In Times of Fading Light

“At the beginning of September.”

“When will it be September?”

“It’s only May now, so there will be June, July, and August, and then it will be September.”

Alexander was furious. “You said time goes faster when you get older.”

“When you’re older than now, Sashenka. Really grown up.”

“When will I be really grown up?”

“You’ll be really grown up when you’re eighteen.”

“How big will I be then? As big as Papa?”

“Bigger, for sure.”

“Why?”

“Children usually grow up to be bigger than their parents. And parents get a little bit smaller again in their old age.”

She said to the salesgirl, in German:

“A pound of ground beef, please.”

The summer began.

At first you had to bargain to be allowed to wear short pants. But soon, after a few days, summer really set in, spread almost unnoticed, occupied the last little nooks and crannies of Neuendorf, drove the chill out of the moist earth. The grass was warm now, the air was full of hovering insects, and no one remembered getting goose bumps, not on the first day when you could wear short pants; no one could imagine that this summer would ever end.

Roller-skating. Steel roller skates were the latest thing. They made a tremendous clattering noise. Wilhelm came out.

“This is too much! Talk about farcical!”

Making bows and arrows: the arrows twigs from some bush with a name no one knows, copper wire wound around the arrowheads. Uwe Ewald shoots Frank Petzold in the eye. Off to the hospital, everyone gets bawled out.

Drawing on the street in chalk. Peter Hofmann draws a swastika, but next moment he turns it into a window—just by making the lines longer.

Also strictly forbidden is going into the bunker. The big kids do it all the same. When Alexander goes into the bunker a ghost appears from the depths of it, only a head with bright red cheeks. Alexander’s hair stands on end with horror. He runs for the exit in silence.

Not forbidden, but somehow not allowed either, is playing rider and horse with Renate Klumb. She has to lie down on her tummy in the grass with her skirt up. He sits on top of her. Renate doesn’t have to make any movements in this game. It’s enough for their bare skin to touch here and there.

Eating unripe apples with Matze. The result is diarrhea.

Katrin Mahlich gets her finger jammed in a deck chair.

They build cities for firebugs in the Hofmanns’ sandbox. There are any number of firebugs. The stones are warm from the sun, and troops of the bugs bask on them, never moving.

And just as summer is finally slowing right down, when the days no longer move from the spot, when time, in spite of all assurances to the contrary, stops passing, and Alexander has almost forgotten about it, his mother says:

“We’re going to see Baba Nadya next week.”

“Next week,” announces Alexander, “I’m going to the Soviet Union.” Achim Schliepner doesn’t seem greatly impressed.

“The Soviet Union is the biggest country in the world,” says Alexander.

But Achim Schliepner says, “America is bigger.”

The journey: a green railroad car. A sleeping car, as comfortable as a little house on wheels. You could order tea, too. The tea glasses had a picture of the Kremlin on them. And a little Sputnik circling around the Kremlin.

The wheels are changed in Brest. A broader gauge for the Soviet Union. “Mama, the Soviet Union is the biggest country in the world, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course.”

He didn’t remember anything. But he knew it all. Even the smell of the Moscow taxis: half burned rubber, half gasoline. All Moscow seemed to smell a bit like a taxi.

Red Square: a line of people waiting in front of the mausoleum.

“No, Sashenka, we don’t have time.”

But there’s time for Eskimo ice cream. And prostokvasha, fermented milk, with sugar.

The Metro: it’s gigantic. He’s a little scared of the escalator. And even more scared of the doors.

Then three more days of rail travel. Changing trains at Sverdlovsk. Then another half a day. And then, at last, Slava.

The rail station was outside the town. A jeep met them, and drove around the potholes in the road. Not so much potholes as craters.

The little housing estate. Board fences. Wooden houses. And every one of them looked as if Baba Nadya might live in it.

The driver honked. Baba Nadya came out of her door. “Why is Baba Nadya crying?”

“Because she’s happy,” said Mama.

The house was small. A kitchen, a living room. A stove in the middle of the house. Baba Nadya slept on the tiled stove, Mama and Alexander slept in the bed.

The yard: a sauna, an outhouse. The black-and-white dog on his chain was called Drushba. Drushba meant Friendship. Friendship barked. His chain rattled.

Baba Nadya said crossly, “Friendship, shut up!”

The cow and the pig lived in the outhouse. The cow was brown and was called Marfa. The pig was simply called Pig. Just as Wilhelm was simply called Wilhelm.

He was scared of the pig. If you let it out, it raced around the yard, squealing. Friendship was afraid of the pig, too. However, there was no need to be afraid of Friendship.

Instead, he was allowed to go for walks with Friendship. He was allowed to do all sorts of things. He was allowed up on the roof. He was allowed to wade through huge puddles. Only he mustn’t go into the forest.

“Not a step into the forest,” said Baba Nadya.

Because you could get lost in the forest. And then the wolves would eat you up.

“And all we’d find of you would be your bones,” said Baba Nadya. “Oh, do stop that,” said Mama.

All the same, he wasn’t allowed to go into the forest.

“Even the midges could eat you up,” said Mama.

But he didn’t believe that. The wolves were a more likely story.

Fetching water from the well: very interesting. Baba Nadya had a kind of framework thing that she put over her shoulders, with a bucket on it to her left and another to her right, and then off they went. You hung your bucket on a hook, and it went down the well all by itself. Alexander was allowed to help turn the handle to wind it up to the surface again.

Bread came once a week. On that day a long line of people stood outside the store. Each of them got three loaves of bread. Even Alexander, so altogether that came to nine. They ate three of the loaves themselves, and gave the cow six. Softened in water. The cow smacked her lips. She liked the bread.

Baba Nadya had electricity in her house, but no gas. She cooked everything in a niche in the tiled stove. The samovar was heated for tea. You drank black tea first thing in the morning, at midday, in the evening. The samovar hummed. Baba Nadya played the card game called Fool with him.