Diary, 8.6.

Winter evening in June. So finally still, that I hear the ticking of the old cuckoo clock on my grandfather's neck. At two o'clock, at four o'clock, at nine o'clock the grandmother went into the kitchen and put the water on, put six ornate coffee cups on the tabletop and put a spoonful of instant powder in each one. My father, der streng arbeitende Ingenieur, in the flower armchair, slipped down, was already sleeping (at any of these times) or smacked the grandfather with a fine nerve, because he didn't do his gymnastics, my mother, the stoic, sat there tense and occasionally criticized the grandmother in the sociable tone, just like daughters have with their mothers. Every hour the church bells echoed over to us from the adjacent cemetery. I went out onto the balcony and looked at the flower-adorned tombstones, People walked between the graves with candles or watering cans. And then the time had come; we buried the grandfather first, and then several years later the grandmother. These two old ones, round little people, her with the apron, he with the pointed cap, who had said, for decades: we only go together, none of us go alone. My parents, the elastic ones, were cleaning up, cleared the room with the flower armchairs, the squiggly coffee cups, heavy carpets, the Jesus picture. All in half a day. What do you want? they asked me, do you want something? The old cuckoo clock? I said no.

Today you came, and we cleaned my apartment together, Staub, Leftovers, everything, what has accumulated for weeks. The beds stripped and washed. As in all these years you have a few peaks; Brought unhealthy cookies and a bunch of finished products from the Aperto, on road. While I was lying on the Molto, I listened with my ears, how thoroughly you let the vacuum cleaner run into the cracks. Fifteen years ago, before you had mint tea, I took the chewing gum out of my mouth and stuck it on the table top. You packed a piece of paper, picked up the gum with it, without touching it and discarding it immediately. always. You've built yourself one at least four times between vacuuming. I heard your age-old coughing and croaking, your amused “Achs”, when you've found something in my dirt again.
Already in the middle of your existence I had to cry again, throw you on, like in all the past few years, with my tears. I thank you, but you're like a sucker of my sadness—- we could understand each other, I don't take you. And again after all these years, who makes my mess? Of. If that's not enough to make you cry.

I understand, that you are a hedgehog, an armadillo, that the reality only under THC (Cannabis) sleep as hard as a rock. The apartment, to which you return after your sad visit, I left you, otherwise you'd still be living in your rattle studio, where the kitchen floor wobbled, the wires to tie the lamp: 14 Years unused … oh us two, how bad we understood, to live … but: what did I really give you, ausser meiner Anmassung …?

…just the sight of my bottom ….

Sometimes I hear the train, wie er über die Brücke rollt, ein donnernes Kompartement ums andere. It's the only sound, that breaks this final silence. In this silence he no longer says my name: Marion. Good night. How precious, when someone says your name, and you hear it in you. What a precious two summers they were! Henri said my name too. Marion! he said. That was twenty years ago. And it sounded like a cheer, so powerful, so happy. Is, my love, whose ex-love I am, called me differently: rather questioning, childlike, fragile ….I taught him that, at the beginning, beim Whatsappen: that one can say to the other: Of! And find an entrance …

Oh cold silence.

Who names like the other by name. Moment, I try to remember: my grandparents only addressed each other by nicknames, teasing, tender, sometimes as a habit …. du Maria, with Wäggeli, get me the socks, said grandfather to grandi. Du Fritzli, put Schnäbeli, get the socks yourself ….Grandi to grandfather.

My parents said their names to each other, rather neutral, but always respectful, sometimes impatient. But surely they have also valued each other in the name, at times, when I didn't exist.

once, when I was there and I was already through puberty, I didn't know anymore, like my father's name, once I didn't know anymore, like my mother's name. Ich nannte sie nicht mehr Mami und Papi … but couldn't get used to it either, to call them by their names ….

thick. I said to Grosi. Easy and trusting. Grandi was like that to me: easy and trusting. And patted my hand.

Maarioon! A cheer, a wake up call! So Henri to me, twenty years ago. But I to him? I called him Henri and dreamed of it, his best friend, To call Michael. Michael got wind of it, we met at night. He said my name short and cold.

And so it continues ….

We speak to each other, until we can't anymore. With some it goes well for a lifetime, andere verschlucken unseren Namen schon nach kurzer Zeit oder speien ihn aus. And once our name is no longer mentioned by anyone. We are no longer called.

What should I have translated my love for him into?? In was?! In what form should I have put it? What hands, what language, which eyes should I have spoken?

I called him too, oh, and. He often rolled his eyes a little over it.

Have I ever had a heart in him?

And I stole it from someone else!

When the cuckoo clock ticked on my grandfather's neck, I always thought of life. The life that is waiting for me somewhere, and that I can't miss. I saw in my parents, who sometimes loved each other rather badly, I saw in my grandparents, who sipped their instant coffee after boarding and went on coach trips to Appenzell, in my teenage years, also missed ….

at night in my grandparents' guest room I never closed my eyes. The church bell rang in my ear every hour. It was the most beautiful bell tone, I know: warm, sonor, moosig. But as soon as the second bell rang, in the afternoon, when I stepped on the balcony, there were only two options: Either someone got married. Or someone was buried.

In my thoughts I never buried this incomprehensibility. Which? Just this one! I stood on my grandparents' balcony, because the heat made me sleepy and made me sick from instant coffee, the conversations got lost in a conversational tone (what is better; the marble cake from Coop or Migros? Oh Grosi!), sah ich zu diesem Friedhof rüber. People went through the graves, I couldn't make out their faces from a distance. I was queasy.

Then grandfather died, and grandmother cried, until your red, Dissolve the velvety cheeks.

But one fine day I was sitting with her on the balcony and she said: “You know, Marion, I do not know, if I really loved him …”

The teasing tone had left her voice. Grosi was around 89 years old, when she said that to me. Her crying stopped. But she didn't have many years left.

young swan and swan couple on Lake Biel, summer 2019