Read Online Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire by Ursula Hegi - Free Book Online
Authors: Ursula Hegi
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mischievous smile. “So he could have my painting of the Sternburg. First he asked if it was for sale, and when I said no, he figured he’d better marry me.”
“That day … did he drill your tooth?”
She nodded.
“Did it hurt?”
“He was careful.”
I felt cheated. My father had always sent me to another dentist. “I don’t want to be the one to hurt you,” he’d tell me. Still, I felt enraged whenever I flinched under the drill of Dr. Beck, convinced my father would be gentler. I felt excluded when Karin Baum and Renate went to him, even Frau Talmeister, who lived across the street and was one of my father’s worst patients. “She starts shaking before I turn on the drill,” he said. Yet even she would answer, “Not much,” when I asked her if my father ever hurt her.
“But that was the last time he worked on my teeth,” my mother told me. She too had to go to Dr. Beck with his wide chin and those black hairs inside his nostrils.
I wished I could ask her about Brigitte Raudschuss—if she’d ever met her, if she was tall like my mother, if she liked peach pie.
“Remember, lights out at nine.” As she bent to kiss me, the silk of her gown swished against my arm. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“And you’ll bring me almonds?”
“Don’t I always?” she asked, and I knew that, when I woke up, I’d find a glossy box with almonds on my night table, certain proof that my parents had slipped into my room while I was asleep.
After my parents left, I retrieved the current romance novel Frau Brocker had hidden under the cover of the ironing board. The folded tissue, which she kept as a bookmark, was only between the pages 73 and 74. I was already on page 145. But I couldn’t concentrate on the story of the heiress who was betrayed by her aunt and rescued by a baron. I kept wondering what I would be like if my father had married Brigitte Raudschuss and if she were mymother. A teacher, Trudi Montag had said.
She’s in school while I’m in a classroom down the hall. In the afternoons we do things together. She likes books, sledding on the dike in the winter, hot chocolate, walks along the river…
But if my father had married Brigitte Raudschuss, I would have never been born or—at least—I would have been someone entirely different. I tried to imagine him with her, a quiet woman closer to him in age, and all at once I felt strange as though I’d done something to hurt my mother.
“Falling in love with your mother was the one reckless act your father committed in his life. …”
I’d never thought of my father as reckless, though it was a word he used when he cautioned my mother against driving so fast or swimming nude in the ocean. Every summer, when we rented a cottage on the island Wangerooge in the North Sea, my father refused to let me swim out with my mother.
“It’s too deep, Hanna,” he told me while my mother turned her back to the beach and the crowds that kept near the sandy crescents. Alone out there in the deep, she took off her bathing suit and swam, holding the straps in the crook of one elbow.
“You might lose it,” my father warned her, but she told him she liked the feel of the waves against her bare skin.
One day my father was proven right: the sea tore my mother’s red swimsuit from her arm, and though she tried to dive for it, she couldn’t find it in the green-clear water that stung her eyes. She stayed out there, swimming farther away whenever others came near her. She kept waving to me and my father, and we waved back.
“I bet she finally did it—lost her swimsuit,” my father said. Grabbing his beach towel, he held it up.
Way out there, my mother nodded, motioning him toward her.
My father shook his head, but then he laughed. Histowel in one hand, he ran into the North Sea, and when I followed him, he called out to me, “Stay right there, Hanna. Only up to your knees.”
Waves slapped against my thighs as I watched him swim toward my
“That day … did he drill your tooth?”
She nodded.
“Did it hurt?”
“He was careful.”
I felt cheated. My father had always sent me to another dentist. “I don’t want to be the one to hurt you,” he’d tell me. Still, I felt enraged whenever I flinched under the drill of Dr. Beck, convinced my father would be gentler. I felt excluded when Karin Baum and Renate went to him, even Frau Talmeister, who lived across the street and was one of my father’s worst patients. “She starts shaking before I turn on the drill,” he said. Yet even she would answer, “Not much,” when I asked her if my father ever hurt her.
“But that was the last time he worked on my teeth,” my mother told me. She too had to go to Dr. Beck with his wide chin and those black hairs inside his nostrils.
I wished I could ask her about Brigitte Raudschuss—if she’d ever met her, if she was tall like my mother, if she liked peach pie.
“Remember, lights out at nine.” As she bent to kiss me, the silk of her gown swished against my arm. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“And you’ll bring me almonds?”
“Don’t I always?” she asked, and I knew that, when I woke up, I’d find a glossy box with almonds on my night table, certain proof that my parents had slipped into my room while I was asleep.
After my parents left, I retrieved the current romance novel Frau Brocker had hidden under the cover of the ironing board. The folded tissue, which she kept as a bookmark, was only between the pages 73 and 74. I was already on page 145. But I couldn’t concentrate on the story of the heiress who was betrayed by her aunt and rescued by a baron. I kept wondering what I would be like if my father had married Brigitte Raudschuss and if she were mymother. A teacher, Trudi Montag had said.
She’s in school while I’m in a classroom down the hall. In the afternoons we do things together. She likes books, sledding on the dike in the winter, hot chocolate, walks along the river…
But if my father had married Brigitte Raudschuss, I would have never been born or—at least—I would have been someone entirely different. I tried to imagine him with her, a quiet woman closer to him in age, and all at once I felt strange as though I’d done something to hurt my mother.
“Falling in love with your mother was the one reckless act your father committed in his life. …”
I’d never thought of my father as reckless, though it was a word he used when he cautioned my mother against driving so fast or swimming nude in the ocean. Every summer, when we rented a cottage on the island Wangerooge in the North Sea, my father refused to let me swim out with my mother.
“It’s too deep, Hanna,” he told me while my mother turned her back to the beach and the crowds that kept near the sandy crescents. Alone out there in the deep, she took off her bathing suit and swam, holding the straps in the crook of one elbow.
“You might lose it,” my father warned her, but she told him she liked the feel of the waves against her bare skin.
One day my father was proven right: the sea tore my mother’s red swimsuit from her arm, and though she tried to dive for it, she couldn’t find it in the green-clear water that stung her eyes. She stayed out there, swimming farther away whenever others came near her. She kept waving to me and my father, and we waved back.
“I bet she finally did it—lost her swimsuit,” my father said. Grabbing his beach towel, he held it up.
Way out there, my mother nodded, motioning him toward her.
My father shook his head, but then he laughed. Histowel in one hand, he ran into the North Sea, and when I followed him, he called out to me, “Stay right there, Hanna. Only up to your knees.”
Waves slapped against my thighs as I watched him swim toward my
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