The German Room Read online

  THE GERMAN ROOM

  Carla Maliandi

  THE GERMAN ROOM

  Translated by

  Frances Riddle

  ONE

  I

  I once knew the names of all the constellations. My father taught me them, while warning that the German sky above us was totally foreign to him. I was obsessed with the sky, the stars and aeroplanes. I knew that a plane had brought us to Heidelberg and that a plane would take us back to where we belonged. For me, planes had faces and personalities. And I prayed that the one that would take us back to Buenos Aires wasn’t one that would fall into the middle of the ocean and kill us all. The night before our trip, our big trip back to Argentina, our house on Keplerstrasse was filled with philosophers. We ate in the garden because it was an unusually warm and clear night. There were some Latin Americans: a Chilean who played the guitar, a serious Mexican philosopher with the requisite beard, and Mario, a young Argentinian student who was staying at our house. The Latin Americans made an effort to speak German and the Germans responded amiably in Spanish. My father argued loudly with a very tall and completely bald philosopher from Frankfurt. At one point they noticed I was frightened and they explained that they weren’t fighting, they were just discussing Nicolai Hartmann. When I was a bit older I tried to read Hartmann in order to understand what could’ve driven them to argue with such passion, but I didn’t find anything.

  I should sleep now but I can’t, I’m still full of nerves from the trip. I look out the window of my new room at a slice of the Heidelberg sky. The last night I was here I stared up at this same sky for a long while trying to memorise it, saying goodbye, storing its image in my mind. The Chilean philosopher played the guitar and began to sing in a gravelly voice ‘Gracias a la vida’ by Violeta Parra; and all around him the group of enthusiastic, friendly, drunk Germans sang the chorus with ridiculous accents.

  How many sleepless nights had I spent in the past month? Yesterday in Buenos Aires I was anxious I wouldn’t be ready for the taxi and I kept waking up long before my alarm. When I arrived at the terminal I had a strong coffee to wake me up enough to face the brief airport procedures. On the plane I was dizzy with anxiety again. But this time I wasn’t afraid of it falling, I was afraid of landing safe and sound, not knowing what to do or why I was there. Going down with the plane would’ve been easier than landing in Germany with my life in shambles, without having told anyone in Buenos Aires what I was doing. The prospect of dying on the flight was less terrifying than the thought of riding this surge of impulse to my final destination, without enough money, in a desperate attempt to find peace. And a long-lost happiness, lost and buried forever along with my father. This is not the right way to do things, but it’s the way I’ve done them and here I am. Tomorrow I’ll find a phone and call Buenos Aires, and I’ll explain as best I can.

  I think I’m going to be able to sleep in this place, in this bed. The room is prettier than it had looked online, and I liked everything else the caretaker showed me: the dining hall, the kitchen, and the whole downstairs of the residence. I’m sure it’s a great place for a student. But I’m not here to study anything. I’m here to sleep, to get well, and to find a bench in Marktplatz where I can sit and think calmly and eat a pretzel.

  II

  I dream that I wake up in a bunk bed inside some kind of pen for humans. Next to me a three-year-old boy sleeps. I wake him up to ask him where we are but the boy doesn’t know how to talk. I tell him we have to get out of there. I pick him up and start walking. I’m dressed in the clothes I wore on the plane, a grey sweater and a pair of jeans, but I’m not wearing shoes. The boy is wrapped in a sheet and he’s very heavy. We cross a huge pavilion and we crawl under the barbed wire fence that surrounds it. We walk out into a field. There are cows and the ground is covered in fog. Lying under one of the cows is a farmer. He’s milking the cow and I can barely see him, he’s big and wears lederhosen. When we pass him he offers us a glass of milk. I take the glass and give it to the boy. The man gets mad, he tells me the milk was for me. We argue but we can’t understand each other because he speaks with a very strange accent. At one point he looks at my tits, he points to them and I understand perfectly what he’s saying: ‘There’s plenty there for everyone.’ I get scared so I take the boy’s hand and start to run. As we’re running he lets go. I grab him again, and he lets go again, I grab him again and he lets go again. I wake up.

  The bed in the residence room is extremely comfortable and I have a window that overlooks a garden. The landscape here is totally different to the devastated field from my dream and the residence exceeds all my expectations as a fake student.

  Last night before taking down my details and showing me around, Frau Wittmann, the caretaker, explained that I could make breakfast until nine thirty in the morning. I have to get up right now if I don’t want to miss it. Lying in bed I remember my dream and I touch my tits, they’re noticeably swollen. I think I must be about to get my period and hope I didn’t forget to pack painkillers. I get up, change quickly, run my fingers through my hair, and go down to the dining hall. Students are making coffee and toast. I don’t understand the rules, I don’t know if I can just grab what I want or if I have to ask permission. It’s clear that this isn’t a hotel, that no one’s going to come and serve me breakfast. Now I understand what Frau Wittmann meant by ‘make breakfast’. Everyone is eating something different: toast, yogurt, fruit, or cereal. They take things out of a refrigerator, moving in an orderly fashion, I notice that the things they use have labels with names on them. A line forms around the coffee maker as some students sit talking quietly and others, more solitary, eat breakfast with their notebooks open and don’t look at anyone. I feel embarrassed standing here, confused and with messed up hair. I decide to go out for breakfast, just for today.

  Heidelberg is like something out of a fairy tale, unreal, one of the few German cities that wasn’t bombed. I try to see if I recognise any streets. I spent the first five years of my life here. Some things feel familiar: the bakeries, the Neckar River and its banks, the smell of the streets. It’s a warm bright day. I walk inside a storybook, I breathe in deep, I make a game of getting lost in the streets and finding my way again. I go into a café on Marktplatz, I order a breakfast that includes breads, cold meats, orange juice and coffee with milk. The waiter asks me where I’m from, he talks to me about football, he knows the names of all the players from the Argentinian team. I take the opportunity to practice my German. I realise I’m in trouble, that I no longer understand the language very well, that I’ve forgotten it, that the online lessons I took before coming weren’t enough and my good pronunciation doesn’t help as much as I’d hoped. As the waiter talks about Messi, I plan my communication strategy. I can speak in English if it doesn’t work. I end up resorting to Spanish: ‘Sí, Messi es un genio.’ The waiter laughs and goes to check on another table. He leaves repeating: ‘Genio, es un genio’. I wolf down my breakfast, leaving nothing behind. An old man sitting at the next table seems to be eyeing me and I notice that beside his chair is a small dog. The man pets it with one hand and with the other he holds his cup. I estimate his age and wonder what he was doing during the last war. It doesn’t matter, even if he’s an old Nazi he doesn’t have many years left in him. The man suddenly smiles at me. Maybe I’m too quick to judge, he seems like a nice old man. Maybe he could tell I wasn’t from here. What do people think when they see me sitting here? I imagine my hair falling limp at my shoulders, the belt I hastily buckled around my waist this morning, the many wrinkles in the pretty shirt I’m wearing. It all seems ridiculous. Ridiculous adornments I use to try and conceal the ruins. No matter where I go I’m still broken. And now I’m thousa
nds of miles from home, in a place where I can barely speak the language and I have no idea what to do.

  When I return to the residence I’m going to ask Frau Wittmann for some scissors and I’m going to cut my hair. Now I have something to do. Why haven’t I cut my hair yet? The old man at the next table leaves, he stops on the pavement, turns toward the window where I’m sitting and waves goodbye. He looks sweet with his little dog as they walk away. I count out enough coins to pay for breakfast. Seven euros. Seven euros is a whole lot with my travel budget. I wonder how many calls I’ll be able to make with the rest of the coins. I wonder whether I’ll be able to placate my mother, who’s still upset over my break up and isn’t going to like the idea of me being far away. Whether I’ll be able to apologise to everyone at work, a job I was about to lose for arriving late almost every day for the last month. Whether I’ll be able to dial the number of the place that until very recently was my home. To call Santiago after so many days without speaking and tell him: I’m calling from Germany, how are you? And to be focused on one thing only, one thing I ask of myself, one prayer to all the gods: that my voice won’t break.

  III

  When I return to the residence after walking all day it’s eight o’clock and already dark. Frau Wittmann opens the door, she tells me that there’s someone in the dining hall waiting to see me. The impossible image of Santiago, the absurd idea that he’s come to get me has my heart surging into my mouth.

  ‘Me, you’re sure?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s another student from your country who wants to talk to you,’ she explains without looking at me.

  I smile in disappointment and thank her. Before going in I ask her for a pair of scissors and Frau Wittmann tells me she’ll look out a pair. When I enter the dining hall I see a dark-haired guy sitting there, disproportionately large and rather boyish. He’s bent over a book about chess. He raises his head and his face lights up when he sees me. I estimate that he’s around twenty-five years old. He says he’s been waiting for me all afternoon. I’ve never seen him in my life but he acts like we’re family or lifelong friends. He tells me he’s from Tucumán and that his name is Miguel Javier Sánchez. That he has a scholarship from CONICET and another from DAAD, that he’s studying political economy, that he arrived a week ago and that he found out today there was another Argentinian staying in the residence. He asks me what I’m studying. I lie and say I’m doing a postgraduate course in German theatre. Frau Wittmann interrupts us, she hands me a pair of scissors and warns me to be careful with them. I thank her. Miguel Javier chatters away like people from the north are famous for. He tells me about his life back in Tucumán, about his humble origins, about how proud his family is of him, the first one to go to university, the prodigy. He asks me if I want to visit the castle with him tomorrow. I tell him sure, that it’s a beautiful walk and going there is one of my happiest childhood memories. He gets excited, says he’ll bring sandwiches and a camera that he bought with the first instalment of his scholarship money. His enthusiasm is kind of endearing, at one point he says: ‘I’ve read the castle’s beautiful.’ The sentence is all one word, ‘vreadthecastlesbeautiful. Then I stop listening to him, he carries on talking and I think about how I’m going to cut my hair. First I’ll cut the ends and then I’ll keep going up with the scissors as far as I dare. It doesn’t matter if it looks bad, no one knows me here. Miguel Javier is a horrible, cacophonic name. Hearing the two names together, the way he introduces himself, is an assault on the ear. Miguel Javier asks me what I’m thinking about, says I seem distracted. I tell him that it was a long day, that I’m tired. I say goodbye and agree to meet the next morning at breakfast.

  After showering and cutting my hair, I feel exhausted. I collapse onto the bed fit for an exiled princess, a fake student, a solitary tourist, a refugee. I am safe. There’s nothing better in the world at this moment than being alone in my rented room, my European sanctum free of luxury but full of comfort, the sturdy shutters on the window, the white duvet, the perfect pillow. I remember the story of the princess who proved her blue blood by detecting a little pea through seven mattresses. The poor thing didn’t sleep the whole night. But I’m a fake princess and nothing’s going to keep me from sleeping. I begin to fall asleep without troubling voices, without shaking, without worries, and I feel triumphant: I came to Germany to sleep soundly. I smell the clean sheets, I imagine that I’m another person, someone who only cares about what they’re going to do tomorrow, what they’ll have for breakfast, what streets they’ll explore.

  I’m awoken by knocking on my door. For a few seconds I think I dreamed it, but the knock comes again and I see that it’s light outside. I get up and open the door in my nightdress. The guy from Tucumán is standing in front of me with an expression somewhere between cheerful and disapproving: ‘...’seightthirty!’ he says.

  I ask him to wait for me downstairs and give me a minute to change. I close the door and I get dressed murmuring words I should’ve said: What’s that face for? Never knock on my door at this time again, you tactless Tucumano.

  I go down to the dining hall, the scene is the same as the day before, except now among the students there’s someone I know. There he is, standing in line for the coffee maker; he waves a spoon when he sees me come down and calls: ‘Over here! Here!’

  Once we’re sitting at the table the Tucumano explains that the coffee and milk are supplied by the residence but that the students buy their own food, label it, and store it in the fridge. Since I don’t have anything to eat for breakfast he shares his food with me and warns me that the shops are closed on Sundays so I’d better buy my groceries today when we return from our outing. Among the things he offers me are ham, cream cheese, and quince jelly. Then he shows me a Tupperware container full of sandwiches oozing with mayonnaise and tells me that he made them this morning, really early while I was still asleep.

  The castle is located in the highest part of Heidelberg and the walk from the residence takes an hour. The Tucumano strides ahead with his camera and every ten steps he turns around to tell me something or take a picture of me. He looks at my image on the camera’s screen and criticises my haircut, saying that I looked much better with long hair. We don’t know each other well enough for him to make comments like that, I think, but the landscape is beautiful and absorbs any annoyance my companion might provoke. Halfway through the walk I feel tired and need to stop. Miguel Javier makes fun of me. A family of Americans who were several yards behind us catch up, and ask us to take their picture. It’s a fortysomething couple with three kids who range between about five and twelve years old. They pose for the picture like models. When I return the camera, the littlest kid hugs me. The mother pulls him away by one arm and they keep walking. I remember my dream from the night I arrived, the boy’s tiny hand that kept slipping away as we fled from the farmer who stared at my tits. The Tucumano looks at me and says I’m pale. He opens his backpack, takes out the Tupperware container and offers me a sandwich. I tell him I don’t want one, that I don’t feel well, and I vomit at the side of the path. The Tucumano holds my forehead and when I stop vomiting he gives me water and a paper napkin to wipe my face. We sit for a while, in silence. From up here we can see the river cutting through the city, the red roofs, the Baroque towers. I tell the Tucumano that I feel better and I stand up to continue walking.

  ‘I think you’re in the family way.’

  ‘In the what?’ I ask, stunned.

  ‘Pregnant,’ he answers, and he doesn’t talk to me for the rest of the way there.

  The tour of the castle costs ten euros which we pay grudgingly. At the entrance they tell us to wait for the Spanish-speaking guide, that the tour will start in ten minutes. Miguel Javier doesn’t look at me or talk to me, it’s like he doesn’t know me from any of the other tourists in the group. I break the silence.

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How would yo
u know… how would you be able to tell that I might be pregnant?’

  The Tucumano looks at me with a new expression; his face, which I’d considered boyish, now suddenly seems mature, as if it holds within it some ancestral wisdom.

  ‘I have six sisters and almost twenty nieces and nephews. I witnessed all their pregnancies and all the symptoms down to the strangest things you can imagine. I know what it’s all about. There’s the vomiting, and to top it off you have that look in your eyes.’

  ‘What look?’

  ‘That, like, shiny look, like a drunk person.’

  ‘You don’t know me, maybe I always look like that.’

  ‘Maybe, but if I were you I’d take a test and let the father know.’

  The guide shows up and asks us all to gather around so we can start the tour.

  IV

  I wait three days before taking a pregnancy test. I make stupid calculations: if July has thirty-one days and August does too, my last period must have been… I don’t remember. I don’t remember hardly anything about the last month of my relationship, just flashes of fights, cutting insults, the light turned out, Santiago’s body on top of me, no eye contact, sadness. I don’t remember the date of my last period. On the other hand, I do remember the night I went to Leonardo’s house and we drank too much vodka and I told him I was going through a break up and he asked me to stay the night with him, and I remember my body on top of him in his bed, his snoring in the early morning and my urge to escape to some place that was mine, a place of my own, far away from everything.

  I rack my memory for spots of blood, sanitary towels, Ibuprofen but I don’t know what month these images belong to. It angers me to have to relive the things I came all this way to be rid of. I might still get my period. I’ve been sleeping more than ever lately, missing breakfast, going out for walks around midday and coming back to take a nap. One day I start talking to a Japanese girl from the residence, she’s nice, she studies German, her name is Shanice. She is pretty much the only person I speak to. I realise her stay here is also an escape, but a better organised one. For a Japanese student, a semester in Germany is like a holiday. Shanice, like most students in the residence, is several years younger than me. One afternoon she tells me how she decided to leave Japan after two of her university class committed suicide. Smiling, she says: ‘Throwing yourself onto the tracks is easy, so easy you could do it even if you’re happy.’