Carpenter%27s pencil on the job.
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Karl and Fani were old friends of Vee's parents. They had a camper next to Rolf and Ilse's in Dransfeld, where they spent a lot of time in the summer. Karl was a roofer, strictly speaking, but like a lot of German craftsmen he could do a lot more than roofs. In fact, before he retired, he had built entire houses almost single-handedly. So we were glad when he agreed to help us renovate the house we had just bought. That is to say, he did the renovation and we helped him.
It was a pleasure to work with him. Vee scoffed when I asked questions like how high to make the first shelf of a bookcase, but Karl said it wasn't a stupid question at all. (High enough for the vacuum cleaner to go underneath it.) Even when I suggested, half-jokingly, that we build a widow's walk on the roof (unknown in Germany), he didn't laugh. I'm sure he would have done it, and made it look good, too. He was concerned with aesthetics. When I did something right, he would say, "Kunstler!" (artist), and sound like he meant it.
One day he sent me off to buy an I-beam to replace the wall we intended to knock down to make one room out of two. I was looking forward to this drama, but by the time I got back Karl had demolished the whole thing with a sledge hammer and all that was left for me to do was clean up the rubble. I was a little ticked off that he had gone ahead and done it without me, especially since his health was not good, but it occurred to me later that he might well have been thinking of my own good, not wanting to see me buried under a pile of cinder blocks.
We were paying him, of course, but it wasn't much and that wasn't the reason why I told him, after a couple of weeks, that we didn't need him anymore. I am still ashamed of this. We had reached a point where I thought I could continue without him, and I was greedy for the self-satisfaction that I imagined I would get out of doing the last bit by myself. I was wrong. I did finish the wood paneling in the attic that was to become my study, but with a couple of imperfections that I know Karl would have avoided, and without the side openings to the crawl space under the roof which only he could have done. I got no satisfaction at all and just felt guilty for having deprived him of his own satisfaction from completing the work that he, after all, was mostly responsible for.
I didn't see him again for a year (or was it two or three?) when he stopped by the house one night to say hello and, I felt sure, to see how I had finished the job. He tried not to show it, but I could tell he still felt resentful. I invited him to go upstairs and look around, and he was off like a light. When he came down he was smiling. "Kunstler!" he said, and I knew he meant it even though it wasn't true.
It was late and Fani wasn't with him, so I asked him if we should call her and tell her not to worry. (This was before cell phones.) No, he said, he would see her soon enough and it would only upset her more. I asked him how he was. He seemed to have to ponder this, which surprised me, and finally said he couldn't - or, I thought, wouldn't - explain, but "Everything is as it should be." I was glad to hear it but have wondered ever since exactly what he meant. Then he surprised me again by stroking my cheek for a long time, almost as if I were a dog or a cat, but with an affection so intense that it could only be coming from the other side, and left.
