The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert

Author:Rachel Seiffert [Seiffert, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307366504
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2002-10-07T23:00:00+00:00

Part Three

MICHA

HOME, AUTUMN 1997

It’s a long walk across the parking lot to his grandmother’s place and the young man’s feet get wet. The high-rise stands white in the green of landscaped lawns. When the sun shines, residents walk slowly in pairs along the yellow gravel paths, and his Oma sits out on her balcony, twelve stories high. On days like those, the young man will stop on the grass and, after counting eight windows down and three across, he will wave and wait for the tiny speck of movement in reply. Today it rains and the young man walks alone.

This is Michael. His Oma’s name is Kaethe, and she was married to Askan.

Oma Kaethe. Opa Askan.

The nurse at the reception desk smiles in recognition as he signs himself in. His glasses mist over in the warmth of the lobby and water slips from his hair down his neck as he waits for the elevator to arrive.

Just lately, Michael has taken to mapping his family. In lines, on trains, in idle moments, he will lay them out in his head: layers of time and geography, a more-or-less neat web of dates and connections to work over, to fill out the corners of the day.

Oma Kaethe and Opa Askan. Married, Kiel, 1938. Two children. Mutti, Karin. 1941. And later Onkel Bernd. In Hannover, after the war. After Opa came home.

Oma is at her door when Michael steps off the elevator. She waves to him from the far end of the corridor. I saw you coming, she calls. Walking in the rain. He takes his glasses off and Oma polishes them on her apron. She finds a towel for his hair and another for his feet. His shoes are left by the door, and his socks are hung on the heater.

Michael is tall and Oma Kaethe gets smaller all the time: the top of her head is well below his shoulder now. Filling the cream jug, arranging the cakes on plates, Michael absorbs the regular Sunday shock of his Oma getting older. Born 1917; fifty years before me; twenty-four before Mutti, her daughter. Five years after Opa. Today Oma’s long fingers shake as she talks. Michael squeezes them tight in his rain-cooled hands and his grandmother smiles.

Through the week, Michael cuts articles out of the paper for his Oma, saves them up for his visits. He lays them out on the table covered by the red wax cloth that still smells of Oma’s old house. His grandmother follows the printed lines with her quivering fingers while Michael eats: pastries with glazed fruits and marzipan stollen, although Christmas is still weeks away. In front of Michael, all along the wall, are Oma’s uncles, who died when she was a girl. Dark oil paintings of boys in uniform. Mutti’s great-uncles. My great-great-uncles. Im Krieg gefallen: fallen in war. Not Opa’s war, the one before.

Rain streaks the windows, and Michael walks through the small flat, turning on the lamps. If it were a clear day, Oma would take him out on the balcony now, to enjoy the city view.

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