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I woke up long before David. Dusk bathed the bedroom in a soft pink light. A faint snorting drifted up through the open window. The birds were already beginning to sing their songs, accompanied by the rustling of the trees. A gust of wind billowed the white curtains.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAgxlHODOqN
It looked like another beautiful day. Just thinking about the ride with Katja and maybe Sabse made me tingle. It seemed like it had been ages since we'd been out together as a trio. With two small children and a stable full of sport horses, it wasn't as easy as it had been a few years ago. I wanted to struggle out of the covers to maybe catch a glimpse of the pastures, the fog drifting over them, deer bounding across the meadows, and the silhouettes of the horses emerging from them as if they'd been enchanted.
But before I could swing my legs over the edge of the bed, David pulled me back. He wrapped his arm tightly around me and mumbled into my hair. "Hassan is going to the tournament alone. It's Saturday and it's definitely not eight o'clock yet."
I wanted to push his arm away, but instead he just pulled me closer. His bare abs pressed against my back and the waistband of his Calvin Klein jeans pressed against my scantily clad butt.
Okay, maybe I didn't just love this farm and all its inhabitants the way a little girl loves her girlhood book. Even more deeply, I loved this man lying there behind me, holding me to him as if I were all that mattered at that moment.
A deep sigh escaped my lips.
"Is life so hard on you?" David promptly teased me in a raspy voice that promptly resonated with something inside me.
I turned in his arms and placed one leg over his hip. I cheekily pressed a kiss on the tip of his nose. He blinked and opened his eyes. "Life is anything but harsh on me right now! I feel like I'm living my childhood dream!" And as if everything had been filtered through a golden filter.
"You had simple dreams as a child." He yawned and pulled his arm out from under me. Tiredly, he rubbed his eyes. "Now you've achieved it. I'm awake!"
I giggled contentedly and slid closer to him. "Goal achieved! I'm not getting even the slightest bit bored here!"
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Pola had already set the table when we got downstairs. As always, she hadn't set the table for herself and Oleg and gave David a disapproving look as he took two more plates out of the cupboard and pointedly placed them on the remaining empty places.
Shaking her head, she stood in front of him. "What if we've already eaten!"
"You didn't." David gave her a sweet smile that only showed how much he loved the little old lady. "Pola, how many times? You're family and you eat with us!"
She took a deep breath. Her gaze softened, and she reached for his shirt collar. "You're a good boy. You always have been." Lovingly, as only a grandmother could, she straightened his collar and wiped every speck of dust from his broad shoulders. Smiling gently, she tilted her head and took a deep breath. "It seems like just yesterday that you were just a naughty little schoolboy who knocked over my sugar bowl."
David gave me an annoyed look, then turned back to Pola. "Just let the stories rest for once!"
"Why? The girl must know what she's gotten herself into!"
The girl, that is, me, had to laugh heartily and simply plopped down at the table. "I already know that. We lived together for a year during our studies, and it was chaotic!"
I still fondly remembered the small apartment on the cobbled side street just outside Marburg's upper town. I'd never forget the morning car rides to the stables and the quick change before lectures. We could have come earlier. We could have taken the reins earlier, but there were David and my father, who insisted that I finish my studies. I might be able to write accounting and marketing plans now, but it was no use to me. David was faster at the office than I ever would be. I was just a bit more shrewd at selling.
"Of course it was chaotic!" Pola poured me orange juice without hesitation. "As a boy, he always made a mess! No matter where he went. Chaos everywhere!"
"Hello? It wasn't that bad! Now stop serving us and sit down!" David pointedly pulled out her chair.
She hesitated. As always, when David decided she was no longer the housekeeper his mother had once hired. She was so much more than that! Sighing, she sat down and let David push the chair over for her and turned toward the door. "I'll get Oleg."
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Seconds later, he was out the door, and Pola started mothering me again. "You look too thin, girl! You need to improve, especially if you ever have children."
I choked on my orange juice. She obviously meant it, the way she looked at me. Well, that was probably what everyone was expecting next, just like wedding bells, but couldn't everything stay the way it was for now?
"Oh!" she said sympathetically, patting me firmly on the back. The woman truly had amazing strength. "Don't worry! I baked some extra croissants and made that delicious hazelnut spread." She winked at me.
Since we moved here last year, I'd probably gained five kilos. At least I was wearing my riding breeches almost two sizes bigger now. But you just couldn't say no to her food!
"That's sweet of you, Pola," I croaked.
Her face beamed, and her blue eyes sparkled. "We're having dessert for lunch today." She leaned forward conspiratorially. "I made szarlotka."
Ah! For that, she needed the apples, which I had to get from the village store as soon as Katja said she was coming. I sighed softly at the thought of the apple pie. "You spoil us all far too much! David's right, you can slow down sometimes. Oleg and you are family."
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Heavy footsteps in the hallway and muffled voices announced the men.
Oleg was the first to arrive. As always, he wore dark blue work trousers and a dusty dark blue jacket that was more like a smock. At the sight of the table, he raised his hands as if to thank God. "What a sight! Beautiful food and even more beautiful women!"
Pola clicked her lips and grinned. "He's such a nutcase!"
"One of them is mine!" Grinning, David pushed past him.
"In your dreams!" I stuck my tongue out at him. "I'm my own woman!"
"How presumptuous of me!" He placed a theatrical hand on his chest and gave a glare that would have melted my heart.
"You're always presumptuous!" Katja pushed through the door. "Will I be in time for the sumptuous breakfast? Oh, and it's so 1990 to leave the front door open!"
"Katti, you're so nice to me!" David looked around searchingly. "Isn't Jonas with us?"
She pinched his cheek. "No. Fishing with his father.”
As soon as she let go of his cheek, David pressed his hand against it and gave her a withering look.
"Poli, Poli, Poli," Katja cheered next, wrapping her arms tightly around Pola, who immediately closed her eyes in delight. "It smells fantastic again!"
Kaja immediately whirled over to Oleg. "Oh Oli, I've missed you! But you'll finally let me buy you a new smock for Christmas, or one of those fancy wax jackets, right?"
Oleg waved his hand dismissively. As always. "It's still good! I don't need any more! See?" He reached into the pockets of the smock. "It has deep pockets for all the things I need."
She sighed and tucked her dark curls behind her ear before lunging at me. "There's my favorite, hopefully-soon-to-be sister-in-law! I've missed you even more than anyone else here, Hanni!" She hugged me tightly. She smelled of her favorite perfume, and the fabric of her blouse felt wonderfully soft beneath my fingers. "David, you really need to put a ring on her finger. You can't keep her waiting forever, and you'll never get another one like Hanni! Didn't Mom leave her ring here?"
I was about to say something, but David was quicker.
"I'm not keeping her waiting! And how do I know if Mom left her ring here?"
"Yeah, right. You probably stopped listening as soon as the word was mentioned, you old commitment-phobe." Katja let go of me.
"Uh, if I were commitment-phobic, Hanni wouldn't be sitting there right now!"
She giggled and tilted her head back. "I'm only kidding, little brother! Someone has to annoy you here. She here..." She gently pinched my shoulder. "She's way too sweet for that!"
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The atmosphere at breakfast was lively, as always when Katja was there. She was like a hurricane. She made everyone laugh, and no day with her was ever gray.
We stayed after breakfast. David went to the stable with Oleg, and Pola whirled around the kitchen like a dervish, so that no ordinary mortal would dare enter.
Katja stirred her coffee and looked at me. "Is life still good here, Hanni-bun? Or have the village idiots already eaten your brain?"
I chuckled. "It's still beautiful, and the village is only half as bad as you always made it out to be. Don't you miss it?"
She shook her head from side to side. "Sometimes this way, sometimes that. I miss the horses!" As she raised the cup to her lips, she brushed her hair out of her face and a bruise on her neck became visible. It was almost shaped like a thumb. As if someone had grabbed her roughly by the throat.
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"What's that?"
"Hmm?" She looked up from the table again. "Oh, that. I fell against a table while cleaning.I'd forgotten how smooth freshly mopped tiles can be. You know how it is."
A bad feeling began to rise in my stomach. This wasn't the first time. "Katja..."
She interrupted me brusquely. "Not a word to David! Is that clear?" She raised a warning index finger and looked as if she were about to leave at any moment.
"Are you afraid that he'll snatch your husband with Hassan and Oleg and waterboard him in the stream until he divorces you?"
Katja made a nervous gesture, the delicate gold bracelets on her wrist clinking softly. "Who wants a divorce? Nils isn't a bad man, just a bit... impulsive." She put her cup back on the table and smiled as if on cue. "When is Sabse coming?"
"I don't know. I think in an hour. Maybe two. They have harvest workers again, and she has to help guide them, and then she has to saddle Odni and ride her over."
She looked out the window. "Speaking of horses, can I take Stella today? She ran so beautifully last time!"
I nodded.
Katja immediately clapped her hands in delight. "This is going to be so lovely! The three of us, the horses, and damn good weather!"
We first went out as a trio two years ago. Katja had decided that Sabse and I would become best friends and had organized a ride on the spur of the moment. I was quite surprised when the daughter of the fruit farmer Probst suddenly rode into the farm on her white Icelandic gelding, Odni, and was greeted boisterously by a far too cheerful Katja.
But she was right. Sabse really was like my best friend. Ever since we moved here, I'd seen her almost every day, and we'd spontaneously go for short rides together far too often, where she'd update me and tell me all the rumors about me and David that were circulating in the village pub again. From swinger parties in the hayloft to David's parents being walled up in the cellar, there had been everything. You had to give the gossipmongers credit; they were really very creative with their conspiracies!
"Has she said whether Nico's dad is working for them again?"
I shook my head. "He won't come. Her father doesn't want him to set foot on the farm again."
"Like in Romeo and Juliet." With a very passive Romeo, who simply resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't see his son. He was probably already back in Poland or even Belarus and hadn't even thought about Sabse and the little three-year-old boy.
I think that's why Sabse and I are such good friends. We're both outcasts from the village community. I because I came from outside. She because her son was born out of wedlock and also because she had a brief affair with a Romanian seasonal worker who simply didn't want to settle down and preferred to roam somewhere between Poland, Romania, and Belarus. Even David, whom most people here watched grow up, is avoided by most. He rubbed people the wrong way with his liberal opinions and drank too little beer to even once get stuck in the village pub.
I sighed and poured some more sugar into my cappuccino; I could still kiss Pola for that. She'd even made a little heart with cocoa powder on the milk foam and was as proud of it as a schoolgirl with her first A. That was the thank you for the ginger sticks from earlier in the week.
"Have you voted yet, or are you going tomorrow?"
"You're such a bourgeois household!" Katja pursed her lips. "Of course! I dutifully marked my vote and stuffed everything into the envelope before taking it to the post office." She sounded annoyed. "But I don't want to hear anything about politics now! You're both so miserable when it comes to that topic! I should never have asked David to ride my horse for me back then!”
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