It's a Saturday in Kappeln shortly after the start of the season. My husband has gone to get bread rolls and I've stayed on the boat because the man from the boatyard wanted to come.
The man from the shipyard says: "Well, what can you do? If the engine is broken, then it's broken!"
The engine is broken? What else, please? First the Kappeln bridge was closed, then there was something wrong with our faeces tank, and now we finally want to set off and the boat, our 'old one', won't start.
"What do you mean?" I ask, almost trembling at what awaits me as soon as my husband returns, should this claim be true.
He scratches his head.
"It's gone. I have to look for parts. But if things go badly, they won't be here soon. If it goes really badly, you'll need a new engine. There's just nothing you can do."
"But I can't!" I say, but the man shrugs his shoulders regretfully, leaves and promises to look for parts. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I think about how to break the horror news to my husband, but I can't think of anything that could mitigate the disaster. He's about to mutate into a jack-in-the-box. Because one thing is certain: he has never been an advocate of a pacifist attitude.
I can already hear him shouting sarcastically: "In this beautiful sunny weather, it's a good idea not to sail, why even ferry to Sønderborg in perfect winds, I'd rather beat the creases out of my sack on the berth below deck while I wait for some parts!"
And first he'll howl like a baboon that has accidentally sat its bare arse on a red-hot hob, and then he'll shout: "Will one of these morons from engine manufacturers and parts suppliers perhaps remember that a season is a season. The last two years have been a circus because of this damn virus, and now, when everyone could be sailing, the engine won't start. And you shouldn't go crazy!"
And then disaster strikes: my husband comes along the jetty in an unsuspecting good mood. "There you are," I say in a trembling voice. "Coffee?"
"Gladly."
"The engine man was there," I say ominously.
He nods. "I know, I just ran into him. The engine's broken. He's looking for parts. I've brought you a pretzel stick."
I stare at him. Then I count silently: "One, two..."
"Well, there's nothing we can do, the man said. Let's just stay here and get some rest."
I sit down. Did the engine man give him an opiate? A good idea actually, that's how you keep the harbours calm when there's horror news. And it gets even more worrying:
"And we can go on nice trips by car." My husband almost cheers: "We can go to nice cafés after a brisk walk."
He hates going for walks. The word alone makes his face flush with anger. I butter the pretzel stick anxiously.
Has what you sometimes read in magazines happened? Has the so-called mellowness of old age found its way into my husband's character? It's hard to believe. But they say that it can start at some point in men in their sixties. Either they just smile like they're borderline stupid and don't think anything is bad any more, or - and this is what I feared - it gets even worse than in the last 22 years and he becomes a fierce grizzly who isn't satisfied with anything. Just like now, only worse.
Now it's different.
I cover the bar with ham.
"Look, they're fishing back there again," says my husband.
Aha. Just yesterday, "the morons in their moronic overalls were making too much of a wave again with their stupid motorised slingshots".
"So idyllic," says my husband, then he gets up.
"I'm going to the DIY store to buy screws and stuff."
"It's fine."
I only briefly consider whether another woman or - even less likely - another boat is involved, but I would probably have noticed that.
After a little while, he comes back.
"You know, the time I have left is finite. I now rest within myself, the peace gives me strength, and then I close my eyes and often just imagine the blue sky above me, the sun and the water. What's a broken engine!"
The man from the shipyard brings parts, but they are the wrong ones.
My husband smiles mildly. "No problem."
The man says that nothing can be done and drives off again. Other, suitable parts are currently not available, he says on the phone. But he will keep looking.
My husband says: "Good things come to those who wait!"
The next morning he drives back to the DIY store, which surprises me because he was already there yesterday. But fine. I walk along the beautiful path along the Schlei into town and then past the old "Pierspeicher", which is now a hotel. And our car is parked in front of it. This is definitely not a DIY store.
Curious, I sneak around the building to see if I can spot him through a window on the ground floor. There's only a yoga group there. I listen intently through the tilted window.
"Now please simulate a snake shedding its skin," says the group leader, and those present curl up on the mats as if to avoid being hit.
And there I see him: my husband!
He also curls up.
Then everyone sits down and makes the familiar "Ommmm". After the Downward-Facing Dog, I'm no longer able to continue watching, partly because I've realised that my husband is wearing pink sports trousers - mine, in fact. He looks like a desperate sweetie.
My husband is wearing pink sports trousers - mine! He curls up, goes "Ommmm" and looks like a desperate sweetie
I go back to the "old lady". Our berth neighbours have just arrived with their grandchildren.
"Bubu, Lalli, look who's here, say hello!"
The three-year-old twins stare at me while they paint a farm on our teak deck with finger paints.
"Don't look so shocked, that's environmental paint," says Mrs Müller and laughs. "We just don't want it on our boat because we want it to be the same colour."
Here comes my husband. It will all be too late now. He stops in front of the "old lady" and looks at leaning chimneys and a cow. Now he opens his mouth. There will be deaths soon.
"Ah, a cow." He laughs heartily.
His mercy completely overwhelms me.
"I'll pull up the sail and see if at least that's all right," says my husband sweetly.
Three motorboats with anglers in camouflage suits pass close to the harbour. We wave. Something occurs to me. "Oh, by the way," I say. "If you're looking for your blood pressure tablets, I've packed them."
He turns round. "You what???"
"Packed the tablets. Because otherwise you would have forgotten them. And we're travelling quite a long way. Of course you would have got a prescription ..."
He stares at me. "A prescription? Here?" He obviously didn't even think of that.
My husband now screams like William Wallace, who shouts "Freiiiiiiheiiiiiiiit!" at the end of "Braveheart": "She's got my blood pressure pills!!!"
The owners sitting on their boats in the harbour stand up and applaud.
And then a fishing hook with a sharp lure comes in from the Schlei and gets tangled up in our hoisted sail. The angler desperately pulls on the line, making things even worse. Naturally, the sail tears.
My husband takes a breath: "You fucking moron, you brainless fool, can you maybe go to North Korea with your stupid camouflage suit and go fishing there, yeah? Get out of here, get out! And you ... grrrrrr!" A bloodshot look in his eyes as he looks at Bubi and Lalli, who flee screaming back to their parents' boat.
"I saw in a documentary that you have to make sure you take your tablets correctly, especially in old age, and then I get here and realise that I've forgotten to take them. I even went to yoga to stop my blood pressure from rising."
"It's all right now." I get the tablets. He takes one straight away.
"What would I do without you?"
"Oh..." I am touched.
"I meant the tablet. Well, it's time to clean up after this, you brats, and if that moron from Motorfritze doesn't bring us the right parts soon, God have mercy on him!"
"Do you mean me?" asks the engine man, who suddenly stands in front of us.
"Ah, exactly. Do you have the parts?"
"No, they won't be available again until the autumn. You just have to sail sustainably, too much motoring is not good for the water anyway. Think about the fish!"
A passing tourist with a dog stops. And while the dog lifts his leg, my husband raises both hands to the sky and finally lets out everything he had to swallow.
I lean back and relax.
Everything is the same as always.
Everything is fine.
Steffi von Wolff
