Sasa Stanisic - Before the Feast

But no one says anything else, only: poor Frau Steiner. Three husbands, no children. Devout. Has to deliver leaflets.

We are the only ones who hear her morning prayer. And it isn’t a prayer, or it is one that you must say in a whisper, shaking as if you were feverish. The cats mew; they are hungry.

I am fighting with mine ire, with she-demons I conspire.

May the first demon heed him, may the second demon lead him.

May the third demon charm him, may the fourth demon harm him.

May the fifth demon bind him, may the sixth demon blind him.

May the seventh bring him to me and make him wish to woo me .

Frau Steiner puts her lips to the head of a little stone figure in her hand and closes her eyes. It is a statuette of St Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary and patron saint of widows.

The senior citizens stretch. The senior citizens shake out their pillows.

THE VILLAGE WAKES UP COFFEE MACHINE BY coffee machine. Eggs are hard-boiled, anglers collect their catch. Ditzsche cleans himself and the chicken run, looks under the wings of his chickens. The bakery has given away free coffee, has sold orange juice and yeast pastries with vanilla filling, only Frau Kranz has gone off again without paying, but maybe the milk was meant to be free too.

There are no bells ringing for prayer. The acoustic heralds of the Feast are the sound of drilling from a power drill and the engine of a bus revving up — the wheels, stuck in the mud, are doing their nut. Lada is responsible for the drill. Lada knows he shouldn’t be doing what he is doing, but Lada often knows that. Lada is drilling holes in the commemorative stone beside the holes that already exist. Before long the first windows are opening for protests to be uttered. The classic protest is that the drill makes too much noise. Lada either can’t hear the protests, or he hears them and he couldn’t care less. He has worked through the night, he’s wearier than the protesters, and an exhausted man is always right.

Otherwise the village has little to protest about. A new day is beginning, and no one has died. Even though pistols were involved. Herr Schramm hasn’t shot himself or anyone else. Frau Kranz hasn’t drowned.

Fürstenfelde in the Uckermark, number of inhabitants: no change.

There have been cases of breaking and entering, one or two, we’re not sure how many, but nothing was stolen. All is well, in that we still have what belongs to us. What happened in the Homeland House? Broken glass, and an electricity failure, and since Eddie is dead we can’t blame it on him any more. The police don’t like calling us to say there’s nothing to tell us really.

The first guests soon arrive. Some satnav devices show Friedhofsweg and its extension the promenade as a fully negotiable road. There’s supposed to be a large car park about halfway down. That, of course, is often seen as a huge joke. The Sat 1 transmission bus, for one, can’t confirm that the Friedhofsweg is a fully negotiable road. Unless you’re a mountain bike. The Sat 1 transmission bus can’t confirm the existence of the car park either, or that at best the lake might be it. The Friedhofsweg slopes steeply toward it. On the right the graveyard wall, on the left the town wall, straight ahead the water. Nowhere to turn. In rain the ground is saturated, the bus can confirm that all right. The wheels, the reverse warning tone hovering over the monument to the fallen, beep-beep-beep, bats fly up. Britta Hansen in her Norwegian pullover is in the passenger seat. She has warned the driver, let’s call him Jörg, about the road, but only half-heartedly because it’s ages since she was here. Her grandfather is with us for ever, lying next to the road in the soft ground. “I get so damn melancholy when I’m here,” she says. Jörg has other problems. Jörg changes up a gear. Beep-beep-beep.

Not twenty meters away, by the water, the bells watch the large vehicle. The bell-ringer didn’t set his alarm, and that’s a bit of luck, because the bells are not at home — he can sleep his fill for once. Johann has decided to take his bell-ringing exam. Pa will look after Ma that long. But somehow the bells must be hoisted up again. He didn’t want to worry the bell-ringer, so he texted Lada, and Lada answered at once: “Sure what you paying.” And straight afterward: “We do it this way I help you then you come to Eddie’s place and help me for free.” And a few minutes later: “And my golf out of the lake okay.”

Ulli has got hold of the sliced sausage and opened the garage. He has decorated the platters of meat with cocktail umbrellas. They’re practical because of the toothpicks. Now the platters are waiting on two stools, and it’s too early for sausage. However, the drinking has begun. Ulli is discussing the matches of the day with several pensioners from the new buildings. The ritual is the same every Saturday. Ulli acquires the betting slips, lectures his audience on the odds and the most interesting matches in short and poetic terms:

“Hannover away

won’t get very far

against Borussia Dortmund.”

Then they mark up their slips and dream. Today he also gives the pensioners a scratchcard. The sound of coins scraping is in the air.

Ulli has known people to win, and sometime there’ll be another win. Down below here the Feast has begun; it’s the same as usual at Ulli’s. Almost. He is washing yesterday’s glasses. Normally the guests wash their own, sometimes there’s a little queue at the sink. The men give each other tips on the best way to do it (how much dishwashing detergent to use, this is the best technique with the little sponge, how to dry glasses and so on).

Imboden comes in, mildly excited. Has Ulli seen it yet? Seen what yet? Right, then Ulli must come with him, but first they both need a beer to bring along, there’s something to celebrate.

It’s the commemorative stone. A small wooden panel is hanging from it. So now Ulli reads Lada’s wooden panel before Imboden’s happy eyes. The betting pensioners have joined them too, people are already drinking to Ulli. He feels both slightly pleased and slightly embarrassed because of what the panel says and drinking to himself like this, although what the panel says is true:

JUAN STEFFEN OPENED PEACE NEGOTIATIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

ULLI OPENED THE GARAGE IN FÜRSTENFELDE .

Ulli nods, everyone nods. Now what? Well, nothing, the day goes on.

Imboden goes to Frau Reiff’s. He has a date to meet the bell-ringer, they’re the old guard; in the past Eddie would have joined them. There’s coffee and apple cake and a lecture. They both like lectures; it would be nice if there were lectures here more often, but this is okay.

Imboden tells the bell-ringer about the panel, the bell-ringer tells him about his injury. What they don’t say is more exciting. The bell-ringer doesn’t say that he does not want to be the bell-ringer any more, just Gustav, and Imboden doesn’t say he’s been at the garage again. Both have much the same reason: they’re ashamed. Imboden knows Gustav doesn’t think much of the garage. He’s bothered about the kind of people you get there. In principle, the bell-ringer doesn’t think himself too refined for anyone, but on the other hand he doesn’t think he’s the unrefined sort. But most of all, he notices when Imboden’s been drinking. In principle he has nothing against that either, but he’d prefer it if Imboden drank with him. That has nothing to do with the kind of people they are, it’s just that then he could keep an eye on Imboden better.

After the lecture (a hobby diver showed slides of things lying at the bottom of our lakes, for instance a bazooka and a washing machine), the old men make plans for the rest of the day. Any time now, at twelve, the bell-ringer should be supervising Johann’s bell-ringing exam. He has decided it won’t take place. He would have to ring one of the bells, and he can’t. Nor does he want to. He doesn’t know how he is to teach the boy. The anti-Fascist bicycle ride is to be at twelve too. Imboden must be there; as father of our Deputy Mayor, Frau Zink, he can’t boycott it.