TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Taddeusz. Period (short story) Kathrin Schmidt Translated from German by Sue Vikerman

Since he’d lived in Germany he’d called himself Taddius. But to him the name felt awkward, not slipping easily over head and shoulders but always snagging round his neck and getting stuck there, suspended, like a social pleasantry or insincere How are you or trite remark. He’d had to practise for ages to eliminate the fizz on the tongue which comes at the end of Tadeusz , and had fully expected that his achievement of this would give his self-confidence a boost, but it had no effect. Instead, he went on living a limited, timid sort of life with his wife, whose surname Geissler he had adopted when they got married. In the long stretches of free time that the days offered him, Tadeusz Geissler would imitate birds - Erithacus Rubecula , Troglodytes Troglodytes , Emberiza Citrinella - puckering his lips and sucking in his cheeks, giving off trills and whistles that were spot on. Or else he crocheted, making his wife ever more crazy hats that she could never get enough of. The pleasure she took in wearing them was his greatest reward. Her joy would show itself first in her face, which seemed all the broader when, putting the hat on, she’d lower her pointy chin, making even more room for her gleaming smile. But then once she’d actually tried it on in front

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