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By the Sengsen Mountains, by the Dead Mountains
It's as though all the raindrops were coming down right in front of the house, as though it weren't raining at all on the stable with the dunghill, or on the path leading up to the house where the idiot and his mother live. Nor on the ravine, hidden from view beyond the house with the Teichl river, or on the highway, likewise hidden from view beyond the ravine.
She tries hard to listen for the highway noises. The falling rain is hardly audible next to the drumming sound with which the water is pouring from the gutter into the gravel pit next to the stairs. Now there's a truck. Trucks make more noise when it's raining, cars don't. Maybe cars, too, make more noise when it's raining. The drumming is even noisier. Then there's a train. The train always makes the same kind of noise, it drowns out everything. It'll drown out the Autobahn, too, which will be next to the highway.
She's paying close attention. She compares the raindrops in front of the mountains on the other side of the valley and in front of mother's black windbreaker that father used to wear. The same amount of raindrops. Not any more dense in front of the mountain than in front of mother's windbreaker. Maybe that's because the mountain forest is of a lighter color than the windbreaker.
The hallway on the second floor is clean. She's the only one still using the children's room on the second floor. When her three sisters and her two brothers were living in the house, the children's room was always too small. One of the sisters slept in the living room. Of course they weren't allowed to use Madam's rooms. Mother cleans Madam's rooms once a week. The daughter has to clean the hallway.
Now she hears a truck and several cars on the highway. Engines accelerating one after the other, the cars are passing the truck. Once the Autobahn is here, you'll hear a lot more. Then all cars can go as fast as the ones now passing. Father, who is around every other weekend, says that you won't see anything from the house. She wonders where the Autobahn is going to be. The valley is narrow, on their side, in front of the Teichl there's no room for an Autobahn, beyond the Teichl there are the train tracks first of all, then the village, and then the highway. Beyond the highway there is already an incline. Either the Autobahn will run across bridges along the slope above the highway, or it will run inside the mountain. Father says that all that's missing now is the stretch from Kirchdorf to Windischgarsten. Other than that the Autobahn is finished, from Salzburg to Graz, from Hamburg to Graz. Right now there is less traffic. Father says it's because of the war. After the war there will be a lot of traffic again, much too much traffic for the highway. Father has to defend the Autobahn, he's building it. Sitting outside Cabin One, on top of the mountain, you hear a lot more of the traffic than if you're standing in front of the farmhouse. From Cabin One the cars on the highway look like toy cars, even though they're just as loud as if you were standing right by the road. Father says that the Autobahn won't be any louder than the highway. She asks, why then do you have the house in Spital by the Pyhrn river. Father says, shut up. Father doesn't like to talk about the house. Father says, don't you tell Madam about it. Mother came along only once and looked at the house. She would understand if father had bought the house and then renovated it as quickly as possible, and if they had moved there right away. But father doesn't even try to renovate it quickly. Father likes to go into the woods, especially in the summer when the weather is nice. The house in Spital is in the middle of town, and there are no woods beyond the house.
Clean the floor, will ya.
Mother is coming up the stairs with heavy steps.
Don't you remember, Jo's comin' home today.
Mother keeps it a big secret where she hides the key to Madam's rooms. Still, she knows: next to the furnace, in what used be the smoking chamber. You need a ladder to get to the key. She's been in Madam's rooms many times. When the parents are out shopping or in church. Then she sits down on the sofa and looks at St. Wendelin and the gorgeous, painted wooden cupboard in which Madam keeps the wine and the liquor that she offers to her guests. She never touches anything. Not Madam's books, not her china, and not her silverware. Madam used to be here a lot. Most of the time the Italian priest was her guest. The priest took the room next to the children's room, Madam slept in her living room. The younger one of her two brothers used to bring lunch for Madam and the priest up to Cabin One. The brother, who was so smart that the priest sent him to the seminary in Kremsmünster, who now lives in Germany, and who never comes anymore, like Madam and the priest. They say that the priest became a bishop in the Vatican. Or even a cardinal. He can no longer simply visit Madam, even though we now have the Autobahn.
