Altweibersommer

It was supposed to be the first day of school, but the HVAC unit had caught fire. I learned this after the frozen waffles were microwaved, after the girls had gone upstairs to brush their teeth. They'd painfully chosen their debut outfits, which is why they seemed agitated when I told them we would be staying home. Alba said the bad kids who had to take summer school fed potato chips to the squirrels, and they had built nests in the air-conditioning unit, which had caused it to burst. I asked her where she heard that, and she said she told me she doesn't leak her sources. Luna said she had “already experienced closure” as far as leaving summer was concerned, and I asked her how a nine-year-old understood the concept of closure, but she had already hopped on the family computer to continue the German lessons she'd imposed upon herself.The one-more-day-of-summer seemed to make Alba grumpy. She had taken some gherkins out of the fridge and put them on a plate beside the couch, where she'd lain down, texting her friends. I read one of those rags you pick up in coffee shops, with local concerts and poorly drawn cartoons. Its cover displayed the muscular system of a human body. There was a feature on an exhibit at the local museum of science and industry.Luna said the word of the day was “Altweibersommer.” I asked what that meant. She said “old hag summer” in a voice that got Alba to sit up and glare. I wasn't sure that's what the word actually meant, but I had no way to prove her wrong. Luna was the one who had spent the summer playing with language-learning apps and watching educational cartoons subtitled in English. Alba ate a tiny pickle like a rabbit, annoyed at what I perceived as an ever-growing distance between her sister and herself—a distance I did not understand.Luna said Altweibersommer was for summers that lasted too long. For some reason I perceived this as trying to undercut my parental authority. I reminded her that there had been a heat wave, which is why it was dangerous to sit in un-air-conditioned classrooms. The girls seemed unconcerned with the risk of heat stroke, and even more unconcerned with the fact that arriving at school meant leaving me in a place I could not follow.I had an idea, suggesting that we all go the mall, like I did with my parents when I was their age. I said the girls could show off the outfits that their mother had bought them, and maybe they'd even see other kids from their school, who could witness how aloof and trendsetting they looked. They both perked up after that.As I was looking for my car keys, I heard a loud thump and a whir. The house became silent.“No!” Alba cried.“Was that unsere air conditioner?”I wanted to tell them that modern air conditioners only last a dozen years or so, and my condo had one since before either of them were born, but I had to conserve my energy for power struggles, so I shuffled them to the car instead.Their mother's brother was an HVAC service technician, and he lived only a half hour away, so I called him up while we drove toward the mall. We'd gotten along, mostly, even after the divorce, but he said these tasks had lead times, and his plate was full. It could take days—weeks even—to get someone to our home this time of year. I put the call on speaker, encouraged the girls to talk about school being canceled and how uncomfortably hot they were and how they didn't want to come to a blazing home—“and how much we love you, Uncle Nicholas, and we miss you.” Nicky acquiesced. I told him where the spare key was hidden, and he agreed to come over in a bit.The mall had only just opened, and it was mostly full of retired women power walking. Half of the stores were either closed on Mondays or not open for another hour. I had been to this same mall back when it had three different stores that sold CDs. I had an urge to tell the girls how we used to sample albums before we bought them, but I knew better. Now I couldn't imagine putting on headphones that hundreds of strangers had placed over their own ears. I remembered a time when I still had hair to put a headband over, and the thought of a sweaty one touching my bare scalp made me queasy, which in turn made me laugh.Luna asked what was so funny. There was no point in trying to tell the girls about the bygone years I missed. I hated my own father's stories about worthier days, and my own anecdotes about a time when every mall store was filled to the brim wasn't going to make them feel any better about all the gates rolled down. The excess of capitalism had gone somewhere else, and it wasn't anywhere you could traverse in your tax-free tennis shoes. We walked in circles until we arrived back at the you-are-here map for the third time. Luna yelled something in German I couldn't understand and threw her empty Orange Julius cup in a fountain in some sort of protest. I fished it out, vaguely threatening her that she better not be saying swear words. There was some disappointment I could not save them from. I said I had an idea, and I promised it would be enjoyable this time—or, at the very least, educational.Alba groaned when we arrived at the science museum, saying it was a place for field trips. “Well, you wanted to be at school today, so pretend we're at school today.”Luna had no more protests. She was immediately taken in by the skeletons, although I have to admit they looked less foreboding printed in halftone next to horoscopes and News of the Weird. The science museum, like the mall, was, thankfully, cool and air-conditioned, but eerily muted and grossly oversized. The walls were tall enough to house a dinosaur skeleton, although there weren't any. We didn't have that kind of public funding here. Everything was painted a sickly, middle gray, and the walls were noticeably peeling. The museum had been built before even I was born, and it seemed like some relic from an epoch when people still kept print encyclopedias in their homes.I suddenly became aware that I was walking around a room with parts from a bunch of dead bodies in it. I didn't like that one bit. The thought had crossed my mind that this would be a foolproof send-off for the girls—an acceptable anecdote they could tell their mother—although now I was worried about traumatizing them. Alba walked around with her hands behind her back, acting more disinterested than she was. Luna, like her namesake, always held a bit of darkness on one side of her; she seemed to have little problem with the macabre.A security guard made some small talk with Alba about the color of her purse (“mauve”) and then started talking about how the organs were harvested from political prisoners in Monkubaraq without their permission. I sidled over, asking where Monkubaraq was, that it wasn't a country I had heard of, but the guard brushed me away with her hand, as if I were intruding upon some innocuous schoolgirl talk about first crushes. She went on about how the museum was now cursed, and the calamity would spread to the city. I would have stepped in again, but Alba looked as resilient as a bedbug, so instead I walked over to Luna, who was reciting anatomy in her second language.“Are you enjoying yourself?”“Das auge.”“Is this better or worse than being in school?”“Der bauch.”“Do you think Uncle Nicky has fixed our AC yet?”“Der fingernagel,” she sighed.The museum exhibit was arranged room from room in different groups. We moved through the digestive system with intestines stretched out a mile long across the walls. We passed the uncanny nervous system, reduced to alien lines and cartoonish eyeballs popping out of the brain. It seemed that everyone else had either given up or sped through the wide, gray rooms. I couldn't help but watch the girls, wondering what science lessons they learned in school each year. By the time summers came, they seemed too exhausted to indulge me with educational recitations.If the exhibit was arranged in order, the final room was based on disorder. It was a room of tumors and abnormalities. In the center was a body where the DNA had gone haywire. The security guard had followed us, and she was telling the girls how the body's information traveled to the wrong places. There was a severed foot with ten nails growing on every toe.“Gross,” said Alba.The girls turned their attention to a stomach that had teeth and hair growing out of it.“Teratoma,” Luna said, reading a nearby plaque.There was a preserved infant, a blue eye growing out the center of its throat like tanzanite. Alba held my hand. Had I misgauged what she could withstand?Luna put her face against the glass case.“They stole that baby away,” the guard said. “A festering child will spread like a wound, unable to be cleansed,” she added, although it wasn't clear who or what she was talking about—or to. She put her hands on the girls’ backs, said the more we learn about the human body, the more unrecognizable it becomes.I said my rushed thank-yous and goodbyes and tugged Luna by the bow on the back of her dress. We had almost made it out unscathed before Luna asked if we could get Uncle Nicky something from the gift shop. I paid fifteen dollars for a severed ear on a keychain, and we fled.The house was an endless transgression of summer. Humid, hot, full of too much light. The girls made their agony known as soon as we walked in the front door. I had to do a quick huddle to remind them we needed to be kind to Uncle Nicky if we wanted the AC fixed sooner rather than later. I said they'd feel better if they put on cooler clothes and washed their faces with ice-cold water. At the very least, they seemed to acquiesce.Nicky was in the backyard, working at something. He had grease on his arms and face, as if he were fixing a car. He wiped his brow dramatically, coming in for an elbow bump.“How was the mall?”“Disappointing. We went to that exhibit with the human bodies at the science museum instead.”“Oh, word? I heard about that, but it seemed mad haunted, so yeah, not doing that.”“What do you mean by ‘haunted’?”“I don't know, man. I just don't want to be in a room with people's bodies, you know? Even if they're taken apart to the point where they don't even resemble bodies.”Nicky listed off the places he doesn't go: cemeteries, catacombs, crypts, columbaria, charnel houses, that one cave that all the divers die in despite there being a sign with a skull and crossbones on it saying that you'll die if you go in.“All those dead people places start with the letter C. Same letter as the word cursed. Makes you think, doesn't it?”“Not really,” I said, right before I forced the conversation back to the HVAC unit.He started to explain his progress, what needed to be done, and although he was giving me an answer, my mind couldn't let go of those bulging eyes and many-nailed toes. I thought of the teeth growing out of the stomach, and my own stomach soured. I could feel the teratoma in my mind: the wet lining inside the belly, the teeth still slick with saliva and gastric acid. I imagined the unruly, unstoppable hair, shooting downward into the ground like roots. The hair spread out like a rhizome, tendrils soaking everything with hydrochloric acid. The hair blighted the land. The foundations grew weak from the acid. I could feel it under our home. Teeth grew from the soil. Voids formed. A depression grew in the ground I could feel the up from the the of around my my my throat you any of get time of is for you, and I this that my on that for a more days, last with the was I supposed to I got still be a more not cool off was at how that how to There was a public just a mile the and maybe this was my one to make the girls summer wasn't was There were for one for and both were half full. There were other which other parents had had the same idea, as far as it would Alba walked up to other girls, from school, and they followed in a to put their on Had she them that she'd be three of them in the same of of Alba was It seemed she was I had and I didn't how to make of them. She was supposed to be Even the girls lived only an hour away the school I them. They were with their and lessons and off when I was working second the distance we would go to school and some I was that I didn't have to them that distance see the they would soon a second or third and her and their hair in the same at a I was too far away to in the I her some She knew which was the acceptable which She was summer Alba summer she with the other girls who to go into the I had learned back in that they only wanted to and was no an She was of a that had to do with although my made me want to behind my and the for thankfully, was still in her There was a blue that went in by I her go on it and again, with an almost There was something all about something that more to my own She on her without She didn't have a of She couldn't her body from the in that way that Alba enough time had passed for her to what could and would be on the of the of the It was a where women by on their of them was something in gray something into the of a The hag summer into my again, and I as if the women could my it was at them. I to think of off on a rather than a was a day between and as I looked over at into the behind her at knew we had some on this The of the air conditioners had not our this would be as a they could back at one they tell their mother a me and my out to see no put it back, then it was the that Nicky told I thought of the a third and to my his up on the Nicky went into talking about how he was than It was almost so I that at one that that there was a already called out of we out the about I heard a behind were and a people were to get out of the by the over get don't I said, over at the other a as I said, to my were to more in a way I didn't couldn't The became Luna seemed to not I her get out of the and up the of the again, to get one more not a I said, up the going from a to a to a full I to the I could see it although I didn't understand it at It was like a of a the and and were like a of in the center of the water. everyone had gotten out of the by for a kids were somewhere between and Luna was going the The was the I could see a at the of the like a It was as if the DNA of a had something else The was half was to the There were some on the who weren't tall enough to were over, to to Luna was in the the on her face toward She was being to the I my down, into the in my It wasn't a in the way that the you, but I could feel the of an of something at wasn't a but I with every I Luna, who was to her so I thought it out of the I got to the there were other who over to her then we got our I turned around to watch the last of the into a that was now as as a the and with into the at the center of the parents at the but I wanted to be as far away from the as so I Luna, who was in over to who was with her back against a the color from her she said, to my wet then looking I wanted to something about how that wasn't our but that who had been over, me my of the was to but a voice was in I could see at the of the in a of friends. is what she was and is I asked little hag got Luna no I said, although I looked over at the who had me my from the Alba said. museum guard said. no your parents it just the of I said, go talk to told I would a for the in that I told I would and we would her brother in the and everything would be just I knew what I was telling even as I forced to beside the to into my to then the then the then the then some In a that was we held the that there was a of to it We were off the although we could still watch it all through the from the We until parents We until by into the A a away, in and a blue with She kept the word saying it had under the taken the of it with it. We until the summer moved to then We until all the other We until the divers back up We until mother which is to we until we knew he was home was cool and when we The only was the of the the every time the air It against the that had and We ate our in mother didn't like them and when we ate it we went through our of no one up to They would be to her I how she would if the girls told her how long we for that body to from the would have if they had the girls had a dead they them was a I got the girls for three their mother got them for It wasn't but was for us, and then they They'd an or hair would get or would and the small I up for them in the would by I to remind that there were that they from half of bodies were still Even in these it was not to see the for what they summer the girls one but on that Alba went to She seemed as I her Luna said she wanted to with and we up in the watching German cartoons. I to be but in a I through all the on my looking for any about I wanted to have a face to put his to. that, he was just a with a of hair, an of with teeth from a wasn't until Luna asked about school that I remembered that I had to my there was one by the school We to it on as they that the HVAC had been and the first day of school would in the I to face, but it was in the light. the air in my car could last the full would be the last of another year. summer would be our would be I would them even back to the that was with an The had teeth between its and the was away in she said to the I said, through my we get some we the you of the could feel her up next to and I said, to be I was thought I be to her in the way that I was to but I as she up you think it ate that that it will no be I don't want it to just a I said. “A of It was a of not a she said. but it to I said, and her hair with my I there for what like this until at last I knew she was at a I for the the off our room into and the condo would be empty The girls would go the last of their baby teeth. For the of me to a place inside that I said a in my the of them were I couldn't even to imagine what those other parents were had I I he or his on the way down, but that a thought could come from my mind so He was a child like they and He was knew I didn't want him to I didn't want to I wanted the girls to feel Had I at given them that I didn't feel to what was going through their watching someone just a years than them up by the I was to that where I was to what had me back The of them seemed to a much They were a different who had all the of the at their I didn't what they I couldn't if Alba was or if Luna was. they were the my and my I was, in my the girls were of away in the of The cool air on again, the the were but at we could have Luna I this from the they feel this to my mind there as I moved to my own the the of a summer tiny body as as a the of the I not to think of that in the I not to think of the of the I was my girls to. through It wasn't even three full but who was I to not to think of the of hair our the teeth the ground our The with I could feel the through the up through the the and and a different of not to think of the stomach that were the that in the of my watching back into a and