next Sunday at church,’ she said, much too late for him to hear.
But then, when Sunday came around, she didn’t go, and neither did she go the next Sunday. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d ever go again.
*
However, two weeks after that, Dagmar began attending mass again on a weekly basis. Still, she felt ridiculous and ugly. Each time she went she made sure she wouldn’t be seen by Albert Hoffmann. She took the seat on the balcony next to the organ which was played by Herr Donnersberg because from up here she felt like she was behind a one-way mirror that allowed her to watch without being seen.
Albert never came alone, and it was almost impossibly hard to see him with his gorgeous wife and young son by his side. Dagmar nearly imploded with jealousy. She always arrived before everybody else and was last to leave, or last but one. Donnersberg usually stayed on after the faithful had left, tinkling Bach sonatas on the pipe organ and minding his own business. He was a lean, not altogether unattractive bachelor in his mid-thirties who worked for the local notary and wore big glasses that magnified his eyes. But he was far-sighted only in a literal sense.
Like most people of his generation, Donnersberg had known Dagmar by sight since she was little, and he didn’t misunderstand the look in her eyes the day she took his hand off the pipe organ and placed it under her skirt between her legs. There was no misunderstanding her desire, and Donnersberg was not unhappy to heed the call once he got over his initial surprise. She snuck into his car, cowered down as low as possible in front of the passenger’s seat and let him drive her the few miles up to the Ith.
After the withdrawal of the occupying British army from Lower Saxony in the late 1960s, who had used the Ith as a manoeuvre ground since the Second World War, the residential houses on the two streets were now rented privately. The other buildings had once been used for the leisure activities of British colonels and their families. They had stood empty until they were reconditioned in the mid-seventies to house refugees from the escalating civil war in Lebanon. Last but not least, a mile or two up the dirt track there was a local gliding club for small, engine-less planes. Mostly, however, the Ith provided heaven for nature lovers, caves and trees and paths for ramblers and amblers alike, and sometimes an off-road playground for clandestine sweethearts.
At least that’s what Donnersberg hoped when he drove up there with Dagmar, filled with desire by now despite the protests from his inner voice.
This girl is almost young enough to be your daughter…If anybody sees you, your professional reputation is blemished…You haven’t been with a woman for months…
However, on the curvy road uphill the moralising voice had the opposite effect. After all, he hadn’t started this. And she wasn’t a child. He would be careful, show her a good time, wouldn’t get her into trouble.
The road finally started to level and crest. If he stayed on the main stretch they would soon reach a junction with the two residential streets leading off to the left and right. It was best to avoid that part, as, this being Sunday, other people were sure to be out for a stroll or fur lunch in the Boeing Restaurant, located in a disused aircraft that stood at the top of Segelflugstrasse. Donnersberg took the first turn right, veering onto a dirt track and continuing into the pine forest. He stopped after about half a kilometre next to a rosehip bush, though neither Dagmar nor he got out of the car or rolled down the windows. It felt safer this way, even if it wasn’t.
‘Shouldn’t we go a bit further?’ Dagmar said.
During mass, fantasising about Albert Hoffmann’s smile, she had become so blindly excited that she’d reached out for literally the only man around after the service was over. Donnersberg wasn’t particularly sexy, but he seemed to be good with his hands, at least on the organ. He’d have to do; she’d burst otherwise.
Only now, alone with him and far from Albert, she wasn’t quite so sure anymore.
‘Here is good. It’ll do,’ he said and placed his hand between her legs under her skirt once more.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
The moment was gone. Albert was far and she was dry.
‘Come on, girl. First you make me drive all the way up here and now you give me the run around?’ he said, but she took his hand and removed it from her leg.
‘I think this was a mistake,’ she said and shoved his hand away again.
Donnersberg sighed. This was bullshit. He had better things to do on a Sunday afternoon than be pushed about by a little girl. She had taken him for a ride and he was merely the chauffeur.
He got out of the car with a huff and lit a cigarette.
Dagmar didn’t move and only relaxed a little. It wasn’t over. Was she turning into what Anika called a ‘prick tease’? Well, that certainly hadn’t been her intention.
She looked out at Donnersberg and became aware that he was gesturing urgently, hands behind his back – get down! Somebody was coming. They hadn’t done anything, but it would look suspicious to be seen together.
Dagmar sunk into the legroom space, made herself as small as possible. Then she heard the voice and her heart somersaulted and her adrenalin glands pumped and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention. The dryness between her legs became clammy.
Donnersberg was speaking to Herr Hoffmann.
Only it wasn’t Albert, it wasn’t quite him. Or was it?
While the men exchanged awkward, polite greetings and said something about Elvis Presley, Dagmar realised that this had to be his twin brother, Tobias Hoffmann. She risked a peek out the window and saw his back.
Albert had been wearing a suit and tie to church not half an hour ago. This man wore rubber boots and a brown parker. He had to be Tobias. Already he continued on his walk, was probably returning to the maisonette he shared with their old man up here somewhere.
Before he disappeared around a bend in the path, he glanced over his shoulder towards the parked car once more. It was enough to ascertain that the brothers were two different, albeit identically-featured, people. Albert and Tobias Hoffmann.
And yet, and yet…
When Donnersberg sat back into the driver’s seat, Dagmar was ready for it. She straddled him and didn’t even think about the fact that he penetrated her without the protection of a condom.
*
But she was lucky that time as her period returned days later as though nothing had happened.
And a few days after that her life changed for good when Herr Hoffmann walked into the Hamachers’ shop while she was at work. It was mid morning, a quiet time, nobody else around. She saw him before he entered, watched him approach through the glass window, and her heart accelerated. Dagmar had no doubt – this was the right Hoffmann. Albert Hoffmann.
‘Morning,’ he said and started filling his basket in the aisles.
He didn’t even look in her direction. Dagmar’s heart shrivelled and sank as though somebody had let the air out of an inflatable raft.
‘Good morning, Herr Hoffmann,’ she said, but still there was barely a glance in her direction.
She knew that Albert rarely ever shopped in the Hamachers’ corner shop. Didn’t he realise she worked here? Hadn’t he come to talk to her? Had he already forgotten all about their conversation at the graveyard? He’d said he wanted to ask her something about photography, the one field Dagmar knew she excelled at. Well, she certainly hadn’t forgotten. She’d bring it up when he paid at the checkout, just slip it casually into the small talk, the banter they’d be having. Maybe she’d even invite him up to her flat above the garage, the one the Hamachers let her have for next to nothing. She’d show him her photographic equipment and her Super 8 collection. Then, alone with him, maybe she could inspect his equipment. The photographic and the other kind.
Stop daydreaming. Snap out of it, Dagmar, or he’ll take you