The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t like to talk about myself—it was only thanks to Mr. Knox that I had conversation in English. As I hastily gathered my books, Herr Elias said to me, “Don’t think that you’llescape every time, Fräulein,” and he and Caspar had a good laugh, irritating me, as I couldn’t imagine that Caspar had understood him.
    The next day, Herr Elias lit a cigarette, and the two men (Caspar arriving just in time) settled themselves at the library table. Kreck brought a pot of black-currant tea and seed cake each afternoon, and Herr Elias poured himself a cup of tea.
    I hadn’t slept, writing and then learning my speech by heart, and I was a bit shaky. I pushed back my chair and began. “I was taught to fish by Mr. Hugh Knox when I was a child, using my grandfather’s salmon flies, and his bamboo rod, which was nine feet long and too heavy for me. Mr. Knox would cast into the Ridge Pool and I would guide the line between my fingers as he slowly turned the reel. Later, he made a rod for me that was more suitable to my size and I began to catch small muddy trout of my own.” I paused for breath. Some of the vocabulary was difficult—
Lachsfliegen, kleine schlammige Forellen, geeignet
—and I was uncertain of my grammar, my Irish accent rendering some of the words incomprehensible, but both my tormentors looked pleased, even interested, and I continued. “My father and mother had no interest in the river. We lived in rooms above my father’s shop. My grandmother died of consumption when my mother was a girl, and she lived in fear of catching the disease. I wasn’t allowed to play with the Catholic children, and my only companion was Mr. Knox. My mother was relieved to have me taken off her hands, and I was grateful to be gone. When I returned from my walks with Mr. Knox, she would ask if I’d been near the village children, and I would say that I had not, even when I’d passed them in the road. I oftenimagined what it would be like if the germs killed my mother. I would live with Mr. Knox and I would be happy.”
    Caspar and Herr Elias were no longer lounging in their chairs but sat with straight backs, staring at me with solemn faces. Herr Elias’s tea was untouched. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Herr Elias said, “Thank you, Fräulein.
Sie überraschen mich immer wieder
. You surprise me again and again.”
    All that Caspar said was “
Ich wusste nicht, dass Sie angeln Können
.” I didn’t know you could fish.
    My reading that summer, thanks to Herr Elias, who loaned me novels (I’d quickly grown bored with Frau Schumacher’s books), had grown to include stories that Mr. Knox would have considered very exotic. Other than the fairy tales, there’d been nothing but English and Irish books in Mr. Knox’s library, with few German characters.
    I noticed that many of the young men in Herr Elias’s books begin their careers with love affairs with older women—Rousseau’s
Confessions, The Red and the Black, The Charterhouse of Parma
(his aunt!), and
Lost Illusions
, among others. When I asked Herr Elias about this, he said that it was what they did in France. When I reminded him that
The Charterhouse of Parma
is set in Italy, he said, “There, too.”
    At his suggestion, I read
Effie Briest
(slowly and with his help), in hope of better acquainting myself with German literature. The book made me long for a lover of my own and, even more, I longed for the wiles I imagined necessary to hold sucha lover. The story made me wish that I were beautiful. Herr Elias was often in my dreams (I no longer dreamed about lace), so you might say that we spent quite a bit of time together.
    Like Felix, Herr Elias had a passion for music, and I began to make a tray cloth for him with a
punto in aria
pattern of musical instruments—it was the first lace I’d sewn in some time—but I had to put it aside when Dorothea asked me to make a pair of trousers for her. I knew little about sewing clothes, but I began by