My Uncle By the Sea

1. Backpfeifengesicht | noun | (German) ‘A face that begs to be slapped.’ 

My uncle married a woman when I was three. Her name was Katharine and she had golden threads for hair and a voice like the tinkling notes of a piano. Coming from a long line of Germans, she could be sweet and sugary or tight-lipped and harsh. She chose me and my older cousin to be the flower girl and ring bearer, giving us a basket full of creamy white rose petals and two silver rings with the instruction not to lose them. 

Now I was only three and there are things I forgot, but what I do remember is my dress. I still have it. It hung in my closet and was silky. The collar was lined with cheap pearls. Fake ones, I mean. I’d tug at them whenever she came near. She’d touch my hair and tuck it behind my ears in a motherly way, laughing when the wisps flew into her face. She had dimples and that’s what I remember. 

Somebody in my family, my father perhaps, had a bet with my grandmother. He said I’d have a new cousin from them in a year. My grandmother shook her head. The conversation was at Thanksgiving dinner and Katharine could be listening. She knew the ways of the world and where the sun would set and the direction of his little apartment in the big city. She knew it wasn’t to last. 

And she was right. 

2. Fernweh | noun | (German) ‘The feeling of homesickness for a place you’ve never been to.’ 

When I was four they moved into a house. A small one where they could bathe in the sunlight and laugh and drink healthy smoothies. One in a nice neighborhood with neighbors that would bring over pie and talk about the paintings on their shaken walls. 

I never visited this place but they told me about it and kissed my cheeks. They said I could visit someday when the dahlia flowers bloomed. I let out a breath and thought about my grandmother and her predictions. The dahlia flowers couldn’t bloom soon enough. 

Dahlia flowers and their delicate little petals were what I thought about when my mother broke the news to me. “Your aunt and uncle—they’re splitting up.” I was five then. My mother ran her hands along her dress and shouted to the trees about her worries. She was worried for her brother and his first heartache. 

What really happened was told to me when I was nine. Four years later. I whispered to my siblings and held their baby-soft hands. Katharine wanted a break and my uncle wouldn’t take one. He wanted to settle down, have children. She wanted other men. I didn’t understand at the time but I do now. 

I think about what their house would be like all the time. They had to sell it during the divorce and I kept imagining it with a garden and a chicken coop by the front door. My uncle would sway on the rocking chair out on the porch, teasing me about how much I cried when I was a baby. Katharine would smile, wiping her hands on her apron, and we’d know she wasn’t happy. Happiness for her was scarce but we didn’t care. 

3. Erbsenzähler | noun | (German) ‘Someone who is obsessed with details and a bit of a control freak.’ 

That same year that I found out, when I was nine, my uncle found another woman. Her name was Apryl and she was skinny like the twigs on the spring forest floor. She worked for the government and was also German, but only distantly. She wasn’t pretty and would smile all the time like it was her default setting. Her hair was tied in a bun when I met her. A brown, messy bun. Hairs flew into her face like flies but she didn’t push them away. Apryl liked pain and I didn’t know why. 

My uncle proposed to her. He had moved to Phoenix, Arizona to get away from the yellow buses and black-framed portraits. He met her on a dating website, that kind where there are no profile pictures and everyone is a mystery. When he visited for Thanksgiving he showed me his computer and I saw the tab where his life crashed down in waves. 

I could imagine him on one knee. Would Apryl’s smile be wider? My grandmother didn’t trust her and when Apryl hugged me I could see the reason. Her hugs were breath-stealing and she grabbed fistfuls of the back of my shirt.

 “I’ll be your auntie someday,” she muttered in my ear. I hoped it wouldn’t be true. 

They bought an apartment together. I wanted to think it was a sign but I wasn’t big on semiotics. My uncle never told me about this one but when I called he stared into his phone and choked out some words he didn’t mean. Perhaps that’s when I knew then it was a sign. 

4. Schadenfreude | noun | (German) ‘The feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing about the troubles of other people.’

She started acting weird in March. Or at least that’s what my mother told me. They were renovating their apartment to make it a little more modern. Apryl and my uncle had different styles and disagreed a lot. At this point in the story my siblings looked at each other and frowned in the guilty way only they could. 

Anyways, my uncle wanted to break off the deal. It wasn’t about the apartment, I don’t think. But what would I know, I was only ten and biting my nails until they bled. Apryl tried reasoning with him—they were trying to live around the builders and in the middle of a six-month project. But my uncle wouldn’t see her. 

She called him, one day. He was at work and she was at home. Her voice was collected, he told me. But she said she’d kill herself if he called off the engagement. She said she had a knife in between her long fingers and that she was ready. 

My uncle was in a position that my mother cried about. He didn’t break off the engagement and came home immediately. He found help. He called my grandmother and the police. They took her to a facility. We never heard from her again. 

My grandmother had pursed lips when we told her about it. She stretched her hands to the ceiling and then slammed them down onto the counter. She sang of heartbreak. My uncle, on the other hand, sat on the couch. He twisted the lamp until it glowed with light. It was the middle of the night but he visited that dating website again. I tried calling him in the morning but he didn’t pick up. 

5. Kummerspeck | noun | (German) ‘Excess weight gained from emotional overeating.’ 

My uncle picked up and moved to Seattle, Washington. By the water. I thought it would be a good opportunity for him to leave Apryl behind and see the city lights and listen to some rock songs. But he called my mother and told her that someone had just corrected him about the fact that Seattle wasn’t beside the sea. His voice was barely a whisper and so I worried. 

He called my grandmother a week later. My uncle found a new woman on the dating website. I smiled at my siblings and weaved my hands into their hair. Deep down I knew something would go wrong but for the moment he had a distraction. 

I was the one who was wrong. I was barely twelve when I heard about their wedding. She wasn’t a distraction and her name was Meredith. She was German and I was sensing a pattern. But more German than the others; her parents lived in Germany. 

I met her, once, before their wedding. She was broad-shouldered and her glare could kill a rabbit. Her hair was dyed blond and you could see her very straight cheekbones from behind it. I asked if I could call her ‘Auntie Mere’ but she bit the inside of her cheek and complained to my uncle about children. 

Their wedding was a winter one. Meredith wore a white fur coat and a silver crown atop her head. She showed me her diamond ring, once. It had three levels and was an inch high. Her family was rich and mine wasn’t. My uncle had asked my grandmother for some money, but she declined. She said she’d spent all her savings on Katharine. My uncle didn’t say another word. 

6. Pantoffelheld | noun | (German) ‘A man who may act tough in front of his friends but can’t stand up for himself against his wife.’ 

Meredith was to stay. She wasn’t the first woman at our Thanksgiving table of my uncle’s but she was the last. My grandmother grumbled when she asked to sit at the head of the table. It was my grandmother’s usual spot but she gave it up. 

I asked my new aunt about her work. She rubbed her hands under the table and talked about fortune tellers at the boardwalk. She also said she was going back to school to get a Master’s in economics. 

There were turkey decorations by the cracked windows of my grandmother’s house. Silverware was clinking and Meredith’s eyes were searching all of us. She commented on the decorations and the soda with her head on my uncle’s shoulder. 

My mother brought up the fact that Meredith and my uncle hadn’t seen our new house yet. It was a shame that they were leaving the next day and that there was no time. My uncle picked at something in his teeth and said a few words about how thankful he was for Seattle and Meredith. In that order. 

Then he proposed staying an extra day to see his sister’s new house. I kept my head down, which was a smart decision, because Meredith grit her teeth together. 

“No. We leave tonight. It’s final.” She had dropped her fork and was curling a finger into her hair. 

My uncle tried to reason with her. After they left, my grandmother called him and said they should have a divorce. My uncle was furious and claimed that he loved her. 

Well Meredith, she’s still here. My uncle’s words, still a lie. My uncle, still by the sea.