The Old Man´s Diary

1.

Our car rolled slowly along the moss-grown driveway. You could hear the gravel under the weight of the vehicle and thus provided an acoustic background for our arrival. I had been looking forward to this moment for so many weeks. The windows of our Ford were wide open and the scent of the thick forest slowly filled the interior of the car. My girlfriend deeply inhaled the summery smell of pine needles, damp grass, and the fragrant country air.

I had questioned myself a few months earlier, as we were sitting together in the spacious living room of our penthouse in Toronto and opening a bottle of a full-bodied French red wine, "We have to get out of here!". While I was slowly pouring our wine into crystal glasses, I asked myself the same question and, this time, it seemed I had made a decision. "Since I'm no longer inspired," I tried convincing myself of my decision, "I've been working on the new book for over a year and nothing is happening!" I got up from the oversized white leather sofa and took a long sip of the red wine, which ran smoothly down my throat. Sandra trying to appease me said “You're a great writer. Everyone has a phase when things don't always go the way you want." You know, I've wanted to move to the country for a long time, the city is killing me." I didn’t let it show, that Sandra didn´t look happy when I said "let's move to the countryside"- Maybe we were just too different.

2.

Only a few weeks later we had decided on a country house that had been vacant for years and that was waiting for a new owner in the dense forests of New Brunswick. When we stopped in front of the huge house and as we got out of the car, Sandra said, "We'll have a lot to do to make it into our dream home." My gaze slid over the siding, which was urgently in need of fresh paint. We slowly climbed the rotten steps to open the weathered entrance gate with the key we had received from the Toronto agent.

As I stepped into the spacious entrance area of the old house, I felt something that I thought I had lost - an earthly energy and inspiration. I looked briefly at Sandra, whose face increasingly reflected more and more disappointment.

The old building had pulled me under its spell. Full of expectation, I walked up the dust-covered stairs and, as if I wasn't myself, I literally slipped through the rooms of the farm house. My girlfriend's voice tore me from my almost trance-like tour, "Are you sure that we really want this?" I replied: "I feel that I can start writing again" and, as if by myself, I moved into the next room. It was an almost empty room with wide, worn wooden floorboards and a stone-framed open fireplace. The only furniture was an antique armchair and an unimpressive plain desk. At second glance, under a thick layer of dust, I discovered a small black notebook.

"Dreadful!" , " that's absolutely not what I had in mind" sounded like distant words to my ears, but I was unable to respond. Magically I was drawn to the little black notebook.

“You don't need to believe that I'll be staying here! ”“I'm going back to the hotel”. The last thing I heard was the front door slamming.

3.

I sat down on the worn chair and opened the little black notebook.

"March 17th, 1948". I read the first handwritten entry," Maria and I are overjoyed and full of sadness at the same time. The moment has come! Today we will leave our homeland forever and all the people we love.”

I pulled the armchair closer to the desk, put on my glasses and began to immerse myself into the handwritten story.

“My older brother Franz inherited our childhood mountain farm in the Austrian Alps. I am so desperate and I can't see any future for us here in Austria. Maria and I have decided to look for happiness elsewhere, far away from it all, in Canada!”

The little black notebook turned out to be the diary of a young man in search of happiness for his family. I excitedly devoured the following pages, which dealt with an adventurous escape from a small mountain village in Salzburg.

“Maria's parents would never allow us to leave to Canada! I urgently need to make an escape plan. At around three o'clock in the morning we crept down the steep path into the dark gorge. Unluckily I stepped on a rock, lost my balance and my bag fell into the darkness. Most of my few belongings were lost.“

I felt tears gather in my eyes. Inevitably, I had to think of the Trapp family from "The Sound of Music". Once again, I immersed myself in the reading that wanted to reveal to me the life of the old man who had once lived here. The notes reported on an adventurous journey through Austria and Italy, of crossing the ocean on a container ship on which the young couple had been hired as auxiliary cooks to reach their destination. And it told me about the first few weeks in Canada.

“Today we arrived in Halifax and for the first time we could feel the soil of our new homeland under our feet. Maria and I were totally overwhelmed”

Spellbound I devoured the story of the couple's first few years in Canada, which told of hard work on a lot of different farms. The short entries were so figurative that I could see me walking through eastern Canada with the two of them. Would such an adventure be possible with Sandra? She loves the big city, parties, and fine dining! Was it really fair of me to bring someone like her to this rural area? I quickly put my thoughts aside and kept on reading.

"July 23rd, 1953, Maria is pregnant", was the next entry, "it is hot and thousands of mosquitoes around but we still work hard all day. We saved some money over the past few years and finally we could buy our very own farm.”

Again, my relationship with Sandra came to my mind. She is an excellent editor but is she also the love of my life?

4.

It was already getting dark and the lines in the little black notebook could hardly be deciphered. I got my cell phone out of the car and noticed five missed calls from Sandra. Just a few more pages and I'll call her back! I clicked the flashlight function and shone it on the writing that required all my attention.

"Jonathan is now four years old and helps me out with chores around the farm."

I read page by page, lived with the family, felt joy, anger and love. I shared the excitement when the children went hunting with their father, the cow calved or a snowstorm cut off the family from the outside world. I laughed when the children were playing pranks or when the puppies stole the Sunday roast. And I hated when two criminals robbed the family´s home while Maria was there by herself. I experienced a roller coaster of feelings as if I were part of their lives. I felt that there could be nothing more emotional than a family story, the story of a real life. As I read the following sentence, I burst into tears.

“It has become quiet since the children are going their own ways. Maria died three weeks ago and part of me with her.”

Thick tears ran down my cheeks as the entries became more and more weak and the story finally came to an end forever.

5.

I enjoyed the applause and looked happily into the audience. "Thank you! Thank you very much! It is an honor to be here today. I am more than happy to receive the $20,000 literary award.” I made a little bow to the jury. “Many thanks to all my readers!” The audience clapped again. “And special thanks to my lovely wife Sandra, who spent several months with me in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in the inspiring Maritimes! She made my novel “The Old Man’s Diary” possible. This time the applause went to my wife and editor.

“You might be asking now what we are going to do with the money. We turned the old farmhouse that inspired me so much into a holiday home for less privileged children and of course we will use the $20,000 to expand and support this project!"

I turned away from the microphone and left the stage of the ballroom while I said quietly to myself, “And most of all I thank you, old man - without you this novel would never have been written, nor would I have realized how much I love Sandra. "

The End