Read Visitation for Free Online Page B

bougainvillea growing up the wall of the house and sending its blooms arching across the living room window.
     
     
    In the morning they drive east in the Adler, following the road that runs along the shore. Adler, says Arthur, the senior partner, quality German workmanship. Yes, he, Ludwig, says. They don’t deliver all the way out here do they?, his father asks. Sure they do, Ludwig replies, after all, they delivered to us, didn’t they? Beside him sits his mother Hermine, and in the back seat Arthur, his father, and Anna. Arthur and Hermine, Ludwig’s parents, have come to visit. Two weeks later they go home again. Anna has put on her white suit in honor of her in-laws. 1 jacket and 1 skirt (Peek & Cloppenburg), acquired for purposes of emigration, early 1936, 43 marks 70.
    Home. There’s a commotion on the property next door, the surveyors have arrived, a few workmen and their client, an architect from Berlin. He is standing there in knickerbockers and mimes a greeting. Heil . Here, I’ll give you a boost, says Ludwig, the uncle, to Doris, his niece. The pine tree has a sort of wooden hump around shoulder height, he lifts the child up and settles her there. So what do you see, he asks. A church tower, Doris says, pointing at the lake.
     
     
    Ah, the senior partner says, what a view. Like Paradise, says Hermine, his mother. Arthur and Hermine, Ludwig’s parents, have come to visit. For the photograph taken by some other vacationer, his—Ludwig’s—wife Anna perches on the hood of the Adler while Hermine, his mother, leans against the little wall behind which the mountain descends steeply to the sea. His father Arthur and he are standing behind the women. The mountain range on the far side of the bay becomes a backdrop that holds the four of them together. After lunch they’ll drive down to the lagoon and the beach, perhaps they’ll go swimming, the waters of the Indian Ocean are gentle and warm, quite different from the western coastline where the Atlantic Ocean rages. Two weeks later Arthur and Hermine, Ludwig’s parents, go home again.
     
     
    I don’t want to anymore, baby Elisabeth says in English and runs into the house. Elliot picks up the ball, lets it bounce a few times between his hand and the ground, and then he too goes inside. It’s so warm now in the house in the middle of summer that the candles on the Christmas tree are drooping again.
     
     
    Just imagine, the senior partner says, standing with his trouser legs rolled up in the warm water of the lagoon, my racing dinghy capsized this spring, right near the shore. Your father got into the water himself and helped right it again says Hermine, his mother. With rolled-up trouser legs in the Märkisches Meer. With rolled-up trouser legs in the Indian Ocean. The boy from the village who sailed it over from the boatyard was white as a sheet, his mother says. You have to keep in mind that he was under the boat for a moment. That frightened him. Arthur and Hermine, Ludwig’s parents, have come to visit. Two weeks later they go home again.
     
     
    Home. When it rains, you can smell the leaves in the forest and the sand. It’s all so small and mild, the landscape surrounding the lake, so manageable. The leaves and the sand are so close, it’s as if you might, if you wanted, pull them on over your head. And the lake always laps at the shore so gently, licking the hand you dip into it like a young dog, and the water is soft and shallow.
     
     
    Ludwig named the little girl Elisabeth after his own sister. As if his sister had slid so far beneath the Earth’s surface that she came out again on the other side, she slid through the entire Earth and that same year was given birth to by his wife on the other side of the world. And what about Elisabeth’s, his sister’s daughter Doris?
     
     
    The metal of the spade scrapes past pebbles, making a sharp sound on its way into the soil. To the left, on the property next door, a foundation is being dug.