The Greenhouse

Sixteen

It doesn’t take me long to find the right car: a nine-year-old lemon yellow Opel Lasta 37 awaits me on the street. It’s got a radio and seems to be in reasonably good shape, clean both outside and inside. It’s been vacuum cleaned and the ashtrays have been emptied. It actually had a hell of a lot of mileage on it, ninety-six thousand miles, but it was at a bargain price, a real giveaway as Dad would say. I pay for the car, counting the notes on the counter. The salesman gawks at me, then stamps the receipt and scribbles his initials under it. Once the stitches have been removed at the hospital, I can set off on my journey. First, though, I stop off at a flower market in the city outskirts to buy some soil for the rose cuttings. I’m unable to resist the impulse to buy an additional two slightly bigger potted rose plants; then I loosely press the soil around the very fine white roots with my fingers and carefully place the plants in the trunk. I’m facing the sun to begin with, things couldn’t be simpler. Even if I might be still searching for myself, at least I know where I’m headed.

At the first gas station I buy some bottles of water for the plants, a map to follow, a sandwich to have for lunch, and a notebook to keep a record of numerical data: mileage and expenses. As I’m about to pay and the woman at the register has already, in fact, added everything up, I bend over a packet of condoms stacked right up against the cash register and place it on the map. I won’t allow the unexpected to catch me unawares when providence and opportunity knock on my door just like on anyone else’s. There are ten condoms in the box; they could last me several days or several years.

I call Dad from a phone booth when I come out of the gas station, just to tell him my stitches have been removed and that I’m on the road.

— You won’t be driving down any fast motorways, now, Lobbi.

— No, I’ll be taking the country roads just like I said.

— Foreigners don’t drive under seventy-five, he says. Not that we’re any great example either. You just have to open the paper here. They caught some lad your age doing eight-five miles an hour on the gravel road through the summerhouse area last weekend. He was in a company car with an ad for moss killer, which everyone noticed when he darted up the road. They caught him at the next road café, he’d just ordered French fries, no license.

— Don’t worry, the car I bought doesn’t do more than forty-five miles an hour, I say, although strictly speaking I’m outside Dad’s jurisdiction here.

— There are lots of temptations for men abroad, Lobbi, and many a young lad has been led into them.

Then he tells me that Jósef is coming for dinner and that he was thinking of inviting Bogga as well because she invited him for the lamb soup the other day.

The problem is he can’t decipher Mom’s recipes.

— They’re on loose notes, the writing isn’t always legible, and she doesn’t seem to mention portions or ratios. There are no numbers on the sheets.

— What were you thinking of cooking?

— Halibut soup.

— I seem to remember that halibut soup is quite difficult to make.

— I’ve bought the halibut. Question is when do the prunes come into it and whether they should be left soaked in water from the morning, like she used to do when she was making her prune pudding.

— I don’t think she soaked the prunes in water in the morning when she was making halibut soup.

That’s my recollection, too.

— Right then, Dad, I’ll call you sometime along the road.

— You take it easy now, Lobbi.

I unfold the map over the lemon-yellow hood and plot my route. I don’t know this territory, but look at the place names, road numbers, and distances. I see that if I take the old pilgrim’s route, which crosses three borders, I’m bound to end up taking unforeseen detours and prolonging my journey. But, on the other hand, that would give me a chance to familiarize myself with the vegetation and chat with some of the natives. Since I’m going to have to frequently ask for directions, I’ll be meeting people and practicing the local language and eating in homey restaurants. I randomly plant my index on the map and decide that’s where I’ll stay tonight, somewhere around there, give or take a centimeter or two. Which corresponds to give-or-take one hundred twenty-five miles in the real world. Great wars had been waged for far less, even just for a few millimeters here and there. I drag my index finger all along the route to my destination, which is way out on the very edge of the map, at the very bottom of the hood. The place isn’t specifically marked on the map, but I think the pilgrim’s route ends close by. I give myself five days to reach my destination, the rose garden.