Elevenses

Jane poured herself some tea. The winter sun shone through the window and the music she had put on unfolded like a delicate, floral Darjeeling. From the café downstairs, the aroma of delicious bread wafted up. Jane was grateful for every day she could spend in this heavenly place she was lucky enough to call home. But this was not just any day, it was the day she had received official notification from the royal messengers in their purple carriage that her application for an extension of her life had been cancelled until further notice, and despite all the equanimity she usually managed to muster, this news weighed heavily on her. Her only hope was to contact the High Council. However, this was a difficult matter. The members of the High Council met, as the name suggested, high above, so high above that no one had ever seen them, and no one Jane knew had ever received a response from them. It was a very exclusive circle. Andalucia herself had founded it way back when, and one had to be recommended by numerous members before one could hope to be considered.

Jane decided not to let herself get discouraged and to continue her day as planned. She opened the book from which she read a story each morning and sat down for her elevenses. Jane glanced guiltily at the clock. It was already 12 o'clock. Could you still have elevenses a at 12?

‘I think you could do something better with your time than waste it on unsolvable puzzles,’ Alice had just said as today's chapter was from Alice in Wonderland. Andalucia had probably already been swimming, jogged back along the banks of the river and then worked uninterrupted for four hours, Jane thought. Andalucia was the epitomy of everything Jane admired but could only dream of: successful, beautiful and completely insane. It was hard to tell whether she was an artist, an entrepreneuse or a politician, but she was probably all of these things at once.

Jane herself had got up at ten, thrown all her plans for productivity overboard and gone for a walk. An icy wind was blowing outside, but Jane didn't mind. She had a habit of singing while she walked: A city freeze, get on your knees, pray for warmth and green paper.

She said hello to the owner of the café who was just writing today's recommendation on the blackboard with a flourish, stopped at the flower shop to soak in the colour of the dazzling mimosa and ran her fingers over the new arrivals in the bookstore. When she arrived back at her front door, the café's supplier was just delivering a large bag of ciabatta. Jane greeted him, praising the quality of the bread and he handed her a fluffy loaf. She skipped up the steps of the stairwell.

Never sing for my supper, never help my neighbour. Never do what is proper …, she sang happily to herself as she went.

At that moment, the royal messenger's horn sounded and the purple carriage pulled up. Jane turned around. As the messenger handed her the letter, his eyes piercing beneath his red hood, the smile slipped from Jane's lips like a cracked egg falling to the floor.

With the letter in her hand, Jane slowly climbed the steps to her flat. We hereby inform you that ... unfortunately ... an extension of your life cannot be granted. She read the lines over and over again, but the words did not make sense. ... you have 14 days until execution.

Exhausted, Jane closed the door behind her, took a shower and put the laundry on. The sound of the washing machine massaged her eardrums soothingly and, for the duration of the wash cycle, miraculously paused the law of passing time.

Now, take a little while to find your way in here. And now, take a little while to make your story clear.

Jane slipped into her silk dressing gown and stretched. Now she felt ready to call the royal office and strike the right note. While the hold music kept her entertained, she quickly researched the conditions for admission to the High Council. She had decided that she didn't want to waste her time with a general enquiry. She was going all in.

When everything was done, she carried the tea tray into the kitchen, put on some music and happily set about making tea.

Now that you’re lifting your feet off the ground, weigh out your anchor and never look round.

She put the kettle on, rinsed the pot, filled the silver tea infuser with fluffy needles (Smoky Earl Grey today), set the timer for three minutes, placed the infuser in the pot and poured it with hot water. While the tea was brewing, Jane buttered the bread, refilled the tin and inhaled the scent of the fragrant leaves, some of which fell to the floor next to Jane's bare feet.

Hey slow Jane, make sense.

The timer awoke from its slumber with a bubbling sound. Jane fished the infuser out of the pot, took the tray to her room and placed it on the windowsill. She sat down on her queen-size bed, her three pillows stacked behind her, threw over the down duvet and opened the book. She began to read:

‘There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house.’

Now it's time for recompense for what's done. Come, come sit down on the fence in the sun.

The slanting sunlight fell on the pages of the book.

‘The March Hare and the Hatter were having tea.’

Jane took a sip from her cup. The warm, smoky drink filled her with cheerful serenity.

‘A Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head’

“Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’

Jane, meanwhile, wondered if she was the mouse.

‘Are you man or mouse?’

She hadn't noticed that John Steinbeck was sitting at the far end of the table, his hand resting on the handle of his cup was covered in cobwebs, the other tucked into his trousers. She thought of the mummified mouse she had found behind the dishwasher the other day, now reduced to a flat brown stain surrounded by a garland of fine droppings. And the High Council? Surely they would not consider a mouse as a member of their circle. And what would Andalucia say about this? She looked around to see if her idol happened to be present.

‘Mrs Andalucia only joins us in the evening,’ said an elderly lady sitting to Jane's left, wearing fine glasses that apparently enabled her to read minds.

‘She works during the day.’

Despite the three soft cushions behind her back, Jane felt herself freeze. If she didn't get up early every day and worked uninterrupted, she would end up just like the mouse under her dishwasher. Lifetime extension not granted. The horror of the purple carriage and the piercing eyes of the messenger, which she had pushed aside earlier, now threatened to petrify her. She remembered that there had been three hazelnuts next to the mouse behind the dishwasher. Perhaps the mouse had been an enchanted princess?

‘I'm not going to clean this,’ Jane had said apologetically to the tradesmen who were installing the new dishwasher, although she really didn't need to apologise, it was her flat after all.

‘No one will see it again for another 20 years anyway.’

‘Oh no,’ the tradesman had said, ‘the new dishwasher will only last eight years.’

What astonished Jane most was the man's matter-of-fact tone, in which she could detect neither resignation nor cynicism.

Anyway, she had to convince the High Council that she was not a mouse, but a woman, and a very capable one at that. She took another sip of tea to steel herself for the task.

‘Now, rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender!’, said a small man with a moustache, who had taken an uninvited seat at the tea table. While he spoke he stood up, drew a sabre from his uniform, and, using his chair as a stepladder, climbed onto the table. Since the grass was uneven, this was a shaky affair, and the Hatter and the Hare had to support him on both sides so that he would not fall over. The dormouse rolled under the table with a snore.

‘Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own!’, cried the little man on the table, and the dinner party, which had grown larger in the meantime, cheered him loudly. Some threw their hats in the air. Others took the silver cutlery and tapped impatiently on the table with it.

A small guest, whose flat, hairy feet dangled from a chair that was much too big for him, asked anxiously:

‘What about breakfast?’

‘Breakfast time is over, little man’, said the Hatter.

‘We've had one, yes, but what about second breakfast?’

‘I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip’, said his table neighbour, also a little man with big feet.

‘What about elevenses?’, inquired the first one, his eyes wide with fear. ‘Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner, supper? He knows about them, doesn't he?’

Jane heard a rustling sound next to her and started.

Next to her sat an elderly gentleman who was engrossed in some documents. He was studying a foreign language and kept muttering a long, complicated-sounding sentence to himself.

Jane sighed sympathetically.

‘German is a tough language’, she said.

The man looked up kindly.

‘Yes, isn't it.’

He showed her the sentence he was working on.

‘I wonder which is the better word’, he said. Is it Man muss sich entscheiden, or Man kann sich entscheiden?’

‘That's a matter of taste’, said Jane, ‘You can decide for yourself’, and she laughed.

‘Man muss man kann man muss man kann’, the man sang to himself.

‘Personally, I'm in favour of kann. Of course, you still have to do it, but it feels like you've decided to do it voluntarily.’

‘And what are you working on?’, asked the man. ‘I see you here often.’

‘Yes, I kind of fell into a rabbit hole,’ said Jane and smiled. ‘I like this place. The people who come here. Look at this guy, he has put his foot in his bag.’, she whispered, nudging the elderly man with her elbow and nodding towards a guy who had taken off his shoes and placed one of his feet in his rucksack.

‘You won't believe the things I see here every day’, said the said the grim-looking security guard who had joined them with a plate of pasta. Jane knew him from the entrance, he guarded the rabbit hole and always gave her grim looks. She never knew whether to say hello to him or not.

Jane asked him what kind of things these were but he munched his lunch in silence.

‘My hope has disappeared,’ he finally said, poking at a penne. ‘When you've had bad experiences, hope dies. They always say hope dies last, but for me it died first.’

‘I'm sorry,’ said Jane sympathetically, and the elderly man offered them both sliced apples from his Tupperware box.

The security guard explained that the company he worked for had not renewed his contract and though it was tough work he would miss it a lot.

‘Yes, it's a nice place’, Jane repeated, letting her gaze wander over the piles of books scattered between the teacups and cake leftovers on the table.

‘I don't want to go back to the museum,’ he said, shuddering. ‘The alarm systems.’

Jane nodded. ‘Keep your distance,’ she imitated a stern voice. ‘There's always a little dog gnawing on a bone or a mouse in the shadows of those Dutch paintings, and you just want to step closer.’

‘Yes,’ said the security guard with a deep sigh and nodded thoughtfully. Jane wasn't sure if he knew what she was talking about, but he was probably thinking about the hope he had given up.

‘I wish you all the best,’ said Jane, and she meant it, and she also meant the little mouse in the shadow of the gloomy Dutch paintings, and the mouse she had found under the dishwasher, and the mouse sleeping under the table, and the mouse slumbering inside herself.

‘I would like to see the big wave of Saint Nazaire’, he said as if he wished all the bad things he had experienced would be swept away by it. ‘It’s either that or the South of France.’

‘I love the South of France, said Jane. ‘But I’ve never swum in the Bay of Angels.’

The guard gave her a side-glance. ‘You should go.’

‘I will’, said Jane, and her back straightened. She was suddenly sure that no one needed to worry about her, she would make it, she would swim in the Bay of Angels.

The elderly man brought them all a fresh cup of tea and Jane put on her headphones and worked intently for two hours on her application for the High Council. The sun made the golden liquid in her cup sparkle.

I never felt magic crazy as this.

‘You listen to music while you work?’, asked the elderly man, looking up from his papers.

‘I listen to jazz when I work. Dumm di dumm di da da da bap bap,’ she sang, puffing out her cheeks, feeling like a contented fat old man, and the elderly man laughed and they hummed a little together. The other guests at the table didn't pay any attention to them, they were too absorbed in their own lives.

Jane already felt a little lighter at heart and she had the feeling that she was not alone in her big task. The other people at the table, the elderly man, the hopeless security guard, the woman with the mind-reading glasses, even the guy whose right foot was in his bag, were somehow assisting her and she was assisting them. With these people as company, everything seemed within reach, and it all appeared to happen so casually. It was like Jane had joined a conversation, exclusive and inclusive at once, that connected every little thing and person, even the mouse behind the dishwasher, and that had been going on for centuries, just waiting for her to tune in. It was like swimming in the Bay of Angels.

After their second tea, they all began to feel a little sleepy and stretched out their feet, and a boy with pale skin who looked like a prince had his head resting on several silk cushions. An old woman in a rocking chair was reading a German-language picture book that the elderly man had given her and was chuckling quietly to herself. Jane asked her to read a little to them, and the woman read:

Marie, hatt' blondes Haar,

Langes, nahm der Sterngrauch wahr,

Und lachte voll Allotria

‘What does “Allotria” mean?’ asked Jane, but the woman didn't know either.

‘It's when you go hmmm hmmmmehhh ree see she gah blee blow jee goo,’ she rolled her eyes and sang such funny and beautiful sounds that the whole table company awoke from their slumber and laughed loudly, and they began to dance on the table. They threw cake crumbs at each other and squeaked when one happened to land in their mouths, and they resolved to do as many silly things as possible in their lives from now on.

In the midst of the cheerful company, the royal messenger arrived. Jane and the elderly man took him aside, offered him a seat and brought him a cup of tea. He took off his hood, under which his eyes looked very tired and not at all piercing.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘There has been a mistake. The revocation of your lifetime permit is hereby cancelled.’

It took Jane a few seconds to grasp the meaning of the sentence, then she cheerfully raised her cup of tea. She would send the application to the High Council anyway. It couldn't hurt. But now that she had finished the letter, she realised that she didn't have the High Council's address. She asked the elderly man if he knew it, and he asked the man next to him, who asked the woman next to him, who asked the little man who had climbed onto the table, but he didn't know either, and so the question went around the whole table until it finally reached the Hatter. He stood up and said in a loud voice:

‘If anyone wants to know where the High Council meets, all they have to do is open their eyes.’

‘Hear, hear,’ cried the guests. Even the mouse had woken up by now and was rubbing her sticky whiskers with her little paws. All eyes were on the Hatter, waiting to hear what he had to say.

‘For this,’ he said solemnly, ‘is the High Council. Tuck in, ladies, mice and gentlemen.’

And indeed, men in golden robes brought bread, cast-iron pans with fried eggs, bacon and beans.

‘But isn’t it a bit late for breakfast,’ Jane asked the elderly man in astonishment.

‘It's just past 11,’ Andalucia said from behind him, bending over her plate and smacking her lips, because her mouth was full of scrambled eggs.

Lyrics by Nick Drake and John Lennon. Quotes from Lewis Carrol, John Steinbeck, Jerome K. Jerome, J.R.R. Tolkien and Kurt Baumann.