Lojze Kovačič - Newcomers

*

That’s corn.

†

I’m going up to that house to ask.

‡

We have to go up there.

§

I’ll take my shoes off.

‖

Here I am!

NOW BOTH OF THEM were walking comfortably alongside each other down a broad path, which I had all to myself. For the first time everything around us got quiet. Went mute. The trees, the river, the shrubs. Finally they got to see something that had left them dumbstruck. Oh, it wasn’t easy to surprise them!.. Down below the gray water lay still. On the far side was the railway line … which led off into the darkness … into the excitement of the wilderness … Now the path dissolved into a plain that was thickly strewn with big, white stones … Skulls with toothless jaws, egg-shaped balls with their ends gently set one on another … all crunched underfoot. Brrrr, brrrr, they tumbled aside … Were these ruins or a riverbed? It led uphill … toward railroad tracks alongside a forest, where a striped boom barrier jutted up in the air. A crossing! And almost directly across from it a fence … a long, skinny tree trunk that lay atop two meter-high forks stuck in the ground. And next to it Christ on the cross, with ordinary rosaries left in various glasses and cups. God was everywhere in the world, and without exception he ruled here too. Perhaps this country was even a little more pious than others, because they had Jesus outdoors, at night, in the open air … I could barely see anything due to sleepiness, but I knew that from the very first day here I was going to have to be much better behaved than I had ever been up till now … Vati lit a match. Beyond the fence there was a meadow … so big that wherever you looked, green showed through the shadows. “So, jetzt sind wir angekommen,” *he said. He lifted the trunk off its forks as coolly as though it were the lattice gate on a cowboy ranch …

We proceeded along some other fence toward a house that shone white in the high grass to the left. This whole meadow that stretched off toward a fog-shrouded forest, as huge as an airport … was this uncle’s? The house had to be white or at least yellow to show in the dark like that, and its windows were edged in black and had wide ledges … The roof came down to the level of our heads as we walked past, and from the sound of it the river was close by … Vati went all around the house and came right back … “Keiner hört etwas.” † … The house was asleep. Or else there wasn’t a living soul in it. A whole bucket of water came pouring down off a tree behind us when father broke off one of its branches … Did he have a right to do that? He tapped on the nearest windowpane with his stick. A face appeared in the darkness, then a light … an actual flame in a kind of bottle. The face said something from behind the windowpane … it was a long, white face with a mustache … Uncle Karel! He opened the window, which was as small as the window on the door of a WC … and he stuck his head out. “Das its der Onkel.” ‡I was suddenly petrified with respect. Vati said something to him in his foreign language … while I looked at uncle, at his white, sleepy face, his long, handsome head sticking out into the darkness, his dark, close-cropped hair, and the nose that shone above his mustache. But especially his eyes, which were as big and black as buttons. “Wir müssen um das Haus.” §Vati proceeded as though he were a little drunk, and walked at a slant … The house stood on a slope. When we reached it, it was even farther down. We had to go in single file, because the hill was so steep. The water sounded closer and closer … It washed up into the bushes, not too far down from the house … I went past a small window with adhesive tape still stuck to it in the shape of an X at the level of my head. It was open and the smell of fresh mortar and sand wafted from inside … At the corner stood a strange device that was two meters tall. With a big log aimed at the sky on two stakes set far apart … and it creaked and groaned. Maybe it was some kind of machine that had no real function, maybe it was just for show … Then there was a black heap that stank nastily and two barrels that gave off the smell of carrots or vinegar … and now at our feet we no longer had water and mud, but cement … When the door opened, the light illuminated a gray vaulted ceiling. Uncle was holding it open … he was wearing a hat, an undershirt and skivvies … we went in … to the warm, sleeping darkness of the house, as though we were walking into sleep … The stone entryway was black … and warmth drifted out of some deep hole in the wall, where red coals were glowing … My whiskered uncle opened another black door … it had a big iron box on the door for a lock, like the ones that can be seen on castle doors. This door opened into a wide, warm room with a low ceiling … There were two narrow beds in it, both made high with comforters and pillows … someone was lying in one of them and next to the door there was a big stone chest with a bench around it … “Jetzt sind wir endlich zuhause,” ‖said Vati. He said something to uncle and pointed to mother, who laughed and offered her hand … to Gisela … and to me. I studied him when he lifted the light to his eyes. He had a genuinely handsome, pale, slightly triangular face. Emphatic black eyebrows and mustache and big eyes like two buttons. Only his bare feet sticking out of his long underwear were strangely shapeless, as though he constantly lived in water. Otherwise he was as handsome as a film star … Only one thing was strange: such a handsome man, yet so badly dressed and living in such an impoverished shack. I would never have been able to compare him to Vati. Vati was made out of silk … fragile, small, with a goatee, wearing his broad-rimmed hat, narrow trousers, with a thin cigarette in a holder. His hair always shone blue and gray. I would never have guessed that he and Karel were brothers … “Die Tante Mizi, meine Schwester. Sie ist krank.” a … On the other bed by a window in the corner an old woman with a scarf on her head lay in her clothes … When I got close so she could look at me, too, I saw she had eruptions all over her face that were wet and as red as smeared makeup. She reached a hand out from under the quilt … Good God, it was like some inflated bird claw, its upper side covered with little sores. Vati bent down toward her, said something cheerful and laughed … She opened her mouth and I saw a few teeth, stumps and bits of gray metal … she answered in a creaky voice … She studied mother’s face carefully, very seriously … Oh, I knew instantly what she was thinking, because she took a big swallow. She looked at me and smiled, she had very bright, sharp eyes despite all the scabs and oozing eruptions … which covered her forehead, too, like boils … I had to look away. Mother sat on the bench by the chest, barefoot, holding her hand over Gisela’s eyes. She wouldn’t let her go near our aunt. I sat next to her, something stung like the devil on my back, and I stopped coughing … “Ziehen wir uns aus,” bmother said. Vati and our dark-haired uncle sat in the middle of that strange … room, one of them on a chair, the other on a footstool. Father’s speech was cheerful but timid, refined and curious, while uncle spoke loudly, as though he were talking to someone in front of the house … that was the spirit! I took off my stockings … they came off my feet like a hippopotamus hide, and the sandals were just muddy lumps … What hadn’t they seen that night!.. Mother was dressing Gisela in her nightshirt straight out of the open suitcase … a bit irritated, as though she were back home in Basel. Uncle sat with the knees of his long legs pulled up under his chin, and he looked at her and said something through his mustache. Vati looked over at her. “Heute Nacht schläfst du, Lisbeth, mit der Zwetschge in diesem Bett. Du kannst das nasse Zeug über den Ofen hängen.” cFather pointed past me, to where there were some rods that had rags hanging from them. “Frag den Karl …” dmother said, but Vati headed her off in embarrassment, “Er wartete beim Zug um sieben, aber das Telegramm hat er später nicht bekommen wegen des schlechten Wetters. Es hat gehagelt und die Felder und viele Obstbäume sind kaputt.” eI looked at uncle. There was something about him that suggested he was laughing internally. Perhaps the strange light was at fault for that, or his mustache, or the late hour … Vati’s sister chimed in here without lifting her swaddled head from the pillow … I didn’t care to look at her a second time, because I knew that from now on I was going to have to love and respect her. “Karel wird auf dem Heuboden schlafen, ich und Bubi auf dem Ofen. Nur für heute Nacht …” fMother … who had always been fearful of touching … spread some towels over the bed that was Karel’s and that she was supposed to sleep in with Gisela. Our aunt looked at her, her cheek resting on her pillow … “Daß ihr nicht hinunterfallt,” gmother said. “Nein, nein,” Vati brushed her comment aside. Uncle lifted me … upsy!.. onto the stove. What hands he had! Like whips! A bag lay on the stove whose contents crinkled … straw or onion skins? “Das ist Kukuruz,” hVati reassured me. “In allen Betten sind Kukuruzblätter.” iI tried to catch a glimpse of uncle’s face, to see if it had that smile or if it was just a shadow … He left the room for another lamp and a blanket. The rags that hung from the rods over my head were yellow and spotted and didn’t come close to smelling of Persil. Only now, from atop this odd stove, did I get a really good look at the room. Black straw-like stalks jutted out of cracks in the white plaster. Beneath a cross in the corner above our aunt’s bed, two dark painted pictures stood on a small shelf alongside a tiny flame in a red glass … they were the woman and man from church who pointed at their bare chests with red, bleeding hearts that emitted flames and rays of light, but also had swords and a crown of thorns planted on them. That was probably Jesus and his mother, Mary … Aunt’s eyes were closed. She was either sleeping or she was bored. Mother and Gisela lay hugging each other. Uncle Karel arrived with a thin, hole-ridden blanket. He stood in the doorway with a second, dust-covered lamp in hand. When he spoke with Vati, who was holding that first lamp, the clean one, I noticed under the mustache on his pale yellow face that grin like a taut string … I could see the very same grin in his eyes, which were even more pronounced … No, this wasn’t a smile … this was scorn. This made me sad. Vati blew out the light. He lay down beside me. The space over the stove was hard and very hot. All I could see of the desolate room were two gray windows and the red light beneath the pictures. Aunt Mica was snoring. “Bubi! Vati!” mother quietly called out. “Ja! Ja!” the two of us answered. She always worried until everyone was home and under the covers … After that there was only the sound of the corn husks crinkling in their bed. It was great to go to sleep in this African hut, even if much of what came before sleeping had resembled dreams. But there was tomorrow …