The Dead Of Summer

HAMBURG, 22 JUNE 1985

VERA SAT IN the kitchen, staring with yearning at the other side of Friedenstrasse. The building directly opposite was six storeys tall with a light-coloured façade. She no longer needed to count the rows of windows to know where he lived. Gotthard Westenfelder – she tried out the name. Said it aloud. Never before in the twenty years of her life had she been so in love. They had met at the university just after she had completed her first year. Both of them were studying to be teachers, and they were in the same class. Even on the first day she thought there was something special about him. Not just in terms of appearance, even though he was very attractive with his blond hair and green eyes. It was a week before they spoke to each other. He asked her if she knew where to find one of the textbooks required for the course. She knew at once that his question wasn’t solely about books. They went out to a café and the next day to the cinema, and that was when he kissed her. That had been two weeks ago, and she was so in love that she couldn’t think about anything else. When she wasn’t with him, she still saw his face everywhere.

Now she was sitting here and trying to concentrate on the last exam before the summer holidays, but her eyes kept shifting to the window to stare at his building. Unfortunately, his bedroom window faced the other direction.

She looked down at her book, but the letters forming the words swam before her eyes, merging and separating and taking on a life of their own. She sighed and glanced out at the street one last time before she got up and went to the bathroom.

She stood in front of the mirror, studying her face. Vera was quite pleased with how she looked, even though she thought her sister Tanya was prettier. Tanya had their mother’s beauty, while Vera had inherited her features from their father’s Russian ancestors. Her parents had met in West Berlin, and after a few years there the family had moved to Hamburg, where her father, Oleg, had found a new job as a biologist at a large company while her mother, Sabine, worked as a teacher in a secondary school.

Vera ran her finger over her forehead, followed the curve of her cheekbone down to the tip of her chin. She had big grey eyes with dark lashes and eyebrows. The door slammed downstairs, startling her out of her reveries, and she heard her little sister’s voice saying: ‘Hello?’

Vera went back to her place at the kitchen table.

‘I’m so hungry,’ said Tanya.

She yanked open the refrigerator door and began pulling out one thing after another: cheese, salami, Sabine’s homemade meatloaf left over from dinner the night before.

‘Haven’t you eaten anything today?’ asked Vera, watching with amusement as the pile of food on the table continued to grow.

‘I didn’t have time.’

Tanya stopped what she was doing and gave her older sister a coy smile and a wink.

‘What is it? Tell me,’ said Vera with a sigh. ‘Who is it now?’

Her younger sister possessed a bewitching charm, and she knew how to make use of it. She regarded it as a sport to make men fall for her.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Tanya gloated as she plunked herself down on the chair across the table and began spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread.

‘Come on, cut it out. Tell me,’ Vera insisted. ‘I won’t say a word.’

Tanya leaned forward, as if to confide in her sister.

‘Promise?’

‘Yes, I promise.’

‘Peter.’

‘Which Peter?’

‘Peter Hartmann, my philosophy teacher.’

‘Are you mad? You must be out of your mind – a teacher! How did this happen?’

‘Oh, you know, I stayed after school today to find out more about what’s going to be on the exam tomorrow. While we were standing there talking, I suddenly felt a tension between us. He must have felt the same thing because he touched my arm and asked me whether I’d like to go out for coffee. And then…’

She stopped what she was saying as the door opened. Their father always came home earlier on Fridays, and it was out of the question to tell him anything about amorous adventures. Especially if they involved a teacher.

‘Hi, girls,’ cried Oleg cheerfully, standing in the kitchen doorway and smiling. He was holding an envelope in his hand.

‘What’s that, Pappa?’ asked Tanya. ‘Have you got good news?’

Oleg slapped the envelope against the door frame.

‘You might say that,’ he replied gleefully. He came in, gave each of his daughters a kiss on the cheek and then sat down on a chair across from Tanya.

‘But I think I’ll just wait until Mamma comes home,’ he said.

‘No!’ they both protested. ‘Tell us what it’s about!’

‘OK.’

All three of them pushed aside the food to clear a space on the table.

Oleg opened the big envelope and took out a brochure and several photographs.

He held up the brochure so the girls could see it. Vera leaned forward to get a better look.

The picture showed a sandy beach with a bunch of reeds in the foreground. The sky was cornflower blue. It looked like a lovely beach somewhere in the Canary Islands. Then they read the text. ‘Gotska Sandön,’ it said.

‘What’s this all about? Are we going there?’ asked Tanya eagerly.

Without replying, their father showed them the photographs, one after the other. A sunset over a shimmering sea; long expanses of shoreline, sandy beaches and pebble-strewn shores; deserted forests; enormous flocks of exotic birds; a ravine; and plump grey seals lazing on the rocks in the sunshine.

‘Yes,’ he said with a sigh. ‘At last.’

‘But foreigners aren’t allowed there,’ Vera objected. ‘You said it was a restricted military area.’

‘It is, but I’ve been granted special dispensation. The county administrative board in Gotland has given me permission to go there because that’s where my great-grandfather is buried.’

‘That’s fantastic, Pappa.’

Tanya gave him a big hug. Vera studied her father. Oleg had been talking about Gotska Sandön for as long as she could remember. He was a biologist and an active member of an ornithological association. In her eyes he seemed incomprehensibly obsessed with nature. Gotska Sandön was a nature reserve, and he had told them countless times about the amazing natural setting and the wealth of flora and birdlife on the island. Otherwise, she really didn’t know much about it. Except that it was part of Sweden, just off another island called Gotland.

‘Do we get to go with you?’

‘Yes, of course. I haven’t said anything to your mother yet. I want to surprise her.’

‘Oh, what fun,’ said Tanya. ‘When are we going?’

‘In about three weeks. We leave for Sweden on 16 July and we’ll spend the night in Stockholm. It’s supposed to be such a beautiful city. From there we catch a plane to Visby on Gotland, and we’ll stay there overnight. Then we take the boat to Gotska Sandön for a week.’

‘But where are we going to stay?’ asked Tanya. ‘Is there a hotel there?’

‘No,’ said Oleg with a laugh. ‘It’s a protected nature reserve. There are only a few little cottages. The rest of the island is uninhabited. Nobody lives there year-round.’

Vera was touched by the fact that he looked so happy. He’d been dreaming about this trip all his life.

Now his dream was finally going to come true.