Sasa Stanisic - Before the Feast

Herr Schramm sits in the sky-blue cab of his Mammoth 6800 thinking, what do I mean, why am I calling it my Mammoth? The Mammoth rattles and bleats its way along the roads at the end of the night. Anna is sitting beside the tall man, bobbing about like a Christmas tree decoration.

Herr Schramm is a critical man. He has objections to easy access to such things as weapons, pornography, political parties and cigarette machines. Herr Schramm thinks of Martina (nineteen, Czech Republic). Manicure! That’s what it’s called, that’s the word. Martina had well-manicured fingernails.

With a skillful turn, Herr Schramm brings the Mammoth to a halt beside the cigarette vending machine. The Mammoth and Anna breathe a sigh of relief. Anna asks what is going to happen now, but she has a good idea what will happen now. They have hardly spoken since leaving the Schwermuths, Schramm gave monosyllabic answers to Anna’s questions, so after a while Anna stopped asking them and just trotted along with him to the place where the agricultural machinery was parked, feeling helpless yet somehow not helpless, because she was still with him and he was still with her.

“Right,” says Herr Schramm. He makes the 350 horsepower engine roar. It wasn’t really necessary, but it sounds good if you like the noise. “Here we go.”

Herr Schramm rams the cigarette machine.

Anna squeals a little, but just because of the jolt.

Herr Schramm goes into reverse. When the Mammoth 6800 is reversing, you usually hear that beep-beep sound. He has disabled it, he doesn’t want to warn anyone. “Right,” says Herr Schramm, and he rams the cigarette machine again, and this time the bar in front of it gradually gives way, bending, and Anna screams but also laughs a little, because how could you not laugh?

Herr Schramm rams the cigarette machine, and it’s not just the horsepower, although of course that does its bit, but also — one would have to reckon on that — several tons of weight exerting persuasive influence on that little bar, and if one thing is clear, then this is it: in the long run a cigarette machine like that doesn’t have a chance against Herr Schramm and a silage chopper with a Kemper chopper head, and the fifth or sixth time that metal meets metal it works. The bar breaks like a bar breaking, and the machine falls to the ground like a machine falling to the ground. Well, there aren’t many similes available; it doesn’t happen very often.

“Terrific,” says Anna.

“There,” says Herr Schramm, switching the indicator on.

We don’t know how to tell the next bit. At the moment when Herr Schramm switches off the engine, there is a curse from the upper floor of the boarding house opposite, and someone says, “I don’t believe it,” and at the boarding-house window appears the sleepy head of — we don’t believe it either, we can’t say her name—

“Frau. . Mahlke?” cries Herr Schramm incredulously, and if there is one thing that for decades Herr Schramm has not been, and never will be again after tonight, it is incredulous.

“Wilfried?” says Frau Mahlke at first hesitantly, and then, reasonably enough, sounding annoyed. “Wilfried, what are you doing there?”

Of course that is not a very good question, thinks Herr Schramm, because it is fairly obvious what he is doing, and he says so too. “Well, getting some cigarettes.”

And in the first faint light of dawn Herr Schramm, former Lieutenant-Colonel in the National People’s Army, then a forester, now a pensioner and also, because the pension doesn’t go far enough, moonlighting as a mechanic, a driver and a cleaner for Von Blankenburg Agricultural Machinery, sees the color and light of Frau Mahlke’s eyes (green and glowing), which remind him of the meatballs, the hot summer’s day, the best day of the whole summer, and he sees the color and light of the Mammoth 6800 (sky-blue and shiny), which remind him of the journey from Schwerin, the best spring day of the spring, a day when he did something he could do, did something he wanted to do, and this girl stayed with him, wanted to save his life without knowing what his life was like, yes, thinks Schramm, it’s all right after all. And from upstairs Frau Mahlke calls, “Come on up and I’ll roll you one,” and it is so improbable that she is calling that, so improbably improbable that she is there at all, that Herr Schramm can only shake hands with Anna, give the Mammoth a pat, and then run to the door of the boarding house, although it will stay closed until Frau Mahlke comes down with the key.

WE ARE TOUCHED. JUST AT THE RIGHT TIME FOR the Feast, one of those who have moved to the village, namely Frau Reiff, has tracked down our four oldest postcards and had them reprinted on good cardboard. The Homeland House can sell them and keep the money. Frau Reiff has given us the originals for the auction.

1. The War Memorial in the Friedhofshain: the year is 1913. It is an eagle on top of a rectangular column tapering toward the top. You can see the gravestones indistinctly behind it. It records the names of the dead in three wars: 1864, 1866, 1870. In the corner it says Greetings from Fürstenfelde .

It has survived the World Wars. The list of names from those two wars, as you might expect, is longer, and stands on extra stones beside the column.

2. The Shooting Range shows Fritz Blissau’s beer garden. The year is 1935, the village is celebrating the Anna Feast. The village has put on its Sunday best and is wearing a hat. Except for Gustav. Gustav is eight. But Gustav’s pudding-bowl haircut looks like a hat, so it fits in. A young woman is coming up from the left in the postcard, carrying a tray laden with drinks, although everyone has a drink already apart from Gustav.

Those are good years. There are 400 more of us than today. We leave the village from two railway stations and drive around in fifteen motor cars. Optimism procreates children. Gustav’s parents can afford a proper haircut for Gustav. His father is the pastor, his mother is a secretary at the telegraph office. The country people nearby regard us as townies. We believe in work and the Fatherland, we have work and the Fatherland, we wear bows in our hats. We are living in a condition of blissful ignorance. After the war we’ll be going around barefoot.

There’s a canopy of chestnut leaves above the shooting range. Gustav is sitting at his table alone. His father wanted him to be in the photo, and had to persuade Blissau, who doesn’t like to see children running round among his guests and his jugs. Gustav likes running round. He wants to be a geographer, like Hans Steffen. The Nuremberg Laws are six days old. The tablecloths are white.

The village looks at the camera. Only the young woman stares at her tray of drinks: please don’t let there be an accident now. It does us good to see you all looking so tense because of the photographs, while at the same time we can tell that you really feel relaxed.

Herr Schliebenhöner releases the shutter.

A bee settles beside Gustav’s hand. Bells ring. The sun seems to be shining above the chestnut leaves.

3. The Windmill : a beautiful tower with wide sails. Two cows are grazing in front of the mill. In the viewer’s imagination, the wind is blowing and the sails are going round. No one is indifferent to windmills. In the course of his life, every fifth male Federal German citizen will try to understand exactly how a windmill works.

Nothing is left of the mill today. The people in the new buildings hang out their washing to dry where it used to be. Silent Suzi’s mother hangs out her bed linen. The Bunny logo flutters in the wind and rain.

Windmills are windmills, washing lines are washing lines. The village doesn’t say: oh, if only the windmill were still standing. The people from the new buildings are glad to have washing lines outdoors; their apartments are small.