In Times of Fading Light

“Fucking hell,” said Markus, and watched the tall white buildings slowly gliding by.

When he was standing outside his great-grandfather’s house a good hour later, he remembered the brass knockers on the front door. They were in the shape of Chinese dragons, but their wide-open mouths suddenly looked like the fish heads in his dream. Luckily—it must be to avert evil—there was a little note under the fish heads: Do not knock! And now Markus remembered that there used to be little notes stuck all over the house: Guests only, or Switch out of order, or Please leave key on inside of door, one door was even labeled Beware, cellar, as if in that big house you might sometimes forget where the cellar was.

Even before they pressed the bell the door opened, and a man in a blue suit with fat folds shaped like sausages on his forehead was facing them.

“Comrade… er…?” said the man.

“Umnitzer,” said Muddel, and she pointed to Markus. “The great-grandson.”

“The great-grandson!” cried the man.

He seized Markus’s hand and shook it.

“My word,” said the man. “My word!”

The odd thing was that the sausage-shaped folds on his forehead stayed put even when he laughed. He told Muddel:

“Comrade, it’s my job to relieve you of the paper wrapping your flowers.”

Muddel gave him the paper wrapping the flowers, without correcting his form of address to her.

The big seashell was shining in the hall just the way he remembered it, except that the room seemed to him even darker than last time. They stood around at a loss for a few seconds, and then Great-Grandmother appeared right in front of them, materializing like a ghost. She looked inquiringly at them, and Markus was beginning to fear that she wouldn’t recognize them when she said:

“Wonderful that you could come. I’m so glad!”

A woman scurrying past took Muddel’s coat.

“If there’s no more room in the back entrance then take the coat down to the cellar,” Great-Grandmother called to the woman in a penetrating voice. Then she turned back to them again.

“Terrible,” she said.

Markus had no idea what she meant.

“I’m exhausted,” said Great-Grandmother. “I am truly exhausted.”

She clapped her hands over her face and stayed in that position for a few moments, until Markus began to feel uncomfortable. Suddenly she said:

“Not a word! Is that clear?”

Her voice sounded sharp and penetrating again.

“Not a word about Hungary! Not a word about anything! This has to work one hundred percent! Is that clear?”

“Perfectly clear,” said Muddel.

Great-Grandmother leaned forward, almost whispering now. “He couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Don’t worry,” said Muddel.

“Wonderful,” fluted Great-Grandmother, stroking Markus’s hair. “How you’ve grown!”

“He’s twelve now,” said Muddel.

Great-Grandmother nodded.

“Melitta, am I right? You’re Melitta?”

“Yes,” said Muddel. “Quite right.”

Great-Grandmother stroked Markus’s hair again, looked at him with a smile, only to change her tone again abruptly, sounding almost a little crazy.

“Vamos,” she said. “One hundred percent! I’m relying on you.”

As soon as he entered the room he was reminded of the Natural History Museum again, with all the things in it so like exhibits, kind of prehistoric, and it smelled that way too: dusty and stern and very serious; all around it stood black, glass-fronted shelves, and by peering through the big sliding door, which when open made the two rooms into a positive exhibition hall, you could see the conservatory, in which, as it now occurred to him, most of the treasures were stored.

In the middle of the room where he now was, there was a table made of several small tables (and of several different heights) pushed together, with a crowd of people already sitting at it. His father wasn’t there. At first glance he couldn’t see Granny Irina either; mostly it was ancient old people sitting at the table talking, a party of dinosaurs consuming coffee and cakes, thought Markus, but croaking at each other with great animation, as if they had all just been awoken from their fossilized prehistoric rigidity and were catching up with everything they had failed to say for millions of years.

Only one of them was sitting to one side of the big table, on the left in the corner, in the shadow of the light falling in through the door to the terrace: a dinosaur who hadn’t quite made it to resurrection—and indeed the hunched, bony figure with its knees coming up to its ears, its winglike arms hanging over the arms of the chair, and its huge, long, beaky nose was reminiscent of the fossil imprint of the extinct reptile that had always fascinated Markus most of all: the pterodactyl, a flying dinosaur.

“Here’s Markus,” Great-Grandmother told the pterodactyl. “Your great-grandson.”

“Happy birthday,” murmured Markus, offering his great-grandfather the picture.

The pterodactyl put its head on one side, its beaky nose circling. “He’s hard of hearing these days,” whispered Great-Grandmother. “An iguana,” croaked the pterodactyl.

“It’s a turtle,” said Markus in a loud voice—he refrained from defining the subject of his picture more precisely as a hawksbill sea turtle. “He doesn’t see too well either,” whispered Great-Grandmother. “Markus is interested in the animal kingdom,” said Muddel.

For a moment the pterodactyl sat there without moving. Then it said, “When I am dead, Markus, you’ll inherit the iguana on the shelf there.”

“Cool,” said Markus.

He had never been told he would inherit something from anyone before, and he wasn’t sure if he ought to say thank you for it, if he ought to show pleasure at all. That would mean showing pleasure at the thought of Wilhelm’s death. But suddenly Wilhelm said, “No, you’d better take it home with you now.”

“Right this minute?”

“Take it with you,” said Wilhelm. “I don’t have much longer left anyway.”

“But you must say hello to everyone first,” Muddel called after him. Markus went obediently from one to another of the guests, letting the often-repeated murmur of The great-grandson, the great-grandson! wash over him. It was embarrassing, of course, but somehow he also felt flattered.

“Ah, young people!” fluted an elderly bottle blonde.

“Da zdravstvuyet,” bellowed a fat, sweating man whose face was already red with talking.

They all raised their glasses and drank to young people.

Grandpa Kurt even gave him a hug, not at all usual, normally Grandpa Kurt was one of those who avoided unnecessary physical contact, which Markus greatly appreciated, and indeed he liked his grandpa, and was always a little sorry when, on his visits to his grandparents, Grandpa went to great pains to teach him games of some kind, games from which you’ll learn things that will come in useful in life. That was Grandpa Kurt: kindly but demanding.

“Where’s Granny Ira?” asked Markus.

“Granny’s not feeling too good,” said Grandpa Kurt.

“Is she sick?”

“Yes,” said Grandpa Kurt. “That’s the best way to put it.”

Finally it was Baba Nadya’s turn. He disliked the thought of her hand pressing his. Baba Nadya lived over there with Granny Ira, and when he visited he always had to go into her room and say hello, and the room really