One Another, Page 3

  The oldest, Joseph, lived in Canada, where he managed several forests owned by the family. Joseph rarely spoke. Petrus had told me he was desperately looking for a suitable woman to marry. But there were hardly any women in the Canadian forests and the few Joseph had met were out of the question.

  Why’s that? I wanted to know.

  Why’s that? I have no idea, Petrus replied.

  In any case, Joseph didn’t shave and had grown an unappealing, unkempt beard.

  Martin, the youngest, seemed to put the most stock in his appearance. He wore pressed shirts, aftershave, and styled his hair with a gel that, perhaps because of the heat, smelled pungently of artificial peach. For all his twenty-three years, he looked sixteen, blushed constantly, never held anyone’s gaze, and was prone to fits of laughter that made him sound like a young girl.

  When their car, a station wagon with electronic music thundering from its windows, drove up to the house, the dogs leapt up, barking, and encircled it. The music was finally turned off but that didn’t reassure the dogs. I watched the scene from the kitchen window. One of the brothers—from Petrus’s description, I immediately recognized him as Andreas—rolled down the driver side window and said something to the dogs, who kept jumping up, almost to his face. I walked out of the kitchen, opened the door, and yelled: Lie down! The dogs fell silent, dropped to the ground, and stayed. Wow, said Andreas, what did you say to them?

  Lie down—they only speak English.

  Lie down, he repeated. Where’s Petrus? he asked.

  Where are Joseph and Martin? I asked in response and peered into the car. Joseph sat in the front passenger seat, looking at me silently and suspiciously. Martin lay curled up on the back seat and laughed. Did you bring your girlfriend? I asked. He fell silent and shook his head uncomprehendingly. Don’t you want to get out? Martin started laughing again and Joseph gazed at me fixedly. And the dogs? Andreas asked softly, as if he were afraid of getting them worked up.

  After Petrus had driven into the village to get beer and meat to grill, he handed them shirts and pants from the farmer’s closet, told them to find themselves some rubber boots, and led them toward the stall. When I followed, more than an hour later, I found them sitting in the grass in front of the stall, in a wonderful mood and talking animatedly to each other. Lie down, Andreas called when he saw me. Martin squealed with delight and had laughing fit. The others also found this very amusing. Even Petrus—granted, he tried to hide his giggles, but I heard them. I got the joke only after thinking about it for a while. Petrus put his arm around me. He said, It’s not easy to understand, but Andreas doesn’t mean anything by it. Petrus sighed. Actually, he means it in a nice way. I looked over at Andreas. Lie down, he called out again and laughed until he shook, and his brothers laughed with him.

  Are they spending the night here? I asked Petrus as he made the fire.

  He gave me a questioning look.

  Yesterday you said they were only stopping by.

  Yes, he replied, but first we have to eat.

  Andreas went to look at the stall. Martin spent an hour in the tub. Joseph stood at the grill without a word, looking darkly into the coals, and forgot to turn the steaks.

  What did you do in Lacanau? I asked Joseph. They were surfing, Petrus answered for him. You don’t look like you had good weather, I said having turned back to Joseph. We don’t get tan in our family, Petrus replied. And how is life in Canada? I tried for a third time in Joseph’s direction. Lonely, Petrus answered. He looked at me and said: Let him be. It was his answer that was indiscreet, not my question. I asked myself what the world would come to if all younger brothers started defending their older brothers.

  Andreas came back from the stall. He was grinning. I found a pitchfork, he said, but that’s probably not the right implement. Joseph shook his head. Petrus said: We can eat now.

  A pungent scent announced Martin’s return from the bathroom. Poison, he asked, have you considered poison?

  We don’t have any poison, Petrus answered.

  And poison’s no fun, Andreas added. Blow them away!

  Yes, but with what?

  There must be some kind of shotgun on the farm somewhere?

  I already searched the entire stall, nothing.

  Small bore would be the thing!

  You guys remember Uncle Walter? He had a real rat-killer in his closet, double-barreled with nine-millimeter pellets and a twenty-two gauge LR cartridge. Reliable thing.

  I’d be careful with the small bore, because of the ricochets, much too dangerous.

  A small-bore rifle with pellets would work, back in the day we shot hundreds of pigeons from two to six meters away with one.

  Bullshit, that wasn’t a small bore, that was an air gun. Man, those pigeons were disgusting, remember?

  There are air guns here.

  A moment of silence followed.

  Are you serious? An air gun? No, really, that’s anti-social.

  How’s that?

  You’ll wound them at best, but kill them? Forget about it. They’ll end up crawling around all shot up and bleeding, it’s cruelty to animals.

  Hello ... they’re rats!

  For a while it hadn’t been clear which of them was saying what. They stood in a small circle. I was behind them and it struck me again that they all looked alike.

  They finally agreed to give the air gun a try. While Petrus went and got it, Andreas told us about an acquaintance named Annie who suddenly had an entire colony of rats on her property because of her neighbors, disgusting health food fanatics with their revolting compost heaps. Annie set her hunting terrier on the rats. It took care of twenty-seven of them in a single day, seven more the next day, and that was that. She never saw another rat. Andreas gave a short, sharp bark like a terrier, then looked at me and called: Lie down!

  Petrus handed his flashlight to Andreas, who fastened it onto the barrel of the gun with a cable tie. He shouldered the gun and looked at his brother. Joseph nodded and took command. The four of them marched to the stall in single file, all wearing the same borrowed, ugly black rubber boots. When Joseph slid back the door bolt, Martin couldn’t contain himself any longer and started giggling. His brothers grabbed him, pushed his head backward, and holding his mouth shut, dragged him into the barn, where they threw him onto the straw next to the tractor. The three of them went back without a word, slipped out of their rubber boots and tiptoed in stocking feet into the stall. I stood with one foot in the stall, one foot outside. Close the door, one of them called. The voice sounded unfamiliar, maybe Joseph’s. We waited.

  When the storm broke, the thousand-fold patter of rat paws on wood, Andreas turned on the flashlight and shot. Silence. They were gone. Andreas pointed the gun and the light at the floor. A single rat lay there. He went up to it, the gun ready. Did it hit you? he asked, sounding tender. He dropped to one knee to poke it. Nothing. It got hit, he said and bent lower to pick it up and show it to us. He reached for it with his free left hand, we couldn’t see more than that, and a second later, Andreas screamed. The squirming rat hung from his upper lip. I turned on the overhead light. Andreas roared. He spun in a circle, grabbed at the rat with both hands and pulled. He screamed with pain, let go of the rat, and yelled, help me, you idiots, do something! He twitched and jerked and danced in a circled, and seemed to be losing his mind. Petrus tore the gun out of his hand and aimed at him. Are you insane? Andreas yelled. Hold still, I’ll kill it, Petrus answered. Suddenly Martin was standing next to him. Don’t shoot, do not shoot, he said. Martin, the little giggler, how did he get here? He, of all people, spoke calmly and firmly: Lie down, Andreas, lie down on your side, good, that’s good. Andreas lay motionless. Martin held the rat tight and held it against the ground. Joseph grabbed the gun from Petrus and beat the rat to death with the butt. It took one, two, three, four, five blows. Andreas groaned with each blow, as if he were the one hit. The dead rat still hung fast to his lip. Wait, I’ll break its jaw, Martin said, but Andreas pushed
him away and, with a roar, tore the rat from his lip with his own hands.

  Petrus handed me a small page from a notebook that the farmer had pinned to the kitchen cupboard. Here, he said, William told me that if we needed a doctor, we should call this number. Didier 67587. Didier was not very pleased with the late call. First, I talked at him, trying to explain the situation, then he at me: He was a vet, vétérinaire, pas un médecin. He gave me the number of some Joujou or Chouchou. I split the difference and wrote Shushu.

  He couldn’t believe it. Un rat? he kept repeating and then even tried it in English: A rat? Oui, I said, yes.

  It took him more than an hour to arrive, during which time the brothers intensively cared for Andreas. One continuously dabbed away blood, one poured schnapps into him, one lay cold compresses on his forehead and the back of his neck. Only I sat drinking the beer—contrary to my usual habit—that they had brought back from the village that afternoon.

  Shushu was completely taken with the wound. He spoke softly and very quickly to himself: That is really ugly, my God, very serious. Rat bites are always relatively dangerous because they also grind their jaws sideways when they bite. They really pierce the wound with their teeth, even if you can’t tell from the outside, which naturally isn’t the case here, the damage is on the inside, just take a look, here you can see it perfectly, completely shredded! You should be happy it isn’t a human bite, as far as infections go, human bites are hell, but there might be some bacteria we don’t like here, too, after all. Be careful. He gave Andreas a shot of painkiller and antibiotics, cleaned the wound and said: I have to take you with me. We’ll decide in the hospital whether or not you need stitches.

  Martin had fallen asleep on the sofa. Joseph stared blankly and drank the last bottle of beer. Petrus made himself a coffee and chewed his lower lip. I’d switched to schnapps and thought about Beckett. Just sit together as we used to ... One sees little in this light ... May we not speak of the old days? I remembered the letter and went to Petrus’s bedroom to look for it. What time is it? Petrus asked when I came back. He answered the question himself after glancing at the pendulum clock in the hall: three- thirty. The letter you got today, where is it? I asked him. The letter, Petrus repeated and paused briefly, it wasn’t for me. I put it on the table for William. Can I see it? Petrus looked at me between my eyebrows, concerned. See? I think you should go get some sleep, the sun will be up soon.

  It’s darkest night, a voice objected. Nobody move! Andreas appeared in the doorway, his arm aimed like a gun and behind it, the bandage, which had been wrapped around half of his head, almost disappeared. He was drunk, his arm trembled, he let it sink. Shushu is a good man, he said. Is there anything left to drink? He seemed old, not because he was bald. The way he stood there in the farmer’s clothes, the shirt with its enormous brown checks, the dung-colored pants, he looked tired, exhausted.

  Where’s the rat? he asked. On the manure pile, I answered. Have you all gone crazy? he asked and went to the door. Turned around. And the gun? Here, Joseph said (Joseph said something!) and pulled the air gun out from under the sofa. He handed it to Andreas, who dropped onto an armchair and laid it across his knees. Does it hurt? I asked. He looked at me scornfully, much too long, he just didn’t take his eyes off me. Give me a kiss, he said. Hey, Petrus objected, and laughed. Give me a kiss, Andreas repeated. A kiss, he said to Petrus, she can give me a kiss, right? No, no, Petrus said, still laughing. Andreas pulled out the gun and aimed it at him. A shot came from his mouth. He pointed the gun at each of his brothers and me and made an enormous number of firing sounds. A veritable hailstorm of shots came from his mouth. Joseph’s expression didn’t change. Martin kept sleeping. Petrus shouted: Enough! That’s when I got scared.

  When it was summer once again, the summer holidays just begun, I knocked at Petrus’s door at the end of a seemingly endless workday at the Department of Transportation cafeteria and asked if he knew where the catalogue for the Giacometti exhibition that I’d bought the day before was. He shook his head, looked up briefly from his desk and said: I’m going to visit Joseph in Canada.

  It only occurred to you just now?

  Just now?

  Petrus always repeated part of any question he was not willing to answer. And, as always, it made me furious.

  Did you decide this a while ago?

  A while ago? No.

  Did you book your flight?

  My flight? Of course.

  And when is your flight?

  When? On Monday.

  What, Monday already? In three days?

  Four.

  And where is the goddamn Giacometti catalogue?

  Giacometti? In the bathroom, sorry, I—

  Thanks. I slammed the door.

  I was jealous. Of Joseph. Of all the people Petrus would meet in Canada, of every tree and bear in Canada, what a stupid word when you said it slowly, one syllable at a time, Ca-na-da, why hadn’t I noticed it before. What a stupid country. What a stupid brother. Joseph, that bristle-bearded forest-dweller. Have a lot of fun and stimulating conversations with that mute, autistic voyeur! Petrus didn’t even ask me. Sure, I had to work and, sure, I didn’t have any money, but he didn’t even ask me! Had he asked someone else? His secret lover? I thought of the letter, the longish envelope he had quickly slipped into his pocket when he noticed I was watching him at the mailbox in France a year earlier. Again and again I’d wondered what was with the letter. If he had a lover. And she was going to fly with him to Canada? Nonsense. But why not me? Why hadn’t he even asked me? And why, why couldn’t he release me, without being asked, from my horrible poverty and simply hand me a plane ticket with a kiss on the forehead? I couldn’t stand this cafeteria one more day, not one single day. And I couldn’t stand the medical officer who stopped in five times a day for a quick chat and bought yet another diet cola, another chocolate bar, either. Out of the question that I should have to put up for one more day with the smell of the daily special or of the dishwashing station where bleach seemed to couple with vomit. I just couldn’t take one more day of listening to the well-intentioned encouragement of my co-worker who’d been on the job for years, not to mention the summer hits on the radio when she would turn up the volume with a smile and a wink before and after the lunch hour.

  And yet, every morning I took the number thirteen streetcar all the way across town to the Department of Transportation, twenty-three stations I could rattle off backward and forward in as aloof and neutral a tone as the woman’s voice on the recording. Next stop: Tunnelstrasse. I took on her slack voice and tonelessly listed everything I saw. Next glimpse: traveling salesman in a hurry. Next glimpse: tired drunk, dozing off. Next glimpse: exhausted worker, shivering. I stuck to the voice all day long, internally and externally, using it for my internal monologues and for interactions with the customers. Next glimpse: head of a family in an ill-fitting suit—soup of the day: bouillon with egg, yes, of course, we can leave out the parsley. Next glimpse: pancake makeup in a hideous shade of beige on office worker’s face—we’re out of sweetener, unfortunately, it will be delivered tomorrow. Next glimpse: exasperating medical officer, where’s the hammer—you again, Doctor, that was quick, another diet cola? A little chocolate? Both?

  Hey you, don’t start with me—he was always very familiar—don’t even start! That damn sweetener. I guzzle the cola and I get really hungry. So I devour the chocolate. Then I have a guilty conscious and a raging thirst on top of it all. So then I drink another cola and get even more hungry. It’s horrible. Just don’t start with me. You see what artificial sweetener leads to in pig farming: piglets eat beyond their hunger, way beyond, they get fatter and fatter! Look at me!

  My automatic station-stop voice forbade me from answering: Then go ahead and drink a real soda with real sugar, Doctor, that should solve your problem according to your logic. No, the voice said: it’s not easy for you either, Doctor, is it? One cola, one chocolate bar, that’ll be three francs forty, as always. Enjoy.


  How long will you be away?

  How long?

  Yes, when are you coming back from Canada?

  Back? In about three weeks, more or less.

  So, end of July?

  End of July? More like early August, I think.

  Oh, kiss my ass. No, I didn’t actually say that. I probably said something like: Good, now I know for sure. Have a good trip.

  One evening Andreas was standing at my door. Sitting at my door. The neighbor wanted to call the police, he said. His scar moved when he talked. It looked fresh and had a blue sheen. I tried to remember his mouth before he was bitten. His beautiful, soft mouth. The gentle curve of his lips, which were so sanguine, they almost looked like he was wearing lipstick. What? he asked. Nothing, I said and unlocked the door. I let him in and made coffee. For several days, it had hurt whenever I swallowed. Now it didn’t. I looked at him. From the side his eyes just looked dark, they were so deep-set. Andreas? He turned his head. Yes? They were blue. You want sugar? Yes, no, oh—he smiled at me, his scar stuck out—I don’t actually drink coffee. Now they were gray, his eyes, definitely.

  He invited me out to dinner. He had heard of an interesting spot nearby, he said. What brought you here? I asked. He laughed, his scar swelled. I was startled, for a second it had looked like a tiny, twitching amphibian, a primeval mini-ichthyostega. He waved the waiter over and when they couldn’t agree after several minutes, the manager came to our table, shook Andreas’s hand, shook mine. My sister-in-law, Andreas introduced me, I nodded and gave a faint smile. The manager invited him down to the wine cellar. I sat at the table alone for a while.

  Your lips are all blue, Andreas said, would you like a coffee with dessert?