Visitation

THE CLOTH MANUFACTURER

HERMINE AND ARTHUR, his parents.

He himself, Ludwig, the firstborn.

His sister Elisabeth, married to Ernst.

Their daughter Doris, his niece.

Then his wife Anna.

And now the children: Elliot and baby Elisabeth, named for his sister.

Elliot rolls the ball to his little sister. The ball rolls across the grass, stopping in the rose-bed. Elisabeth doesn’t want to retrieve it, she knows the roses will prick her, and so her brother runs over, twisting his way between the blossoms, bending them to the left and right with his elbows and using his foot to knock the ball back onto the grass. The roses are mingling their red with the deeper red of a bougainvillea growing up the wall of the house and sending its blooms arching across the living room window.

In the morning they drive east in the Adler, following the road that runs along the shore. Adler, says Arthur, the senior partner, quality German workmanship. Yes, he, Ludwig, says. They don’t deliver all the way out here do they? his father asks. Sure they do, Ludwig replies, after all, they delivered to us, didn’t they? Beside him sits his mother Hermine, and in the back seat Arthur, his father, and Anna. Arthur and Hermine, Ludwig’s parents, have come to visit. Two weeks later they go home again. Anna has put on her white suit in honor of her in-laws. 1 jacket and 1 skirt (Peek & Cloppenburg), acquired for purposes of emigration, early 1936, 43 marks 70.

Home. There’s a commotion on the property next door, the surveyors have arrived, a few workmen and their client, an architect from Berlin. He is standing there in knickerbockers and mimes a greeting. Heil. Here, I’ll give you a boost, says Ludwig, the uncle, to Doris, his niece. The pine tree has a sort of wooden hump around shoulder height, he lifts the child up and settles her there. So what do you see, he asks. A church tower, Doris says, pointing at the lake.

Ah, the senior partner says, what a view. Like Paradise, says Hermine, his mother. Arthur and Hermine, Ludwig’s parents, have come to visit. For the photograph taken by some other vacationer, his — Ludwig’s — wife Anna perches on the hood of the Adler while Hermine, his mother, leans against the little wall behind which the mountain descends steeply to the sea. His father Arthur and he are standing behind the women. The mountain range on the far side of the bay becomes a backdrop that holds the four of them together. After lunch they’ll drive down to the lagoon and the beach, perhaps they’ll go swimming, the waters of the Indian Ocean are gentle and warm, quite different from the western coastline where the Atlantic Ocean rages. Two weeks later Arthur and Hermine, Ludwig’s parents, go home again.

I don’t want to anymore, baby Elisabeth says in English and runs into the house. Elliot picks up the ball, lets it bounce a few times between his hand and the ground, and then he too goes inside. It’s so warm now in the house in the middle of summer that the candles on the Christmas tree are drooping again.

Just imagine, the senior partner says, standing with his trouser legs rolled up in the warm water of the lagoon, my racing dinghy capsized this spring, right near the shore. Your father got into the water himself and helped right it again says Hermine, his mother. With rolled-up trouser legs in the Märkisches Meer. With rolled-up trouser legs in the Indian Ocean. The boy from the village who sailed it over from the boatyard was white as a sheet, his mother says. You have to keep in mind that he was under the boat for a moment. That frightened him. Arthur and Hermine, Ludwig’s parents, have come to visit. Two weeks later they go home again.

Home. When it rains, you can smell the leaves in the forest and the sand. It’s all so small and mild, the landscape surrounding the lake, so manageable. The leaves and the sand are so close, it’s as if you might, if you wanted, pull them on over your head. And the lake always laps at the shore so gently, licking the hand you dip into it like a young dog, and the water is soft and shallow.

Ludwig named the little girl Elisabeth after his own sister. As if his sister had slid so far beneath the Earth’s surface that she came out again on the other side, she slid through the entire Earth and that same year was given birth to by his wife on the other side of the world. And what about Elisabeth’s, his sister’s daughter Doris?

The metal of the spade scrapes past pebbles, making a sharp sound on its way into the soil. To the left, on the property next door, a foundation is being dug. Heil.

Elliot leaps with a single bound down the pair of steps leading out of the house onto the lawn and then ambles over to the fig tree to pick a few of its fresh fruits. Anna calls to him from the open window of the living room: Bring some back for Elisabeth too. Elliot replies in English: All right. For his children, Elliot and baby Elisabeth, he planted the fig tree and also the pineapple in the back section of the garden.

Why is there Lametta hanging on the tree, baby Elisabeth asks him, pointing at the tinsel. It’s supposed to look as if the tree, der Baum, were standing in a snowy Winterwald, he replies, replies Ludwig, her father. What is a snowy Winterwald? the baby asks, Elisabeth. A deep forest, he says, in which the ground and all the branches are covered with thick Schnee, and there are icicles dangling from all the branches.

Let’s wait and see how things develop, he says, says Ludwig to his father. But at least the willow will get planted today, his father, Arthur, says to him, holding out the shovel, I promised Doris. From the property next door one can hear the masons’ trowels tapping against the brick. Heil. The owner’s working right alongside them, his father says, he’s not too proud to lend a hand. Ludwig digs the hole for the willow tree. The earth is black and moist so close to the water.

Always in the springtime the gardener here freshens the earth for the roses. He turns the compost and sifts it. Ludwig himself prunes the rosebushes. Céleste and New Dawn, they flourish here better than anywhere else in the world, because there is never frost. What splendid roses, his mother says, Hermine. Arthur and Hermine, Ludwig’s parents, have come to visit. A week and a half later they go home again. And make sure to leave the outward facing buds when you prune, his mother says, Hermine. I know, he says, Ludwig, and pours out more tea. 1 tea service (made by Rosenthal), purchased in 1932 for 37 marks 80.

The coffee and tea importer on the other side is laying his foundation already, says Arthur, his father. Ludwig is digging the hole for the willow tree. Same architect, says his mother: your neighbor on the left. He’s helping brick up the chimney himself, I saw him up there before, says Arthur, Ludwig’s father, he’s a good man. All Anna wants right now is a dock and a bathing house, says Ludwig, and then we’ll see how things go. The workers on the property to the right exchange shouts. That’s got to be enough, says Ludwig, thrusting the spade into the ground beside the pit. His father is gazing at the quietly plashing Märkisches Meer. Home. This is your inheritance, his father says to him. I know, he, Ludwig, says, his father’s only son.

The eucalyptus trees rustle louder than any other tree Ludwig has ever heard, their rustling is louder than that of beeches, lindens or birches, louder than the pines, oaks and alders. Ludwig loves this rustling, and for this reason he always sits down to rest with Anna and the children in the shade of these massive, scaly trees whenever the opportunity presents itself, just to hear the wind getting caught amid their millions of silvery leaves.

Arthur, father of Ludwig and Elisabeth, grandfather of Doris, raises the slender trunk from the ground, places it in the hole, calls Doris over and says to her: Hold this! Doris balances from the edge of the hole, holding onto the little trunk with both hands. Home. The women come closer. Anna is carrying Doris’s shoes in her hand, Elisabeth says to Ludwig: How lovely it’s going to be here. Quite, Ludwig says.

Between the excoriated trunks of the tall trees, monkeys are leaping about. The strongest of them are allowed to take their share of the booty before the others. If you feed them, they’ll think you’re weaker than they are and attack you violently when you stop giving them food or aren’t quick enough about it. Just stop calmly where you are and walk backward. Into the car, Ludwig says to Elliot and Elisabeth. Anna says: And leave the windows rolled up.

Arthur says to him, Ludwig, his son: Let me take a turn, and he picks up the spade himself and tosses the earth back into the hole all around the root ball. Ludwig places his arm around Anna, his future wife, and the two of them look at the broad, glittering surface of the lake. Home. Why does everyone like looking at the water so much, Doris asks. I don’t know, Anna replies. Doris says, maybe because there’s so much empty sky above a lake, because everyone likes to see nothing sometimes. You can let go now, Arthur says to Doris.

The eucalyptus trees dry out the ground all the way down, they rob all the other plants of water. And after every forest fire, it is their seeds that are the first to sprout, crowding out all other growth. By regularly shedding its dry branches, the eucalyptus saves water and encourages the development of the fires that are so beneficial not to the individual tree but to the distribution of the species as a whole. Thanks to the high oil content of its wood, its trunks are quicker to catch fire than other trees. Between the regrown trunks, the forest floor is bare, the earth burned reddish by the blaze. The leaves of the eucalyptus trees rustle louder than those of any other tree Ludwig has ever heard.

When the willow tree has grown up tall and can tickle the fish with its hair, you’ll still be coming here to visit your cousins, and you’ll remember the day you helped plant it, grandmother Hermine says to little Doris. My cousins? Doris asks. You never know, says Arthur and smiles at his future daughter-in-law, Anna. Hermine says: They’re still swimming around in Abraham’s sausage pot. Can you eat them? Doris asks. Nonsense, says Ludwig, her uncle, and says: Come give me a hand. The two of them trample the earth firm around the trunk of the tree. With one pair of big shoes, purchased in 1932 for 35 marks, and one pair of small bare feet. Home.

Elliot and baby Elisabeth are running from the stream of the sprinkler that keeps turning to one side and then the other, they let themselves be sprayed with water and then race off again. Elliot tears a leaf from the fig tree and uses it to wave the drops in Elisabeth’s direction. Elisabeth tears off a leaf too and holds it in front of her face to hide from her big brother.

Doris picks up a few acorns and tosses them in the lake. Look, fish, she says, pointing out, for the benefit of her uncle Ludwig, the circular waves. Petri Heil. Tomorrow will be the topping out ceremony at the architect’s.

Ludwig calls: What are you two playing over there? Baby Elisabeth holds the fig leaf before her face and whispers: The expulsion to Paradise.

Hermine and Arthur, his parents.

He himself, Ludwig, the firstborn.

His sister Elisabeth, married to Ernst.

Their daughter, his niece, Doris.

Then his wife Anna.

And now the children: Elliot and baby Elisabeth, named for his own sister.

Doris, says Grandfather Arthur, it’s time for us to go fill a bucket to water the tree so it will grow well.

Ludwig knows that because of the dry branches that frequently fall it is not without its dangers to lie down to rest in a eucalyptus grove. But he loves to hear the leaves rustle. Back home he liked to play the piano. Back home he was a cloth maker like his father. Here he has opened an auto repair shop and specializes in clutches and brakes. Here his gardener must allow an official to stick a pencil into his curly hair. The pencil stays put. Here-upon the gardener gets a big C stamped in his passport and is forbidden to enter public parks. Since he, Ludwig, arrived here he hasn’t so much as touched a piano. Baby Elisabeth plays his playing here, she takes lessons and is learning quickly as if she, even before she was born, had been able to take this with her from home, something that carries no weight: music.

Tell me again what the mountains at the bottom of the lake are called, Doris asks her grandfather. What mountains, Arthur asks in response. Ludwig says, the gardener from the neighbors’ on the left just told Doris about them: Gurkenberg and Black Horn, Keperling, Hoffte, the Nackliger and Bulzenberg. And Mindach’s Hill. Nackliger, the girl repeats, giggling. Elisabeth says, I wish my memory were as good as my brother’s. From across the way you can hear the carpenters banging, they are all but done with the attic. Heil. They want to put up a thatch roof, says Arthur, his father. Might not be a bad idea for your bathing house either, he says. We’ll see, says Ludwig.

He and his father appraise, along with the carpenter, the place where the bathing house will stand. It is to be built ten meters from the water, not parallel to the shore but positioned at a slight angle, facing the lake as if it were a stage. On the property of the coffee and tea importer, on the right-hand side behind the fence, the brick walls of the future ground floor are already in place, with square holes for the windows and an exit door cut all the way to the ground to provide access to the planned terrace, and through these holes you can see, depending where you are standing, either the interior of the house or, looking out, the lake and trees. Ludwig folds up the plan. And inside at least a pair of bunk beds and a washstand, says his father. We’ll never be spending the night here, Father, says Ludwig. Arthur says: But it won’t take up much space.

With the folded-up plan Ludwig manages to smite a mosquito that has just settled on his father’s arm. To the left, the banging has stopped now, on the right you can hear the scraping of the masons’ trowels against naked brick. Time to call it a day. This here is your inheritance, says the senior partner. Yes, he says, Ludwig, I know, and stows the plan for the bathing house (5.5 m long, 3.8 m wide, outer wall construction: wood, roof construction: thatch), stows both the plan and the mosquito in his briefcase. On a German shelf, this mosquito, pressed flat between large quantities of paper, will outlast time and times, and one day it might even be petrified, who knows.

Eight iron trestles topped with flat panels, each constructed of ten boards nailed together, with one such panel between each pair of trestles, the dock is twelve meters long, painted black with pine tar so the wood will last longer. Anna picks up baby Doris before she steps onto the dock because she’s afraid the child might fall in the water. Doris wraps her legs around Anna’s body. Heil. Elisabeth says, let her be, she won’t fall.

Come on, I’ll put you to bed, it’s still light out, that’s just how it is in summer, and Elliot, he’s older than you, but I don’t want to, come along now, but only if you carry me, all right; baby Elisabeth wraps her legs around Anna’s body, Anna carries the girl, body to body, carries this child or that. Perhaps he married Anna because he liked the way her body jutted forward to support the weight of a little girl.

When it’s winter here, that means it’s summer back home and vice versa. On the skat cards belonging to Ludwig’s parents, Arthur and Hermine, there was always half a king on one side of the line, and a second half on the other. One might assume it would be with just the same precision that he, Ludwig, who like his father was a cloth maker, was now being mirrored at the equator, reflecting back the image of an auto mechanic. If you look at it this way, the rustling of the eucalyptus trees is just like in the song about the linden tree beside the fountain, and the water of the lake seeps through the Earth’s center to become the ocean, it’s not by chance we refer to it as groundwater. Elisabeth even resembles Elisabeth.

Doris says: Now the sun is going down already. Even when you are an old woman, says her grandfather Arthur, you’ll still come sit here on the shore to watch the sun slipping behind the lake. Home. Why, the girl asks. Because everyone likes to watch the sun as long as possible, says Hermine, Ludwig’s mother, grandmother of Doris.

Sometimes when you’re lucky you can see the tablecloth hanging down around Table Mountain, a veil of fog that displays a pale pink tint at sunrise. He left behind the table silver but packed the Christmas tree decorations. Twelve aluminum clips to hold the candles, Christmas tree ornaments, stars made of straw, tinsel and the glass topper. Purchased in 1928 for 14 marks 70. What are icicles, his little girl asks him, Elisabeth. On that one winter day he spent at the lake, Anna, his future wife, taught his niece Doris how to ice-skate. What is snow, his little girl asks him, Elisabeth.

Hermine and Arthur, his parents.

He himself, Ludwig, the firstborn.

His sister Elisabeth, married to Ernst.

Their daughter, his niece, Doris.

Then his wife Anna.

And now the children: Elliot and baby Elisabeth, named for his sister.

In March ’36, at the end of the winter, he, Ludwig, went chasing the winter together with his future wife Anna, traveling through the Strait of Gibraltar, the coast of Europe to the right, the coast of Africa to the left. They traveled through all of this from winter to winter. Here there is no snow in winter, only rain, lots of rain, and nonetheless he feels colder here than he ever did at home. In 1937 his parents came to visit them for two weeks, his mother says, it’s so nice here, and then returns home. His father says, but what a shame about your inheritance, and returns home together with Ludwig’s mother. Baby Elisabeth is still far from being born yet, even Elliot isn’t there yet, the two of them are still swimming around in Abraham’s sausage pot. His parents came to visit. Arthur and Hermine from Guben came to visit their son Ludwig, who has emigrated to Cape Town, and now they are traveling back to Guben, going home again, from summer to summer, through the Strait of Gibraltar, to the right the coast of Africa, to the left the coast of Europe. He and his wife Anna remain standing for a while at the harbor. He doesn’t say a word, and his wife doesn’t say a word either.

When in 1939 Arthur and Hermine do apply for an exit visa after all, they sell Ludwig’s property along with the dock and the bathing house for half its market value to the architect next door. On account of the profit he is making on this transaction, the architect pays the National Finance Authority a 6 % De-Judification Gains Tax.

The proceeds from the sale, which the parents, Arthur and Hermine, are to use to pay for their passage, which Ludwig is pleading with them to do as quickly as possible, must be transferred to a frozen bank account until their passports are ready. At approximately the same time, they are forbidden to set foot in public parks. Elliot learns to walk down the three steps to the garden without holding his mother’s hand. Ludwig plants, together with his gardener, whose hair is so curly that a pencil stuck into it remains there, a fig tree and the first of the three pineapple palms.

When Holland enters the war the passports for Ludwig’s parents are ready, but it is no longer possible to wire the money to the steamship company. Ludwig knows that it is not without its dangers to lie down to rest beneath a eucalyptus tree. But he loves the rustling sound. Even when the gardener shakes his head the pencil does not fall out. Elliot speaks his first word: Mum. Anna is pregnant for the second time.

Two months after Arthur and Hermine get into the gas truck in Kulmhof outside of Łodz, after Arthur’s eyes pop out of their sockets as he asphyxiates, and Hermine in her death throes defecates on the feet of a woman she’s never seen before, all their assets, together with the assets remaining in Germany that belonged to their son, Ludwig, who has emigrated, are seized, all the frozen bank accounts dissolved and their household goods auctioned off. All the possessions of Arthur and Hermine, including the proceeds from the sale of the property beside the lake containing 1 bathing house and 1 dock, become the property of the German Reich, represented by the Reich Finance Minister.

The town is also called Moederstadt, the Mother City. Shortly before Christmas, Ernst, Ludwig’s brother-in-law, the father of Doris, contracts spotted fever while performing forced labor at the autobahn construction site and dies several days later. On Easter Monday it is Elisabeth’s and Doris’s turn to make the trip. It’s only supposed to be a short journey, Elisabeth writes to him, Ludwig, her brother, still sitting in the train. 1 letter opener, ebony with a tin handle, purchased in 1927 for 2 marks 30. Ludwig’s reply from Cape Town to Warsaw takes six weeks to get there and six weeks to come back, it is returned to him unopened. Three months later baby Elisabeth is born. In the Mother City, at the most beautiful end of the world.