“You mean Opa Kimmel, don’t you?”
His grandfather looked at the house as though it had recently arrived here.
“That beer is turned out to be expensive for me,” he said.
“Political stuff, is it?”
“You think he was the only one up here? Come on now, Felix.
You grew up not two kilometres away. Ah but I forget you and the others are wired into a different planet. The rock music, all that.
“Right. U2.”
“What U2? A submarine is it? Or a name for drugs?”
“Music.”
“I’ll tell you about ‘music,’ kid I feel some ‘music’ coming on here soon.”
“You are too ancient, Opa. Really.”
“Not as ancient as some.”
“Meaning?”
His grandfather’s expression was one of waiting to be dared.
“Meaning your dad’s father. There, I said it. May God forgive me.”
“You never got along with him, even when you and he were kids, did you?”
But now Felix’s grandfather seemed to be weighing his words carefully, his head bobbing slowly and decisively as though counting out a precise number of words.
“I never went up in the wald, in the forest, with those idiots, Felix. I am proud of that.”
“What idiots?”
“Those idiots who do you think, man?”
“The Brauners?”
“Say the name, Felix. Jesus. It’s sixty years ago.”
“Hitler Youth?”
“Yes, Hitler Youth! When I think of it my blood pressure…!
Ah forget it. You and your damned beer.”
“You were just a kid though.”
“Enough talk. Christ on the cross, Felix, but you’ll put me in a bad mood yet. Look, I don’t want to speak poorly of anyone. Our Saviour had words for that.”
Felix trudged across the yard after him. He heard the soft, scratching tread of the dog’s paws following.
His grandfather stopped and turned to him.
“I will say one thing though. I’m only telling you this because it is advice for the next generation, for when you start your family.
That crap has an effect on a family for a long, long time. Just remember that.”
“What does? I don’t get it.”
His grandfather waved his arms about.
“Call it something, I don’t know this fanaticism. Delusions, fairy-tale rubbish that ended up with, well, war. When you think about it, Christ! Their Germanic this and their Germanic that, and all the legends and crap they came up with. Bogeymen, and Wotan for God’s sake. Superstitious nonsense and this in a country that does science and music the best in the world? You should empty your head of this stuff. It’s like a snake or something, the more you look at it, the more it… ”
Opa Nagl waved away the rest of his words, and made a sound that was more like a grunt than a sigh.
“Thank God your generation won’t have this,” he muttered.
“And that’s why I talk about your dad with such respect. He became like a son to us. I shouldn’t say this out loud, I suppose. But he could relax when he came in our door. No, it wasn’t just he was starry-eyed over your mom. He trusted us. A good man, coming from that
… that, I don’t have the word wait, I do: that environment.”
He looked to Felix for corroboration that his meaning was clear.
“You don’t get it, do you? I’m saying he didn’t pick up the, the.. I can’t say it. No.”
“Bitterness?”
“A hard word, Felix. Especially for your own flesh and blood.”
“We avoid too many words, I think sometimes.”
“Well gossip is bad, Felix. Me, I am rough with my words. But I try to follow what Our Saviour has taught us.”
Felix thought back to the anniversary and how he had caught a glimpse of his grandfather, eyes closed tight in prayer, or straining to fight off distractions, or weak thoughts. The old marterls and taferls, those roadside shrines that still dotted the mountain roads here, had been built and kept up by people like Walter Nagl. So too were many graves tended, and churches fixed. A wave of affection broke over Felix. Now wasn’t the time to ask his opa how a mischievous nonconformist could still be so pious too. Maybe it was just a reflex, not a belief at all. He winked at his grandfather.
“You wink, you little noodle? You were pulling my leg after all!”
“No. I would like to know more about things like that.”
His grandfather’s face turned serious again.
“Well maybe you’re right. It’ll draw out the pus, whatever there is now after all this time.”
They turned to the sound of a woman’s voice from inside the house. Berndt went by then, half sideways, his stub of a tail wiggling feebly.
“You old goat,” his grandmother called out. “You’ve got the boy drinking beer already.”
“We talked,” his grandfather retorted. “And that cost us nothing, eh, Felix?”
“Come,” said Felix’s grandmother, and he made his way to her outstretched arms, trying not to notice again how she seemed to be sinking a little into herself, or rather stooping more.
“There’s something about getting a proper hug from a tall and handsome policeman,” she said. “Not like that old bandit I am married to.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
They watched Ziet Im Bild at 10. The headlines were about Israel again.
Felix was beyond sleepy. Berndt was dreaming still, and twitched and made little yelps. Felix was sure the dog was farting away all the while too.
“Poor Berndt,” his grandfather said several times, letting his arm hang down to stroke the dog. “You’re haunted, aren’t you.”
Oma Nagl’s face was flushed from the glass of wine. She had strayed away from asking Felix questions about marriage, his or Lisi’s plans. There were enough anecdotes old and new about the kids become men in the village, what they were doing now, what they were not doing.
Opa Nagl’s reading glasses made him look like something in a painting of centuries past. He held out the city newspaper to read it, and cast the odd glance at the television when he picked up on something interesting.
“Look,” he said, when the ads finished, and a piece about Schwarzenegger and the US presidency came on. “His old man was a cop in Graz. Look what can happen.”
“He is a fool,” said Oma Nagl, unraveling the sweater she had half done before realizing the needles had been wrong. “Only in America can he get this far.”
“We have heard this speech before.”
“If he gets anywhere near the White House, I’m going to march in the streets,” she said.“He hasn’t a clue. He cheats on his wife. He doesn’t know acting from reality. Not that he can act.”
A snort from his grandfather told Felix that the dispute would not be taken up seriously. He turned the page quickly, snapping it almost, and then dropped it on the floor.
“Wouldn’t you know it,” he said. “The minute Arnold turns up on the screen there, old Berndt lets a big one go.”
