Christopher Kloeble - Almost Everything Very Fast

In the cool summer of 1930, when I was a handsome seventeen-year-old, the undertaker returned from another excursion to Segendorf. “Have a look, rascal,” he said, pulling the tarp from a hazel coffin. “We’ve picked up another bargain.”

“How much?” I asked, excited.

Wickenhäuser whispered it in my ear.

“In that case, you’re buying me dinner tonight,” I said solemnly, hesitated, and pushed two more words over my lips: “Did Anni …”

“I’m sorry.”

“Is she doing okay?”

“She looks gorgeous. But not as gorgeous as you.”

“Did you ask if she wants to come see me?”

“She’s a village kid, rascal.”

“Did you ask her?”

“The girl runs away as soon as I drop your name.”

“Maybe next time.”

“There won’t be a next time. I’ve finally decided not to go back. It’s too far away.”

“What about Reindl?”

“She understands. Besides, she isn’t getting any younger.”

That evening I tossed and turned in bed, and kept examining my elbow; the scar was pale; unless someone was looking for it, they wouldn’t notice. When Wickenhäuser had spoken about my sister, she had tugged hard on that thread around my chest. I didn’t understand how a lack of news from Segendorf could so preoccupy me — as if it were bad news.

I threw off the covers and walked in the dark to the door of Wickenhäuser’s bedroom, paused, and while I was debating whether or not to knock, heard a conspicuously unshrill voice: “Come on in.”

Wickenhäuser was sitting upright in bed. His eyes were bloodshot.

“I knew you’d see through it, rascal.”

“What?”

“But I was hoping that if I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t go.”

“Tell me, already.”

“Your sister’s getting married.”

“To whom?”

“Fellow called Driajes.”

“When?”

“In the fall.”

“Fall? Why not spring?”

“They’re in a hurry.”

Wickenhäuser patted the mattress beside him. “Please.”

I sat down. “Do you think I should go see her?”

“I think that if you don’t go now, you never will. But I also think that if you go to her, you won’t come back.”

“Nonsense. What’s your opinion?”

“Rascal …”

“What’s your opinion?”

“I want you to stay.”

“Fine,” I said. “Now imagine another truth.”

“I … want … you … to …”

“Yes?” I prompted.

“… go.”

“Good. Go on.”

“You should set out tomorrow.”

“Very good.”

“Rascal? Stay here. Just for tonight.”

“But not for long.”

“Will you hold my hand?”

“No.”

I left the next morning. After a long back-and-forth I’d decided against taking Hoss; I could cover the bulk of the distance faster by bus, and the remainder on foot. I didn’t pack any of my suits; as long as I took little with me, I’d have enough of a reason to come back soon. Along with sufficient food for the trip, Wickenhäuser gave me a map whose southernmost marking was a ring in red ink, above which someone had scribbled Segendorf. Furthermore, as we were saying good-bye, the undertaker passed me a parcel that felt like it contained a pillow.

“Don’t open it until you’re sitting on the bus,” he cautioned me, and swallowed hard; he looked as dismal as a Segendorf gravedigger. He glanced mistrustfully at the bus. “You’ll come back?”

“Of course I will.”

“My lovely rascal,” Wickenhäuser said, laughing through his tears, “and what if I told you that I never delivered any of your letters to her?”

I dug my fingernails deep into the skin of my scarred elbow. “Anni doesn’t know anything?”

“Suppose she doesn’t?”

“Then,” I said, “then that would change everything.”

I gave Wickenhäuser a short, cold handshake, nodded, and took a seat at the back of the bus. The engine banged like a rifle shot. We lurched off down the road.

Third Love

On a windy Indian summer evening in September, I walked past the triple-horned cow skull (the result of a highly questionable breeding experiment) that marked the northernmost border of the village. The first barnyards I passed seemed much smaller than I remembered. In my memories, the houses were massive skyscraping structures, but now my impression was that Segendorf consisted largely of flat, skewed buildings that you could watch sinking gradually into the swampy ground. Even the church, which had instilled such respect in me as a child, now seemed to resemble nothing so much as a poorly maintained mausoleum. I felt amazed that anyone could spend his whole life here. It wasn’t melancholy I was feeling, but surprise that I’d actually grown up in such a place.

To remain incognito, I steered clear of people on the street and made straight for the tavern, where I took a seat at a shaky wooden table. The air was full of rancid odors, the taproom empty, apart from the busty innkeeper.

“You from around here?” she bleated.

“Bring me something,” I bleated back.

“A pint?”

I nodded. With a filthy rag, the innkeeper spread a puddle of beer around on my table. I sat there till late at night, bolting down reams of red cabbage, dumplings, and leathery cuts of roast pork. After a trip as long as mine, anything tasted good. And the more often I bent deep over my beer stein, the more often the innkeeper looked across at me, asking whether I wanted anything else, making little detours past my table. After she’d put up the last of the chairs, she planted herself before me.

“You’re not from around here.”

“No.”

“Then you won’t know my barn.”

“No.”

“It’s out on the moor.”

I looked up at her.

“I’ll show it to you, it’s very comfortable.”

She showed me a couple of other things, too, before returning, in the gray dawn, across the labyrinth of rotting wooden planks that crisscrossed the moor, to her husband, who hadn’t kissed her with that kind of abandon in years. Like a kitten lapping up milk for the first time, she’d said.

I spent those first days after my arrival out on the moor. It was still too soon, I needed some time to figure out how I could meet my sister, from whom I’d been separated for six years. Almost every day the innkeeper came looking for me, bringing me horse knockwurst, freshly baked poppy-seed rolls, cracklings, Moosinger — a variety of cheese produced exclusively in Segendorf, which ripened only after an exceedingly long and damp storage — tepid milk, poppy-seed cakes, pickled frogs’ legs, poppy-seed buns, mushrooms, and eggs. In return, I deployed such knowledge as I’d acquired from the widows of Schweretsried, and hoped that her screams wouldn’t disturb anyone but blindworms, storks, and toads. It seemed to me as though, with every thrust that sent flabby waves rolling across the innkeeper’s backside, I was plunging deeper and deeper into my native town. I thrust, and she screamed. Soon, I was airing my own first screams as well. On those nights that the innkeeper couldn’t manage to slip from her husband’s bed, I explored the village. Behind every window I peeped through, someone was screaming. Screaming was part and parcel of Segendorf, like the Sacrificial Festival. Children in the dark screamed for light, husbands screamed for their wives, and the wives screamed because of their violent husbands. But nobody screamed as untiringly as the innkeeper.