Free Why We Took the Car by Wolfgang Herrndorf Page A

normally comes three times a week. The Vietnamese woman is pretty old — about sixty, I guess — and can’t really speak German. Without a word, she shuffled past me into the kitchen and came back out with the vacuum cleaner. I watched her working for a while; then I went over to her and told her that she didn’t need to work the next two weeks. I wanted to be alone. I told her that my parents would be away during that time, and that if she just came by two weeks from Tuesday and whipped things into shape, that would be great. It was tough to put it in a way that she understood. I thought she’d drop the vacuum out of pure joy, but that’s not what happened at all. At first she didn’t believe me. So I showed her the list of chores my father had left for me to do, and all the things he’d stocked up on for me, and then I showed her the calendar where my father had circled in red the Wednesday he’d be back. But she still didn’t believe me, so I showed her the two hundred Euros he had left. And that’s when I realized why she was so stubbornly clinging to her vacuum cleaner. Because she thought she wouldn’t get paid if she didn’t work. So then I had to explain that she’d get paid anyway. Man, I was so embarrassed. Nobody will notice, I told her. It took a lot of effort to get it across to her because she doesn’t speak German. But at some point she did leave — after we’d gone back to the calendar and both pointed several times at the Tuesday in two weeks and looked in each other’s eyes and nodded. I was worn out by the time she left. I never know what to say in these situations. We had an Indian working as a gardener for a while too, though he was let go to save money. But it was the same with him. It’s so embarrassing. I want to treat them like regular people, but they act like they’re servants who are there just to move the dirt out of your way — which, granted, is why they’re there. But I’m only fourteen! My parents don’t have a problem with it. And if they are around it’s no problem for me either. But when I’m alone in a room with the Vietnamese woman I feel like Hitler. I always want to grab the rags out of her hand and clean everything up myself.
    I walked her out, and I would like to have given her something too. But I didn’t know what. So I just waved like an idiot as she walked off, and was incredibly relieved once I was finally alone again. I gathered up the tools that were still lying in the flower garden and then stood there in the warm evening air and took a few nice deep breaths.
    Diagonally across the street the Dyckerhoffs were barbecuing. The oldest son waved with the grill tongs in his hand. Like all our neighbors he’s an incredible asshole, so I quickly looked away. And that’s when I saw a creaky bicycle cruising down the street. Though cruising down the street is overstating it a bit. And to call it a bicycle is also a stretch. It was the frame of an old girls’ bike, but it had two different-sized wheels in the front and back. In the middle was a tattered old leather seat. There was also a hand brake dangling down from the handlebars. It looked like a broken antenna. The back tire was flat. And riding the contraption was Tschichatschow. With the exception of my father, he was pretty much the last person I wanted to run into right then. Though to be honest, other than Tatiana, everyone was the last person I wanted to run into. But the expression on his Mongolian-looking face told me he didn’t feel the same way.
    â€œKablam!” Tschick said, smiling as he steered his bike onto the sidewalk in front of me. “You know what happened? I was riding over there — and kablam . This is where you live? Hey, is that a flat-tire repair kit? How cool is that! Can I use it?”
    I didn’t feel like talking. I gave him all the tools and told him just to leave them