Laura Freudenthaler: Die Königin schweigt.

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Review

The Queen Stays Silent.
Sample text:

When the teacher had asked Fanny to become his wife, everyone in the village had thought that they suited each other well. Their wedding was the first to take place in the newly built stone church in the village. She had felt, Fanny said, as if on that day she would be crowned queen. The roof of the little chapel was a broad dome, and the organ could be heard right across the fields, where nobody was working, because everyone had come to see the teacher and Fanny getting married. Everyone agreed that there had never been such a fine bridal couple. Your grandfather was a handsome man, Fanny told her granddaughter. Where is grandfather, the child asked, when she heard that for the first time. He's been dead for a long time, Fanny said, as if it had just occurred to her at that moment. She did not notice that she had remained silent until she had again emerged from her thoughts. The child was sitting in front of her and watching her. Fanny often had the strange feeling that the child knew what had gone on in the past in the village where she had never been. As if she could see the images without Fanny having to tell her about them. She was a little princess. Your grandfather was a schoolmaster, Fanny said to her granddaughter, who liked the word. On the day of her wedding Fanny moved from the farm in the hollow into the schoolhouse, which stood up on the hill. From then on she was called the schoolmaster's wife. Fanny furnished the teacher's rooms on the first floor and began to cultivate the vegetable garden behind the schoolhouse. From the garden she would have been able to look out over the hollow, if the old dairy had not blocked the view. In the old days the steward of the estate had lived in the dairy, now the forestry and sawmill workers lived there. Fanny felt as though she had been moving under a thick cloud when she moved onto the hill. Whenever she stood in the vegetable garden and looked out over the plain and at the dairy which stood in front of the hollow, Fanny suddenly took a deep breath and noticed that before that she had been holding her breath. The priest, who like her was a new arrival, liked to visit Fanny in the schoolhouse. They talked about the schoolchildren, who did not get enough to eat, and Fanny said that she could do school dinners. After all, she had attended a domestic science college. The priest said that Fanny was the best educated woman in the village. She didn't know whether he was making fun of her, but by the next time that he came he had been asking around and said that the Church would support Fanny. He called her virtuous and was offended when Fanny laughed at that. Fanny told her husband about these plans. Because the teacher did not want the priest to get above himself he made sure that Fanny also got allocations of food from the Party to be able to cook for the children. The priest thought that a red party membership book was out of place here in the country. Fanny said that didn't matter to her as long as the children got something to eat.

(p. 44f.)

The longer Fanny waited in the dark, the stranger things became. She was lying in her marital bed, over the school kitchen on the ground floor and next to the children's room, where Toni was sleeping. Opposite in the old diary was Liese. Fanny was thinking about what she would cook the next day, and realised that she no longer knew. She didn't know what she would cook the next day, and she no longer knew at all how one cooked anything. She did not believe that her garden was still there. Fanny pushed the pillow to one side and jerked herself up in the bed, so that her head touched the wood. Father never stayed so long in the inn. Father did not go to the inn at all. Fanny ran her hand over her eyes. She thought the name Toni and about her brother. He was at a dance, probably with his Maria. No, Fanny pressed her fingers against the bones over her eyes. Toni, the boy, the little one, was lying in the next room. She herself was the mother, Toni's mother. Fanny got up. She did not find her way, the door was in the wrong place, and Fanny knocked her knee on the bed. She went into the kitchen, because she did not find the room with the child, and when she finally did reach his bed, Toni was lying there with his eyes open and looking at her. Fanny said his name, she sat down beside him and touched him, his hand and his warm cheek, his neck with the fold under the chin, and at last she remembered. Sleep, she said, sleep, and then she went away again and lay down in her marital bed and tried to think about what she would cook the next day.

(p. 86)