Watermelon

Eating has always been a ceremonious affair around here. I have many vivid memories of visiting the grannies at this house as a kid, and being bullied into eating way more portions of German food than I could ever ask for. Sophie and Olga’s mother, who died a few years ago when she was 103, used to serve wursts and krauts and kartoffels and streudels in piles that were higher than my head, while yelling at me and my sisters to “Essen! Essen! Essen!” All the while I couldn’t wait to fly out of there and play my Gameboy on the car ride home.

Back then I never dreamed that one day I’d be living here as an adult, being the one responsible for buying all the food. The massive feasts don’t really happen anymore though, as Olga’s not really able to use the stove or oven unsupervised now. Sophie is still able to cook for herself a bit– she mainly subsists on Sprite, Chips Ahoy, fried chicken, boiled potatoes, and the occasional can of Budweiser or cake from the bakery around the corner. I know Mrs Fruehauf is still at it in her kitchen because I can always smell something like cabbage or some kind of roast coming from her apartment, but she never invites anyone in to join her. She stopped being friendly with Sophie and Olga about twenty years ago.

At any rate, the moments when I walk in Olga’s door with grocery bags in my hands are glorious ones for her. She loves going through all the bags as if she was uncovering treasure– when she finds a loaf of bread or a half gallon of orange juice her eyes light up, and she’ll oooooh and aaaah at a bag of grapes or apples. She’s thrilled at the sight of her sugar free cookies and deeply pleased at a jar of instant coffee.

But the real treasure to her, the one that makes her cry out in joy and head straight for a knife and cutting board– watermelon.

The other day I was dropping some groceries off to her at around 8pm, which was right about when she was nodding off to sleep for the night. So she was very very grumpy when she heard me letting myself into her apartment and making a bit of a commotion with keys and plastic bags. She hobbled out of her bedroom half asleep and grumbling with the sourest of sour looks on her face. I tried dangling the loaf of bread in front of her to cheer her up, but she was too grumpy to care, and she didn’t even take a second look when I was waving around the cookies.

Then I pulled out the big red and green kahuna, and suddenly she was smiling as if she’d just been given hundreds of thousands of dollars. Seconds after seeing it, she was fishing around for a knife and cutting board, and before I could finish taking the plastic wrap off the voluptous half -melon, she was slicing in with laughter and shrieks of happiness.

The next morning, only a third of the thing was left.