Read Hausfrau for Free Online Page B

fussy and still troubled by her tooth. Anna looked at her daughter and wished she’d just stop crying.
    Dietlikon doesn’t lack for shopping. On the south side ofthe railroad tracks, a comprehensive—and for a town whose population barely hit seven thousand residents, obscene—selection of eateries, shops, and services: an electronics store, an IKEA, a very large home improvement store. There is a Toys “R” Us, an Athleticum, a few shoe stores, a fish market, and a nail salon. There is a multiplex cinema with stadium seating, a Qualipet, a bowling alley, a store that specializes in horse tack, a car wash, a pizzeria, a shop for baby furniture, a low-end department store, and a Mexican restaurant. There are several trendy teen fashion boutiques, a gas station, a pharmacy, an adult movie store, a health food store, and in addition to the Coop on Industriestrasse, there’s a Coop City one block over where, along with groceries, you can find household accoutrements, clothes, health and beauty products, toys and games. Everything a body could desire positioned to fit inside a few convenient blocks of commerce girdled by a bus route. It is a close, closed circle of small needs and petty wants.
    A circle inside of a circle inside of another one.
Anna couldn’t imagine what looking beyond the tightly circumscribed world in which she lived might entail.
    Anna and Ursula shared a complicated relationship. Ursula was a weave of consistent inconsistencies. At times she was devout, open to interaction, easygoing, generous, and helpful. Other instances found her apathetic, impossible to impress, aggressively punctual, blank-faced, and angry. Those were the instances she shared most frequently with Anna.
    Mother has moods, too,
Bruno said.
    “W HEN A PERSON ’ S MOOD is out of balance, psyche will always attempt to bring it back into equilibrium. An unconscious oppositewill emerge. Tensions seek slackening. Sadness clings to any elevated state it can find. Boredom searches for activity. There is a correlation between the severity of a person’s moods and a lack of self-knowledge. Notwithstanding,” Doktor Messerli added, “a clinical diagnosis of a mood disorder.”
    Had Anna ever been more talkative or spoken faster than usual? Had she ranged from great doubt to overconfidence? Had there been times when she felt both elated and depressed at once? Doktor Messerli asked the questions too quickly for Anna to absorb them, so she replied simply, “Sometimes I feel sad. Sometimes I feel anxious.” Doktor Messerli responded by writing her a prescription for a mild tranquilizer.
    T HE C OOP ON I NDUSTRIESTRASSE was, as Anna had known it would be, heaving with people. Ursula and Anna each had a list. Polly Jean was herself preoccupied in eyeing, with an infant’s appropriate misgiving, the conflux of shoppers who made the wide rounds of the store.
    They were in the produce aisle. Ursula was vetting nectarines. She inspected nearly twenty before settling on the four pieces of fruit she decided to carry home. Anna was considering the mushrooms when she felt a buzzing in the pocket of her jacket. It was her Handy, her cell phone. She reached for it, flipped open its clamshell, and answered without looking to see who had called. “Hello?”
    It was Archie. He didn’t want to wait the weekend to talk to her.
Come into town, Anna,
he said.
Come over.
Ursula glanced at her daughter-in-law but returned her attention just as quickly to the nectarines. Anna was silent.
Are you there? Hello?
    “Edith, glad you called.” Anna spoke flatly. She didn’t miss a beat. Ursula returned and set her sack of nectarines in the cart.
Edith Hammer,
Anna mouthed. Ursula shrugged and turned away, pushing Polly’s stroller off toward the celery and the leeks.
    “You aren’t alone?”
    Anna continued. “We’ll talk Monday, yes?” Anna was flattered. Anna was annoyed. Ursula lifted a bag of green beans in her left hand and motioned Anna to follow her