It was during that bus journey that I made up my mind. I think it was the moment when the bus turned ponderously into the road where the college stood, a moment that always made my heart sink, as though I were being driven up to Castle Dracula in a horse-drawn carriage. It was not so much the actual studying itself that I dreaded; it was the fact that every day spent learning the science of baking and the properties of half a dozen different types of flour was another link in the chain shackling me to Bad Münstereifel. Once I started work at the bakery full-time, I would never get away. A family bakery is open six days a week nearly all year round and you are up half the night preparing the day’s baking, which means early nights every night, forever. What I had told Julius about being too tired to sing for him was based on truth. If I took over the bakery the only music I would be producing at night would be snores.
There must be some way to change this, I thought. Some way to make my life my own without hurting anyone. I have to try at least. I stared at the facade of the college as it came into view. I can’t go on like this forever. Better to sort it out now than hurt them later, when it’s too late for them to make other plans.
The morning dragged by. I felt as though I had been booked in for a risky operation: I dreaded the discussion that would inevitably come, but I could hardly wait to get it over with. I knew there was no point trying to talk to my parents while the bakery was still open, so with difficulty I made myself wait for supper time that evening. By then I was fizzing with so much suppressed tension that it was a wonder sparks didn’t come arcing out of my fingertips as I set the table.
My father looked tired when he came to supper. In the yellow light of the glass lampshade which hung low over the table his face looked lined and pouchy. The white in his hair was no longer just a dusting of flour from his day’s work, I realized with a pang. My father was getting old; in a few years he would be sixty.
My mother had kicked off the shoes with the edelweiss flowers on the toes and slipped on some ancient Birkenstocks, but she was still wearing her green dirndl. I hardly ever saw her in anything else. Max’s mother actually wore jeans on occasion, although admittedly they were dazzling white ones usually teamed with high-heeled sandals. I couldn’t imagine my mother wearing anything like that. I suspected that when she died she would like to be buried wearing that dirndl. She was practically married to the bakery, I thought.
I looked from one tired face to the other and my heart misgave me. Could I really tell them that I didn’t want to continue with my bakery training? The voices of self-doubt and fear started buzzing insistently in my head: You can’t do it to them. You’ll break their hearts. You can’t do it.
You have to, I flung back at them. It will be worse if you don’t do anything now. If you say you’re not taking over the bakery when Dad’s sixty-five, what’s he going to do then? Say it now.
I thought of Kai von Jülich, of his fantastically handsome face, the way he had gazed at me over the counter, as though he would have liked to lay hands on me then and there. That was a miracle I had never hoped could come true, proof that life could be surprising sometimes, that things really could change. I cleared my throat.
‘Mum? Dad?’
Now they were both looking at me. My father paused with a forkful of potato salad halfway to his mouth, a slightly ironic look on his face. What’s coming now? Perhaps he thought I was going to ask for a day off.
‘I’ve been thinking … ’
For a moment I almost couldn’t do it, but then I made myself go on.
‘I really don’t want to go on with college. It’s not what I want to do.’ I looked at their blank faces. At least they weren’t screaming at me. I plunged on. ‘I’m really sorry, because I know you want me to take over the bakery, but I don’t think I can.’
There was a pause which stretched out so long that I began to wonder if I was going crazy, if I had imagined the entire speech I had just made.
‘What do you mean?’ said my mother suddenly, her voice rising. ‘What do you mean, you don’t think you can?’
‘Irena,’ said my father, cutting across her and raising his hand as though trying to stop a flow of heavy traffic that threatened to mow him down. He put down his fork on the side of his plate and leaned towards me. ‘What’s brought this on?’
Kai von Jülich asked me out, I thought, although I could not possibly say it. ‘Nothing brought it on,’ I said as firmly as I could, although even to my own ears my voice was wavering. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for – well, for a long time.’
‘And you didn’t say anything?’ shrilled my mother.
‘Irena,’ said my father again, and this time he gave her a significant look. He turned back to me. ‘Since when?’ he asked me. ‘A week? A month?’
His voice was quite mild, but I began to suspect that I was treading on thin ice.
‘Since before I started college,’ I said, looking down at the plasticized tablecloth with its pattern of checks and flowers, unwilling to catch his eye.
‘Hmm.’ My father appeared to be thinking. He picked up the glass of Pils my mother had set out for him and took a swallow. ‘So what do you want to do if you don’t stay in the bakery?’
I clasped my hands under the table, squeezing my fingers together, feeling the sharp edges of my nails digging into the skin. ‘I’d like to study music.’
‘Music?’ My father’s voice was still perfectly level and reasonable. My mother gave an indignant little snort, but if he heard it he gave no sign. ‘And what will you do if you study music?’
‘I want to sing,’ I said. I put my clasped hands on the table, feeling foolishly as though I were praying for mercy. ‘I know it’s not easy to make a living from it. That’s why I want to study, so I can teach music as well.’
My father sighed. ‘Steffi, you graduated from Hauptschule.’
‘I know. I know it’s not enough –’
‘You’d need to pass the Abitur exam to study music.’
I shook my head vigorously. ‘There are a few places that take you if you’ve graduated from Realschule.’
‘But you haven’t,’ my father pointed out mildly.
‘I could go back,’ I said. ‘I could try for the Abitur at night school. My school marks were good.’
‘Yes, for written work,’ said my father.
He didn’t bother to say what we both knew, which was that I had ended up in the Hauptschule – the least academic type of German secondary school – because I had virtually never opened my mouth in class during my entire time in primary school. For four years I had flitted about the school like a little ghost, with my head down and my shoulders in a permanent hunch. When the class had had to memorize a poem to recite in front of the others I had clammed up, and stood in front of them with tight lips and tears trickling from the corners of my eyes. When the teachers spoke to me I looked at the floor. Even kindly Frau Richter, who ran the music classes, had been unable to give me a mark higher than a 3, because I never said anything in her lessons. At secondary school things had improved a little. By then, however, it was far too late to think of a place at a better school.
‘I can do better,’ I said, trying not to sound as though I were pleading. ‘I really want to try.’
My father put a large hand across the table and touched my clasped hands. ‘Steffi, it’s a good thing to want to improve yourself. But have you thought how you would manage your bakery studies and the hours in the kitchen if you were trying to study at night too?’
I took a deep breath. ‘I wouldn’t go on with the bakery course.’
‘I know you said that,’ said my father patiently. ‘But have you really thought about it?’
‘Of course I –’
‘Suppose you give up the course and go to night school to do your exams – what if you don’t get the grades you need? What then?’ He shook his head. ‘Even if you manage it, there’s no guarantee of a place to study anywhere.’
‘I still want to try,’ I said.
My father sighed. ‘Steffi, I don’t want to order you to go on with the course.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t order you, in fact. You’re practically grown up. But there are other considerations. You’re halfway through training. We can’t afford to take on another trainee in your place and support you while you study something else. The bakery isn’t making enough to do that. I’m sorry, because I don’t want to tell you no for reasons like that, but unfortunately that’s the way it is.’
I didn’t reply. I felt as though I were choking on the emotions which warred within me: disappointment, frustration and guilt. I could see perfectly well what my father was saying; if the money wasn’t there, it was completely impossible. I had upset my parents and I was no better off than before. In fact, I was worse off, because before I had had hope.
‘Look,’ said my father kindly, ‘your sister, Magdalena, wanted to be an actress, did I ever tell you that?’
I looked up in astonishment. My parents mentioned Magdalena so rarely that it was a shock to hear her name on my father’s lips.
‘No,’ I said.
‘She did,’ said my father. ‘But careers like that – if you can call them careers – singing, acting – they’re very uncertain. You probably think it’s easy –’ if my father saw me open my mouth to protest at that he gave no sign, but simply swept on – ‘but for every person who actually makes a living out of being a singer or an actress there are thousands who don’t.’
‘I don’t want to be rich,’ I said desperately.
‘You may not think you do,’ said my father. ‘But you have to live on something.’ He patted my hands. ‘You could continue with your bakery course and, if you still think you want to sing, why not join a choir?’
This was both undeniably sensible and deeply dispiriting. But I could not bring myself to assent to it. As soon as possible, I escaped to my room to think.
If I thought that was the end of the discussion, I had thought too soon, however. After supper my father went straight to bed. Within ten minutes the sound of his snoring was droning around the flat. I was sitting on my bed with the little bundle of euro notes in my hands, wondering if it would have made any difference if I had asked for five thousand euros instead of five hundred, or even fifty thousand. Suddenly the door opened and my mother entered the room, so precipitately that I barely had time to stuff the money under my pillow. I saw at one glance that she was livid with fury. She was still clad in the green dirndl and her blonde curls bounced smartly as she burst in, with somewhat the effect of snakes bristling around a Gorgon’s head. In spite of her anger she managed to remember to shut the door quietly so as not to wake my father.
‘Well, miss,’ she hissed. ‘I hope you’re pleased with yourself.’
I looked at her in astonishment.
‘You’re breaking your father’s heart.’
I could hear the snoring which floated around the flat, vibrating like a bass note. Thankfully it seemed he was not too heartbroken to sleep, though I dared not point this out. In fact, I realized as I looked at my mother’s furious face that it would probably be unwise to say anything at all. I had better let her scold me until she ran out of steam.
‘Do you know how long he’s worked in this bakery?’ my mother demanded. ‘Thirty years. Thirty years, since he took it over from old Kastenholz.’ She paused, her bosom heaving alarmingly in her white frilly blouse. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Well, I’ll tell you this, young lady. Don’t think you’re living off us if you throw it all away to do some ridiculous music course. You can pay your own way.’ She snorted. ‘I don’t think you’ll find it so easy then. You can’t live off musical notes. You might think about that.’
There was a lot more in the same vein. I sat on the bed with my cheeks burning and an uncomfortable consciousness of the roll of euro notes stuffed hastily under the pillow, a mere millimetre out of sight. I did my best to keep my face composed, sensing that if I cried or shouted back it would just make things worse. There was an unstable edge to my mother’s fury, as though it were feeding on some inner poison, but eventually her ranting wound down, like the batteries of an alarm clock someone has left to ring and ring.
‘Thirty years, all for nothing,’ she finished, and in a paroxysm of rage she lifted her right hand as though to slap me. A spasm passed over her face and I realized that she was holding herself back with the utmost difficulty. Then she actually stamped her foot, like an angry child, turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.
After a moment I got up and went to the open door. I looked out, but there was no sign of my mother. Either she had gone into my father’s room or she had shut herself up in the kitchen. Carefully I closed the door.
I sat down on the bed again, drawing out the hidden money from under the pillow. Five hundred euros. A lot of money, but not enough to live on. I held the notes in my hands, feeling their wrinkled texture, the tiny crumples in the paper. It was like touching skin. It worked for five hundred euros, I said to myself. Would it work if I asked for more?