Without even having to stop and think, she begins to sweep the reeds from the desk, then goes downstairs again to fetch broom, dustpan, hand brush and rags. In her grandmother’s study, in the cupboard room, in the hallway and the Little Bird Room she first sweeps the spider webs from the corners and then from the windowpanes, then wipes the dust from the moldings of the wainscoting, then sweeps the floor, one room after the other, filling the old bucket she found in the kitchen with the dust, debris, reeds and marten feces scattered here and there. Still sweeping the stairs, she descends step by step and dumps out the contents of the overflowing bucket under the bushes. Then she walks, swinging the empty bucket in her hand, between the two meadows and past the big oak tree, taking the path down to the water. Half a year ago she’d had to give the subtenants notice after the bit of shoreline in question had been reassigned to the Jewish parcel to which apparently it once belonged. The dock, therefore, is still standing disassembled in the area before the workshop — but since the fence has not yet been rectified, she nonetheless goes to the old spot, where the path that used to lead to the dock now has only its torso remaining, and squats down there to scoop water from the lake. With one hand she steadies herself against the willow tree, with the other she drags the bucket over the bottom, then she returns to the house and begins to mop the floor upstairs. Five times she has to go down to the lake for fresh water before all the rooms are clean, and with a certain amount of effort she now succeeds in at least opening the balcony door in the Little Bird Room so that the floor will dry more quickly. Through the open window, warm summer air enters the house, and when she steps out onto the balcony, everything is just as she always knew it. Sunlight is falling on the pine tree closest to the house, announcing a beautiful day.
There’s more to be done downstairs, because here the stove was torn out, the wall to the garage was broken through to provide direct access, and the gardener’s room was walled off. For this reason, washing all the windows is more than she can manage today. In the evening she cranks down the black shutters on the ground floor using the mechanism concealed inside the wall, locks the door from the inside and lies down to sleep upstairs in the closet of the Little Bird Room. The next day she washes the windows, the day after that she carries the doors up from the bathing house and hangs them back on their hinges, she even drags the table, which is very heavy, across the meadow and terrace into the house and puts it back in the hall where it always used to stand. She finds the chairs with the carved initials in the garage, but the leather cushions that go with them are moldy. She starts making it a habit to park her car up at the edge of the main road, and from there she walks down the slope of the Schäferberg, winding her way between underbrush and raspberry bushes, and crosses the sandy road when no one is in sight. She never encounters any neighbors — either their houses have already been torn down or they are standing empty just like hers. Once, on a rainy day, she watches from the Little Bird Room as her childhood friend crosses the big meadow and goes down the hill, returning shortly afterward with the long ladder that still hangs on the back wall of the workshop and props it against the roof of the bathing house. He climbs the ladder, adjusts the tarpaulin that was stretched across the rotting thatch of the roof but has gotten tangled in the wind, and ties it fast at the corners.
On the morning when the real estate agent brings clients to the house for the first time, she has fortunately not gotten up yet and is still asleep in the closet, where she has also been storing her provisions and a few spare pieces of clothing to change into. She doesn’t wake up until the real estate agent reaches for the brass knob of the shallow outer door in which the mirror is set, opens the shallow door for her clients and says: And here is a mirror. She hears the clients running their hands over the bird’s eye maple veneer, saying: Too bad it’s gotten warped. You could have it repaired, the real estate agent says, and now, apparently with some effort, she tugs open the door to the balcony and says: And look what a view you have from here. The clients say: A bit overgrown. The real estate agent says: This here is definitely the better side of the lake — after all, sunsets are always in the West, she laughs, her clients don’t laugh, and besides, says the real estate agent, the properties on the other side are separated from the lake by the promenade. They don’t have direct access to the water? No, the real estate agent says, at least most of them don’t. She says: Just look at the bird here on the railing. Hm, the clients say. It’s a loving touch, the real estate agent says. The clients don’t respond. The architect, says the real estate agent, worked with Albert Speer on the Germania project. Really, the clients say, now that’s interesting.
Then the real estate agent and her clients walk across the hall to the cupboard room, and there too she can hear everything that is said, as there is only a thin door separating her from the people. The real estate agent says: They don’t make built-ins like this anymore. That’s true, the clients say, but something smells funny, it smells of cats or martens. I’ve never seen a marten in this house, the real estate agent says with a laugh and then walks on ahead into the study, the milk glass panes inset in the door make a faint clinking sound, and the clients apparently follow, since things now quiet down, some time later the little group returns, the real estate agent is still laughing or again laughing, is this house actually protected as a historic landmark? No, unfortunately not, says the real estate agent, the clients cough, then all of them go back downstairs, and only after absolute quiet has been restored does the former mistress of the house emerge from the closet and look out the window of the Little Bird Room to where the real estate agent and her clients are now walking through the garden, sometimes they stop short, pointing in one or the other direction, for example at the big oak tree that has recently lost one of its largest limbs, or at the roof of the bathing house, they walk slowly as they continue their conversation with a nod or shake of a head until they stop short again here or there to discuss something or other in greater detail.
Following this first visit by the real estate agent and her clients, a wrinkly waterproof cloth now flutters before the kitchen window, bearing the words: For Sale. Along with a telephone number, white against dark blue. Sometimes when it’s windy the cloth tugs at its ropes so forcefully you can hear it inside the house. Later one of the cords supporting the sign comes loose, and then the illegitimate owner sometimes sees the cloth being blown inside out as she is trudging down the slope of Shepherd’s Mountain, it slaps itself in its white-lettered face and then sinks back down again.
The house is now so empty that it wouldn’t weigh much if she were to order it to rise up in the air and float away. The light coming in through the colored windows would accompany the house on this journey, as would the gleam of the floor that has finally been waxed again and the creaking of the stairs at the second, fifteenth and second-to-last steps. Now she thinks of how her grandmother had the bathing house moved that time, she and her childhood friend had followed the workers all the way up the slope: Complete with its thatch roof, windows and shutters, with its awning and the two wooden columns, it had been pulled slowly uphill between the alders, oaks and pines, and when it then stood in its new location at the top of the hill, the view of the lake you now had from its covered entryway was almost more beautiful than before. But now she no longer knows what direction to float off in.