Читать книгу Wanderlust: New Adventures in the Northern Sea - Katja Just - Страница 3

“Remember?” laughed Sabine. “A few weeks ago we were walking barefoot along the summer dike with our shoes in our hands."

Of course I remembered. Today too we walked following the sun in the south of the Hallig, and this day too was beautiful. However, it was no longer a warm summer day, but a day in October. It already began to dawn, nevertheless it was noticeable how much longer it remained bright up here in the north than in the south.

Sabine and I strolled through the meanwhile mostly dark red and brown faded meadow on the dike, directly along the water. The Hallig appeared in her full autumn dress. The samphire in particular - now a trendy vegetable known in many places as the “asparagus of the sea", here on the Hallig a popular and versatile accompaniment to seafood, lamb and pasta dishes - had meanwhile swapped its rich green for a tired red. Now it was no longer edible. Also the color of the Hallig lilacs, which bloomed purple in summer, had turned into a dull brown tone.

We looked alternately to the right at the fens, where there were still a few cows with their calves that had grown up over the summer, and to the left at the water as far as the never-ending horizon, where the first soft pink and purple tones exapnded. The view reached far beyond the Hallig Norderoog. Over our heads flew once a seagull, once a few oystercatchers. Kinah, Sabine’s Ridgeback bitch, who obediently walked on the leash between us, watched the last feathered guests on the Hallig. Little by little they all made their way to southern climes. Surely Kinah would much rather run free. Not because she wanted to hunt the birds, but because she loved to run a few meters ahead and then come back around us in a big arc. But just because there were still some birds here, the frolicsome raving had to wait. Between April and October the Hallig is under “leash obligation”. In this time is the so-called rest and brood-time. Dog owners must take this into account at all costs. On the Warften, or terps – mounds on which our houses stand – the leash obligation applies all year round, out of consideration for residents and for our guests.

“Basically, the dike is a work of art.” Sabine put her arms to her hips and looked along the dike, in whose damp stones the evening sun broke sparkling. “A stone mosaic."

“Yes, and a very useful one,” I said and cuddled Kinah’s walnut brown forehead shining through the sun’s rays. “Without our summer dike, the Hallig shores would be exposed to waves and currents without protection, and the stormy sea would inexorably nibble away our habitat."

With a length of almost twelve kilometers, the summer dike encloses the almost six square kilometer Hallig like a protective band. Work on the coastal fortifications began between 1911 and 1914, when dike workers and stonemasons, some of them from Italy, came to the far north to painstakingly place stone on stone in and on top of one another, giving the Hallig its protective wall and its unmistakable appearance today. The stone settlements must be regularly repaired or even renewed. Coastal protection is a continuous cycle, because as we coastal people say: “The North Sea doesn’t sleep - it just waits."

We walked side by side in silence for a while. I enjoy the walks with Sabine and Kinah. We’ve known each other for almost ten years now. Sabine came the first time as a guest to me in the house at the Landsende, at that time still without Kinah. We became united by a deep friendship and love for the North Sea, especially the Wadden Sea. The tall, sporty woman is a few years older than me and visits me several times a year. Always at her side her lovely bitch. Our walks remind me of those with my Chico, the shepherd-collie mix that accompanied me for eleven years through my life on Hooge. If Sabine, Kinah and I go over the Hallig together, he accompanies us in our thoughts.

The fresh breeze that came up in the back was pleasant and we could watch how it moved over the Halligland and touched the still lush green grass almost tenderly. It moved gently, leaving behind a fine trail that ran time and again between the grass tips. Not only feeling and hearing the wind, but even observing it, that’s something you can do especially well during a walk on a Hallig, I thought to myself.

“Now a hand on heart, Katya. Did you expect this success of the book?” my friend asked me. She had been one of my first readers at the time and had accompanied me as an author from the beginning.

“Never in my life!” I replied briefly and concisely.

Neither I nor the publisher had expected the success of Barfuß auf dem Sommerdeich – Barefoot on the Summer Dike - the title of my first work, which was published in May 2017.

In the course of a review there was the well-meaning hint that the title was somewhat misleading. One would rather expect a tale in the style of Rosamunde Pilcher’s love stories than the life story of a young woman who moved from the big city of Munich to the manageable Hallig Hooge at the age of 25. In fact, I thought the same thing when I first read the publisher’s title proposal. I immediately had to think of schmaltzy-romantic people who frolic in beautiful English counties, who always walk along the same red thread and always end up with a happy ending. But pretty much the only thing that my story has in common with this old English idyll is the North Sea around the island on which the whole thing plays.

I finally let the publisher convince me, and my story found its way into the bookstores under the title Barfuß auf dem Sommerdeich. My initial rumblings of doubt subsided, and the longer I thought about the title, the more I could make friends with it. The first feedback reached me in different ways. Many people wrote me wonderful letters or e-mails after seeing me on television or listening to me on the radio. “Your book is so personal, you reveal so much about yourself.” I wasn’t aware of that at first. I just talked about my life, especially the 16 years I lived on Hooge at the time, and let my thoughts run wild. It was like talking to someone during a walk. And suddenly I realized. This title was just right! It revealed little of what I want to tell, but describes exactly how I felt at the moment of telling or writing. Completely free of constraints and worries - barefoot.

Barefoot on the summer dike around the Hallig I was allowed to invite the readers to accompany me. I can’t believe how many people walked with me, listened to me and immersed themselves in Hallig life with me. Some of these companions told me that this time together was too short and that they would like to accompany me again. They even expressed wishes I should tell them about. For example, the difference between a Hallig and an island. They want to know how it is with Schmusi, the cow that took my heart by storm, and what happened to my desire to open my own café. They want to do a mudflat hike with me and a lot more. Therefore, I extend another invitation:

Accompany me once again over the summer dike and through the Hallig world. Let the wind blow through you, feel the sodden mudflats under your feet, discover new sides of Hallig life and stand with me against the wind that doesn’t always blow from behind. I am pleased to have you at my side.