SIX OF SPADES

… a drink which is more
than a thousand times better …

I was just about to fall asleep over the magnifying glass and the sticky-bun book. I realised I had read the beginning of a great fairy tale, but it didn’t occur to me that this fairy tale had anything to do with me. I tore a piece from the paper bag that the buns had been in and used it as a bookmark.

I had once seen something similar in Danielsen’s bookstore in the market square in Arendal. It was a tiny book of fairy tales inside a box. The difference was that that book’s writing was so big there wasn’t room for more than fifteen or twenty words on each page. Of course, this being so, there was no chance of it being a great fairy tale either.

It was past one in the morning. I put the magnifying glass in one of my jeans pockets and the sticky-bun book in the other and dived into bed.

Dad woke me up early the next morning. We had to hurry and get back on the road, he said, otherwise we would never make it to Athens in time. He was slightly irritated because I’d dropped so many sticky bun crumbs on the floor.

Crumbs! I thought. So the sticky-bun book hadn’t been just a dream. I pulled on my jeans and could feel something hard in both pockets. I told Dad that I’d been so hungry in the middle of the night I’d eaten the last sticky bun. I hadn’t wanted to turn on any lights, that’s why there were so many crumbs on the floor.

We hurriedly packed our things and loaded them into the car before we dashed into the dining room for breakfast. I glanced into the empty restaurant where Ludwig had once sat drinking wine with his friends.

After breakfast we said goodbye to the Schöner Waldemar. As we drove past the shops in Waldemarstrasse, Dad pointed to the bakery and asked if that was where I’d got the buns. I didn’t have to answer his question, though, because at that moment the white-haired baker appeared on the steps and waved. He waved at Dad, too, and Dad waved back.

We were soon back on the highway. I sneaked out the magnifying glass and the sticky-bun book from my jeans pockets and started to read. Dad asked me a couple of times what I was doing. First I said I was checking to see whether there were any fleas or lice in the back seat, but the second time he asked, I said I was thinking of Mama.

Albert sat back down in his rocking chair, found some tobacco in an old chest, filled his pipe, and lit it.

‘I was born here in Dorf in 1881,’ he began. ‘I was the youngest of five children. That was probably why I was the one most attached to Mother. It was usual in Dorf for boys to stay at home with their mother until they were seven or eight years old, but as soon as they turned eight, they joined their fathers at work in the fields and woods.

‘I remember all those long, happy days I walked around the kitchen hanging on to her skirts. The whole family gathered together only on Sundays. That’s when we would go for long walks, spend more time eating dinner, and play dice games in the evening.

‘Then misfortune fell on our family. When I was four years old, Mother was struck down by tuberculosis. We lived with the sickness in our house for many years.

‘Of course, as a little boy I didn’t understand everything, but I remember that Mother was always having to sit down to take a rest, and gradually she was confined to her bed for long periods of time. Sometimes I would sit by her bed and tell her stories I made up myself.

‘I once found her bent over the kitchen bench having a terrible coughing attack. When I saw that she had coughed up blood, I went into a terrible rage and started to break everything I found in the kitchen. Cups and saucers and glasses, everything I came across. That must have been the first time I realised she was going to die.

‘I also remember Father coming in to me early one Sunday morning, before the rest of the house had woken up.

‘“Albert,” he said, “it is time we talked, because Mother doesn’t have long to live.”

‘“She’s not going to die,” I cried in fury. “You’re lying!”

‘But he wasn’t. We had a few more months together. Even though I was only a young boy, I grew used to living with the thought of death, long before it arrived. I saw how Mother grew paler and thinner, and how she had a constant fever.

‘I remember the funeral most of all. My two brothers and I had to borrow mourning clothes from friends in the village. I was the only one who didn’t cry; I was so angry with Mother for leaving us that I didn’t shed a single tear. Since then I’ve always thought the best medicine for sorrow is anger …’

The old man looked up at me – as though he knew I was also carrying a great sorrow.

‘In this way, Father had to support five children,’ he went on. ‘In the beginning we managed pretty well. In addition to working on the little farm, Father was the village postmaster. There weren’t more than two or three hundred people living in Dorf at that time. My oldest sister, who was only thirteen years old when Mother died, looked after the house. The others helped on the farm, while I – being too small to be useful – went around by myself most of the time. It wasn’t uncommon for me to sit by my mother’s grave and cry, but I hadn’t forgiven her for dying.

‘However, it wasn’t long before Father started to drink. At first it was only at the weekends, but it soon became every single day. The postmaster job was the first to go; then the farm started to fall apart. Both my brothers left for Zürich before they were fully grown men. I continued to wander about on my own.

‘As I grew older, I was often teased because my father was “on the grape”, as they called it. If he was found stone drunk in the village, he was sure to be put to bed. I was the one to be punished. I felt I was the one who constantly had to pay for Mother’s death.

‘In the end I found a good friend, Baker Hans. He was a white-haired old man who had run the village bakery for a whole generation, but because he had not grown up in Dorf he was always regarded as a stranger. In addition, he was a quiet man, so no one in the village felt they knew him.

‘Baker Hans had been a sailor, but after many years at sea he had settled down in the village as a baker. On the rare occasions when he walked round the bakery in just his undershirt, he exposed four enormous tattoos on his arms. We thought this alone made Baker Hans a bit mysterious, as no other man in Dorf had a tattoo.

‘I particularly remember the tattoo of a woman sitting on a big anchor, under which was written MARIA. There were many stories about this Maria. Some people said she had been his sweetheart, but she’d died of tuberculosis before she was twenty years old. Others said Baker Hans had killed a German woman called Maria and that’s why he’d settled down in Switzerland …’

Albert seemed to look at me as if he knew that I, too, had run away from a woman. He doesn’t think I’ve killed her, does he? I thought to myself.

But then he added: ‘There were also some who said Maria was the name of a ship he had sailed on, which had been wrecked somewhere in the great Atlantic Ocean.’

With that Albert got up and fetched a big piece of cheese and some bread. He brought out two glasses and a bottle of wine.

‘Am I boring you, Ludwig?’ he asked.

I shook my head vigorously, and the old baker continued.

‘Being the “orphan” I was, I sometimes stood in front of the bakery on Waldemarstrasse. I was often hungry and thought it helped my hunger just to look at all the bread and cakes. Then one day Baker Hans waved me into the bakery and gave me a big slice of currant cake. From that day on I had a friend, and this is where my story begins, Ludwig.

‘From then on I was always visiting Baker Hans. I think he quickly noticed how lonely I was, and how I had to take care of myself. If I was hungry, he would give me a piece of freshly baked bread or some cake, and sometimes he opened a fizzy drink. In return, I started to run small errands for him, and before I turned thirteen years old, I was a baker’s apprentice. But that was after many long years, by which time everything else had come to light and I had become his son.

‘Father died the same year: he really did drink himself to death. Until the very end, he talked about how he wanted to meet Mother again in heaven. Both my sisters had married far away from Dorf, and I’ve never heard from my brothers since then …’

At this point Albert poured the wine. He walked across to the fireplace and knocked the ash out of his pipe, refilled it with tobacco, and lit it. He blew large, heavy clouds of smoke into the room.

‘Baker Hans and I were companions for each other, and once he was my protector, too. Four or five boys started to bully me right outside the bakery. They threw me to the ground and punched me: at least, that’s how I remember it now. I had learned long before why this kind of thing happened. It was punishment because Mother was dead and Father a drunkard. But that day Baker Hans came charging out onto the street, and I will never forget that sight, Ludwig. He fought to free me and beat every single one of them; not one escaped without a scratch. He may have been more aggressive than he needed to be, but since that day none of the people of Dorf have dared to bother me.

‘Well now, this fight was a turning point in my life in more ways than one. Baker Hans dragged me into the shop, brushed off his white coat, and opened a bottle, which he placed on the marble counter in front of me.

‘“Drink!” he ordered.

‘I did as he said, and I already felt my score had been settled.

‘“Does it taste good?” he asked, almost before I’d had the chance to swallow the first mouthful of the sweet drink.

‘“Yes, thank you.”

‘“But if that tastes good,” he continued, almost trembling, “then I promise you that one day I will offer you a drink which is more than a thousand times better.”

‘Of course, I thought he was only joking, but I never forgot his promise. There was something about the way he said it, and something about the situation. His cheeks were still red from what had happened out on the street. Moreover, Baker Hans was no joker …’

Albert Klages started to cough and splutter now. I thought he’d got some smoke caught in his throat, but he was just a bit overexcited. He looked across the table at me with a pair of heavy brown eyes.

‘Are you tired, my boy? Should we continue another evening?’

I took another sip of wine and shook my head.

‘I was just twelve years old at this time,’ he said pensively. ‘The days carried on as before, except that nobody dared to lay a hand on me now. I was always dropping in at the baker’s. Sometimes we talked together, but now and then he just gave me a piece of cake and sent me on my way. Like everyone else, I discovered that he could be quiet, but he could also tell exciting stories about his life at sea. In this way I learned about foreign lands.

‘I always visited Baker Hans in his bakery. Otherwise, I would never meet him. However, one cold winter’s day, as I sat throwing stones across the frozen Waldemarsee, he suddenly appeared beside me.

‘“You’re growing up, Albert,” he said simply.

‘“I’m going to be thirteen in February,” I replied.

‘“Mmm. It’ll do. Tell me – do you think you’re big enough to keep a secret?”

‘“I’ll keep all the secrets you tell me until I die.”

‘“I thought so. And that’s important, my boy, because I don’t think I have that long to live.”

‘“Oh yes, you do,” I said at once. “You have loads of time.”

‘Suddenly I felt as cold as the snow and ice around me. It was the second time in my young life that I had been given news of a death.

‘He took no notice of my words. Instead, he said, “You know where I live, Albert. I would like you to come to my house tonight.”’

Дата добавления: 2015-10-28