I Just Needed to Know

I had gone into Martina's backyard with the dog, and I had brought a newspaper so I could entertain myself while the pup and I played fetch with a stick. 

The newspaper was a German one and there was an article in it that I had wanted to read. The article was about Princess Diana's death in Paris. I guess the newspaper had decided to publish the piece because July 1st will mark what would have been Diana's 60th birthday. 

The article was an hour-by-hour account of the aftermath of the horrific car crash, told from the perspective of one of Diana's former drivers, a man named Colin Tebbutt. After the accident, Tebbutt was given the job of facilitating the return of the princess' body to England. One of his duties, according to the article, was making sure that Diana, even in her state, looked presentable. He arranged for her to have particular clothes and make-up on.

Anyway, as I was standing there, playing with the dog and reading, I got very much into the article. Especially interesting was a part where Tebbutt began describing how Diana looked when he first got to the mortuary in Paris. He said that she had a sheet covering all of her body except her head, and she only had mild bruising on her face. Put another way, he said that despite what the reality was, Diana mostly looked like herself. 

Now, up until this point in the article, I had been able to understand all of the German on the page. However, as I was reading this description of Diana lying in the mortuary, I came across a word I didn't know: "zerzaust." The article said Diana's hair was "zersaust."

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what this word meant. I tried to extract the meaning from context but couldn't. So what did I do? I marched through that backyard (with the dog right behind me...after all, she's gonna follow me; I've got the stick), walked into Marty's house, made my way into the kitchen, and, with zero preamble, asked Martina, "What does 'zersaust' mean?" 

Without asking any questions, Marty told me that it meant "wild"; "all over the place." 

That made sense. I figured "zersaust" probably translated to "disheveled." 

I thanked Martina, and the dog and I went back to the backyard, where we continued to play fetch and where I finished the article.

But there was just no way I would have been able to keep reading without having first defined that word.  I just needed to know.