irgendwo ein einfacheres leben

In the first week of July the rains finally stopped. Neglect had already encouraged invaders to propagate through the herb and flower garden—hardy groundsel, leafy thistle, red spears of rosemary willowherb pushing out of the ground, the buds still closed tight—but the watering, even such a Biblical deluge as they had received in the past two weeks, sped along their expansion, and Johannes could no longer abide. He donned his gloves, his corduroy pants, and a coarse linen shirt he wore whenever he had business in the dirt and went to work.

He began mid-morning, uprooting the weeds that had sprung up in his absence with less vigour than monastic complaisance, for, as a middle-aged man who had grown up in Vienna, he regarded any other way of conducting himself with disdain. Scouring the garden, he filled his pail with the corpses of groundsel and thistle, willowherb, Frenchweed still entombed in their clods of dirt; he grimaced at every new specimen he found, wishing he hadn't shirked his responsibilities for the past two weeks, and shooed away bees lest they think his nostrils were an invitation. On the plants he couldn’t extract immediately he sprayed herbicide, making a note to come back the next day. At noon he broke for lunch—bread rolls and leftover sausage, hardly sufficient.

Now, as the sun began to arc toward the earth, he considered calling it a day. Sweat had dried on the back of his neck, leaving the skin there itchy. His joints groaned when he twisted the wrong way. He was finding it more and more difficult to turn from the thoughts that had been troubling him, and he’d gone all afternoon without brewing a single pot of tea.

He discarded the limp body of another thistle in the pail and sighed. Shifting back on his haunches drew attention to the ache in his knees and lower back, and he stripped off his gloves to rummage for his cigarettes. These were kept in a wooden carry case he'd bought in Milan. Like most Italian goods, it was sleek and lightweight, slimmed down as much as possible without compromising basic functionality, but now he thought it probably felt too light. He took the case by the ends and shook it.

The telltale rattle of a lone cigarette, bouncing off the sides of its box. He sighed again. That, too, had fallen by the wayside. To his list of outstanding tasks he added "trip to the tobacconist," then pulled himself up with some difficulty onto his feet.

Johannes slid the cigarette out of the wooden case and lit it. There were gaps in the earth he'd have to smooth over, like empty gum after an oral surgery, but overall the operation had been a success. He was glad he'd done it before most of the weeds had grown too deep, choking the life out of his basil and jasmine and overtaking his roses. Leaning against the fence, he took a drag of tobacco and luxuriated in the pain relief, the instant sharpening of his focus. He swung his arms, stretched, paced up and down the side of the bed; he thought about making Linzer tarts and debated whether he wanted to go through the trouble.

Brrring!

An old sound, then—a boyhood sound. Johannes turned, his eyes following the dirt path to its end, past the gate, into the smooth concrete strip of residential street.

A high, not-altogether-childish voice floated down the breeze to meet him: "Herr Engelstädter, good afternoon!"

He waved away another errant bee. The girl beamed at him from atop her father's bike, her cheeks still rosy from the exertion of pedaling up the hill, her chestnut hair tossed back from her forehead by the wind. Gold rimmed the edge of her face, igniting the peach fuzz there until the sun winked out at the point of her chin. Johannes traced it to the creamy dip of her neck above her open collar, feeling a little guilty. Then his self-consciousness overwhelmed him, and he looked away.

More to her shorts than to her face, he said, "Greta."

Greta performed a mock bow. "La cavalerie est arrivée!"

He had never paid much attention in French class, nor to the Latin that had been taught to him in Catholic school, but Johannes thought he got the gist and drew closer to the gate.

"So it has. To what battlefield are you headed on this beautiful summer day, Lady Knight?"

"Oh! The opposite, actually, I'm going home from a campaign. Papa asked me to deliver a cake for him in town."

"And was the road or the recipient the battlefield in question?"

Greta's eyes sparkled. She pursed her lips in that gesture he knew so well, a precursor to mischief. "It was resisting taking a bit off the top before I got there."

"How scandalous."

"Only if I'd done it! But I didn't."

"Did they at least offer you a slice before sending you back out to burn calories?"

"No, sir. It was for a birthday party," she added, seeing his expression, "and the boy looked about ten. They needed every crumb they had, it's probably gone now!"

"Sensible," Johannes said, and hesitated.

Three weeks since he had seen her last. Should he invite her in for tea or bid her a good day? He knew what he wanted, but he felt awkward proposing it, especially after what had happened the last time. Greta seemed happy—but then, teenagers were changeable. Perhaps she'd forgotten. Perhaps she hadn't even noticed. And what if her parents were waiting? He respected the Neidhardts, who were an old name in music and the arts. The last thing Johannes wished was to be persona non grata to them.

Greta shifted her weight back onto her bike. Standing on tip-toe, she craned her neck to peek around her friend, catching glimpses, no doubt, of the war he'd waged in the hellebores behind him.

"—Are you gardening?"

"Wrapping up. The rain was good for the flowers. Good for the weeds, as well."

"Can I help? Oh—do you need any help?"

He toyed with the latch on the gate and thought, Yes. Just thinking about the work that awaited him tomorrow brought on a miasma of dread, but he tried to keep the feeling at bay. "I wouldn't object," he said at last, "but you may stain your shirt, Spatzl. It's white."

"Dirt washes out, and if it doesn't, I'll use it for gardening. Like yours!"

"I also don't want to make you late to dinner."

"I'm hungry after biking, anyway! If you're about to make tea, that usually means snacks." She cocked her head in the way that seemed to come naturally to girls and women of all ages, curiously feline. "You sure have a lot of objections for someone who claims you wouldn't make them."

Johannes let her in.

She parked the bike by the entrance. He excused himself to make tea. By the time he returned with the tray—jasmine this afternoon, mild and soothing to suit the weather—Greta was kneeling by one of the flowerbeds, clawing at unseen enemies in the riot of blossoms. For the second time that day, Johannes was reminded of a cat. If only she had a tail to swish to and fro, with a bow on the end like a children's book illustration! It would have suited her as she hunted through the maiden grass, although her quarry was weeds today, not field mice.

"Tea is ready, Greta. But quite hot still."

"Okay," came the muffled answer. "In a bit."

He set the tea and biscuits on the bistro table and sat, picking up his cigarette from the ashtray where he had left it. The cherry hadn't gone out yet, and as he savoured it he watched Greta navigate hollyhock and butterfly bush, lilac and sage, with a fervour that amused and slightly worried him. "Careful," he'd say as she shrank from a prickly leaf, or "Use my gloves, if you like"—until his cigarette was down to the filter, the teapot cool enough to touch, and the cotton slip under Greta's button-up just visible where the fabric strained, taut, against the small of her back.

"Look, you've gone and scratched yourself. Would you like some ointment for that? Before it gets infected."

"Not the first scrape I've had on the battlefield, sir, and probably not the last."

She tossed her latest victim into the overflowing pail and dropped into the seat opposite him, breathing hard. Dark smudges and flecks of dust staining the canvas of her shirt—but before Johannes could chide her, she shed his gloves, laid them to the side of the table, and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. He felt a stab of recognition as she brushed back the lock of hair that kept falling into her face, a curl that wouldn't be tamed—he had one, too, though his had thinned out and eventually gone grey with age.

Her knee bobbed into view and with it, the thin line of red where the thorns had bit her. Almost too quickly for him to follow, she dabbed the pad of one thumb with her tongue and rubbed at it, then plugged it back into her mouth to suck off the residue of blood, sweat, and soil. "Do you really think it'll get infected?" she asked, looking troubled.

How he envied her thumb then! "No," he said, and leaned over to fill their cups. "With that level of first aid, probably not."

The amber liquid lapped pleasantly against the china. A cool breeze skimmed the tops of the bushes, carrying with it traces of fresh earth, smoke, heady, inviting sweetness. Somewhere in the neighbourhood, a blackbird was singing.

Greta took one of the biscuits, bored of examining her knee, and tested a corner by nibbling it. Her eyes lit up.

"Tintino!"

Johannes chuckled. "So you can tell the differences between bakeries in town, can you?"

"I've tried all of them at one point or another, but—mm. Tintino does Schwarz-Weiß-Gebäck best. They're not too sweet and they keep the flavours balanced, and the shortbread's not too crumbly or bone-dry, either."

"You're somewhat health-conscious for someone so young. At your age, I was eating nothing but sweets. Have some tea with your snacks, as well."

They settled into conversation and Johannes settled into his chair, folding to the comfort of the cushions and the perfect summer weather. For the last three weeks he had adhered to a routine, drifting from room to room, bedroom to basement, until he became sick of haunting his own home. Practising piano only exacerbated his feelings of being trapped in a Gothic fiction, especially Chopin or Liszt. Now life itself seemed to seep back into him. The garden he'd ceased to regard as anything but another obligation was charming again, full of secret sights and sounds; Greta told him about meeting rabbits, beetles, and snakes among her father's vegetables, even a litter of kittens inside a forgotten crate. "I wanted to keep them, but Mama said our house isn't suited for pets." Johannes made a sympathetic noise, although in truth, he had never understood the appeal of a companion if it couldn't listen or talk back to him.

Then her eyes went wide. "Oh!" she said, and placed a dirt-battered object on the table. He stared at it, blank-faced, until the glimmer of pearl caught his eye. Shivering, he picked up the earring. Its misshapen body curved not quite comfortably against his hand, heavier and colder than something of its calibre should have been.

"—My wife's friend," he began, and cleared his throat. "My wife's friend lost this at a party some time ago. The whole affair brought the evening to a screeching halt. Some of the men went on their knees—in trousers, mind you—to go looking for it. Out of chivalry, I suppose."

Greta's eyes sparkled. "And were you one of the men on your knees, Herr Engelstädter?"

"Me? Dear girl, no. That came later, after I learnt how to garden. I was watching it all from the window."

"Not very chivalrous of you, then!"

"She wasn't my wife, only a friend of hers. Do you think she'll take it now?" he asked, holding it up to the light.

"She stopped a garden party for it."

"She also stopped talking to me as soon as Car—my wife left. So who knows."

He thought he'd made a faux pas then, but Greta only smiled at him mysteriously. He moved on.

And the sun continued to sink. The liquid light of late afternoon began to seep through the gaps in the hedges, golden and diffuse; a bitter edge chased the tail of each breeze, reminding them of the night that was soon to come. The time to part was approaching, but—well, there was no need to hurry it along. Greta finished her biscuits with gusto, then downed the last of her tea. The bow of her throat, palpating above her open collar—this time Johannes didn't tear his eyes away, knowing it might well be the last time he'd see it in weeks.

Out of her seat now, taking a deep breath. Swinging her arms in a wide arc, she paced, stretched, shook out her feet to loosen them—a mirror image of his routine from earlier. Johannes tried not to blush, embarrassed, and thought he managed mostly well.

The girl looked back at him. Her grey, ghostlike eyes lingered on his face, then turned up in another, equally inscrutable smile. She picked up his gloves and began following the dirt path around his garden, a slow saunter that seemed to say: You could still catch up, if you were so inclined.

Johannes got up to obey.

They walked aimlessly, Greta leading, Johannes trailing at a slight distance behind her. He admired the way her weight shifted effortlessly from leg to leg and the light honey tone of her calves, which paled gradually as his gaze swept upward to her thighs. Every so often, she would adjust her direction so that she was close to the edge of the dirt path and kiss the petals of his flowers, or the long, waxy blades of an ornamental grass, with her fingertips. Unbidden, an image flashed into his mind: two centuries earlier and he would have kept this garden for her, Greta, the only daughter of the noble house Neidhardt. She would have worn his roses in her hair and never noticed him, because he would be—what? He tried to follow the daydream to its logical conclusion, but it was like trying to catch a butterfly with only his hands. There had been no photo albums or family heirlooms in his childhood home. He supposed there might have been secrets in his mother's lockbox, the one she kept under her bed, but he'd been too spineless to find the key and look inside. His father…

"Herr Engelstädter?"

The noblewoman in his mind, flickering rapidly between girl and a likeness of his aging mother, evaporated. Johannes was master of the garden again, not merely its keeper. "Yes, Greta?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"Hm? I was thinking… well…"

"…about your wife?" She looked guilty.

"No, not at all. About the irony of our situation. You would have been well-born in centuries past, and I wouldn't. Yet here you are, weeding for me."

"Oh! True, I never thought of that. I guess I wouldn't be wearing shorts back then either."

"Or visiting a man unchaperoned."

"Or biking… did they have bikes back then?"

"At any rate, you wouldn't be allowed to ride one."

Greta huffed and crouched by a cluster of perennials. He'd forgotten the name for them, each of their tall stalks sprawling at the ends into bunches of delicate, deep blue stars, but it was these she put her face close to now, almost nuzzling. Probably only propriety stopped her from doing so. "Well, that's no good, sir," she murmured. "I'm glad we're here now and not then. And by the way, it's super Viennese of you to think of it in the first place."

"Now what do you mean by that?"

"Royalty, aristocracy, titles… waltzes and Gemütlichkeit…"

"Waltzes every night. With a coffeehouse next door for when you need a break."

"…Wiener Schmäh. I'm sorry I didn't visit you for a couple of weeks."

She said it so softly, Johannes almost didn't catch it. But he did, and he went very still.

Aftertaste of vanilla and processed sugar. Church bells, distant, lamenting the hour. Greta looked askance at him, not ten paces away. The same lock of hair falling into her eyes, the high colour of her dirt-smudged cheeks, her eyebrows, drawn tight in an expression of worry—morose, she was almost even lovelier than she was happy, as displeased as he was to note it. Her gleaming eyes met his. They searched his face for a reaction, but he wasn't sure what he should be reacting to yet and knew that she would find none. "I wanted to come see you sooner," she continued after a moment. "I didn't because…"

"Because?"

"—I thought you didn't want to see me anymore."

Johannes's breath expelled itself violently through his nostrils. "Nonsense!"

"I thought—" She licked her lips. "I thought I hurt you, or that you didn't want to be unfaithful to your wife—the last—"

"Carmen?"

"—The last time I visited, you pulled away. And it was after we were talking about her—about your marriage. So I thought—I don't know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

Johannes turned. He strode stiffly down the path and glowered at his roses, wishing he hadn't smoked his final cigarette. Pressure mounted in his skull somewhere between the eyes, accompanied by flashes of white heat that surged, like a river bursting its banks, outward from his core to the rest of his body. Removing his glasses, he pinched the bridge of his nose hard and counted to ten. She was only a girl, he reminded himself. A girl. A young woman, he retorted, who should have learnt to use her words and communicate by now. She had his home number only after she had requested it—she could have called to ask if he had been offended! What reason was there to make him think she'd finally grown bored of him after a year of demanding his attention? Cowardly, avoidant behaviour—he took a deep breath, deciding how to frame his argument, pivoted, and made his way back to where he'd left her.

Greta hurriedly wiped her eyes on the back of her arm, and the quarrel died on Johannes's lips. He watched the girl clutch her knees, brace for impact, try to look brave in the face of the punishment he was about to dish out, but in reality she was small—a mouselike, catlike thing crouched on the ground in front of his asters (that was what they were called!) with her head hanging low in the valley of her shoulders. Resentment churned his gut—she had robbed him of his anger! his right to call her out on her failure!—but it didn't last. Like all poison it turned on him next, the adult who had almost lost his temper.

He closed the remaining distance and squatted beside her. His joints were stiffer than he expected, probably from cold, and he didn't fail to grimace as he felt them creak. "You should have reached out sooner, Greta," he admonished her gently.

Her bottom lip quivered an angry red. Chewed raw, fresh blood had bloomed on the vivid pink and begun to coagulate. Johannes suppressed the urge to reach out and wipe it down, the same as she had done to her cut. He wasn't her mother, after all.

The red lips moved again. "I was—I was trying not to hurt you," they stammered, "but I guess—I did anyway. I'm always messing up like that, always, somehow. Even if I try and—do things right, do things well, I'm just—I'm just too stupid to get it."

"God in Heaven. Spatzl, please, no one in your family can even claim the title of being 'stupid'."

"But I am!" she exploded, jostling the asters. "I had your number and everything. I could have called. You visit the park all the time—and the café—you've even been to Tintino! There were a thou—a million things I could have done. I even thought about them—and second guessed—but I really should have done any. Just, any! I hate it! Why didn't I? Why do I have to be me?"

She buried her face in her arms and sobbed openly, an unprecedented downpour on what had been a calm, sunny day. Part of Johannes was nonplussed. He'd been unprepared for the teenage melodrama he was now witnessing and uneasy about whether his neighbours would hear, but another, arguably greater, part was relieved. She didn't hate him; she hadn't intended to leave him alone. The heat inside his ribcage melted. He pressed a hand to her soft hair. When she didn't push away, he stroked her until she leaned on him, and a frisson of excitement flared at the base of his neck despite himself at the contact he'd craved for so long. A new sentence bubbled to mind—not the critique he had intended, but words he'd wanted to say since he laid eyes on her that afternoon. He pressed his nose into her hair and breathed her in, her skin, sweat, and conditioner, sweeter than any springtime. In the low murmur he reserved for just such occasions as this, he said:

"Dear girl, don't you know how much I've missed you?"

The unhappy hunch of Greta's shoulders tightened. A whimper escaped that tightly coiled ball of misery. Even so, it was clear that the worst was over, the torrent of emotion wracking her body already beginning to subside. Hot, panting breaths came fast through the gaps in her arms instead of frantic animal sounds; she was no longer trembling so hard and Johannes, wanting to encourage her, pressed his lips gently to the top of her head. At this she stirred and shifted. Her eyes rose over the horizon of her pristine white sleeve. Puffy and red-rimmed, teardrops clung to the bottom lashes, their irises nearly copper from strain and the early evening sun. Johannes felt electric with desire. Leaning over, he kissed her eyelids, too, one at a time.

She turned her face up to him, hesitant, but he was ready—he had been ready.

Their lips met, grazing at first, uncertain of what was allowed; and then Greta pressed forward, just as hungry as he had felt, a sputter of flame catching on and building. Understanding flashed over him as lightning across a darkened plain. She felt the same about him as he did about her—for how long, he didn't know—why he'd never noticed, he didn't know—

It was impossible to count how many kisses they exchanged in front the asters, nor how long they spent embracing as the sky burst into dramatic colour above them. Not that they would have noticed. By turns they chased each other's lips, found them, pulled back to catch their breaths, only to begin the process anew; they played happily, delighting in the force that compelled them, over and over, toward each other, toward a pleasure that was best when shared. Johannes was drunk with ecstasy. The girl in his arms, still hiccoughing into his mouth as he held her; blood and salt on her lips, cocoa and processed sugar on the tip of her tongue; spasms of breath that came out of her when he took her off guard and his hand groped some sensitive curve, or his teeth caught on soft, pliant flesh.

Finally she tore away from him, flushed and breathless. Pawing at his chest, Greta said: "Herr Engelstädter—"

"At a time like this!"

"What—what should I call you, then? Sir?"

"'Johannes' will do. Oh, Greta," he sighed, "Greta. But we belong together, don't we?"

"Yes, sir—but Johannes, I—" She bit her lip. "It will be dark soon."

The haze of pleasure lifted slightly, and he looked around the garden. The light had indeed fallen, leaching the colours from his flower and herb garden, plunging their motley silhouettes into lifeless, blue-grey shadow. The sky was that pale indigo which precedes both night and morning, the clouds as scattered against their canvas as his own thoughts. His skin prickled with heat again as Greta pressed her lips to his cheek and buried her nose in his neck; for a young woman trying to take responsibility, he thought, her actions were diametrically at odds with her words.

Perhaps, someday, he would teach her to do better.

"Will you be fine to bike home? Should I call a cab for you?"

"No, sir, that won't be necessary. Look—the lamps are already coming on, I can find my way home. It'll be harder to explain to Mama and Papa why the errand took so long, especially if they see I've been crying…"

"I didn't know it would go this way when I let you into my garden…"

"…But I could say I took the long way through the woods and got a little lost. I was just enjoying the nature, and I tried to stay on the trail, but when I blinked, it was already late. Voilà."

Johannes snorted. He leaned back, using his arms to support his weight. "And they'll believe that story, will they?"

"They'd rather believe that than the truth. Is that terrible?"

He regarded her seriously over the rims of his glasses. "Love isn't terrible."

And the lamps hummed to life from their slumber in the street.

Johannes collected the china while Greta hydrated and freshened up in the restroom. When she came out, she was almost presentable—almost the girl who had come to him that afternoon bathed in sunlight after delivering a cake. He walked her to her father's bike, dragging his feet; it was childish, but he didn't want her to go, even if the likelihood of her staying away was lower now than it had ever been.

"Come again next week, Greta. And call me so I can prepare, please. I'll bake something rather than serve you leftovers from Tintino…"

"Ach, were you worried about that? Tintino is good! But I do prefer when you make something just for me. It feels special."

"…and I won't put you up to weeding again. A proper tea, like before."

"I didn't mind that about today, either." She reached her arms out.

It took a moment for Johannes to realise she was asking for a hug. He clasped her to him, breathing her in again, dizzy with happiness at the thought that he was hers and she was his. The future had blown wide open, and they could expect more summer afternoons; best of all, he could expect to see more of her.

Greta pressed her lips to his and stood on tiptoe to reach his ear.

"Johannes."

"Greta."

The smile in her voice.

He opened the gate and she walked out with the bike, waving one last time before she mounted the seat. Her calves worked as she pushed off from the pavement, a seamless motion, and she shouted over her shoulder as she left:

"Watch me fly!"

And so he did, until the sparrow disappeared over the hump of the hill and melded with the night below.