In Times of Fading Light

“Then that’s all right,” said Sasha. “Okay? Everything all right?”

Irina nodded. She tapped two or three cigarettes out of her pack and held them out to him.

“And more good news,” said Sasha. “I’ve given up smoking.”

A little later Kurt was back again. Without Charlotte.

“Well… ” he said, and went on to tell them, briefly and reluctantly, that Charlotte was sick. She hadn’t known him, she had hardly been conscious. And the doctor had given him to understand that, well, they must be prepared for the worst.

For a moment no one said anything. Sasha stood in the doorway of the conservatory, looking out (or was he looking in?) at the small failure of a Christmas tree—Kurt’s Christmas tree: lumpy tinsel, blue cosmetic cotton imitating snow. Catrin assumed a mournful expression, as if Charlotte were already dead. Irina was cross.

She knew it was wrong for her to feel cross. Charlotte couldn’t help it if she was dying now. All the same, Irina was cross. She silently withdrew to the kitchen and began peeling potatoes for the dumplings. She tried to justify her lack of emotion by resorting to the long list of Charlotte’s injuries to her feelings. No, she hadn’t forgotten how she had scraped out the cracks in the wood of the cloakroom alcove. How Charlotte had wanted to marry Kurt off to that Gertrud… the worst time of her life, thought Irina, as she put the potatoes on and poured herself a whisky—at least she wasn’t going to have to drive today! Worse than the war, she thought. Worse than the first German artillery attack, God knows.

She drank the whisky—the stuff really went to your head!—and smoked another cigarette. Suddenly she laughed when she thought of the two-handled jug shaped like a garbage bin that had been Charlotte’s Christmas present to her last year: a rusty old jug like a garbage bin, would you believe it?… No, she couldn’t bear Charlotte a grudge anymore. She was old and crazy, and now she was dying all by herself in the nursing home. Tomorrow, thought Irina, she’d look in and visit her. In spite of everything.

She put her cigarette down on the rim of the ashtray and set about grating the raw potatoes—Thuringian dumplings, half and half raw and cooked. Or rather, a bit more of one than the other, but which way around was it? Her cookbook must be somewhere. Irina looked for her cookbook, but after a while she realized that she wasn’t looking for her cookbook at all, her thoughts were still revolving around Charlotte. One thing you had to say for her: over the last two years, or since Wilhelm’s surprising death—he had died on his birthday, and although he was ninety no one had expected him to expire—since Wilhelm’s surprising death Charlotte had changed in a very odd way. And the odd thing was not her craziness suddenly breaking through—for she had always been a bit crazy—but that she had suddenly turned so even-tempered and friendly. All at once, it seemed, the energetic malice that had always driven her had fizzled out. All at once she had begun addressing Irina as my dear daughter. She wrote Kurt confused but almost loving letters, or phoned in the small hours to thank them for some tiny little thing… until in the end she turned up at their door one night in long johns, carrying her Mexican suitcase, asking if she could come to live in the room left vacant when Nadyeshda Ivanovna went away. This time it was Kurt who had firmly put his foot down. Of course Irina hadn’t wanted to have her underfoot in the house. But pushing her off into the nursing home seemed brutal, and although Charlotte let them do it without protesting, Irina had to fight back tears every time she saw her there among all those people wandering down the corridors with a blank look in their eyes…

The cookbook said: Peel and wash just under 2/3 of the potatoes, grate them finely on the kitchen grater… Irina tried to work out the quantity given… was it really more or less than…? Oh heavens, she must stop drinking. Just one more. She needed one more to dilute the bitterness building up inside her. For whatever Charlotte had been like, whatever she had done, it was unthinkable to celebrate Christmas without her. Without Charlotte and her raccoon coat, without her high-pitched voice, her elaborate compliments, her showing off, her man-made fiber bag from which she handed out embarrassing gifts with an air of great generosity—and although that jug in the shape of a garbage bin that Charlotte, beaming with delight, had given her, was the most idiotic gift she had ever been given, it was the only one of her presents that Irina felt had really come from the heart…

One more, thought Irina. One more, a toast to Charlotte on her deathbed.

She could hear the men’s voices from the living room now, the usual discussion: unemployment, socialism… the GDR is being liquidated, that’s what’s going on here, said Kurt. Irina had heard it all before, indeed no one talked of anything else when visitors came—not that many visitors came these days. Suddenly everyone was very busy. Although in fact they were all unemployed. That was odd, too, thought Irina. The GDR was bankrupt, she heard Sasha saying, it invited its own liquidation… and that was followed by calculations that she did not entirely understand… If salaries were converted at par, the same here as there, said Kurt as Irina tried to work out the two-thirds proportion, then all the businesses would have gone bust overnight. But Sasha said: If they don’t get paid at par, one to one, then everyone will go to the West… One to one, thought Irina. Or one-third to two-thirds… I don’t understand you, said Sasha, you’ve always been saying that socialism is finished yourself. If those were just empty words… Suddenly it all seemed to her very far away… I’m not talking about the GDR, I’m talking about socialism, a real, democratic form of socialism! Suddenly the dumplings seemed very far away as well… There’s no such thing as democratic socialism, she heard Sasha say. Then came Kurt’s voice: Socialism is by its very nature democratic, because those who produce the goods are themselves…

Irina picked up a fork and prodded the potatoes to see if they were cooked… never mind, she thought. Silly quarrels… Christmas in this house just once more. Monastery Goose once more. Dumplings exactly as they ought to be once more. And then, she thought, they can carry me out of here feet first! Prost. She tipped the dregs in her glass down her throat—only there weren’t any dregs. So she poured herself a last tiny helping of dregs and began peeling the potatoes. All at once the voices were very close:

“Aha,” said Kurt. “So now we’re not supposed to think about alternatives to capitalism! So that’s your wonderful democracy…”

“Well, thank God you were at least able to think about alternatives under your bloody socialism.”

“You really are utterly corrupt,” said Kurt.

“Corrupt? Me, corrupt? You kept your mouth shut for forty years,” shouted Sasha. “For forty whole years you never dared to tell the story of your marvelous Soviet experiences.”

“I’m doing that very thing now.”

“Yes, now, when no one will be interested anymore!”

“What have you done, then?” Now Kurt was shouting as well. “What were your heroic deeds?”

“The hell with it!” Sasha shouted back. “The hell with a society that needs heroes!”

Suddenly Irina was in the room with them, not sure herself how she came to be there. In the room with them, shouting, “Stop it!”

There was silence for a few seconds. Then she said:

“Christmas.”

She had really meant to say: It’s Christmas today. She had meant to say: Sasha’s here for the first time in months, so let’s spend these two days in peace and quiet—something along those lines. But while her mind was perfectly clear, curiously enough she was having difficulty speaking.

“Christmas,” she said. She turned around and went back to the kitchen.

Her heart was pounding. Suddenly she was breathless. She propped herself against the sink. Stood like that for a moment. Looked at the bloodstained stuff in the bowl that was still standing on the kitchen counter next to the sink… she’d forgotten the giblets. She picked up the big meat knife… suddenly couldn’t do it. Couldn’t touch it, the stuff in the bowl. It suddenly seemed as if it were hers. As if it were what they’d cut out of her where it hurt low down in her body…

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some help?” Catrin’s voice, concerned and friendly. “I could shape the dumplings…”

“I’ll do it,” said Irina. She didn’t add: they’re Thuringian dumplings. Better to avoid such difficult words. Instead, she said: “It’s half and half… but a little more of one than…”