Read Online The Taste of Apple Seeds by Katharina Hagena - Free Book Online
Authors: Katharina Hagena
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portions of Fürst-Pückler ice cream into the cut-glass bowls. Everything had turned upside down: now he, Hinnerk, was hated by many, but he didn’t hate himself anymore; after all, he had achieved everything he wanted. He was still the smartest man in the village and now everybody knew it.
He had even had a family crest designed in order to obscure his lowly origins, which was pointless of course: everybody came to him because he spoke the regional dialect, not because of his impressive family tree. So the framed picture of the family crest always stayed in the storage room, what had been the maid’s room, where it still hung now. But I also remembered that whenever he looked at the crest the hint of a smile would play on his well-defined lips: satisfaction or self-mockery? I expect he was not sure himself.
Bertha loved Hinnerk. She loved his grim aura, his silences, and his biting sarcasm toward other people. But whenever he saw Anna his face would light up, he would smile politely and joke, and off the top of his head he would make up a sonnet about the bite Anna was about to take of her apple or a solemn ode to Bertha’s left pigtail, or walk on his hands in the yard, upsetting the chickens, which scuttled away clucking. The two girls laughed out loud, Bertha bashfully tugged at the ribbon on her left pigtail, and with feigned serenity and a hidden smile Anna threw the remains of her apple into the lilac, for once refraining from devouring the whole thing.
In the beginning, Hinnerk wanted Anna. He knew that she was the elder daughter of Carl Deelwater; if she hadn’t been he probably wouldn’t have wanted her, at least not quite as much. But it wasn’t her inheritance that attracted him, or not that alone. It was far more her status that he admired, her calm self-confidence, something he was totally lacking in. He could see her beauty, too, of course, her large breasts and hips and her supple back. He was charmed by the warmhearted indifference Anna showed him, but he always took care to pay the same amount of attention to both girls. Was this calculation or respect? A fondness for Bertha or sympathy for the younger daughter whose feelings he must have been aware of?
My grandmother knew that she was Hinnerk’s second choice. She had once said this to Rosmarie and me, without any bitterness, not even with regret, just very soberly, as if it had had to be thus. It was something we didn’t like to hear, we were almost angry at Bertha; love shouldn’t be like that, we thought. And without ever having agreed this between ourselves, we never told Mira.
Now that Inga was no longer Hinnerk’s daughter I could better understand Bertha’s lack of bitterness toward her husband, maybe her devotion to him, too. And with her it was always like the apples from the tree: they lay where they fell and, as she herself would say, they rarely fell far from the tree. After Bertha fell from the apple tree at the age of sixty-three, and then one memory after another came loose and fell, too, she gave in to this disintegration, forlornly and without a struggle. The wheels of destiny have always been set in motion—in our family as well—by a fall. And by an apple.
Herr Lexow spoke calmly, staring into his mug. It was now dark and we had switched on the wicker-shaded light that hung above the kitchen table. Sighing into his milk, Herr Lexow said that one night, after a hot and muggy day, he had gone for a walk, which had led him past the Deelwaters’ house, not totally by chance.
The house was in darkness. He stepped slowly onto the drive and stole along the side of the house and barn, straight to the orchard. Feeling a sudden embarrassment at creeping around like this, he decided just to walk over to the far side where he would climb over the fence into the neighboring pasture and cross this to get back on the lock path. But as he was passing beneath an apple tree he let out a yell. Something had hit him above his left eye.
He had even had a family crest designed in order to obscure his lowly origins, which was pointless of course: everybody came to him because he spoke the regional dialect, not because of his impressive family tree. So the framed picture of the family crest always stayed in the storage room, what had been the maid’s room, where it still hung now. But I also remembered that whenever he looked at the crest the hint of a smile would play on his well-defined lips: satisfaction or self-mockery? I expect he was not sure himself.
Bertha loved Hinnerk. She loved his grim aura, his silences, and his biting sarcasm toward other people. But whenever he saw Anna his face would light up, he would smile politely and joke, and off the top of his head he would make up a sonnet about the bite Anna was about to take of her apple or a solemn ode to Bertha’s left pigtail, or walk on his hands in the yard, upsetting the chickens, which scuttled away clucking. The two girls laughed out loud, Bertha bashfully tugged at the ribbon on her left pigtail, and with feigned serenity and a hidden smile Anna threw the remains of her apple into the lilac, for once refraining from devouring the whole thing.
In the beginning, Hinnerk wanted Anna. He knew that she was the elder daughter of Carl Deelwater; if she hadn’t been he probably wouldn’t have wanted her, at least not quite as much. But it wasn’t her inheritance that attracted him, or not that alone. It was far more her status that he admired, her calm self-confidence, something he was totally lacking in. He could see her beauty, too, of course, her large breasts and hips and her supple back. He was charmed by the warmhearted indifference Anna showed him, but he always took care to pay the same amount of attention to both girls. Was this calculation or respect? A fondness for Bertha or sympathy for the younger daughter whose feelings he must have been aware of?
My grandmother knew that she was Hinnerk’s second choice. She had once said this to Rosmarie and me, without any bitterness, not even with regret, just very soberly, as if it had had to be thus. It was something we didn’t like to hear, we were almost angry at Bertha; love shouldn’t be like that, we thought. And without ever having agreed this between ourselves, we never told Mira.
Now that Inga was no longer Hinnerk’s daughter I could better understand Bertha’s lack of bitterness toward her husband, maybe her devotion to him, too. And with her it was always like the apples from the tree: they lay where they fell and, as she herself would say, they rarely fell far from the tree. After Bertha fell from the apple tree at the age of sixty-three, and then one memory after another came loose and fell, too, she gave in to this disintegration, forlornly and without a struggle. The wheels of destiny have always been set in motion—in our family as well—by a fall. And by an apple.
Herr Lexow spoke calmly, staring into his mug. It was now dark and we had switched on the wicker-shaded light that hung above the kitchen table. Sighing into his milk, Herr Lexow said that one night, after a hot and muggy day, he had gone for a walk, which had led him past the Deelwaters’ house, not totally by chance.
The house was in darkness. He stepped slowly onto the drive and stole along the side of the house and barn, straight to the orchard. Feeling a sudden embarrassment at creeping around like this, he decided just to walk over to the far side where he would climb over the fence into the neighboring pasture and cross this to get back on the lock path. But as he was passing beneath an apple tree he let out a yell. Something had hit him above his left eye.
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