Free The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke, Jamie Bulloch Page A

father yelled at me, and so I’d have been given what for. The more insistently he harangued me, the more stubborn I became, refusing to say a word, all speech abandoning me in one fell swoop. I never knew what to say when my father said, answer me for God’s sake; just once, when I was a child, I managed an answer, but it was the wrong one, and wrong answers incensed my father, then he really gave you what for. Since then I’ve never managed a single answer when my father says, answer me for God’s sake, I asked you a question, what have you got to say to me. Out of sheer disappointment he’d have drunk another cognac, leaving me to wonder what I might break if I jumped from the first-floor balcony, but because of the neighbours the windows and balcony door were of course closed, and I couldn’t escape. Now my father would have looked completely wild, because I hadn’t answered him, he’d have asked me again and again, haranguing me, but ultimately he wouldn’t have been able to help himself and he’d be forced to punish my stubbornness, since no understanding or answer had been forthcoming. My father would have said, I’m not going to put up with that, you don’t do that with me, and he’d have drunk another cognac and finally said, take your hands away from your face; after the second cognac I’d have already put my hands to my face, hidden my face in my hands – I didn’t want my father to hit me in the face – and I’d have said, please, not my face; my father would have said, for God’s sake take your hands away from your face, it would have made him livid that I hadn’t taken my hands away from my face, it makes me furious, he said again and again, I’m not going to put up with it, but I never took my hands away, he had to remove them himself, both of them, he had to grip both of my hands in his left so he could hit my face with his right and that really made him furious. My stubbornness; he tried to use violence to knock the stubbornness out of me, just as he tried to use violence to knock the wimpishness out of my brother. All my stubbornness was trying to achieve, however, was to avoid flying head first through the bullseye glass; it would have been a catastrophe to fly head first through the bullseye glass, I’d have cowered under his blows, fallen to the floor without saying a word, and I’d have whimpered that he should stop; no, no, I’d have said if my father had started kicking me in the head with his clogs, but my stubbornness would have been absolute. Only later, in my room, where I’d have been locked, would the words return, wicked and vengeful words lacking all understanding. Whenever my brother was locked in his room he always sang loudly, he always sang, always the same song, a folk song, ‘
Hänschen klein
’, which put my father in an even fouler temper; often my brother was hauled out of his room again, but my father couldn’t knock the folk song out of him; he could knock the wimpishness out of him, but not the folk song; he severely reproached my mother because of this; my mother said, but I’m doing my best, don’t be so hard on them, and my father said, I’m not putting up with it, they’re not going to do that with me, they should know me better. We’d got to know our father very well over many years, but when my grandmother died he had to stop because I’d come of age; of course, he didn’t speak to me for several weeks after the funeral, he refused to speak to me till I’d apologized for my behaviour, and every day my mother came into my room and said, go on, apologize. She couldn’t cope when people didn’t speak to each other. But I could cope, because in the evenings I was able to read instead of having to play skat; nobody spoke to me, anyhow, because if my father wasn’t speaking to me then the other two weren’t allowed to, either; they only spoke to me secretly when he was away. My brother always apologized that same evening, so we all spoke to