I know it’s painful to admit to your children that the world is unfair. It’s more fun to claim that it can be changed by their efforts.
But if their effort only consists of self-denial, eagerness to make sacrifices, and having to be morally perfect, because there are no other means or opportunities, then things get tricky. Then morality becomes a currency.
Afternoon; in ‘our’ kitchen.
Bea: ‘I bumped into Vera and Willi at Lidl.’
I’m cutting celery. Have to make an effort not to show my shock at hearing Vera’s name.
It’s Tuesday: Jack is at football training and Kieran at judo. Lynn has gone home with Karla, her new friend (perhaps).
Bea has no friends. She’s just announced that again.
Is something wrong with her? Is it my fault if there is? Does the fact that I’ve ruined my friendships have something to do with Bea’s lack of friends?
I’m an expert at cutting celery. The perfect cubes fall into the large pot, then sizzle in oil: vegetable soup in the style of my great-grandmother, without a trace of MSG. Bea thinks it’s flavourless.
I wipe my hands on my trousers and fetch my laptop from my broom cupboard.
‘There you go,’ I say. ‘Vera’s break-up email to me.’
Bea’s eyes widen. ‘Can I read it?’
For a second, I’m not sure.
‘Perhaps you’re curious,’ I say. ‘I would be in your place.’
Bea’s eyes flash. There’s greed in curiosity and greed is a sin. It’s even one of the seven deadly sins—
‘You can read it all,’ I say. ‘It’s my laptop, it belongs to me. Perhaps it’s immoral to let you read it, but who invented morality? The rulers did, for the oppressed, to keep them in line. Curiosity is valuable. I learned that at parents’ evening at your childcare.’
Dear Resi
I think you already know what’s coming, or rather, that this is exactly what you wanted — for me to be the one to end our friendship.
You know I love you, but you’re not good for me. Your way of seeing the negative in everything, looking for the hair in the soup, putting salt in the wound … maybe you can’t help it, maybe you don’t even realise you’re doing it and that you leave a trail of destruction in your wake, which others have to clean up for you. But maybe you do, and so let me say it loud and clear: I am no longer at your disposal for this kind of ‘friendship’. This is where we part ways. I would like to protect my life and my children’s lives from your scathing eye. From now on, you are no longer welcome in my home.
I love you and I will always love you, but I’m no longer prepared to prove it with my eternal understanding. Please keep away from my children and me in future.
Best wishes,
Vera
While Bea is reading, I’ve strained off the soup and begun washing up. No one can accuse me of not cleaning up after myself!
When Bea has finished, she takes a tea towel and starts drying up. She already knows that busy hands can calm a spinning head—
‘And?’ I ask.
‘I thought it’d be much worse.’
Really? Was it too mild? Not enough MSG?
‘And what about the part with the evil eye?’
‘She didn’t say “evil”. She said “scathing”.’
‘That’s even worse.’
Bea dries up. I wait. I sense that something else is coming, and then it comes.
‘Does that mean we won’t be able to go to Laueli anymore?’
So that’s what she’s worried about: Christian’s holiday home in Switzerland. The cursed place of my youth, back when it was still Christian’s parents’ holiday home. But for Bea, it’s magical. We were there together six years ago, all fifteen of us, with tents on the meadow into which goats poked their noses in the morning; chopping wood, and making fondue, and Carolina showing Bea how to press flowers.
‘Yes, you can, with Ulf and Carolina or with Christian and Ellen, or everybody together. Just not with me.’
‘Then I don’t want to go either.’
She puts away the dishes.
‘You don’t have to take my side.’
‘But I’m on your side. I think they’re all annoying too, with their K23 and their garden, and their kids in striped sweaters and Fjällräven backpacks.’
‘Would you like a Fjällräven backpack?’
‘No!’ she says, a bit too quickly.
My heart contracts. Bea twists the tea towel into a whip.
‘And what if I did?’ she adds.
‘Don’t criticise those who have one.’
I take the tea towel from her and hang it up. Bea stands there with empty hands.
‘I’ll buy you one,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘A Fjällräven backpack. So that you realise it won’t make you happy.’
We need fables about how to bear unhappiness. Stories about hungry hearts, which you can tell without breaking your own: the fox who thinks the grapes he can’t reach are too sour. Or the stork who serves soup to the fox in a vase — serves him right! Or the gentle, innocent deer, lying under a fir tree and listening to the shindig going on in the hunting lodge. The whole place shimmies, and everybody’s grooving at the hunter’s ball. ‘Trash music,’ says the deer, flattens its ears, and tucks its four legs under its belly.
I’ll put on a mask, Bea, so that no one recognises me. I’ll put you kids in costumes, fluffy onesies, so that you look like animals. Even better, I’ll squeeze you into outfits, two in each, to make four-legged animals. Then it’ll look real; I’ll throw a brown blanket over you, and — Bob’s your uncle. Then I’ll be free to do whatever I like. Why didn’t I think of it before?
The dishes have been washed; the table is set.
Everybody is at home, and so real that it hurts.
Next week it’s
