Carl and Gerlinde (XXXV) What a fantastic idea – at long last, Carl had the entire weekend to himself! He was free to do – or not do – whatever he wished to, without having to hurry after some Gerlinde who wanted to go shopping or take Saturday afternoon coffee or drive to Frankfurt in the evening for a visit to the cinema! Or to the theatre, or the opera – or even to a concert. Basically, the only thing that brought solace was the glass of wine afterwards.
But then, those glasses of wine were also responsible for his headache when he had to exert himself on the bike competing against Gerlinde on the next morning, because, after all, exercise was healthy, wasn’t it? Even when it rained, you were only permitted to dismount when the softened skin around your bottom started getting wrinkles. Blessedly, at least, it was the e-bike he dismounted from! ”At long last, you will be left in piece by me”, Gerlinde had playfully twittered when getting out of his car on Saturday morning at the railway station. There was just enough time for a quick kiss before she disappeared in the middle of her gabbling ’Girly Group’: they were going to Cologne in order to take a look at God knows what nonsense …
Unbelievable! Now he actually sat all by himself at home on the patio! Just he and his beloved bottle of beer! They both contentedly peeped into a garden that almost seemed to jubilee as it blossomed. What wonderful calm. There was nobody who constantly pestered him. And nobody foulmouthed his beer. He even heard the birds singing: he had never noticed them, except when they lay next to the rhododendron bushes minus their heads because the neighbour’s angora cat Stuppsi had again been on the warpath. However, with their heads attached to their necks, their singing was definitely impressive, even if Carl could not identify any of those industrious miracles of sound. Come to think of it: wasn’t it a pity that he was so ignorant about birds. In fact, he would have loved to know more about them.
Perhaps the varieties were as many as there were beer brands – and there were certainly quite a few of those. Actually, it was a little hot and humid this morning! So much the more did Carl enjoy the nice cool shade on the patio. Totally relaxed, he permitted gulp after gulp to just flow into him. However, it did not take long for him to notice that this bottle, too, was already empty. If that was not speedy progress he was making here! The bottle might well not have been really full: these days, you never really knew, did you? … ”So what are we going to do now?“, Carl asked the hibiscus in front of him while doing some inner contemplation in order to be able to optimally prepare his next steps. There was no way he going to lift even a single finger doing anything in the garden! That was a given! The ’Gerlinde-free time’ was far too precious for that. Today, he was going to really ’let the soul swing free’, as his friend Kurt would call it. At least, it was now ten o’clock and the morning still looked spotless and fresh! Oh my God – the newspaper! He had almost forgotten about the newspaper. That was definitely the solution to his problem! Along with a wonderful espresso – and since today no punishing sideways glances from Gerlinde could send him straight to hell, he could even indulge in the occasional ’Davidoff–small cigar’! The stupid espresso machine was unexpectedly clumsy this morning! But after three ’coronary-arrest-threatening attempts’ and a rather significant flooding in the kitchen, he finally managed it. However, directly afterwards, the next Nobel-Prize worthy task was waiting: he had to identify and take hold of exactly the one capsule out of Gerlinde’s thousands of colourful ’Nespresso Capsules’ that would make him slide into the Espresso blessedness cultivated by her! As it turned out, Carl found a surprisingly pragmatic solution to this challenge! He drank two glasses of Schnapps, closed his eyes and then just took the next capsule, before, thirty minutes later, already standing on the patio with a wonderfully aromatic Something!
Well, if he was in a tight spot, there was nothing he could not do! Unfortunately, a strong wind had started to blow. In fact, it also started raining lightly and Carl even thought he heard muted thunder in the distance. Naturally, with this weather, the small cigar no longer looked all that attractive. But still, Carl was not going to allow this to lower his high spirits. Taking his espresso, he crawled back into the house, closed the patio door and sat down comfortably on the huge, soft leather armchair. This was definitely not bad! And instead of the small cigar, he opted for a prickling Aperol Sprizz. And since it tasted so delicious, he let another one follow. Well, and then there was the newspaper! But when, still uncertain, he started looking for it, he suddenly felt something like a light feeling of hunger develop in his body. The small portion of herring salad Gerlinde sometimes served with a slice of dark bread around this time as brunch certainly would have gone down well about now. He actually had to admit it. But then, he could do without! In fact, he could very, very well do without.
Besides, who prevented him from warming up the asparagus risotto Gerlinde had prepared in advance – along with the salmon he would have to get from the basement. But was it really a good idea to go into the kitchen and actually do some work? Wouldn’t that have topped everything: you were not sending your ’household lover’ to Cologne for an entire weekend in order to roam around inthe kitchen yourself, did you? No way. Where would that have put him? You did not have to turn completely apish, did you? After all, being male today already meant you were the dumbass from morning to night, didn’t it? Outside, the thunder was really cracking! An actual thunderstorm had found its way to his place. There was no way he could ’quickly take a stroll to the Italian restaurant’! This deluge was worse than anything he had ever experienced during Gerlinde’s rain marathon bike tours!
Even Stuppsi was carried away from the last reachable bird’s nest and anxiously looking for protection between the rubbish bins. Gerlinde would have gloatingly smiled – she hated the bird killer! With worry, Carl made the pilgrimage from window to window in order to witness this apocalypse from all possible perspectives: he also saw how his magnificent silver birch mutated into a fearful ground-coverer with every new gust of wind and the neighbour’s huge spruce boldly touched his patio – with the wind one or two notches up, the top would actually be stirring around in his fourth Aperol Sprizz … Around 3 p.m., Carl was suddenly in the grip of such a ravenous hunger that he spontaneously decided to consume Gerlinde’s asparagus risotto.
Without salmon, because the stupid animal had, of course, forgotten to thaw in time! Well, you cannot expect more from fish, can you? And the risotto was similarly stupid and got itself scorched – but there was no help for it. Carl was so hungry that he pressed it through his gullet regardless. And it was definitely not his problem how said risotto was going to cope with the schnapps he poured after it. And the cutlery sitting on the table was also something he could not have cared less about. For him, all that counted at this moment was his soft bed in the darkened bedroom.…
When Carl woke up from his midday nap with a start, it was exactly 18.00 hours! This was touch and go! Another fifteen minutes and he would have missed the beginning of the sports program! He quickly threw on his dressing gown, took a bottle of beer and a few chips – and here he sat in front of the television set! Well, to be perfectly honest, he more lay than sat – because today there was nobody to prevent him from pleasurably putting the entire length of his uncovered, muscular legs onto the cool glass top of the side table. Whenever he lifted them for a short time – which actually was no small feat as far as the stomach muscles were concerned – there were some really dark spots on the freshly polished glass. Also, Carl voluntarily made do without the comfortable pillows he would usually put under his legs.
After all, this would have been only half the fun for Gerlinde: the really crass prints on glass could only be produced by strong, perspiring men’s legs! Well, this was just a fact! But then, it was also a fact that Dortmund could no longer win against Leverkusen. Again, they played a tie. And it was also true that he was again hungry! Was it really possible that now he would have to get all the food by himself? On top of laying the table and afterwards removing everything? No, there was no way Gerlinde could have expected this of him on a work-free day – even she could not be that evil.
With energy, Carl pushed his uncovered legs from the glass top, grabbed the cut tongue-blood-sausage and dully, like an elk down for the count, made his way to the patio. After the terrible thunderstorm, the evening was surprisingly mild! Carl could hardly believe what he was seeing. With unexpected new energy, he only took a few minutes to take white bread, cheese, butter, two bottles of ice-cold Jechtinger Rivaner and the entire package of small cigars to the patio table.
And when the totally wet Stuppsi appeared out of the darkness and anxiously looked at him, he good-naturedly threw her one tongue-blood-sausage after the other. … Except – Carl could not even start to explain why eventually, when he shortly woke from his comatose sleep in the middle of the night, Gerlinde, too, had appeared. It was her, wasn’t it? Even if she was lying on the wrong side of the bed? After all, he had just given her fluffily wet curly hair a pat, hadn’t he? This is what Gerlinde liked. It made her purr – like Stuppsi… KH (Translated by EG)
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