by Matt Killeen
“My alternative was the hairy one running me through with his knitting needle.” Clementine grinned. “You say employment, I’d use kidnap and hostage. And as for the word—”
“You just say those things to get me to say things, so you get to look clever.”
“You’re learning . . . and I did it again, Huckleberry!” Clementine said, then switched to English and an exaggerated American accent. “Chickens knows when it’s gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile.” Then she smiled broadly, her mouth pushing into her cheeks. There was something odd about that smile recently, Sarah thought. Something unaffected . . .
Clementine continued: “Your uncle thought that maybe we needed to cheer ourselves up, just a bit. A night without, you know, looking for disease and death. No skulls . . .”
It was bright. Berlin had been wrapped in a curtain of precautionary gloom every evening since the previous September, so it was shocking to see crowds passing under an open night sky lit by dozens of buzzing electric bulbs, a sound that was a counterpart to the fizzing of the nearby forest.
The same whitewashed wooden buildings with verandas and palisades dominated, mostly by virtue of their height. But between them shacks and constructions of iron, wood, and thatching had sprouted like something living had grown across them. Here were the bars and shops where the town lived, reverberating to a soundtrack of laughter and the looping, plucking thrums of string instruments.
People were looking at them. Some people were staring at them, but most nodded and looked away.
Sarah was not scared, but she was uncomfortable with its unfamiliarity. Normally, she avoided ignorance. She resented it.
“Am I, are we . . . safe?”
“You mean, are you going to be kidnapped into white slavery?”
Sarah sighed, unwilling to play that game. “I notice you didn’t bring your camera,” she murmured.
“I wouldn’t walk through Berlin holding a camera this time of night, Fräulein,” said Clementine, tutting. “Do you know what would happen to an African who hurt a white girl? What would happen to their family, their town?”
“You’ve assimilated very quickly,” Sarah muttered, begrudging the turn that the conversation had taken.
“I’ve talked to people. Have you? Or have you really only listened to that Dreckstück Claude?”
Sarah stopped in front of a stall of wood carvings. After a moment she pushed her knuckles into her forehead and turned to Clementine.
“You know you don’t have to be a sanctimonious Arschkuh, all day, every day? You can be right, and you can be nice.”
“I’m going to let that one go,” Clementine offered. “Because you know what I’m going to say.”
“See, that wasn’t hard,” Sarah replied, looking up and smiling. Clementine scowled, but her heart wasn’t in it, and it became a long, slow smile.
“My, my, it’s Ngontang. I don’t know if I should be honored or scared,” said the stallkeeper in French, hands on hips.
“I’m sorry, monsieur?” Sarah replied.
The man thought better of his introduction and shook his head and hands as if to reset the conversation.
“Does your Madame have money with her?” he said to Clementine.
“My Madame—” Clementine began, scowling.
“Boah ye! You are really bad at acting a part, Clementine.” Sarah laughed incredulously. “Madame has Reichsmark,” she added to the storekeeper.
He made a face, shrugged, and then opened his arms over his wares.
Each carving was a symbolic naked figure, twenty to sixty centimeters in height, sanded, oiled, and polished to a shining black or dark brown. There were diverse styles and techniques, with different shorthand for coiffured hair and features, different priorities in proportion. Some sat, some stood, toned or muscular, with expressions of disapproval or antipathy, while others were slender and elegant with faces of intelligence, concern, or grief. Their cone-like navels were exaggerated, as were the genitals or breasts in a way that Sarah had never seen in a work of art. But for all their visual differences and styles, the figures depicted were all waiting. Ready. On guard.
Some of the work was basic and clumsy, but some pieces were works of astounding craftsmanship, compelling creations of patience or warning.
“These are Bieri, reliquary guardians. You attach them to the bark chest containing the relics of your ancestors. They face down the evil spirits and protect your family.”
“Are these all yours?” Sarah asked in wonder.
“Did I carve them? No. I buy these from the surrounding villages and sell them on to the Fang who live in the towns, people too busy to carve their own. They might go to church on Sundays, but few risk leaving their family’s bones unguarded.”
“The Fang?”
“My people,” he answered, and then made a circular gesture. “All these people . . . except him.” He waggled a finger at the shopkeeper next door. “He’s un étranger maudit.”
His neighbor grinned and made a rude gesture.
“But for you,” he continued. “A memento of your voyage. Perhaps your father is a collector?”
“I couldn’t take anything sacred,” said Sarah.
“Nonsense, they mean nothing as they are. Set them to guard your ancestral relics, then they’re powerful.” He laughed. “Tout est nul, of course. Superstition.”
“Tradition is important,” Sarah replied. She was thinking of the butcher, of his skills, his customs, and of how strong his faith had made him. How vulnerable that made him in the end.
Clementine leaned in. “Now he’s got you defending them,” she whispered in German. “He’s smart. But what should a little Nazi be thinking of these primitive objects? You’re also playing a part, remember?”
“I get it, they’re like cartoons, caricatures. These are the aspects that are most important, if you want to scare evil spirits away. Strength, resolution, determination. Or maybe that’s what you want your family to stand for. I’ll bet they could make them look like real people, they just don’t want to. Like Picasso.”
“So, they aren’t just savages, they’re worse. They’re degenerates. Nature as seen by sick minds, that’s what Herr Goebbels would say. You are a terrible, terrible Nazi, you know that?”
Sarah looked at Clementine. Again, behind the faux solemnity there was a hint of a smile, a shared joke that she was not just the butt of.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said turning to the shopkeeper. “What was it you said, un-gong-tang, or something?”
“That was rude of me, Mademoiselle, I apologize.” The shopkeeper looked at his feet.
“Tell me.”
He motioned back into his shop, to a wooden mask that hung in the shadows, colored white with clay and pigment. It was adorned with moon-design carvings and a long, narrow nose. It had none of the compassion, or strength, or determination of the Bieri. It was almost weasel-like.
“It’s just a dance costume, a recent tradition,” he said awkwardly. “The nose is hard to reproduce, so it’s a challenge to—”
“Tell me about what it means,” Sarah insisted.
The man paused anxiously but continued.
“That is Ngontang—the White. The mask of . . . the young . . . European girl. The spirit that interferes with nature’s balance . . . who brings violence, change, disease, and suffering. A trickster, a liar, with a foot in the worlds of both the living and the dead. Sometimes there are two faces, because . . .”
“I understand, thank you.”
“Mademoiselle—”
“Thank you for your time,” Sarah said with a nod and thin smile, before turning away from the storefront.
“That’s the White Devil right there, isn’t it?” said Sarah to Clementine. “How many more peoples have their own Ngontang? It’s not superstition—it’s caution, it’s . . . fair
warning. It’s a copy of Red Rubber. And that’s what they see when they look at a white person . . . a white girl. Not a demon, I mean, but—”
“A trickster, liar, bringer of suffering and disease?” Clementine shrugged. “And as you’ve put yourself at the center of that statement, that is why, yes, you are safe here.”
Sarah looked around at the town going about its business, at its inhabitants stealing glances at her. Were they looking out of curiosity, or fear—the way that the Jews had looked at the stormtroopers?
“Is that what you wanted to show me?” Sarah asked Clementine, feeling the prickling of despair and sadness under her eyes.
“No, no! I have a . . . nice surprise. Promise.”
Clementine took Sarah’s hand and led her through emptying streets. They bought some strips of meat smeared in a sauce of oily nuts and roasted over an open fire. Something about it made Sarah think of her beloved pot of peanut butter, now containing just a streaky residue that could still be induced onto a slice of bread with a bit of effort. The meat was less easy to identify.
“Is this chicken?” Sarah asked in French.
The chef answered in Fang-Okah, and repeated the word several times, with Sarah trying to say it.
“Sure, chicken. Sure,” he said finally with a shrug.
They thanked him and walked away, the food wrapped in leaves. Clementine sniffed the package.
“I think it’s monkey,” she said. Sarah snorted and this made Clementine giggle, until they were both laughing uncontrollably. “No, seriously, it’s called bushmeat . . .” she attempted to continue, tears in her eyes.
“Why not? The French eat horses.” Sarah chuckled. Then stopped. “Is this horse?”
They came to what looked like a barn made of corrugated iron. From its dark interior came the sound of a cheap piano and the noise of many voices talking quietly.
Clementine paid a man at the door, and he ushered them inside.
The space was lit by one lightbulb strung in the rafters, but Sarah could see the people inside were sitting on the matted floor, facing a brick wall that had been painted white.
“It’s a cinema. You’ve brought me to a cinema.” She smiled at Clementine and nudged her arm.
Sarah beamed inside. The darkness, the anonymity, and the sparkle of silver shimmering light . . . she had sought sanctuary in the cinema many times over the years. There she had been safe from the Hitlerjugend for a while, in a place where people dropped sweets and half-eaten fruit. This was an alien version of that experience, but it promised to bring the dark and the shimmer and a place to hide, from herself at least. She could only guess how Clementine might have come upon so perfect a gift.
An empty space appeared for them to sit near the front, whether from ill-gotten respect or fear, but shortly afterward the light died to general applause, hiding Sarah’s discomfort from view.
Behind them a machine spluttered and clattered into a rattling, thrumming rhythm, and the wall crackled and coruscated into a white rectangle.
The piano started up in a good imitation of a Hollywood theme, and an old-style title card appeared.
Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft présente
LE TEMPS DE L’INNOCENCE
It was a German production—not that it made any difference, as it was a Stummfilm, not a talkie. Sarah felt a moment’s disappointment, but she consoled herself with the prospect of hearing the pianist providing the whole soundtrack. To create the moods, the tension, the themes, and more while improvising always seemed to Sarah to be next to magic.
She looked around to find the musician, but all she could see were the dancing shafts of white light twinkling and cycling through the tobacco smoke.
Clementine leaned over. “Did you see that?” she said, digging Sarah in the ribs with an elbow. “Jewish names, must be really old.”
“What?” Sarah murmured as she looked back to the screen, not having heard properly.
She read the subtitle. New York. 1870.
Two prominent families of good name were about to announce the engagement of their children. The quality of the picture was poor and the sets were lost in the background blur, but the period clothes were sumptuous and complex.
“Now I know who you are really,” Clementine gasped.
“Who am I, Clementine?” Sarah replied distractedly.
A cousin, now a Polish countess, has left her husband and returned to New York. Scandalous. The families are concerned for their name. The hero will let nothing stop his union with his betrothed . . .
The story was really familiar. Drawn by something in the music, she stopped following the intertitles to listen.
“The two families have their own refrains, that synchronize when played together,” whispered Sarah, glancing behind her. “If the pianist wrote that himself, he’s a genius.”
“Your uncle told me to take you to see this film, this particular film, when he heard that it was on nearby.” Clementine continued, “I didn’t know why then, but I think I do now.”
“It’s a nice thing. I love movies, I couldn’t get to the theater much because—” Sarah stopped, suddenly cold in the heat. She was aware of the danger of her words, of the conversation that was actually happening, as if for the first time. “Because . . . my mother lost all our money when she got sick.”
A party to announce the engagement. Cousin Ellen will be there. The Countess.
“Because you weren’t allowed to go,” Clementine said. Not a question. Sarah could not see her expression in the dark.
Our hero turns and sees the Countess, his childhood friend, a child no longer—
Across the brickwork screen, lit by flickering bulb, emerging from aging, scratched celluloid, standing eight feet high and glistening silver, stood Sarah’s mother.
Clementine was still speaking, but Sarah didn’t hear her.
Sarah had never seen her mother on film. She had never seen her this beautiful, this valuable, this full of life. It left her breathless and unable to swallow.
Watching the film unfold, the damage that Sarah always denied was there, the deep wound of pain and suffering was not removed or reduced. But watching the Countess, the character—who was not just glamorous and desirable, but strong, determined, caring, and passionate—to see her embodied by her mother . . . Sarah understood in that moment that this was the closest she had ever come to loving her, unconditionally and without the fear and disappointment.
In this moment the criticism, the aggression, the blame, the vindictiveness, the self-pity, the self-destruction and delusion, even the stench of a human going bad that had never left Sarah’s nostrils, paled against the warmth and brilliance of her performance. Like the stars are bleached away by the sun, Sarah could pretend those things weren’t there. Because, for the very first time, Sarah discovered that Alexandra Edelmann was every bit the actress that ihre Mutti had thought, had insisted, that she was.
What must it have been like to have had all this taken away from her? No wonder she had disintegrated as the Nazis took her fame, her money, and her livelihood.
She shouldn’t have come apart. She should have been stronger for them both. But it made more sense why she could not.
The tears streamed down Sarah’s cheeks, as she rose and fell on the waves of love and loss in which she was floating.
The Countess left for New York, leaving her love behind, refusing to destroy his life and family, knowing that he will always carry her in his heart. She was strong for both of them.
The film finished. There was a smattering of applause as the lights came on. People slowly clambered to their feet and left. Sarah could not move.
“She was your mother?” Clementine asked quietly.
“Yes,” Sarah replied, staring at the wall.
“She was Jewish. So you are Jewish.”
Sarah didn’t an
swer.
Clementine sat back with her arms extended behind her and whistled a descending note.
Sarah was struggling with an emotion, an old, dusty, unused thing that she couldn’t identify. Something that was both buoyant, and a weight.
Pride. Sarah was proud.
EIGHTEEN
October 15, 1940
THAT MORNING, THE pregnant darkened clouds that had been collecting in the sky for weeks tore open and emptied themselves over the forests and fields—sluicing the mud of a continent into the roads and tracks and threatening to end the expedition where their wheels spun. The forest itself sagged under its weight and shook its head in exhaustion.
Their world closed in. The tree canopy, already impenetrable, turned dark, and the track ahead was obscured by a gauze of water. The mood in the truck grew tense, the bickering verging on nasty, and the sweat was sour on the tongue.
Then during a brief respite in the deluge, they found them.
The barrier was makeshift, fashioned with saplings and tree branches, but it was tall and countenanced no intrusion, at least not by automobile.
One large yellow sign was tied to its center, and in bright red paint it read: DANGER: MALADIE INFECTIEUSE.
A middle-aged woman sat crying by the side of the road, surrounded by pots and pans. Her distress was palpable and vocal to the point of it being a lament.
Claude stopped the truck well away from her, as if the misery, like the disease, might be catching. The Captain examined the barrier and found that it rocked if pushed. Clementine’s shutter clicked, open and closed, open and closed.
“This could be moved,” he suggested. “Should we just drive on . . . or do we do this on foot?”
“We’re just walking into this?” Claude replied, revealing the merest sliver of vulnerability.
“That’s the point . . .”
Sarah moved away from them toward the wailing woman on the roadside, who looked up at Sarah in renewed hope. “Mademoiselle, I made them soup. Let me take it to them, please,” she implored in French. Her eyes were like puddles and the lines that ran to them were deep with panic, a human long since overwhelmed by circumstance, dissolving in tears.
