The Box_Tales From the Darkroom by Günter Grass

Author:Günter Grass [Grass, Günter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780547245034
Goodreads: 7791929
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2008-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Looking Back

TODAY ONLY FOUR of the children have gathered, but later, right after St Pauli’s home game against Koblenz, Taddel will join them. Lena has stopped by on her way through Hamburg. And Lara, who grew up with twin brothers and has raised twins of her own, thinks it would be nice to have them absent for a change. Pat is cramming for a test, and Jorsch sent word he could not get away because for weeks he has been doing the sound for a detective series. Nana reported that she is busy delivering babies at the hospital in Eppendorf, and it is not her turn, anyway, but she wishes her siblings a less painful evening than their last get-together, when the sole topic was early sorrow.

They are sitting in the eat-in kitchen. Contemporary art hangs on every available wall. Since the main subject of discussion will be life in the country, Jasper is hosting the gathering. He returned only the previous day from London, where he was involved in precarious negotiations over financing for a film. Paulchen has managed to join them by moving up a planned trip from Madrid, where he lives with his lovely Brazilian wife. Jasper’s wife, who identifies herself as a proponent of contemporary art and a professed Mexican, has just returned from putting their two sons to bed. Now she places a spicy dish in the middle of the table: chili made with black beans and ground beef. Assuming a serious expression and intent on resembling Frida Kahlo ever so slightly, she takes in what she sees as this very German gathering and remarks, Don’t pass judgment on your father. You should be glad you still have him. Then she turns and leaves the room. The rest of them remain silent, as if waiting for the echo of her words to die away. Only now does Paulchen say to Jasper, You start this time.

Okay. Someone has to go first. So, Paulchen and I called our mother Camilla. I’m the one who supposedly came up with the name, because our mother, who’s the daughter of a doctor, after all, always had a healing touch. On the Danish island where we spent our summers she picked all kinds of medicinal herbs, especially chamomile, and hung bunches up to dry. Chamomile was very good for tea or hot compresses. It was more than just a saying: chamomile is good for what ails you. That’s why we’d given her that name when we still lived on the outskirts of town, in the Fuchspass district, where our father only came by occasionally for breakfast, which was okay because he and Camilla had worked things out a while ago. But the new man who turned up one day didn’t call our mother Camilla, but used her real name, and added a diminutive ending.

And later he called her Sweetie or Dearest, which we found rather embarrassing.

To me he looked like an old man, though he wasn’t yet fifty. Paulchen and I

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