I have to hide it somehow. But they would soon notice that I’d lived somewhere else for years: they’d pick up the scent.
Since I was ten, when I went over to Micha Stadler’s place and his father, who worked shifts, turned up in Micha’s room in his underpants and yelled that we should get the hell out; since seeing Micha’s expression, and his mother’s panic as she held open the front door for us; since realising outside Micha’s house that those two grown-ups were really his parents — in other words, the people he was supposed to love, and, more importantly, the ones who were supposed to love him — and was so horrified that I never went back again, after which I changed to a Gymnasium where people like Micha weren’t allowed; since then I haven’t been in close contact with common people. Just posh ones. They frighten their children too, but in a civilised manner, and while fully clothed.
Christian’s dad, for example, the guy with the car telephone and the underground garage. Bought his software company before we did A-levels and then tried out a whole bunch of alternative lifestyle stuff, including self-help methods and healing techniques.
One afternoon we had to do a family constellation according to Bert Hellinger; I was the older sister who had died of cot death aged three months, and Christian was Christian.
And now you’ll ask of course why on earth I think these people are less dangerous than the ones on the M8 tram. And you’re right, Bea. They’re not. Quite the opposite. But I’ve studied them and all their methods for years, and I feel safe with them. So much so that I even thought they would think I was equal to them and would spare me—
I should have married Ulf. Instead of believing A-levels would impress anybody apart from my parents, who didn’t have them.
December 1987; at Ulf’s house, singing carols.
Resi held fast to the fact that she was younger than Ulf’s grandma. She bolstered her ego by comparing her baking skills to those of Ulf’s mother. Fancied she was better at French than Ulf, not to mention Maths, German, and Biology too. She had an impeccable school report, so what did she care about music?
Resi smiled.
After they finished singing, the others sat down at the table with Resi.
Grandma asked what her father did.
‘He’s a draughtsman. He works near our flat, which is in that building on Emil Nolde Street, the grey one opposite the big Fine Fare. Perhaps you know it? There’s an orthopaedist on the ground floor.’
‘Emil Nolde was one of my husband’s protégés,’ Grandma said.
Resi thought Grandma was getting all muddled.
None of the other four people at the table felt obliged to say anything: either about Resi’s failure to understand what Grandma really meant by ‘What does your father do?’, or modern-age painters and one’s relationship to them.
Bea, you know the painting that hangs next to the balcony door in Ulf and Caro’s flat, the one with the church spire and the cow and the wild sky? It’s worth about 150,000 euros, but I’m not saying Caro had ulterior motives. Ulf is a good catch even without his inheritance.
The really big Tupperware containers
We’re not poor, Bea. Renate knows that, and she reminded me of it more than once when we were sitting together in the café. Her mother didn’t just have twice as many children as me; she didn’t own a single book either.
‘With your level of education, you can’t say you’re poor,’ Renate said. ‘What you can pass on to your children is worth its weight in gold.’
I thought about the autumn holidays, and how some top up their kids’ vitamin D and others stock up on lice shampoo.
Renate was right — at least I can see the connections. At the next parent’s evening, I could suggest that all those going on trips abroad should kindly cover the expenses their holiday incurs: €12.90 for a bottle of nit lotion, which just about covers one and a half children’s heads.
But you’ve forbidden me from making these kinds of suggestions, Bea, because they seem petty and pathetic. Which I then tried to explain to Renate.
‘Being educated but poor turns you into a killjoy. If education is the only thing you have, you have to be right all the time. Because you can’t sit back on La Gomera and just chill out!’
Renate has never asked me what we live off. She sees that we somehow manage to have a roof over our heads and decent clothes. And we don’t like flying because of the damage to the environment — all that jet fuel blasted into the atmosphere — as well as bringing lice and bed bugs back to northern Europe. So, we set a good example and make sacrifices. Do you hear me, Bea? Better not to travel! It’s better to sit at home for two weeks and be bored: idleness is the mother of inspiration, and only boredom can change your thinking because it gives you the necessary leisure. Hardship makes you inventive. Hardship is precious, no matter how contradictory that sounds.
It feels good to be so educated. It’s an A-class requirement for hiding your poverty from your children.
‘But I don’t want to invent anything,’ says Bea. ‘I want to have plans.’
The children are back from school. Their heads are full of the things their classmates have planned for the autumn holidays.
‘What kind of plans are those that others invent for you?’
Bea gives me a hard stare. ‘Just because your idea of having fun is sitting in your broom cupboard, and doing DIY, doesn’t mean that we have to too.’
Kieran has brought home a brochure from Lidl. When you have stuck in fifty stickers, you get a free Tupperware container: the more you buy, the more you save.
‘Have
