Half Swimmer E-Book

Katja Oskamp

• Herausgeber: Peirene Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 204

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Half Swimmer. Noun. A German term for one who has recently learnt to swim but hasn't yet mastered the technique. Growing up in 1980s East Germany, as the daughter of an army officer and a teacher, Tanja seems set to become a model citizen of the German Democratic Republic. Except she has other ideas. And so, it turns out, does the course of history. Half Swimmer is a collection of stories from one life, following a young girl as she attempts to forge her own identity under the social pressures of both the GDR, and the capitalism of a unified Germany.

Leseprobe

i

HALF SWIMMER

Katja Oskamp

Translated from the German by Jo Heinrich

ii

iii

Halbschwimmer [noun]

Half Swimmer. A German term for one who has recently learned to swim but hasn’t yet mastered the technique.iv

v

Contents

Title PageEpigraphRolf and HopsiHalf SwimmerHerr OThe LetterRuckediguWhat Custom Strictly DividedSeventy-two StepsCutBack on Speaking TermsAbout the AuthorsThe Peirene SubscriptionCopyrightvi

1

Rolf and Hopsi

When I was a child, I had a hamster called Rolf. My parents bought him because I had to make do without any siblings. Rolf would sit under a pile of wood shavings in a glass enclosure by the door. He mostly slept; sometimes he’d eat something. He never used his wheel. The best thing about Rolf was the way he could get my father to throw himself on the floor and stick his head under the cupboard. Apart from that, Rolf was a disappointment and he soon died.

Then I got two black dwarf rabbits: Hopsi One and Hopsi Two. The rabbit hutch was on the balcony, clear varnish peeling from its wooden panels. I only cleaned the hutch when my father forced me to. I’d bring the dwarf rabbits into the living room for hours every afternoon to sit them on the carpet in front of me and pull their back legs: it was called playing wheelbarrows, a well-known children’s game.

Compared to the unimaginative repetition of Hopsi as the rabbits’ names, I think the hamster’s name, Rolf, was 2quite original. I named him after the father of the family next door, the Wiedemeyers, who were friends of ours. The Wiedemeyers were Uncle Rolf, Auntie Elke and the children, Jan and Fanny. Uncle Rolf wasn’t very happy when I told him my hamster’s name. Actually, I should have seen that as a sign. I didn’t think to ask whether he disliked his name so much that he didn’t want it copied, or if his name was too good to be wasted on a hamster.

*

I push the packet of cigarettes behind the radiator halfway up the stairs. Somewhere that stupid is the perfect hiding place. Sometimes I wonder if later, when I’m a grown-up and my father’s finished with parenting, I ought to tell him that every morning he used to walk past the cigarettes he’d tried in vain to find in my things the night before.

I climb the last eleven steps to the third floor. The door to my parents’ flat is hidden in a deep alcove off to the left. They’ve always said it’s a privilege ‘not to be on show’, but even now I have a residual fear of turning off into the unknown: there might be someone lurking by the lift or behind the rubbish chute. The Wiedemeyers’ door is on the right. I can make it out by the little orange glow over the light switch – I don’t need to turn it on. Two fingers’ breadth below the light switch there’s the doorbell with the words ‘Dr Wiedemeyer & Family’ stamped in white letters on a black plastic strip. My father wrote our surname by hand on the white section 3next to our doorbell, but it almost looks as though it’s printed. We don’t have a label maker like that. And we have a completely different sort of bell. When you press it, there’s a continuous buzzing sound – you wouldn’t really call it ringing. Sometimes the button gets stuck. When my mother’s stressed, the button sticking can be the thing that sends her over the edge. My father tries to lever the button free again with the potato peeler, and meanwhile, anyone passing by can get a good look at my raging mother through the open door. Over the years our bell has become quieter and quieter, maybe from so much unintentional prolonged use. I don’t know why my parents don’t do something about it. They probably think it’s not worth the trouble: it’s not often that anyone other than the Wiedemeyers rings our doorbell.

The Wiedemeyers’ bell makes a happy bing-bong sound. Recently I’ve been specializing in outsmarting their bell and I can now make it sound as hoarse and frail as ours. The trick is to stifle the bing and only let the bong happen; with the bing missing it sounds as if it’s been strangled. You shouldn’t, under any circumstances, press the button head-on with your thumb. Instead, you need to tap the button at an angle on its edge, not very hard, but of course not so gently that it doesn’t make a sound at all. It’s not just about the technique: it’s also your inner mindset. If I picture myself as humble or apathetic, that’s when I manage the tortured bell sound best. Just as Auntie Elke presses our button twice to let us know she’s in a good mood, I can always be counted on to half-ring the Wiedemeyers’ bell, 4and some days even ring it just a third or a quarter. That’s how they know it’s me.

The hallway’s dark. I manage a quarter-ring, but it still seems too loud for this time of night. I quickly make the kind of face a scared child would make. Before I know it, I’m standing in front of Uncle Rolf, and he’s standing in front of me in his pyjamas. He looks as if he’s pleased. Come in, he says. It’s not the first time.

‘Are you watching TV?’

‘Not really, it’s just on.’

Everyone’s asleep already – they’ve got to be up and out early. Only Uncle Rolf has a nightlife after ten. He pushes aside the blanket he must have had over him, and we sit down on the leather sofa. There are books lying around everywhere, and there’s that magazine with the beautiful naked women; I think the Wiedemeyers have a subscription to it.

‘Did you go to your dancing lessons again?’

‘Well, you know I go every Thursday.’

‘Was it good?’

‘No, it was boring.’

Sometimes he’s just so happy to see me. That’s when Uncle Rolf takes my head in his hands and ruffles my hair and ears and everything. He’s also the only one who’s always said that the thing about my fat thighs is nonsense, that I should stop moaning because they’re fine the way they are. Uncle Rolf laughs more than anyone else. He used to throw me over his shoulder, whirl me around and pinch my thighs until I 5couldn’t help but scream with laughter. Once we accidentally hit a tomato plant’s stake and I bled. I still have the scar.

‘Come here.’

I slide over and curl my legs up beside me. Uncle Rolf’s skin has large pores and is always covered with a fine glossy film; it’s greasy skin, and his face gives off a certain smell if you get really close to it. In our family, no one has greasy skin. My skin, for example, is so dry it cracks in some places in winter if I don’t put cream on it all the time. It would be good to mix my skin with Uncle Rolf’s, then our skin type would be ‘combination’.

‘Have you got any chocolate?’

Uncle Rolf laughs again and reaches behind the sofa for the porcelain bowl, which Auntie Elke always keeps well stocked with bubbly chocolate and pralines.

When we were talking in his study a few weeks ago, he stroked my head and said, ‘Wow, you’re too clever by half!’ Unfortunately, I can’t remember what clever thing I’d said, but I want his hands to stroke me again. They’re warm, soft and clean: proper doctor’s hands.

The chocolate melts in my mouth. His fingertips touch my ribs and brush somewhere near my breast. He makes sure it’s never completely in his hand. I take a deep breath, so that my breast reaches his hand. Boys can be so annoying, with their clumsy tongues. It’s Uncle Rolf who makes me happy. I can’t help pressing myself against him, holding him tight, and I know how it’ll go next. I feel a little shudder, and Uncle Rolf takes my head in his hands, ruffles my hair again and pushes me up off the sofa. 6

‘Off you go now, back home to bed.’

He walks me past the bedrooms, where Auntie Elke and the children are sleeping, to the front door. I give him a big smile as I say goodbye; I can’t think of anything better to do. Then I stand there in the dark, my cheeks glowing.

The Wiedemeyers are sitting in their usual places in my parents’ lounge. My mother’s decided to ‘clear the air’ today. I’ve made a cosy nest out of my bedding and I’m listening to them fight it out in the living room. But I don’t know whose side I’m on.

My mother talks to the Wiedemeyers in a forceful tone and then shouts that this friendship has not been mutual for a long time, that she’s tired of being taken advantage of and that Auntie Elke should stop giving her used lipsticks. Uncle Rolf laughs from time to time and interrupts my mother’s outburst with cheeky comments. Auntie Elke sobs and says that she and Uncle Rolf don’t deserve this, but no one responds to her. I can’t hear my father – I assume he’s topping up everyone’s glasses.

I wonder if the Wiedemeyers get upset with us behind closed doors, too, or if they’re really surprised by this attack on them. In all probability the friendship’s over after this. But how’s it going to go with me and Uncle Rolf now? I can’t just ring the enemy’s doorbell.

It’s two o’clock. Time has gone by very quickly. I’m still sitting in my bed, listening, but now I’m fed up with the row in there. I can’t have a lie-in tomorrow: I’ve got to be at the bus station at six. Our class agreed to wash buses 7for the entire Sunday – it’s what the Free German Youth call the ‘peace shift’. I lie down and try to sleep. I can hear a low murmur from the hallway and the front door slams. The men are drunk, for sure, maybe even the women. My parents’ bed creaks briefly, and then there’s silence.

Then, suddenly, the doorbell’s ringing and ringing, and there’s banging at the door. I must have gone to sleep after all. Auntie Elke’s beside herself.

‘Rolf! Rolf’s lying in the hallway like a corpse, he’s foaming at the mouth!’

I find it hard to stay in my room: I’d love to see Uncle Rolf lying there like that. My father calls the doctor, but by the time he arrives, Uncle Rolf’s back on his feet again.

‘Too much alcohol and excitement can affect the circulation, it happens with choleric types,’ the doctor says before disappearing again. The doors stay open a while longer. The timed light in the hallway keeps turning itself off, over and over again. By the time they all go to bed, it’s five o’clock, and I get up.

‘I’ll take you.’

‘Don’t you want to go to bed?’

‘Did you get any sleep?’

‘No.’

My father cleans his teeth after I’ve done mine and takes two apples from the kitchen. He puts his key in the lock to make sure the door closes quietly. I stop halfway down the stairs. There’s bound to be a break on the peace shift and then we’ll have a smoke. I reach behind the radiator and take out the packet of cigarettes. My father gives me a slap 8on the back of the head with one hand, an apple with the other, and grins.

The air outside is mild. It’s a twenty-minute walk to the bus station, and there aren’t any buses that early, especially not on a Sunday. They probably need to be washed first.

At school we learn and repeat the sentence ‘War is the continuation of politics by military means,’ which makes such an impression on me that I try to apply it to my life. I rewrite the sentence for the new situation at home: ‘Children are the continuation of their parents by younger means.’ I never hang around with Jan and Fanny any more. When I meet them in the hallway, they’re always going somewhere in a hurry. The thought of them ringing my doorbell again is unimaginable. My parents say it would have happened sooner or later anyway.

I’m not that sorry about Jan: I could never understand why Uncle Rolf had such a stupid son. But with Fanny the situation’s more complicated. As well as the queen-in-jail game, where we take turns locking each other in the loo, turning off the lights and standing outside demanding pledges to do better or face even harsher punishments, we’ve also made up a game where we say a word over and over again in quick succession until it loses all meaning and becomes nothing but a strange, monotonous tune – we have a lot of fun making ourselves lightheaded like that. Although, actually, we haven’t played those games for ages.

Instead, I turn to school, in other words to Herr Bading, my class tutor and maths teacher. I have his student 9advice sessions all to myself; after all, none of the others choose to go to them. Herr Bading’s first name is Peter, he has two grown-up children and he’s divorced. Now he lives with another woman, but he’s not married to her. At the weekends he always goes to his little lakeside cabin. Sometimes Herr Bading tries to talk to me about my problems with maths, physics and chemistry, but I’ve already told him that these things hold only a very limited interest for me and that they need to be seen in a wider context. After a while, we spend the time philosophizing about life and he tells me about something from his. At the end, when I leave, he often shakes my hand, and it always feels as if it’s still covered in chalk. Once he even patted me on the back. It felt empowering somehow, but I was afraid I’d be walking around school with a white handprint on my back, so I put my coat on straight away. I can imagine Herr Bading might not be entirely comfortable with me, because he has to be on his guard as a teacher, but he also enjoys our time together. I can’t be bothered with all that. I keep thinking of questions to ask him at the next student advice session; and after each one, I dream about Herr Bading taking me to his cabin and us swimming in the lake together, and about getting a better mark in maths, too.

*

In my letter to Uncle Rolf I write that, after six years, I’ve split up with my boyfriend Karl because of his age. I also 10write that I can’t help looking up at the Wiedemeyers’ balcony when I visit my parents, and that it would be nice to see him again.

Weeks go by, and then Uncle Rolf rings me. He cheerfully tells me how pleased he was to receive such a long and lovely letter from me, especially these days when bills are all that ever comes through the letterbox. He’s well but he has a lot on his plate, so it’s not convenient to meet at the moment. He’d like to see me, of course, maybe in two or three weeks when things have calmed down – he’ll definitely get in touch again then.

I put the receiver down and feel stupid. My mother used to say that girls should play hard to get. I just can’t; it’s not in my nature. Uncle Rolf doesn’t ring back, not after a month, not after two months. He’s put me on hold until nevermore.

It’s the first time I’ve visited my parents since Paula was born. I’ve got her in a sling under my coat. As I reach the corner, I’m already looking up at the balcony: nothing, as always. A car pulls up by the entrance. Uncle Rolf is behind the wheel, reaching across to open the passenger door, and beckoning me in. With Paula on my front, I can hardly sit down, and I definitely can’t sink into the car seat without crushing her, so I struggle into an inclined position with my hips forward, tucking my head in and pulling the door closed.

‘You look so different.’

As I say this, I remember my recent weight gain and I’m 11expecting Rolf to respond with something equally uncharitable. But he just laughs, revealing a full set of unfamiliar teeth.

‘How are things?’

I’m grateful to him for steering the conversation away from our ages and how much we’ve changed. I laugh back, as best I can, and beckon with a nod to Paula.

‘See for yourself.’

Rolf peeks at the bundle on my front, but apart from the ugly hospital hat and two fists, there’s nothing to see.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Hopsi.’

We both laugh then, and I’m so glad: glad I thought of saying that, glad Rolf’s laying his hand on my neck and pressing his face against mine and glad we don’t have to look at each other any more. We catch our breath together for a while, long enough for there to be a real chance of forgetting what I’ve just seen. And then I can smell his good, old skin again, and I’m overcome with a great weakness.

‘Off you go now, go and see them.’

I pull myself together, throw open the passenger door and hear the car drive off. I don’t want to go upstairs yet – I’m sweating buckets, and Paula’s still asleep – so I go for a walk through the estate, and I realize I no longer have a clue what Uncle Rolf’s always laughing about. Then I ring my parents’ doorbell. 12

13

Half Swimmer

Dad’s teaching me how to dive with my eyes open. He persuades me to try. Just give it a go, he says, and I do.

It’s murky down there: the seabed’s been churned up by all the floundering holidaymakers. Dad and I stare at one another, making faces. I can faintly hear my own laughter, but Dad can probably only see the bubbles. They rise up out of my mouth, and when I run out of bubbles, I rise up myself, gasping for air on the surface.

Before the line where sea meets sky, windsurfers are leaning backwards and forwards on their colourful triangles. On land, sandcastles are piling up, and families seem to live in them. Parasols. Cool bags. Inflatables. And children of all sizes, being noisy. It’s holiday time by the Baltic Sea.

Dad comes swimming up to me with that look again: he’s acting innocent. I change direction, trying to get away, but I can’t swim any more: I’m just treading water, and even then I’m choking. I thrash around, but I can’t 14get moving – I’ll probably never be any more than a half swimmer, ever. My upper arms and belly are hurting, like they’re cramping up. I thrash, splash and choke.

Dad comes up to me with calm, deliberate strokes, and he still has the strength to keep making that innocent expression. I stop struggling. Giving up feels like a relief. Next thing, he’s baring his teeth, but he’s not laughing: he clenches them like a sprinter reaching the finish line and, with his hand outstretched, he pushes my head underwater. I’m sinking and he’s rising. I close my eyes. He goes for my wrist, and then takes hold of my ankle. I kick around, hitting out instinctively, and worm my head out of his grasp. Then he pushes me deep down by the shoulder; no matter what I do, he always manages to latch on to me somewhere. My knee slams against something hard and he stops. He’s stopped! I float up to the surface, coughing, wheezing and spluttering. Fresh air! Normally he stops earlier. My lungs are pumping. My heart’s racing. Then he’s next to me, out of breath, snorting like an angry billy goat. His bottom lip is bleeding. My eyes are burning from the salt water. Our teeth are chattering; he clamps his shut while I let mine go on rattling.

‘You’re bleeding,’ I say.

‘Really?’ he says, running his tongue over his wound, ‘Come on, let’s get out.’

He turns away from me and shakes the water from his hair; the muscles in his thighs are bulging as he wades through the waves.

‘I’ll keep practising,’ I shout. But my voice is too weak from all the air trying to get in and out. 15

There are no fish in the water, only human legs moving around in slow motion on the seabed, and slack jellyfish caught up in every swirl. I need to see them, those limp blobs, through the murky water. I keep my eyes wide open until grains of sand dig into my retinas and the salt blinds me, and then up I go. I gasp for air!

I wake up. My nightie’s sticking to my skin, my eyes are crusty. There’s a constant squeaking and creaking; that’s what woke me up, not the heat, or the sun. It’s quite regular, like the ticking of my alarm clock, at second intervals. Half past eight. Why is my bedroom door open?

I kick my covers to the foot of the bed and slowly roll to the edge to begin my descent. I don’t want to make a sound and there’s no need to rush it: I have plenty of time and strong muscles to hold me. I come to a halt after landing on all fours on the carpet.

The squeaking and creaking is still going, just as fast, just as loud. No one else seems to have noticed it. Time to go and see what it is. The walls are thin here in the holiday apartment, and nothing is far away. Every hand I lay down and every knee I let drop takes me silently out of the room. I look round the corner through the doorway and stop. My parents’ bed has come into view!

I cautiously lower my forearms onto the hallway carpet, head down close to the ground, where no one would expect to find me. Most of me is out of sight, but my bottom’s sticking up. My back is so arched the toddlers here could slide down it into their baby pool. So I shift my weight 16forward until my belly is on the carpet; my forearms will have to stay where they are, squashing into my chest. I can bear the pain, it’s nothing.

All I can see is Dad’s shoulder blades. A few black tufts are bobbing in white, choppy waves – that must be Mum’s head. Further along, two pointy knees are sticking out of the foam at right angles. Two shark fins! They’re after Dad, and they’re keeping up with him. Focus, Dad, gather your strength. They’re closing in! Dad’s coming up to the surface every few breaths, gasping for air, with his head to the side and his eyes screwed up, then pressing his cheek back into the pillow, his hair dishevelled and stuck down with sweat. Don’t lose your rhythm now! A hundred-metre crawl, your strongest discipline. Keep going, Dad, keep going!

There’s a strong swell; breakers made of duvet. The sea whips against the bedroom wall. I can’t see any arms reaching out: Mum must have drowned already. It’s just the two triangles there, dangerously still, and Dad, who might still make it. He’s starting the final spurt. The squeaking and creaking becomes a clatter and a gallop. There’s no going back.

I push my bottom up again so I can get back to safety. To spare me and Dad the sight of each other. It’s time to go. The toddler slide starts inching backward. Just don’t panic, don’t bump into anything, don’t knock anything over. Dad hasn’t crossed the finish line yet. I turn into my room; going backward is harder than going forward.

My little toenail snags on the carpet. It hurts. Keep still! It feels as if my toe’s the weak point from which all my 17