Field Study by Rachel Seiffert Read Free Book Online

Hannah is glad this is happening. Not that her father-in-law is ill, and that her husband is unhappy, but that she is hearing Jochen talk about it all. That life before she know him, which never seemed hidden until now, when so much is being revealed.
    – I’m glad she did it, you know. Took us with her.
    Bad enough with him as a father-at-a-distance; life would have been intolerable with him as a father-close-up.
    – He wasn’t interested in us. What we liked doing, what we thought about things. We just didn’t exist like that for him.
    Jochen’s harsh tones are not always easy to bear, but Hannah persists, hoping he might tell her something that will help her understand where this rawness comes from.
    – Maybe that’s because you didn’t live with him?
    – No. Ask Karl. He’s older, remembers more. No, It was like that even before we left.
    That they had no problems leaving the East is final proof for Jochen. Of his father’s lack of love. He had his connections, her husband insists, he was not unimportant. Thousands of people put in applications to visit relatives in the West every year, only a fraction were granted. Pensioners were allowed to go: no longer useful, and Jochen thinks they fell into that category. The authorities were paranoid, controlling, but they were not stupid, he says. His mother’s application was approved very quickly, although it was obvious to all that she would never return. Hannah stares out at the New York roadscape, listening, not questioning or interjecting, but if she is honest, she finds Jochen’s logic a little difficult to follow.
    – You always say you’re glad to have grown up in the West.
    – That’s not the point, Hannah. He didn’t care. He didn’t want us.
    It is this aspect that Hannah finds most implausible. After his speech at their wedding, her new father-in-law askedher to dance. Jochen had warned her that he would be difficult, had not told her that he could also be so nice. He spoke with her for a long time about her work, her family, her hopes for the future. Made it clear that he liked her, found her interesting.
    – As a person, you know. Not just as his son’s wife.
    Hannah says that to her husband, watches his reaction in the rear-view mirror. The sad eyes, the shrug.
    __
    What little she knows of her husband’s father is that he is a communist.
    – Old. Even when I was young. Fifty when I was born.
    1965. Hannah counts backwards to 1915 and then upwards again. Eighteen in 1933. She doesn’t ask what happened to him under Hitler, knows only two things: that it was probably bad and that he survived.
    __
    – Oh enough now, boring, let’s change the subject.
    – Christ, J. Why do you always say that? What is that all about?
    They used to argue like this a lot, when they first started living together. Whenever they talked about Germany, which they used to do frequently because reunificationwas in all the newspapers and Hannah was interested and often brought it up.
    – I mean it’s complicated. Not really interesting unless you’re German, I guess.
    – No. No, that’s just it. The conversation will just be getting really interesting, and then you kill it with your lame this-is-getting-boring excuse.
    – It’s not an excuse.
    – Yes it is. It is. You say you can’t explain it, but really you mean you don’t want to. And because I’m not German and won’t understand anyway, it means you don’t have to. Period.
    And most of the time, Hannah would succeed in making her own full stop in the argument that way, and what she took to be thoughtful silence would follow. Until the evening Jochen called her bluff.
    – I don’t want to talk about Nazis with you, Hannah.
    He said it calmly, matter of fact.
    – We talk about Germany. We start with reunification, or with my parents, and within five minutes we’re talking about Nazis. I just don’t want to do it. Enough.
    A direct announcement which had Hannah quickly on the defensive.
    – But