“You’re joking of course, aren’t you?” she asked.
“No,” I replied, “you would learn our language more light-heartedly if you adopted the linguist’s attitude, who said that through the õ sound we are related to the English and the Russians.”
“I don’t want to be related to the Russians,” she said.
“But the English?” I enquired.
“Grandfather says the English are cruel,” she said.
“I don’t know about that,” I replied, “but the English and their language rule the world. It would be good to be related to the rulers of the world.”
“You mean you don’t love the Germans,” she seemed to conclude from my words.
“At least one of them I adore,” I replied, touching her hand. “I want to keep repeating that to you, so that you’ll look on me as a blessing on your soul. And if you don’t want to become related to the English or the Russians through our õ, then I’m quite content with that.”
“No, no, I want to, if you want to,” she said, quickly interrupting, as if she feared my next words.
“You are good, you are good as gold,” I said.
“Do you really believe that?” she asked.
“I believe it absolutely,” I replied.
“Grandfather is always saying that I have such a good heart, he’ll never be afraid that I’ll make him sad.”
“When could I talk to your grandfather?” I then asked.
“Why would you?” she replied in an alarmed voice.
“I want to decide my own fate and yours,” I explained, “because I can’t wait any longer, not knowing. You have mentioned your family and relations fearfully so often, that I’d like to see one of them face to face. And since you regard your grandfather as the best of them all, then perhaps it’s best to make a start with him.”
“Grandfather is of course the best,” she said, “but I beg you, not yet, not so quickly.”
“You mean you’re afraid?” I asked.
“Yes, I suppose I am,” she agreed. “I simply don’t dare to talk to him about you.”
“You don’t need to,” I went on, “simply tell me when I can find him alone at home, and leave the rest to me.”
“No, no, no, for God’s sake, not like that! You mustn’t do that on any account, otherwise –”
“Otherwise what?”
“I don’t know what I’m afraid of, but I’m afraid, afraid,” she repeated.
“What will become of us both if you’re so afraid?” I said, as if suspecting misfortune.
“I don’t know, but I’m really afraid,” she affirmed.
“We still have to come to a decision about what is to become of us and our love,” I persisted.
“And of course we must,” she agreed submissively, “but I’d still like a few more days, for…“
“Maybe you don’t want me to even…“
“No, no, I do,” she cried to interrupt me, “but grandfather has to be prepared, I have to tell him everything first; it’s better that way, I feel.”
So that is how things stayed. But they developed much more simply than Erika had feared. Since she was troubling her heart about it and shedding tears, her grandfather was inclined to dry her tears. And that was a natural end to the matter, leading to Erika telling him everything, starting with her lie and ending with me and my visit to her grandfather.
“Well, and what about grandfather?” I was keen to know. “What kind of face did he make? What did he say? Was he angry?”
“Not angry,” replied Erika.
“What then – delighted?”
“Not that either.”
“You mean – sad,” I concluded.
“Yes, exactly,” she affirmed, but it was evident that she had trouble explaining the situation.
“But he must have said or done something?” I persisted. “Something happened between you?”
“I cried and grandfather stroked my head,” she said in a voice that wanted to cry again.
Of course, now that I recollect our situation, there was reason enough to cry, but at the time I was as if struck by blindness. To continue our discussion undisturbed and confer, we went to the park, but hardly had we got there than it started to rain heavily, after which a wind gusted all day long. Because of the fallen foliage there was really no shelter for us from the wind or rain. Finally I hit on a good idea to seek shelter from the bad weather under the thick spruce trees. It was a happy thought, because the spruces were on the edge of a slope and the wind was blowing from the hill, so we were protected against both wind and rain.
I don’t know when I’ve ever been so grateful to an animate or inanimate object as I was to that thick spruce tree when two of us stood under it. Even now, when I go to the park and walk past it, a warm glow passes through my heart, and if I were religious, I would thank God over and over again for creating that spruce and giving it wide-reaching roots, so that its branches could be just as broad, and what is more, not upright like a pine, but hanging down, so that the rainwater would trickle beautifully to their tips and hit the ground drop by drop, welcomed by the thirsty fibrous roots. At that time my thoughts did not extend so far, and were not concerned at all with such indifferent matters as God and Nature.
In a strange way, even then, a painful surge ran through my heart when we had found shelter from the rain, for I thought to myself, Now we’re under a spruce with our love. That was my father’s saying for people who had ended with nothing but themselves. That saying was a depressing parallel to the words used in the Bible about the Saviour: the birds have nests, the foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head, but we two were in place of the Son of Man, and our love in place of his head. So scripture would be rewritten to say: the birds have nests, the foxes have holes, but love has nowhere in the world to go.
Yet we were happy sheltering under the spruce, and I asked, “Did grandfather say anything?”
“He did, he did,” she replied. “He said, ‘Dear child, have you noticed yourself that you’re talking about a lie and a love all at once? Doesn’t that make you think,’ he said. ‘Until now, when you didn’t have a love, you didn’t have lies either, but love came, and so did lies. What will become of love if it drives you to lie like this!’ That’s what grandfather said.”
“Had you never lied to grandfather before?” I asked.
“Never,” she affirmed. “To auntie, yes, but not to grandfather, because he was always so good that there was no need to lie to him.”
We were silent for a little while, as if saddened that our love had led to lying even to the best person in the world. Then I ventured, “But what did grandfather say about me? Does he want to meet me?”
“When I asked him, he…“
“He gave in,” I interjected. “That’s what I thought straightaway, because I believed only good about him, from what you’ve said. But when may I come?”
“Grandfather didn’t say that,” she replied.
“But that’s the same as not letting me,” I said, disappointed.
“No, no,” she rushed to reassure me, “grandfather definitely promised and he will keep his promise. Grandfather is the sort of person who, once he takes on something, he does it, even if the whole world is against him. So if he is with us, we have nothing to fear. He only said, ‘All right, let him come, but not today or tomorrow, not the day after either, because I want to rest. Too much excitement all at once.’ We have to understand that about grandfather, because he lives in the past. As for today, that’s just a dream to him, and he’s too old to talk about the future. He told me the last time, when I wanted to talk about our future, leave him in peace about the future, as he has nothing to do with it. Of course he gave advice to think more about the past than the future. One thing he did promise, though: he promised to keep quiet about our affair, keep it completely to himself; so he did care that much for our future.”