Undercover

It was night-time when the train pulled into the town. All the way, it had been talk, talk, talk on Anja’s part, and a desperate longing for silence on Maren’s.

‘Home!’ Anja said as they disembarked. ‘I’ve missed it so much.  I’m sure you’ll see why I tell you about it all the time!’

‘Mm,’ said Maren, and followed her friend through the station.

Herr Teuffenbach was in the carpark to meet them, a short, merry, sharp-eyed man, as bow-legged and weather-beaten as the cheerful farmers in children’s books.

‘This is my friend Maren, from university,’ Anja said, beaming as though Maren were a special gift.

‘Anja’s mentioned you.’ Herr Teuffenbach pumped Maren’s hand up and down in his own warm, calloused one. ‘You’re studying law? And you’re from Stuttgart?’

‘That’s right.’ Maren was surprised. She hadn’t realised she’d be a topic of conversation for Anja’s family.

‘Anja says you’ve never visited our region before.’

‘That’s correct,’ Maren confirmed, wishing that for once she could loosen the clamp of her reserve.

She saw little of the route to the Teuffenbach farm except an expanse of luminous white fields. The farmhouse, a timber-framed red brick structure with a thatched roof and carvings protruding from its gables, seemed adrift on endless acres. Its outlines loomed at her, blurred in the snow-laden air.

‘It’s huge!’

‘That’s because it’s living quarters, barn and byre, all under one roof.  We live at one end, and some of our animals live at the other end.’

Maren was shown into a large kitchen with a scratched-looking table and chairs, adjoining a living room full of battered armchairs and sofas. Wood predominated and ancient antlers were fixed to the walls.

‘This is my friend Maren from university,’ Anja announced, putting her arm around her guest. Anja was the most tactile woman Maren had ever known, and the most effortlessly attractive, with caramel-blond hair to her waist, and large amber eyes. Maren was proud to be accepted by someone so universally admired but often found Anja’s insouciant ripeness rather trying. The men listening covertly to every word Anja said on the train, the reverent lechery with which the conductor had checked Anja’s bosom instead of her ticket; it was all part of the same familiar, irksome syndrome.

Anja introduced the clan: her birdlike mother with work-stained clothing, and a dizzying array of siblings, all variations on the theme of blond hair and brown eyes. 

‘This is Rolf…’ A gawky boy of seventeen with a protuberant Adam’s apple gave Maren a nod.

‘Holger, Stefan…’ Tawny-haired twins of fifteen or sixteen grinned at her, then rushed back to their card game.

‘Katharina, Lena, Hanna, Sabine…’ Four little girls with honey-coloured mops gaped at Maren as though she were a unicorn.

But Maren was already past taking in any more names or faces. By contrast with her own family of three, the crowd of Teuffenbachs seemed too tall and hardy, too alive. ‘I didn’t realise your family was this big. How many of you are there?’

‘Fifteen children. Udo, Ursula, Heike and Klaus-Maria are married and don’t live at home anymore.’

‘You must be one of the biggest families in Germany!’

Who on earth needs that many children? Maren wondered. Frau Teuffenbach’s nether regions must be shaped like a train tunnel.

Eventually the family wandered back to their knitting, reading and games, and Herr Teuffenbach settled into an armchair to watch the evening news.

‘That’s Johannes,’ Anja said, indicating the only member of the family who hadn’t risen to greet Maren.

A man in his late twenties sat by himself, cramming bread into his ill-tempered-looking mouth. He gave Maren a nod and turned his sad, assessing eyes away.

As always when she encountered new people, Maren was comparing herself.  It was a taxing occupation, identifying new categories to use, and a good distraction from impending anxiety. This family was rural as opposed to suburban.  Traditionalist rather than modern. From a flat farming plain – she was used to a view of hills. Farmers, not civil servants. Catholic, not Protestant.

‘We’ve got fresh onion bread,’ Frau Teuffenbach said.

‘Thank you, but I’d prefer to eat in the morning.’

Frau Teuffenbach didn’t quite manage to conceal a twitch of disapproval. Only effete, not particularly useful individuals can afford to waft around with insufficient nourishment, it seemed to imply. Nevertheless, she said, ‘Come and sit here. This is a nice, cosy corner.’ She directed Maren towards the meeting point of the built-in seating which ran along two sides of the kitchen. Nearby, a stove decorated with painted tiles was beating out heat.

‘I thought it was time Maren saw a real farm,’ Anja told her mother. ‘She thinks we run around with hay hanging out of our mouths, breeding with our cousins  and only socialising with cows, so I’ve brought her here to educate her.’  She turned to Maren with a smile. ‘You’ll see we’ve even got the internet!’

‘Are you saying I’m a suburban snob?’ Maren laughed. She liked Anja the most in those rare moments when she showed a bit of bite.

Frau Teuffenbach looked less amused. ‘How did you two meet?’

‘At trampolining club.’

A few weeks after Gérard had broken up with Maren, she’d spotted him strolling near the university with Anja. From behind a tree, she’d observed him kiss Anja and felt her intestines reconfigure themselves. Two weeks later, she’d happened to see Anja entering the trampolining club. It was good luck that Maren enjoyed the sport. 

To begin with, she’d merely been curious about the woman who’d replaced her. Then she’d recognised that Anja had the potential to become a friend, a resource which didn’t abound in Maren’s life. Most importantly, Anja had become a conduit. Gérard eschewed social media, and the only way to stay informed about his life was through a personal connection. Anja’s casual updates gave Maren a tenuous link with her lost love, one that she couldn’t bear to break.

‘I’m so hungry!’ Anja declared. For a moment, Maren wondered whether she was making a point. But the enthusiastic way in which she launched herself at the table proved that this was no coded gibe about Maren’s lack of lust for life, her uptight attitude towards her weight or her excess of self-control. Anja’s desire for food was part of her sensuality. It was she, Maren, who was the pointed one, full of covert messages, complicated aims and self-reproaches. And it was she who was sensitive to the tunings of others, whereas Anja usually seemed as oblivious as the smooth surface of a milky pudding.

Maren observed with astonishment as Anja disposed of a lengthy caravan of foodstuffs: slices of bread covered with Schinken, Bierwurst, Tilsiter cheese and Quark, then, in no particular order, salad, apple cake, yogurt and fruit. 

If I consumed that much, Maren thought, I’d look like a pea pod with a shock of black hair. But Anja burns it up like fuel in a racing car, just by sitting around being beautiful.

‘Liebling, it’s so good to have you home!’ Frau Teuffenbach sat down so close to her daughter that their thighs touched. ‘It hasn’t been the same without you!’

‘I feel the same way,’ Anja said, and laid her cheek against her mother’s.

The intimacy made Maren lower her eyes. She couldn’t help thinking of her own mother, Mechthild, with her red and ginger hairstyle and superbly-cut suits. She couldn’t imagine Mechthild sitting close enough to her for their thighs to touch. Nor would her father, Hartmut, have greeted her with so many kisses at a railway station. His dispassionate way of peering at her over his wire-rimmed spectacles often made her wonder whether he was her father at all.

Maren tried to concentrate on the conversation, but it took effort. She’d been in city-centre train stations which were more peaceful at rush hour. Children charged to and fro and wrangled. She heard savage miaowing. Herr Teuffenbach snapping, ‘Stefan, leave that cat alone! Holger, stop cheating! Every time Steffi looks at the cat, you look at his cards! Rolf, take off those muddy boots, and Arne, wipe up that puddle of milk. I can’t hear the news!’

Meanwhile, Frau Teuffenbach buried her hands in Anja’s hair. ‘My treasure, how’s Gérard?’

‘Fine,’ Anja said, slathering another piece of rye bread with butter, and ladling herring and beetroot salad onto it.

‘Such a nice young man. So handsome. And he comes from such a pleasant family. They produce excellent wine,’ Frau Teuffenbach told Maren. ‘The problems aren’t so different for farmers, whether they’re French or German.’

Maren stared at the table, registering the familiar shredded sensation which
arose in her whenever Gérard’s name was mentioned.

‘He came to see me last weekend,’ Anja told her mother.

Maren had known Gérard was coming back from France to visit Anja. Since she and Anja lived in the same neighbourhood, not far from the Rhine, Maren had made a point of stocking up on food and staying in her flat for three whole days. She would have liked nothing more than to patrol up and down outside the cream-and-yellow Wilhelminian townhouse which Anja shared with other students, but she’d controlled herself. Who’d have thought a late-night conversation with a French PhD student could have such dire and lasting consequences?

‘How was he?’ Maren asked, trying to keep her voice neutral. She felt that quicksilver throbbing in her heart, which most of the time was comatose. She’d battled to avoid imagining entanglements on Anja’s bed. She’d done everything she could not to dwell on Gérard’s effective personal style of lovemaking. Without success. Some thoughts were not to be evaded. Oh, how she missed his light-hearted gregariousness. The social life which formed around him organically, which he’d shared with her, and which she found so hard to create for herself. Her unasked questions were loosening themselves. Is he happy? Does he sleep well? Does he still have that red shirt he loves?  It must be fading to pink by now. They had to be suppressed by sheer force of effort.

‘He looks fantastic,’ Anja said. ‘So brown and healthy.’

Maren tried to calm herself by drinking a glass of mineral water and counting in her head.

‘Mama!’ Lena or Katharina materialised at Frau Teuffenbach’s side, sobbing.  ‘She’s picking on me again!’

‘Who’s picking on you, little mouse?’ Frau Teuffenbach asked, pulling the girl onto her lap.

‘That nasty Hanna!’

Did I used to sit on my mother’s lap like that? Maren wondered. If so, she couldn’t remember it.

‘Stop bothering your sister, Hanna,’ Frau Teuffenbach called. ‘Holger, bring the biscuit tin back! I hope you haven’t left crumbs all over the living room like Hansel and Gretel! And Sabine, remember, it’s only a jigsaw!’
I don’t know how anybody in this household can ever finish a single thought,
Maren muttered internally. I don’t know how any of them stays sane.

‘Is it time to start planning the wedding?’ Frau Teuffenbach asked.

Anja tilted her head. ‘Not quite, Mama.’ Her coy smile said that it was only a matter of time.

‘There’s nothing more wonderful,’ Frau Teuffenbach said, ‘Than knowing you’ve found your man for life!’

Maren couldn’t listen to any more. She dripped some Mechthild-style acid into her tone. ‘So, you’re actually engaged to this person?’

Mechthild was often scathing on the subject of matrimony, not on the concept of a formal contract between a man and a woman – after all, she lived within one herself – but on the dismal and demeaning ways in which quite a few individuals conducted their marriages.

Frau Teuffenbach stiffened and Anja shot Maren such a strange look that Maren wondered – Does she know?  But would Anja have invited her here if she did?  The disturbing moment passed.

‘Of course!’ Anja said. ‘I love him, he loves me…’

‘But an engagement…’ Such an antiquated bourgeois concept, Maren’s tone said.  Oh, I’m a disgusting hypocrite!

---

Anja showed Maren to a room in the roof. The bed turned out to be a box of feather quilts with a cross on the wall behind it. The wooden floor was bare apart from a plain red rug, and the wardrobe was an antique decorated with painted blossoms.  She’d never been in a room of such rustic simplicity before. To her own disconcerted surprise, she liked it. Clearly, there was no pressure in this household to keep up with the shiny modern life which her own parents valued. There was something refreshing about that.

‘Isn’t this nice?’ Anja asked, wearing her habitual complacent smile.

‘Yes. And your family are very hospitable.’  Maren climbed into bed.  If only there was something she could genuinely reproach Anja for.

It was bewildering that her impulses of dislike seemed to remain not only unreturned but undetected. It also puzzled her that after such an impulse, she was capable of feeling affection for Anja moments later. She was never sure whether she was being a friend to her enemy or an enemy to her friend.

This confusion and the resulting guilt were, of course, her own fault. There ought to be guidelines written on the sky: Never make friends with the love of your life’s future wife.  It will break not only your heart but your brain.

‘Well?’

‘All super nice,’ Maren said, and yawned.  ‘Please let me go to sleep, OK?’

Once Anja was gone, Maren fumed, not knowing which of them she should be angriest with. This was what her obsession had led her to: becoming a spy whose main discovery was that she didn’t like herself much.

---

When she awoke the next morning, the clan had dispersed, Johannes to deliver a calf, Rolf to mend a gatepost. Anja’s mother was in the kitchen, pouring sharp-smelling pickles into jars.

‘You’re up, sleepyhead!’ Anja cried, bursting into the kitchen.  She’d tied her mane into a ponytail.  ‘We’ve so much work to do!’

‘What kind of work?’ Maren asked suspiciously.

‘We’ve got to make a cake,’ Anja said, bouncing up and down on her heels as if she could imagine no greater joy.

Maren chewed her rolls and jam as slowly as she could. Brought here to do so-called “women’s work” and feed meaty, red-faced farmer boys...

Anja exploded into a frenzy of activity, breaking eggs, chucking cupfuls of flour and sugar into a bowl without measuring, her arms working away as fast as the blades of a mixer.

‘Aren’t you using a recipe?’

‘I don’t need to.  This cake has been baked in this house for a hundred years.  It’s a tradition.’

Maren was relieved when the showy exertion and sinew-flexing were over, and Anja’s masterpiece was finally in the oven.

‘I’ll give you a tour of the farm and we’ll feed the chickens,’ Anja said.

‘Great.’ Maren meant to be insincere but realised with a tinge of alarm that she was interested after all.

---

The sky was an icy blue and Anja was illuminated with pride at the rambling acres, the soft-eyed cattle, and the two barns bearing inscriptions: “Anno 1802, built by Wilhelm Knosp and his wife Irmengard”.

Young boys whose names Maren had already forgotten milled around them, clambered up piles of tyres with the grace of apes and, in one case, performed acrobatics on the top of a tractor cab.

When the boys had moved away, wearing sheepish grins, Anja said to Maren, ‘My brothers think you’re pretty. They like slim women with dark hair.’ She picked up a piece of hay and stroked Maren’s cheek with it. ‘I think you’d look fine if you pinned up your hair.’

As Anja walked ahead of her, Maren hung back for a few moments, fighting mingled annoyance and a frisson of pleasure.

Feeding the chickens turned out to be enjoyable and so did listening to Anja’s description of farming methods.

‘This is a whole world of its own,’ Maren said.

‘Yes. My family own everything you can see. We’ve had this land for two hundred and seventy-two years. Welcome to the Kingdom of Teuffenbach.’

Not even a hint of irony, Maren reflected.

Frau Teuffenbach was digging up mulch-bound turnips, treading the blade of her shovel into the earth and loosening it with waggles of her frail-looking arms. ‘Na, you two. It’s time to prepare lunch.’

Once again Maren felt a flare of resistance. Why did they automatically assume she’d adopt the traditional female role of domestic slave? Mechthild would be appalled.

Trying to hide her irritation and not slice off any fingers, Maren helped to grate white cabbage, boil turnips, mix a dressing with raw onion and wine vinegar, make dumplings for soup and cut pork into fillets. She was aghast at the quantities.

The last person to appear for the meal was Johannes of the bitter eyes, bringing with him an air of disgruntled gloom.

Everyone spoke at once, in thick dialect overlaid with terms of their own devising. This is what it means to belong to a large family, Maren thought: they have their own language. They don’t worry about whether anyone else can understand them because they don’t need anyone else. They ought to have their own flag!

‘Did you understand everything we were saying?’ Anja asked afterwards, as if the dialect were her own clever invention.

‘Just about.’

‘That’s good!  Now it’s time for an afternoon rest.’

To Maren’s surprise bordering on consternation, Anja’s parents lay down, one on either side of the L-shaped eating area and wriggled towards one another so that the tops of their heads were touching.

‘Do your parents always do that?’ she asked, as she and Anja were leaving the kitchen.

‘Of course!’

Maren realised that she was moved by the sight. Mealtimes in her home were often terse affairs. In the morning, her parents would be hidden behind newspapers, in the evening there might be an exchange of political views. Almost everything Maren knew about their relationship was based on facts; on the fact that they’d chosen to marry, on the fact that they were still together.

She was mulling this over when Johannes stalked into the hallway, his face contorted. ‘Monika’s “coming to get some things”. The unbelievable nerve!’

‘Oh, dear God,’ Frau Teuffenbach moaned. ‘I was afraid this would happen.’

Herr Teuffenbach spoke with iron calm. ‘Let’s get it over with in a civilised manner.’

‘I don’t see why I should cooperate!’ Johannes shouted. ‘After the way she’s behaved?’

‘We can’t withhold her property. Go into town and stay there for a few hours, all right?’

Johannes stormed out, slamming the door behind him. His truck roared out of the farmyard fast enough to leave shreds of rubber behind.

‘What on earth –‘ Maren began, but Anja silenced her with a shake of the head and  led her outside.

‘It upsets my parents so much. Johannes married Monika two months ago. A few days after the wedding she left him for another man.’  

‘Your poor brother.’ Maren felt more sympathetic than she had towards anyone in a long time, but the wish to be kind was soon replaced by an urge to provoke. ‘I can imagine how he feels.’

Anja turned her head and gave Maren a surprisingly penetrating glance. 

‘Why didn’t she tell him earlier?’ Maren asked.

‘Perhaps she couldn’t face disappointing everybody.’

‘So, after the wedding was less disappointing than before?’ Maren shook her head. ‘Didn’t Johannes suspect anything?’

There was a sudden shiver in the air, and Anja’s eyes seemed to harden. ‘Since when have human beings ever been in the habit of giving up their most cherished dreams, even if they’re bound to end in disaster?’

---

Maren pleaded a headache and went to lie down. She considered begging for a lift to the train station but talked herself out of it. She’d have to offer a convincing explanation, something which felt beyond her powers.

A couple of hours later, Anja appeared, bearing a tray of milk and biscuits. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘A bit.’

‘Let’s cheer ourselves up.  Don’t you love looking at photos?’

Before Maren could express an aversion to pictorial nostalgia, two albums had been dumped on her lap, overflowing with pictures of Teuffenbachs, fooling around in snow, gambolling in sunshine, playing with endearing animals and posing hand-in-hand with first boy- and girlfriends.

‘You look like such a happy child,’ Maren said.

‘Children are always happy, aren’t they?’

Maren could have contradicted Anja, could have become angry that someone could reach their twenties and still make such a statement, but she didn’t bother. It was no wonder Anja was always so secure and optimistic, that she took her place in the world and the love of others for granted and received what she expected to. A man was bound to prefer that kind of voluptuous confidence. Maren had to accept that some horses were reared to run faster, and some people were formed for happiness and good luck.

A compensatory thought struck her. She knew her own failings: negativity and a tendency to self-pity. She struggled against them, so far without success. But she did have resilience. Take away Anja’s buttressing of love, and how resilient would she be?  Not very, Maren suspected. For a moment, Maren was filled with a sincere hope that Anja would never be exposed to the harsher side of life without the comfort of her family.

Then she found herself looking at a picture of Gérard, stretched out on a glaring rock in Provence. The physical beauty which made everyone want a shred of him, even she, who’d always been so cerebral, shattered her heart again, sending splinters of grief into every part of her. She was pitiful, scraping around in the dust like one of the Teuffenbachs’ chickens, scratching for a phrase recounted from one of his letters, a glimpse in someone else’s photo album.  I’ve made myself sick over him!

Anja looked up from the photo. ‘It still rankles, doesn’t it? The end of your engagement.’ Maren felt as if Anja had assaulted her. ‘Gérard told me about it. We saw you in the street once, months before I met you in person, and he told me who you were. He said the two of you realised you’d made a mistake. Then I met you and I thought, why make it an issue? I like your sharpness, your opinions, and you make me laugh. I’ve wanted to be your friend. I thought we could get past the history. But bringing you here has made me realise it’s not going to work, is it?’

‘Well…’ Maren said, beginning to make a mental list of counterarguments even as she recognised the perversity of doing so. ‘Sometimes the thing with Gérard doesn’t matter so much,’ she lied, feeling sadder and guiltier than she would ever have thought possible.

‘It’s a shame.  I’ll always like you, but sometimes liking isn’t enough, is it? I wish you the best.’ Anja kissed Maren on the cheek, and Maren closed her eyes, considering what a blessing it was to have friendship bestowed and registering the loss as it was withdrawn. The honesty of this moment had brought them closer to the behaviour of real friends than anything which had gone before. She felt sad, but at least now she was free of the burden of deception.

---

Anja waved as the train left the platform, bearing Maren back towards the university life which would bind them ever more loosely.

Maren would never know how life would treat the one she loved. She’d move
further and further through time, Gérard becoming a receding point in her memory, and she and Anja would refuse invitations from mutual friends.

If their paths crossed, they might smile at one another.

Or they might not.

THE END