Read Online Before the Feast by Sasa Stanisic - Free Book Online

Thälmann.
    Ulli’s garage is on the other side of the sports field. He threw the men out earlier than usual this evening because of tomorrow. Lada helped him to clear up. Ulli stood him a drink. Now they are sitting on the piles of tires outside the garage smoking, drinking and looking at the clouds. Looking up and down Ernst-Thälmann-Strasse. Ulli shakes his head.
    Lada’s orange Shell overalls glow. Somehow or other they positively glow. Ulli is in a denim jacket, jeans and a white T-shirt, and he is nervous. Because of tomorrow.
    â€œI’ll open early tomorrow,” he says.
    â€œMhm,” says Lada.
    â€œThe men will fancy a little nip before the Feast gets going.”
    â€œMhm,” says Lada.
    â€œI was thinking of asking Krone to let me have one or two platters of cold cuts from his stall. He has good salami-type sausage. A little something for people to nibble.”
    â€œThey can nibble anywhere tomorrow. Open at eleven or whenever, they’ll start nibbling.” Lada spits.
    â€œStop that.”
    Lada looks at Ulli. Lada rubs the spit away with the sole of his shoe. Drinks to Ulli, who waves the gesture away. They drink.
    The bells are ringing. The bells sound strange. Lada and Ulli would look at the church if the new buildings weren’t in the way. There’s a loud roll of thunder.
    â€œHey, it’s the forest fairy.” Ulli looks at the clouds. Lada looks at the clouds. Raindrops begin falling.
    Ulli points his bottle at the sports field. “Know it, do you ?”
    â€œKnow what?”
    â€œThe stone.”
    â€œThe Hitler stone?”
    â€œThat was all done away with long ago.”
    â€œYup, you can see it was. Something’s left, all the same.”
    â€œKnow why it lost its little mustache and its parting?”
    Lada pushes out his lower lip. Stands up and strolls over to the erratic block. “Because it looked good? Here? It looks like a face anyway.” He traces the outlines of a forehead and nose on the block. Tap-tap-tap over the stone.
    It’s very quiet after the thunder. Only now that Lada is playing percussion with a bottle of Stierbier on a boulder five hundred million years old do we notice how quiet. It’s as if, all of a sudden, only one sound would be possible.
    Ulli joins Lada. Puts his hand on the cheek of the erratic block.
    â€œIt’s not that,” he says. “Until ’95, there was a plaque here in memory of Thälmann. Know him, eh?”
    â€œNot personally, nope.”
    â€œVery funny.”
    â€œGDR, right?”
    â€œExactly. And do you know what this place was called until ’45? The Adolf Hitler Sports Field. And there was a different name on the plaque, guess whose?”
    â€œMakes sense.” Lada spits.
    â€œRight. And whoever painted it on knew that.”
    â€œMhm.” Lada nods.
    â€œAnd before him, before Hitler, we had a plaque on this stone here,” says Ulli, tapping the erratic block’s forehead, “commemorating the Crown Prince.”
    â€œWhat Crown Prince?”
    â€œWhat Crown Prince? How would I know? The Crown Prince. They were all called Wilhelm. The oak trees at the railway station were planted in his honor too. That was before the First World War.”
    â€œMy father planted a birch tree in my honor when I was born, but later he couldn’t remember where.” Lada grins. Lada spits.
    Ulli walks round the erratic block. “Back in those days we were well off. People came on purpose to settle here. Can you imagine that? Someone coming here on purpose to open something in this place?”
    â€œThat woman came to open the china shop. And there’s the guy from Magdeburg wants to open a shop selling old books.”
    Ulli has stopped listening. “And mind you, there’s more. Hans Steffen, know about him? Don’t bother to tell me. . . Steffen, he came from round here. He was a geographer. Prevented some war or