Can you grab that box of books, sure, but I still have my left hand free, here are the shoes, OK, the coffee grinder is staying here, sure, makes sense, it’s all rusted anyhow, I laid out the clothing and coats from the closet on the bed, they won’t fit in any of the suitcases, they’ll have to be hung up, no problem, have you got the bed linens, yes, then just leave the key for the wall cabinets in the lock, who knows if someone else will ever need it, what does it matter, did you go down to the cellar to turn off the electricity and water, no, we’d better not, in case the gardener ever turns up again after all, and close the shutters in the bathing house, OK I’ll run down there, but leave the paddleboat where it is, I told the tenants they can take it if they want. The towels, what should I do with them, give them away if you don’t need them, can you give me a hand with this lamp, that’s all that will fit, you’re probably right.
When she moved out, the house still belonged to her and her father since they weren’t allowed to sell it as long as the question of its ownership was still up in the air. It belonged to her and to her father, and the telephone still worked. The electricity and water had been turned off when the speculator whom her father had engaged to invest the property for him interrupted the renovation work and left the house to its own devices — but if she had returned, she would have been able to start everything back up again with just a few simple adjustments. Only much later did this speculator call him again to ask him to dig up the soil of the road beside the house and cut through the electrical cable, and to dismantle the water line as well so that her father wouldn’t be responsible for the costs that might arise if someone were to decide to install himself in the empty house. Only the telephone line was left undisturbed, since the subtenants had, with her father’s permission, run an extension cable down to the workshop.
By doing work of this sort on the properties all around the lake, he’d sometimes made some extra income on the side in recent years. It used to be people had looked down on clandestine employment—“shoddy” was the word automatically assigned to such labor: additions to buildings made without permits and so forth — but now the shoddy work to be done was generally a matter of closing things up and tearing things down. Before this he had, at the request of Daniel’s half-brother, dug up the sandy road in front of Daniel’s bungalow to cut the electrical cable and disconnect the water supply. After the Schmeling house burned down, he helped with the clean-up operation, and the property suddenly became very cheap after the fire, but still not cheap enough for him, and at his age it wouldn’t have been worth it, in any case, to buy an undeveloped property, and he didn’t have anyone to leave it to. The next storm will rip the tarp back off the roof again, because it just isn’t possible to drive nails into straw — what he is tying to the roof of the bathing house with string is as shoddy as it gets, he thinks as he pulls the strings taut. When a decision has been made about his own house — for here too someone has filed a claim for the restitution of the property — he will find himself a small apartment in the district capital, something with central heating, convenient to shopping and not too expensive.
THE GARDENER
ON THE WEEKENDS in winter when they come out to ice-skate, the subtenants see the footsteps of the gardener in the snow, they start at the guest room and lead sometimes here, sometimes there, crisscrossing the two upper meadows and also passing through the front garden and out the gate, but the prints make clear that none of these paths has been followed more than once. When they run into the gardener, which seldom happens, they ask if he needs something they can bring him next time they come — fresh bread from the baker in the village, eggs, noodles, fruit or something to drink. But the gardener always declines, he shakes his head and goes on his way, a cold cigar stump in his mouth. In the village they say that after the fall of the Berlin Wall the subtenants sold the genuine Meissen porcelain for cheap to buyers from the West. In the village, they say that the gardener has, for some time now, eaten nothing but snow.
When the mistress of the house arrives from Berlin to clear everything out for the investor, the gardener is not there. In his room, the table, chair and bed are as always, a few pieces of clothing have been tossed over hooks, and his rubber boots still stand in one corner, but the gardener himself is not there. The subtenants don’t know what to say when asked his whereabouts, they haven’t run into him for some time either; recently he’s been having more and more trouble walking, particularly downhill. Could something have happened to him? No, the subtenants respond, they don’t think so. Together with the mistress of the house and her friend from the village, they search the property from top to bottom looking for him, finally even checking along the shoreline as well. In any case, it’s obvious he is nowhere in the house.
The gardener is never seen again, and so two months later the mistress of the house and her father finally consent when the investor urges them once more to build a wall separating the gardener’s damp room from the main house to at last put a stop to the dry rot that has established itself there and begun to spread.
THE ILLEGITIMATE OWNER
CLAIM: SURRENDER AND CLEARANCE of the land and house in exchange for compensatory payment to be rendered. Counter-claim. Whether acquisition was in good faith and in rem right of use and enjoyment exists is not relevant to the matter under dispute. Civil code of the Federal Republic of Germany, paragraph 985, plaintiff ’s basis for claim. Undisputed. Actual possession. Actual possession means: Something is under a person’s control. Civil code, paragraph 17. As additionally the court may choose not to rule on whether you are entitled to payment as a result of third parties in full knowledge of the claim for restitution having undertaken utilizations of the property, and given the exclusion of a right of retention due to the nature of the creditor claim. Entitlement of counterclaimant on the basis of action under law of unjust enrichment may exist in the amount of the difference between the current market value of the real property and the value without the additional investments. The point of time at which these utilizations were undertaken. Conciliation proceedings. Reference to the registry of deeds will be required to determine with sufficient certainty. Registry of a first priority property lien. In the present settlement. Further: Upon fulfillment of the present settlement all claims with regard to the object of dispute are hereby. Further: All claims with regard to the object of dispute are hereby satisfied and further litigation is hereby. Is hereby excluded.