The Post Office Girl Read Free Page B

squeeze in. The inherited leather armchair took up too much room, so it went to a junk dealer at a low price. Later this turned out to be a serious mistake, for now whenever old Frau Hoflehner’s bloated, dropsical feet fail her, the bed is the only place left for her to rest them.
    Tired and worn out before her time, she blames her sick legs, thick and swollen lumps with ominous blue veins under flannel bandages, on two years spent working as a caretakerin a basement room, with nothing between her and the cold earth, in an infirmary to which she was assigned during the war (everyone had to make a living). Since then the heavy woman has moved with a labored wheezing; any exertion or excitement makes her clutch her heart. She knows she won’t last long. It’s a good thing that, amid all the confusion after the breakup of the monarchy, her brother-in-law the privy councillor had no trouble finding the Post Office job for Christine, miserably paid though it is and in such an out-of-the-way hole. But still: a little bit of security, a roof over your head, room to breathe, just barely; might as well get used to it—after all, the casket’s an even tighter fit.
    It always smells of vinegar and damp in the cramped box, of sickness and confinement to bed. The door to the tiny adjoining kitchen doesn’t close properly, so the insipid fumes of reheated food creep in like a stewing fog. Coming in now, Christine automatically flings open the window. The sudden noise awakens the old woman on the bed, and she can’t help moaning, the way a broken-down trunk might creak when anyone even approaches it: her rheumatic body knows pain is coming and dreads it, the pain that any movement causes. So first the unavoidable moan; then she lurches to her feet. “What is it?” she asks. Even asleep, she knew it couldn’t be noon yet, couldn’t be lunchtime. Something must have happened. Her daughter hands her the telegram.
    The weathered hand gropes among the drugstore articles on the night table and with effort (every movement hurts) finds the steel-rimmed glasses. But once she’s made out what’s on the sheet of paper, it’s as though an electric shock goes through her heavy body. She gasps, struggles for breath, sways, and finally collapses with all her weight onto Christine. She clings fiercely to her startled daughter, quakes, laughs, wheezes, tries to speak but can’t. Finally, hands pressed to her heart, she sinks exhaustedly into the chair. She takes a deep breath and pantsfor a moment. But then a confused torrent of broken, half-intelligible sentences bursts from her toothless, working mouth, interspersed with floods of wild triumphant laughter. Tears roll down her cheeks and into her sagging mouth as she stammers and waves her hands, hurling the jumble of excited words at her bewildered daughter. Thank God, it’s all turned out well, now she can die in peace, a useless, sick old woman like her. That’s the only reason she made the pilgrimage last month, in June, that’s all she asked for, the only thing, that her sister Klara would come back before she died and look after Christl, poor child. So now she’s happy. See, she didn’t just send a letter, no, she spent good money on a telegram, saying that Christl should come up to her hotel, and she sent a hundred dollars two weeks ago, yes, Klara always had a heart of gold, she was always good and kind. And Christine can use that hundred dollars for more than just travel, yes, she can dress up like a princess before she goes to visit her aunt at that posh resort. Oh, she’ll get an eyeful there, she’ll see how those high-class people live it up, the people with money. For the first time she’ll have it as good as the rest, thank heavens, and by the saints she’s earned it. Because what has she ever gotten out of her life—nothing, just the job and responsibility and slaving away on top of having to take care of a useless, sick, unhappy old woman who should have been dead