The Steadfast Dark

We’ll seek solace where we can.

It is early January, the sixth to be exact. It is the day that the state of Georgia appears to have flipped entirely blue. It was what would have been my Italian grandfather’s 112th birthday. And it is Epiphany, aka Three Kings, aka the morning after Twelfth Night. In other words, the Christmas season has officially ended. In France, people are eating flaky galette des rois stuffed with frangipane and a little trinket tonight. In the United States, Democrats are celebrating. And in Berlin, we’re throwing Christmas trees out the window.

My husband and I are sticklers for tradition, so we don’t buy our Christmas tree until right before Christmas Eve. This year, this dallying almost led to disaster, as most Christmas tree vendors had packed up by the 22nd and disappeared. Luckily, Max and Hugo were able to find a guy still selling some by the side of the road and not only did they save Christmas, but they managed to snag the most perfect Christmas tree of all. It was perfectly proportioned, with just enough space between each layer of branches, and a beautiful little tip rising smartly out of the top. I spent far more time gazing at this tree in pride than I care to admit. We’ll never have such a beautiful Christmas tree again, I fear. It barely lost any of its almost silky needles over the past two weeks and today, when it is fated to faceplant onto the sidewalk, it still looks as richly green as it did on December 23rd.

Never mind that. It’s time to go. I’ve packed up all the baubles, the antique silver balls, the spangled birds with feathers coming out of their bottoms, the nutcrackers with their hungry jaws, the white porcelain bells gleaming in the dark, and the brass candeholders, flecked here and there with candle wax. When my husband’s ready, we’ll open our balcony door, conveniently situated directly above a driveway leading to our neighbor’s garage under the building. Max will lift the tree while I run downstairs in my winter coat, then he’ll tip it out over the balcony and push it, and when it thuds to the ground, I’ll drag it up to the sidewalk, where it’ll be picked up one of these days soon, perhaps to be mulched, or perhaps, which is what I’m hoping for, to be brought to the Berlin Zoo for the elephants to eat.

***

Earlier today, when I found myself out walking from one errand to the next, I lifted my eyes to the dull, flat sky hanging over Berlin, as gray as an elephant hide. Now begins the hardest season, to my mind at least, the time when sunlight vanishes from our latitude and we spend our days in a dark monotony. It is barely worth mentioning, since no one needs reminding, that we are living through a pandemic and our city is in a tight lockdown. My older son attends a few zoom lessons a week, his notebooks and paperwork colonizing the dining table that we no longer need cleared now that the holidays have ended. My younger son has learned to listen to audiobooks and play by himself when his brother is working. My husband is ensconced in a tiny room that we one day hope to turn into a second bathroom, working 8, 9, 10-hour days. His door locks.

And what about me? I awaken in the early hours, when the house is still quiet. I steal moments to work where I can. When the children are up, a routine kicks in. Making tea, preparing breakfast, cajoling the children, getting dressed. There’s noise in the house now and this is the closest we come to normalcy. A radio plays the news in the background and the toaster coughs up two more crisp pieces.

The rest of the day, I flit between the children and their needs, I allow myself to tune them out to work, I get lunch ready, and tea and cookies, and dinner, an endless loop of meal prep and clean-up, though it is also these moments alone in the kitchen that recharge me, and I’m grateful for them. My husband helps when he can, sometimes by doing the washing-up, sometimes by taking the boys outside to get their wiggles out which allows me some quiet, my ears still ringing. But many days he can barely leave his little office. Those days I only slip in a plate of food to him and quietly close the door again.

This all sounds worse than it is, perhaps. Things feel more manageable than they did in the spring. Our boys have learned to adjust to their life lived mostly indoors. The teachers have improved their methods. And we have more help now, our two mothers who feel safe enough to help us care for the children, taking them for a few hours in the morning or the afternoon, which allows me to work for a few hours almost every day. Allows me to revel in my children again when they return home, cheeks flushed. Allows me to feel like I’m still me as well as their mother.

***

The ruins of the boys’ gingerbread houses are in the garbage, a few uneaten treats still wrapped in foil salvaged and put away for later snacks. I’ve gathered up all the holiday cards and packed up the Pyramiden, wrapping their delicate wooden wings gently in tissue paper. Plucked out the candles from our Advent wreath to save for our dinner table and unwrapped the desiccated greenery from the straw base. There is solace in this methodical clean-up. It’s steadying, even if it is a little melancholy, and I’m eager to have our apartment looking tidier again. The only exception are the fairy lights. We’re leaving them up this year for as long as we need them. They frame a doorway in our living room and this year, they also snake through our balcony plants, illuminating the outside of our living room as well as the inside. I always used to think balcony Christmas lighting was sort of tacky. But not this year.

The final question is what to do with the remains of the Christmas cookies. There are those that were given to us, each wrapped up in the thoughtful packaging of the giver, and those that I made, all boxed up in separate tins. We snack on a few every afternoon, which is a reliably enjoyable moment around the kitchen table with the boys, and I’m gratified to see our supply swiftly dwindling. But the truth is, I’m sick to death of the snappy gingerbread, warm spices, toothsome marzipan. Christmas is over and I don’t want any reminders of it anymore.

But just because it’s January doesn’t mean we don’t need cookies. It’s just that it has to be a particular kind of cookie, I think. I feel very particular about it. It has to be very crunchy and very light. A cookie that absolutely, positively does not produce greasy fingers, and that possesses no yieldingly fudgy interior, no buttery snap. No, no, no. There will be time enough for those cookies.

No, right now, I want hard crunch above all, austere flavor, a cookie that feels like a thin-lipped governess, a brisk breeze, a gentle slap. A little treat to brighten the endless gray, but not one that will feel like an indulgence.

Are there such cookies, you may be asking? There are, dear reader. They are from Classic German Baking and they are a quiet triumph, just the thing for this January when we’re all hovering between hope and despair, desperate to steady our hands, feel nourished, grasping on to whatever comfort we can find. For most of us, the vaccine is too far away for comfort. There will be long, dark months ahead. We’ll seek solace where we can. I’ll try to help.

Twice-Baked Walnut Crisps
Makes about 38 cookies
Note: You can replace the walnuts with the same amount of almonds or hazelnuts, which should be toasted and skinned before use, and/or add a handful of dried currants to the batter.

4 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup/100 grams granulated sugar
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon/135 grams all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups/135 grams shelled walnuts, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper, letting the sides hang over to function as a sling after baking.

2. Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Add the salt. Whisk at medium speed until the whites start to bubble. Increase the speed and whip, adding the sugar slowly by the spoonful, until the egg whites are stiff and glossy, and the sugar has completely dissolved. Alternatively, you can do this step with a hand mixer.

3. Sift the flour over the beaten whites and fold in, taking care not to deflate the mixture much. Fold in the chopped walnuts (or other ingredients). Very gently scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

4. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the loaf is only very faintly browned. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool completely on a rack before using the parchment paper to lift the loaf out of the pan. Wrap up the loaf in the parchment paper and let sit at room temperature overnight or for at least 8 hours.

5. The next day, preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

6. Unwrap the loaf, which will feel sticky to the touch. Slice the loaf until scant 1/8-inch/3 mm thick slices and place as many as will fit on each baking sheet. Place one baking sheet in the oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the cookies are firm to the touch and only faintly toasted. They will crisp up as they cool. Remove from the oven and let cool briefly before transferring the cookies from their pan to a rack to cool completely. Repeat with the second baking sheet.

7. Let the crisps cool completely before storing them in an airtight container. They will keep for at least two weeks.