20 January, 2023
And so Father says the words « Ich verspreche es, sagte ich » knowing full well his duties as a son come first and foremost.
8 June, 1962
When Father was a little eight-year-old by the name of Conrad, he and his older brother, Hans, had the habit of passing their free time by the shores of Lake Lucerne. Hans liked a place between the town of Buochs and their village on the hill. It overlooked the lake, and so the view of the hills and towns on the other side was clear, but it was distant enough that no one would see Hans as he smoked. Hans and Conrad would skid stones against the water’s edge, Hans would teach Conrad curse words, and Conrad would ask a lot of inane questions about animals and plants. They would stand by the lake until Hans finished his cigarettes, and then they would walk back.
One summer day, Hans told Conrad he had to go to Buochs to get something. Conrad did not like the idea of being left alone on the hills. He begged Hans to let him come with him. He got so flustered that had Hans not been a big boy Conrad wanted to impress, Conrad would have surely cried. Hans did not listen. He repeated over and over again that Conrad could not come, that this was a trip just for him. To settle his brother down, Hans made a promise. He said he would be back within an hour.
Ich verspreche, Hans said. Ich verspreche es, sagte ich!
Conrad was a little boy. There were things he understood and things he didn’t. He knew that two times six had to equal twelve, but twelve could not be divided by five. He liked it when his mother carried him and let him play with her hair, though he did have the chance to do it much anymore as he was getting older. He was young and yet he already felt sehnsucht; he longed for the sake of longing and felt a craving to be active, but he never knew where it stemmed from and what direction he was meant to channel it. And he loved to play with the family mountain dog, Klaus, in the bright verdant plains under the hills around Lake Lucerne.
These were the things that were clear in Conrad’s mind. When Hans had given his promise, he had said something clear, but had also meant something abstract. This was something that Conrad did not understand. But Hans had said the big words with so much authority that Conrad felt he had no choice but to sit there, whether he liked it or not.
And so Conrad found a little place in the grass, close enough to the water that he could see all the little minnows, but far away enough that he would not fall in. After all, Lake Lucerne was not a small pool of water one could dip one’s feet into. The shoreline on the other side had giant hills the clouds were eating into, and giant rippling waves, and everything looked so far away. Just staring at the water made Conrad feel like he was falling.
The clouds paunched up and dissipated. No one really passed by because this area of the lake was not on a footpath. Conrad remained sitting there until he noticed that it was getting dark. When he realised that it was now longer than an hour, Conrad ran as fast as he could back home, right into the apron of his mother, where he sobbed hysterically.
Later on Hans would come back home ready to yell at his brother, only to be stopped by their father, who beat him senselessly. Hans and Conrad would go not talking for many days, and their walks together to the hill ended. It was not Hans who ended them but Conrad. Conrad felt a deep and anguished sense of anger inside of him. He was not able to understand the cause of it, but over time he felt a certain thought grow firm in his mind like a truth.
Promises were not made to be broken. The pain that a broken promise gave was worse than anything the physical body could experience.
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