The Taste of Apple Seeds Read Free Page B

beneath the low white ceiling. Aunt Harriet kissed my forehead and left. Her Reeboks squeaked on the waxed floorboards.
    On the street she turned and waved. I raised my hand. She turned back and stood at the bus stop. Her shoulders were hunched and her short red hair slipped beneath the collar of her black blouse. I was shocked. It was only from behind that I could see how unhappy she was. I looked away and sat back down at the breakfast table. I didn’t want her to feel embarrassed. When the bus groaned as it left, rattling the windowpanes, I looked up and caught one last glimpse of Aunt Harriet; she was sitting, casting a frozen stare at the seat in front of her.
    I walked back to the house. My bag wasn’t heavy—there wasn’t much in it besides the black velvet skirt—and I was wearing a short black sleeveless dress and black sandals with thick wedge heels: good for long distances on pavement or lugging books from shelves without twisting your ankle. There was little going on on that Saturday morning. A few teenagers were sitting on their mopeds outside the Edeka shop, eating ice cream. The girls were endlessly tossing their newly washed hair. It looked strange, as if their necks were too weak to support their heads, and I was afraid that at any moment their heads might snap backward or to the side. I must have been staring, because they all fell silent and returned my gaze. Although this was uncomfortable, I was relieved that the girls’ heads had stopped wobbling and now sat upright on their necks rather than listing at strange angles on their shoulders or chests.
    The main road curved sharply to the left; straight ahead a gravel road led past the BP petrol station and a couple of houses to the pastures. Later I wanted to pump up the tires on one of the bikes and cycle along this road to the lock. Or even to the lake. Aunt Inga had said it would get warm today.
    I walked on the right-hand side of the road. To my left I could already see the large mill beyond the poplars. It had been freshly painted and I felt sorry for it, degraded by such color. After all, nobody would think of forcing the women of my grandmother’s social circle to flounce around in glitzy leggings. Bertha’s farmhouse, which was now to be my house, was opposite the mill. I stood at the bottom of the drive; the galvanized gate was locked but lower than I remembered, exactly at waist height, so I quickly straddled it and climbed over.
    In the morning light the house was a dark, tatty box with a broad, ugly driveway. The lime trees were in the shade. On the way to the steps I saw that the entire front garden was overgrown with forget-me-nots. The blue flowers were just beginning to wither; some were fading, others were turning brown. A thicket of dying forget-me-nots. I bent down and pulled off a flower; it wasn’t blue at all, it was gray and violet and white and pink and black. Who had been looking after the garden when Bertha was in the home? And what about the house? I planned to ask Mira’s brother.
    As I entered I was greeted once more by the aroma of apples and cold stone. I put my bag on the dowry chest and walked the length of the hallway. Yesterday we had only made it as far as the study. Today I didn’t peek into any of the rooms but opened the door at the very end of the hall. To the right a steep staircase led upstairs, straight ahead there were two steps down, then the bathroom on the right, where my grandfather had come crashing through the ceiling one evening as my mother was washing me. Intent on giving us a fright, he had crept up to the attic above. The floorboards must have been rotten and my grandfather was a large, heavy man. He broke his arm and we weren’t allowed to tell anybody what happened.
    The door to the barn was locked. The key was hanging beside it on the wall, attached to a block of wood. I let it hang there. Then I climbed the stairs to the rooms where we used to sleep and play. The third step up creaked more