The misery contest

Bea comes home first as usual. She finishes school at four o’ clock, like Jack and Kieran, but doesn’t hang around at school, or pop into Lidl on the way home to buy 99-cent biscuits. You can set your watch by Bea: at four-oh-nine, her key is in the lock.

‘Hello, darling.’

‘Hi.’

‘And? How was your day?’

No answer. A bad-mood cloud hangs over her; I have exactly the daughter I deserve, exactly the girl she is: tongue-tied with a hungry heart.

And what do I have to offer? Empty hands? The only thing I can think of is to put her misery in words.

‘It doesn’t bother her to talk about these things in public. She can barely distinguish between personal and public interest, which is a further indication of a borderline disorder. She lacks all shame, which would prevent a normal person from exposing herself and others.’

Ingmar has invited everyone to dinner; I’m no longer part of the group, but I can imagine what they’re saying, because I know how they talk.

Vera: ‘I don’t think it’s fair to caricature us to that extent, as if we’re narrow-minded.’

Friederike: ‘It was supposed to be funny. But it wasn’t.’

Ingmar: ‘I don’t think she can help it. It’s how she expresses herself.’

Christian: ‘As a writer.’

Friederike: ‘If she were really a writer, she’d have a bit of imagination. Then she wouldn’t need to expose other people’s lives.’

Ulf sits there and ponders where to begin. He’d like to defend me — perhaps by saying that the writer is dead and the reader is now the real writer, a text is a text, and a perspective is always tied to the point of view — but he realises that they have no patience for such finer details. It will only take one word for him to end up on my side instead of theirs.

So, Ulf says: ‘She went too far, that’s for sure.’ And he stares at his hands, crumbling the baguette that is served with the soup.

A delicious Asian fish soup, one of Ingmar’s specialities — he really knows how to cook.

Ingmar’s fish soup, Frank’s quiche Lorraine, Vera’s raspberry dessert with homemade caramel brittle, Ulf’s lovingly made sandwiches with mustard and cress, Carolina’s vinaigrette with garlic and sour cream, Friederike’s yeast waffles from her grandmother’s family recipe — I’ve cast all this to the wind, and now I crave it.

Kieran really has been to Lidl: a twelve-pack of milk rolls, a real alternative to haute cuisine. They taste of preservatives, but when you bite into them, they’re lovely and soft. I could scoff the whole packet, but Kieran only gives me half.

‘So unhealthy,’ I say in revenge. ‘Where have you had these before?’

‘Anselm always brings them to school.’

Ah, must be a white-trash kid. Wouldn’t have thought so with a name like that. And in this neighbourhood too. Perhaps he won’t be here for much longer, because his parents will have to move to the sticks as well, and he could help Kieran make a new start at the rough school we’ll have to send him to.

‘I’m going to pick up Lynn,’ I say. ‘And when I come back, I want your screens to be off. Half an hour, like we agreed.’

‘Okay,’ says Kieran.

‘Jack?’

He’s not listening to me.

At the entrance to the childcare centre, I hold the door open for a mother with an empty double stroller and a baby strapped around her waist. It’s been a long time since I was so hampered and weighed down! The only child of mine I ever took out of her pram and carried in a sling was Bea, when she cried on our way somewhere; the others just had to lie there and accept their fate. This mother does it differently, and wants to give her second kid the pleasure of changing its fate. Perhaps she’s trying to be fair in all ways or hasn’t got used to the screaming yet. I’d say that Jack didn’t cry, not like Bea. But even if he had, it wasn’t fair, of course. He was only quiet because he sensed there was no point in complaining. Because, as a baby, he already spared me.

‘There’s no such thing as fair,’ Sven says regularly, and doesn’t get his message through — to any of us.

In the coat area, a grandparent couple is in full action: he’s watching her trying to get their grandson to put his shoes on; she’s singing a song that I remember from my nursery days and haven’t heard since then: ‘One two, buckle my shoe / Three, four, knock at the door / Five, six, pick up sticks / Seven, eight, lay them straight / Nine, ten, big fat hen / Eleven, twelve, dig and delve.’

I look at the grandfather’s expression and try to fathom what he’s thinking, but I only see myself and what I’m thinking.

Lynn comes around the corner scuffing her feet: the sound of slippers on sandy linoleum.

‘Say goodbye,’ I tell her, like always, and Lynn swerves sharply left to shake hands with her teacher, who is busy with some kind of file.

‘Bye bye, big girl,’ she says, and even to me, Lynn seems really big today, and I wonder whether I should have put her in school already. What exactly is it that we’re letting her enjoy a bit longer?

She dillydallies. She’s overtaken three times, by three kids whose parents arrived after me.

I have taken off my coat and am sitting down. I look at the collages made of autumn leaves pinned on the wall above the coat hooks. Due to privacy concerns, the kids’ names are no longer written on them. I found that out at the parents’ evening. The kids are protected from the parents’ compulsion to compare: the most creative children can no longer be determined at a glance. Unlike who is the slowest at putting on their shoes.

I receive pitying looks.

I want to say, ‘Don’t worry! I think my kids are the best anyway!’ The trick is not to focus on what is expected of them, but to focus on the kids themselves. In no time at all, they become heroes shining with individuality. Just look at Lynn’s composure: the way she nonchalantly drags her scarf behind her is enough to make any 1920s silent-movie diva be overcome with jealousy.

Even back at the flat where, of course, all the screens are still on, I manage to stick to my well-disposed view of things. In evolutionary terms, the kids are only doing what’s wise, after all. Those who listen to warnings won’t develop any new attitudes. Resistance is the order of the day, especially against the rules of elders. And anyway, it’s not proven that gaming softens the brain. Parental fear of the unknown dictates the rules. So, break them! Outsmart me.

Jack has that innocent expression he puts on when faced with a parent, or any other adult authorised to give discipline or orders. Kieran, on the other hand, is frowning and thrusting his chin forward, which means he’s going to resist to the death.

Even Bea has her mobile phone two inches from her face; she’s lying on her stomach on her made bed, watching make-up tips from a YouTuber. I remember another piece of advice from the parents’ evening: I’m supposed to act according to the ‘five-star principle’ when I talk to my kids about school. Don’t lay down the law, just give tips and emphasise the positive.

Bea’s YouTube Mum: ‘Hi guys! Today I’m going to show you how to say goodbye to fear and constant anxiety. It’s awesome if you manage to look and behave like everybody else because then you stand out less. Except in the ways where you want to be different, because they’re really cool and make you stand out positively. Five-star things, like singing, or your decolletage. And if there’s something you really don’t like about yourself, just try not to think about it. Letting little inadequacies seem important by thinking about them is a mistake. Positive thinking is the be-all and end-all. For example, people with beautiful hands often don’t pay attention to them, but they’re a five-star feature. As a tip, I’d say: prop up your face with them, highlight your hands. Knit, or use them to gesticulate. Everyone thinks Italian girls are beautiful, but in fact they just wave their hands about a lot. It’s good to be cheerful. If everything is totally shit — I mean, less than five-star — then just remember, chin up! Fashions are always changing. For example, in the past, bushy eyebrows were a real no-go. And today? Everybody’s envious of them. So my tip is: the thing that bothers you most today might be totally in tomorrow. Perhaps the girl who calls the shots in your class will break a leg, or everybody will succumb to a pandemic and will have to stay at home for weeks. In that time, you can patch together a new fear-free, resistant, and really, really gorgeous you. Please like my page, and then we’ll meet again for my next episode of Bea’s mum Five-Star Tips when I’ll be talking about teeny boobs and padded bras.’

Bea comes into the kitchen.

‘What’s for dinner?’

I don’t answer. Sometimes it’s good to swap roles.

Bea sits down and watches me cutting onions. It works: she starts talking without prompting.

‘I argued with Lola again today.’

‘What about?’ Go very carefully. Casual, disinterested tone.

‘She said she’s going to Mallorca to learn Spanish.’

I laugh. And cry too. Because of the onions.

‘Perhaps it depends where you go in Mallorca,’ I say, and throw the onions in the pan. They sizzle, and I can’t hear Bea anymore. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said her grandma lives there and that’s why she’s really going!’

‘Ah. Then she probably won’t learn Spanish. Everybody will speak German.’

‘Lola said that wasn’t true, and that she’d been there before and I hadn’t, and anyway, she said it was just a joke but that’s not true, and she only said that because everybody laughed, but she’d meant it when she first said it and wasn’t being sarcastic.’

‘Jeez,’ I say.

‘Everything is shit,’ says Bea ‘and I’m the idiot.’

‘Why are you the idiot?’

‘Because I said to her, admit it, you were serious. And she was like, I’m not admitting anything. And I always look like I’m being mean, and want to be right the whole time. But she’s the one who wants to be right!’

‘Just let her. She probably knows you’re right anyway.’

‘But she talks so much rubbish.’

‘Then don’t listen to her.’

‘How are we supposed to be friends if I don’t listen to her?’

Hmmm. Good question.

‘I don’t want to be like this. But I keep noticing all these things she says, like “twat”, and you say you can’t say “twat”. So I say, why do you say “twat” all the time, I thought you were a feminist? And she says what has that got to do with it? So I say “twat” is a word for a woman’s you-know-what. And she says no, that’s crap. And I say it’s true. And she says no if it was, I’d know. So I say, well, what does it mean then? She says I don’t give a shit. I say exactly. She says, exactly what? I say you don’t give a shit, you’re not interested, and you don’t know what you’re talking about. And she says, yeah, that’s right, but at least I’m not a total twat.’

‘Oh, God, darling. I’m really sorry.’

‘I don’t want to be this way,’ says Bea, ‘but I can’t help it.’

Dear Vera,

I can imagine that I am a burden to you and that you want to get rid of me and my tedious way of remembering everything and being a know-it-all. But please, what do the children have to do with it? You know that they’re mixed up in it and tied to me, and that handing in the notice on the flat affects them too. I can already hear you softly saying ‘you only have yourself to blame,’ but you can’t mean that, Vera — you’re not like that. Are you? Is Frank like that? Yes, maybe. And you’re tied to him. So forget what I’ve said, because I’m not going to send this letter anyway.

I want to tell Bea to drop it, that she shouldn’t care, and should just concentrate on herself, her goals, and her schoolwork instead.

By the end of those two weeks in Laueli, the woodpile that Sven stacked was as high as my shoulder, and Sven had welts on the inside of his right hand and scabs on the knuckles of both.

By the time I’d finished my book, it had about two hundred manuscript pages, and I rewrote many times the scene where the main character cuts her friend’s kid’s hair and accidentally cuts his ear — before I decided to leave it out.

What if we’d built K23 together?

We could have been a part of it. Taken up Ingmar’s offer — either the money or the idea to move into the ground-floor flat that he financed with the money he couldn’t dump on us. Because no one else wanted that flat, but you can’t build a house without a ground floor. So, after a great deal of back and forth, he called the ground floor an investment, even though he was against the idea of owning but not living in a property. And we would have been a good compromise because although we’re not Ingmar, we’re like family, and so in a way, him, and nice and colourful too, and we add spice to the mix.

Ingmar: ‘It’s outrageous that there are empty flats in the city centre. In these times! In this global situation!’

Frank: ‘Put an ad on Immoscout, and you’ll have thirty requests by tomorrow.’

Ingmar: ‘But I don’t want to live with just anybody. Some Immoscout user.’

Frank: ‘What have you got against Immoscout?’

Ingmar: ‘Nothing. I’d just like somebody I know and like. Who suits us.’

Vera: ‘Then wait a bit. Perhaps somebody will turn up.’

Ellen: ‘My cousin might be moving to Berlin next year.’

Ingmar: ‘When next year?’

Ellen: ‘Although … would she take the ground floor?’

Friederike: ‘Is she the one with the fair-trade clothes?’

Ellen: ‘Yes, that’s her. “Port Coton.”’

Friederike: ‘Cool. Get her over here.’

Ellen: ‘She said she might be moving. But to be honest …’

Friederike: ‘Aren’t we good enough for her?’

Ellen: ‘Of course! She’d love it. But on the ground floor? Without kids? I wouldn’t.’

Ingmar: ‘I’d like somebody with kids, who needs a flat, who’d appreciate it. Preferably somebody normal and uncomplicated—’

Vera: ‘Jana’s always looking for private flats for refugees.’

Friederike: ‘Uncomplicated?’

Vera: ‘Somebody who needs it and would appreciate it.’

Christian: ‘Don’t fall for that. Some refugees have really high expectations. Whoever manages to get over here comes from money. And they have pretty big ideas. Just like your fair-trade cousin.’

Ellen: ‘Her name’s Britta. And you didn’t want to live on the ground floor either.’

Christian: ‘I’m not saying I did. I like high expectations.’

Ingmar: ‘You make it sound like the flat is a cesspit — and not all refugees are the same. The ones who have lived in the shelter long enough with their families—’

Christian: ‘I’d be careful. It turns them into animals. A friend of my dad’s in Stuttgart owns a block of flats that are being renovated especially for refugees, and six weeks after they moved in, they had to start all over again. They cooked on the floor, didn’t clean the toilets—’

Vera: ‘They were unaccompanied children. Boys.’

Friederike: ‘They’re the ones who need housing the most.’

Frank: ‘And are you going to look after them?’

Friederike: ‘No, why? They have counsellors from Youth Welfare and some sort of voluntary helpers.’

Christian: ‘And the rent is always paid on time by social services.’

Ingmar: ‘It’s not about the rent.’

Ellen: ‘Are you serious? A bunch of young machos living on the ground floor? Our girls aren’t that little anymore—’

No one said anything of the sort. And even if they had, it wasn’t meant that way. And anyway, anybody else would have done the same! An agreement had to be reached somehow.

January 2014; the K23 common room.

Every K23 resident was given three sticky dots — three votes, in other words. Votes could be accumulated or split.

There was a brief discussion about whether the children should be allowed to vote, and if so, from what age, and whether they could have only one vote. Christian managed to assert himself with the argument that some life experience was required to make such an important decision.

Frank brought a flipchart from work.

On it, Friederike noted the options in her lovely handwriting, and then everybody stuck on their dots.

‘Stop, stop, stop!’ Ingmar cried. ‘Please take into account the different criteria.’

What were they again?

Friederike flipped over the paper with the options and noted on a new piece of paper:

Poverty

Nice personality

Threat to the house community

Usefulness for the house community

Threatened in their country of origin

Culture (macho, good at music, language barriers, religion)

Rent

Suits us

New horizons

as people shouted these suggestions out.

Everybody memorised the criteria. Then Friederike flipped the paper back to the first page, and everybody stuck their dots.

Ingmar: ‘What we’re doing here is nobody’s business. If you ask me, Resi has been planning this for a long time. She could’ve moved in, but didn’t because she wanted to see what we would do with the empty flat. Just so she could provoke exactly this scene and capitalise on it.’

Friederike: ‘Exactly like in her article. She always hated our house.’

Vera: ‘And I loved her. I still love her.’

Dear Vera,

Perhaps the first thing you should do is to stop loving me.

True, we have known each other since we were three years old, and we’ve been through a lot together, and you know and understand me in a way that hardly anybody else does. But you don’t have to love me because of that. No one has to.

Your instinct is yours alone, and the commandment about loving thy neighbour is probably the biggest bunch of codswallop in the Bible and an excellent reason to leave the Church. It’s also a reason to refuse the role model of girl/wife/mother, seventy-eight per cent or so of which is about being loving.

Let’s just say ‘fuck it’. Let’s hate each other and then maybe we’ll find out if we like each other — when and why and what for.

All the best,

Resi

I could send this letter, but I should probably wait until tomorrow and read it through again. It’s always better to sleep on it first, and that’s why letters are better than emails, and books are better than letters, and the afterlife is better than Lidl on the corner.

I’ve been creeping around Sven all evening as if I’m ashamed of something. Well, some might say I’m partly to blame for our imminent homelessness. And even though I know that Sven doesn’t think like that, I’m not sure this time. I avoid him precisely because he doesn’t believe I’m to blame, but I can’t talk about anything else except the fact that I am. And that’s another thing I’m sure of: Sven doesn’t want to talk about something he doesn’t believe in. He never wants to think the thoughts of other people; if anybody’s, then probably mine if I ask him straight out. But then they definitely have to be mine, and not what I think other people’s thoughts are. And at this stage, I can’t guarantee that. Come to think of it, I never can. So I’m silent. And lonely. Stuck in other people’s thoughts.

I pick up my mobile and press Ulf’s number.

‘Hello, it’s Resi.’

‘Hi,’ he says. And then nothing.

I know him; his silence speaks to me. He knows about the notice on the flat, and he knows that this phone call is to confront him.

‘So?’ I say.

He sighs.

‘Listen,’ he says, ‘I did my best, and I have to say that it didn’t help much.’

‘So this is a punishment?’

‘If you want to put it like that.’

‘That means everybody knows?’

He says nothing, so yes.

‘And that’s okay, is it?’

He sighs. ‘It’s Frank’s business.’

‘Can I now say I’m a victim, or am I still not allowed?’

‘What?’

‘Well, you said I shouldn’t make myself out to be the victim.’

‘Listen, I don’t want to talk about this on the phone. We can meet up, but this is just too confronting. Sorry.’

‘What are you sorry about?’

‘That it’s come to this. No one’s happy about it. Everybody has to figure out for themselves how they’re going to deal with it.’

‘Really.’

‘But there’s still a difference. You acted; Frank reacted.’

‘That’s a fact now?’

‘Yes; the way I see it, it is.’

September 1955; Gomadingen.

Father called Marianne into the living room from where he had just seen a car nearly run Brigitte over. Father grabbed Marianne and started thrashing her with the clothes hanger, and Marianne shouted: ‘Stop! It wasn’t me! She was the one who ran across the road without looking!’ And Father yelled: ‘Exactly, she’s still little, and you’re supposed to look after her!’ And Marianne said: ‘But I don’t want to look after her! I want to play and do what I want!’ And Father yelled: ‘I want doesn’t get!’ which meant that what Marianne wanted wasn’t important. The only important thing was what Father wanted.

And to drum this into her, he beat Marianne.

Marianne had it drummed into her, and from then on, she was able to stand Brigitte even less than before. Thirty years later, she defended her father with the argument that he had probably suffered a huge shock; thirty years later she had her own children, whom she always worried about, and because of that, or because she was an adult herself by then, she still felt she had too much responsibility and too little freedom, and was never able to do what she wanted. And perhaps her father felt the same way, although he tried for a while to pass responsibility for Brigitte to Marianne, just so he could have a nap in peace for once. But that doesn’t work, you can never pass it on: your child ends up dead, and then it all falls back on you, because you didn’t manage to teach her sister how to take on responsibility. And want doesn’t get.

In 1955 it was completely normal to give an eight-year-old responsibility for a five-year-old. An eight-year-old knows that cars are dangerous and that you can’t just run across the road. A five-year-old doesn’t know that yet, and that’s why she’s free to do so. All fingers were pointing at Marianne. If anything, she should have refused the responsibility in the first place: ‘No Daddy, I can’t look after Brigitte. I’d rather play on my own.’ To say this later was not okay. It was Marianne’s fault, and whoever says that Brigitte was her father’s child and not Marianne’s might just as well say that Marianne was also her father’s child, and that’s why she was already in his debt. That wouldn’t have been strange for Father to think and so the only question left was how and whether Marianne could have refused responsibility from the get-go. If not, then she didn’t stand a chance. She was unlucky: to be a girl, to be the oldest, to be born into a family with many children, and no money or staff. And to be upset all the time about being unlucky and the unfavourable circumstances of your birth isn’t healthy. It’s good that Marianne stopped that as an adult, forgave her father in retrospect, and understood why he did what he did; otherwise she would have been unhappy for the rest of her life. Worrying gives you wrinkles, and anyway, Marianne wanted to have her cake and eat it, and that’s exactly what I want to do too, and so I’m not making myself out to be the victim, but the perpetrator.

The story starts with me. I made the decision of my own free will; the sheet of paper was blank when I first held it in my hand, or rather opened it in Word on my feeble old laptop. I could have easily written something else on it.

Go. Fuck. Yourselves. You. Pathetic. Arseholes.