Roland Rainer Sommerhaus

Expectations
In 1957, USSR sends the first Sputnik into orbit. Adolf Schärf is elected president of Austria. Britain becomes the 3rd country to detonate a nuclear bomb. Ghana declares its independence from the UK. The South African government approves racial segregation in universities. Smoking is connected with lung cancer for the first time in the USA and Sukarno, the 1st president of Indonesia, expels the remaining 40,000 dutch citizens from the country.

In 1957, and unbeknownst to all the changes shaping the world, a small summer retreat is erected. Water and electricity are used only for vital commodities, and comfort is reduced to a minimal luxurious expression.

“-What did you pretend with all this asceticism? – asked his friend seated in the kitchen table, while lighting a new cigarette – We can’t even plug a record player.”

The two men gazed for a moment cigarette smoke spirals dance through the light that cut across the kitchen dimness.

The silence between them was interrupted by the soft rattling of boiling water.

“- Maybe this – he answered – A table like this, in a kitchen like this, in this very same dimness. Or maybe I did not pretend anything – he continued – and this house is the result.”