sweet fragrance of grapes.

Anna presses into the gateway, and turns off her headlight as if in flight.

The beat: reggae. The music and the car engine echo between the cloudy sky and the savings bank branch. Frau Rombach hasn’t brought her flower containers in for the night; the cats will piss in them, and she’ll have to go round with the room spray in the morning, or her customers will be in a worse mood than ever.

Leaves sweep over the porous asphalt, and a metallic blue van makes its entrance at walking pace, bodywork clattering tinnily in the bass. Anna, caught in the headlights, freezes guiltily. Pebbles crunch under the tires and the van stops.

Some thinking goes on, both inside and outside the van.

Anna can’t manage to stand upright. The raindrops shimmer in the light, the calm beat makes the night no calmer. The van windows are tinted, the tires muddy, there are splashes of mud on the sides of the van.

The number plate is UM, for the Uckermark. Well, that’s something.

The engine stops, the bass goes on playing. The windshield wipers click softly. Nothing has been going on in the van for much too long now. Only when the song is over do the doors swing open. A new beat, a wave of German hip-hop, washes over Anna and—

— TWO MEN GET OUT, OR RATHER BOYS, STILL growing into their limbs, but at night on the road, for all Anna knew, they could be an army of two. The taller: intriguingly good-looking. The hair of the smaller is nicely blow-dried, his glance stern, his eyebrows plucked, his skin treated with a male grooming product. Fur coats over loose trousers, bright red football shirts, on one a lightning flash and the words

FC ENERGIE

for Energie Kottbus Football Club, and on the other, equally unsubtle, a skull and crossbones and under it, in large letters:

STIL

As for Anna, she is white as a sheet. Inquisitive, helpful, low-life — they could be anything in the night she has conjured up: angels’ wings folded, hooves in their shoes? She can’t tell, she doesn’t feel well, or not well enough to judge. She wants to face her illness, not strangers. Only her voice fails her, only a hoarse croak comes out. The tall, good-looking one smiles, his speech sings, soft like a man with plenty of time.

“Mademoiselle,” he asks, “are you okay? We saw you in trouble from far away.”

Anna whispers, “It’s asthma.”

“Ah, civilization making a fuss.”

“It’s nothing at all to do with us,” the smaller youth with the glum look says.

“Like a lift to A&E?”

“That’s going too far, Q, if you ask me.”

“But what if it’s an emergency?”

Anna looks from one to the other of them.

“Hey, do you always talk in rhyme?”

In chorus: “Us? Where would we get the time?”

“You—” Anna’s voice gives way, she slumps to the ground. Undaunted, the two hurry over, help her up and get her into their van.

“Mademoiselle, we’ll take you home.”

“You’re not fit to be out on your own.”

Anna nods; she can hardly speak. “Geher’s Farm. Do you know it?”

The two exchange meaning glances that Anna can’t interpret. Anna looks at the van door. It’s not locked: good.