The Dead Men by J. C. Harvey

Author:J. C. Harvey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin

FRIDAYS, IN THE Franka household, they eat fish. They may no longer have neighbours to monitor whether they do, but nonetheless, every Friday before sunrise, Otto Franka clambers over the wall out of the garden, trying not to wake his sister’s hens nor plant an accidental foot in her potager, picks his way downhill to the riverbank, and stands there in the chill and the quiet, watching the mist unravel itself over the water, listening to the rustle of the reeds, waiting for the plop and turn of warming, wakening fish (or is it an Undine? Now that would be a catch!), and periodically jiggling his line in a manner designed to mimic the exact motion of some good big juicy fly, all disoriented with his springtime waking and sat there stropping his feelers while he, like Otto, comes to terms with the world in which he finds himself, and makes what peace with it he can.

This is why (thinks Otto) he hasn’t put a gate in that garden wall. Made the path, sure enough, cut back the undergrowth of ivy and bramble, even dug in a few steps for the steepest parts, but those are temporary, they will be gone one day (just as he will be, just as they all will be, one day), but knocking down a yard of wall, putting in a gate, however much easier it might make his life, make all their lives, that would be permanent. That would mean they are staying here: he, Ava, Tata; that would mean there is nothing after this, nothing beyond this, that this is all there is for them, and all there will ever be. Thus the thoughts of Otto Franka, standing here on the bank of the Elbe, in the same spot where he has found himself thinking those exact same thoughts so many times before.

Two hours later, with the sun fully risen in the sky, Otto stumps his way back uphill, the bag Ava made him for his catch soaking his shoulders. Otto gauges where he is in his trudge uphill not by looking up, and thus being faced with the reality of the castle, but by counting steps, by keeping his eyes on his feet. He can always feel the castle there, of course he can, even when he’s fishing, but it’s a personal battle between him and the cursed place – how far can he get up the hill before he has to turn his gaze toward it? Before he has to admit to himself, it is still there (and he is still here). But he does well today, he thinks, he is almost up the hill, up through the first spring green, before he lifts his eyes, and then when he does the first thing he spies is his sister, in their garden, over its crumbling wall; his sister, waving an arm above her head. A warning.

There are irises, pushing their new leaves up through the winter-rot of the old. A constellation of wood anemones dancing beside the path.

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