Der Alte Mann

The heavy raindrops were drumming on the thick glass of windows, making a dull unvoiced sound, which accentuated the monotonous life in a sparsely populated suburb. The sky was crowded with bulky clouds, who looked like as though they were filled with lead. I was looking into the desolated garden which was kept in such condition with the efforts of my ingenious wife; the ground was now turned into slush, the verdure which grew meagerly and was scattered about the ground, now turned into sordid mess. I was looking through the muddy thick pane until I felt the boredom which forced me to the kitchen. It was dark and somber in the kitchen and it was lighted with weak dim light which came from the curtained windows. I opened the refrigerator with my healthy left arm without turning on the lamp-bracket; the electric light from the refrigerator was more than enough. I took out two cold bottles of cheap Bavarian beer, which pleasantly chilled my rough hands as I touched the cool glass filled with goldish liquid with feculence covering the bottom. I took a sip – the refrigerant tipple became a lump in my throat, but only for a second, and still there was the same boredom and feeling of inescapable ennui.
 A nerve-racking sound of a slamming door came to me from the verandah, muffled by the distance. I slowly took another sip, as if I was trying to preserve the tranquility which was about to be interrupted.
 - Honey, I did not find the pliers that you were looking for at the jumble-shop.
 - So you got it at the hardware shop?
I saw a light confusion that touched her wrinkled face. What kind of logic should you possess in order to look for the pliers at the jumble shop while the hardware shop, where you will definitely find them, is located less than one hundred feet down the street? Or is there something that most women don’t know due to the needlessness of such objects in their everyday routine? Or it is just me and I cavil about minor points?
Only now I noticed that she was still carrying a great deal of various bags and packages and was standing on the threshold in her topcoat spotted with dark raindrops. I felt a slight feeling of pity and regret appearing, which disappeared when I realized that all this was done in order to provoke me to display all my gallantry, courteously take her heavy coat off so she would see me conducting myself with honor as a true gentleman as she always wanted me to see during all our twenty-year cohabitation. Then there would be sloppy sentimentalities coming after, with enclosed courting and addresses, which no longer seemed suitable for our particular age and status. This fact was hard for her to perceive, since she was trying to retain her fading beauty and her aging mind with all the strength that she had left. So did me, with the only difference that I realized that the growing apathy was impossible to restrain. Nonetheless, my innermost individual believed that I still was in the process, but not in the end, and it was true.
 I helped her to unlade the contents of her bags, which consisted of petty household stuff, such as a corkscrew, a box of assorted nails, or a simple hand device applied to squeezing the juice from garlic.
As though she could guess what was on my mind, she flapped her fake eyelashes as if she would try to add intrigue, which was definitely a superfluous thing, and civilly explained:
 - All this domestic stuff that I bought is necessary for our tomorrow’s guests.
That was a little interesting. I knew she would never inform me about any news that she kept, and she would like me to stay ignorant until the last moment, so she would be able to present me a “surprise, in order to add exhilaration to our married life”, as she often justified her injudicious actions.
 - What guests, honey? – I pretended to be astonished.
She cracked a smile, revealing her yellowed teeth.
 - Haven’t I told ya? My cousin. She will probably grab her daughter.
This circumstance did not rouse my interest. Ilse used to unadvisedly invite her incalculable relatives into our house without putting me in the picture.
The wet weather outside had a somnolent effect and the tedious tune that the raindrops made when collapsed into the aluminum sill rail made me feel starved of sleep. I spoke the word about going to bed. She nodded her head and began taking off her outer garments behind my back. Sometimes I would turn my head in order to glance at her stout creasy body, at her plump coarse arms and at her heavy flabby breasts. A couple of minutes later I was already lying in a double bed under the wool blanket and the howling wind outside served me as a lullaby. As I was closing my eyes and steeping in slumber, I felt her prehensile fingers exploring my genitals.
The sound of frizzling has awaked me. It was definitely something cooking in the kitchen; I could smell it in my sleep. It was a necessary part of my Saturday morning – every Saturday Ilse prepared breakfast for me herself, just like she used to do twenty years ago, just like she saw it done in soap operas she enjoyed watching after 6 PM.
I started getting up leisurely. I made my way into the bathroom where I would begin another morning of a retired engineer. As I closed the locker with a mirror hanging on it after taking out the razor and the shaving mousse, I involuntarily caught my reflection in the mirror. I saw an image of a 55-year old man with thin pallid lips with their corners turned down. My beetling brows gave me a sullen expression that looked almost ironically in the combination with my receding hairline and small lines that cut through my loose cheeks. The pilgarlic touched the middle of my head, leaving islets of shaggy grizzled hair on each side of it.
 - Honey, don’t forget to fix up the window-curtain in the room I keep for Heidi.
At this time her request was absolutely ill-timed, since I experienced a trouble while trying to masturbate with my left hand, for my right hand was half-paralyzed, which was a source of my discomfort and a reason for my premature retirement.
I soon gave up unavailing attempts to satisfy myself, and, fastening the fly on my way out, I headed to the kitchen from where the growing palatable savour was coming.
My breakfast usually consisted of fried eggs with runny yolks that were always hard to pick with a fork, slices of sausage with glossy rind, crisp toast and a cup of hot strong coffee, which I preferred to be sugarless. As I was enjoying my light meal I read the daily newspaper which kept me aware of actions of small-time racketeers as well as of political machinations within the Bundestag and Bundesrat. It was hard to guess whether the journalists embellished and distorted the truth due to their personal disposition or due to their own lack of knowledge. Nonetheless, it provided me with information; I mostly gave attention to articles about misfortunes of Thatchers girls and runaway backfisches. I was reading another terse summary about a bobbysoxer who escaped to the street away from her brutish father and got raped by a vagrant, when I heard:
 - Friedrich, I would like the curtains to be hanged today.
After a short pause:
 - Please.
I put the newspaper aside. The work I was expected to do consisted in nailing the wooden board above the windows in a medium-sized room with two beds, two dressing tables, a chair and a polished table in it. The board would be first barely hanged on the crooks and then nailed firmly to the wall so Ilse would be able to put the cobweb on it. She believed that would make the inhabited room more comfortable and cozy; for me it was a trifling and an ordeal for my unhealthy hand which I could apply only to holding the tacks when working with a hammer. “You only find a reason for idling”, - I thought to myself. I was somewhat angry at Ilse for she told me to hang the curtains just before the arrival of her relative. “Let Ilse’s flippancy be the reason for me for not doing the work. Let her be punished”. Reassuring myself this way, I went into the sitting room where I