I fell silent, groped around in my suitcase in search of a sandwich.
“Who’s there?” the woman asked.
A faint glow cast a shadow on the floor. I followed it, slowly slipping out of my niche, and peered out from behind the barricade of crates.
The infant was wrapped in layers of blankets. The father had lit a match and in the glow of the tiny flame the mother’s face trembled.
* * *
CHRISTA AND RUDOLPH thanked me for calming their son. How did you do it? His name was Thomas, he was only six months old and he didn’t want milk, was too agitated.
“Is someone waiting for you in Berlin?” was the first question that came to my mind.
“No, we’ve never even been there. This was the only way to get out, though,” Rudolph said. “We’ll come up with something.”
I didn’t have anyone waiting for me in Berlin either. I could leave that to him, he could come up with something for me too. I asked my travel companions if they wanted to eat. Christa rested the baby on a pallet of folded blankets. He was finally asleep. Rudolph lit another match because the first one had gone out, and we took out what we had brought with us. We laid it out on two dishcloths and together ate what we had, as though it were still possible for human beings to break bread together, even human beings confined to a freight car, huddled in a space meant for goods. That’s how friends are made: in confinement.
* * *
OF THE JOURNEY I remember little. The stops along the way. There was no hole through which to glimpse the cities, woods, or countryside, we never knew where we were or whether it was day or night. Silence crept over us like snow, and perhaps snow really had fallen, but we couldn’t see it. We curled up close to one another to warm ourselves, sighed from boredom, only occasionally from anxiety, I listened to the light breathing of the sleeping baby and thought of Pauline. Who knew where she was, how much she had grown, who knew if I would see her again in Berlin? We shivered beneath the covers, were thirsty, our remaining water dwindling, we touched the rim of the canteen to our lips to moisten them, would make do with that, we counted the matches, How many are left? Rudolph lit them just so Christa could change the baby, the cotton diaper with excrement rolled up in a corner, we had gotten used to the stink, chatted in subdued tones in the shelter of the darkness. There was even time for me to play with Thomas and hear him laugh when being tickled, to cradle him in Christa’s place when she was exasperated by his crying, cradle him with his head on my neck, or rub his tummy. Of the journey I remember the sandwiches chewed in the dark, the mouthfuls savored, Christa’s tin jar, in which the urine swished like a beaded necklace being fiddled between one’s fingers, the pungent smell reminding me of the shelter in Budengasse, the dignity with which the three of us held back any other bodily need until we reached our destination. Shit is proof that God doesn’t exist, Gregor had said, but I thought of how much compassion I felt for my companions’ bodies, for their innocent, unavoidable baseness, and just then that baseness seemed to be the only true reason to love them.
When the train came to a halt at the umpteenth stop we didn’t realize it was the final one, that we were in Berlin, having arrived at last.
Part
THREE
44
The station is noisy and crowded, the people moving so fast I’m afraid they’ll barrel into me, the ones behind me passing me by, those coming in my direction veering to the side only at the last second, dodging me with a twist of their hips—I’m already standing still, a cat caught in the headlights. The weight of my suitcase makes me tilt to the right as I walk, but clutching its handle gives me a sense of security—at least it’s something to cling to.
I look for a washroom. I hadn’t wanted to use the one on the train, and now I can’t hold out any longer. Since the line is short my turn comes quickly. Afterward I look at myself in the mirror. My irises are afloat in the dark basins of the circles around my eyes. It’s as though my face has undergone a landslide and my eyes rolled around for a long time before settling where they are now, sunken in. I straighten a barrette at my temple, comb my hair with my fingers, even put on some lipstick—at least a touch of color on this pale face. You’ve always been vain, Herta used to tell me. Today is an important day, though. It’s worth it.
The throngs of people disorient me. It’s been a long time since I last took a train, and the journey frightened me, but I had to do it, it might be my last chance.
I’m thirsty, though there’s a line here too. I get behind the others anyway. A woman says, “Please, ma’am, go ahead of me.” She’s under thirty, freckles everywhere—her face, her chest, her arms.
Those beside her turn around. “Of course, ma’am,” a man says, “go ahead of me too.”
“Can we let this woman cut through?” the freckled woman asks, raising her voice a little.
I cling to the handle of my suitcase. “That’s not necessary,” I say, but she guides me forward, her hand on my back, accompanies me. I have a caved-in face and withered arms—that’s how they see me.
After I’ve drunk from the fountain and thanked them all, I find the exit. The sun is bright. It shines against the picture window so strongly that it cancels out the skyline of the city. I shade my eyes with one hand to cross the threshold, blink repeatedly until I gain a clear view of the square. Who knows where I can find a taxi? The clocks on the corners of the façade, in the niches beside the row of small arches, read one-forty.
It’s pretty, the Hannover station.
* * *
I GIVE THE taxi driver the address, roll down the window, lean my head back against the headrest, watch the city dart by as the newscast on the radio reminds us that today is the day the Schengen II is being signed, thus opening the borders between West Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
“Where is Schengen?”
“I think it’s in Luxembourg,” the taxi driver replies. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t feel like chatting either.
I look at my reflection in the rearview mirror. The line of lipstick is uneven because my lips are chapped. I try to wipe off the imperfection with my fingernail, wanting to look presentable when I see him. On the radio they mention the Italia ’90 World Cup. That afternoon in Milan, West Germany is playing against Colombia. I could talk about that, about football. He never cared for football and I know nothing about it, but with the World Cup it’s different—everyone watches that. Besides, we need to break the ice with one topic or another.
The taxi pulls up to the curb, the driver gets out, takes my bag from the trunk, gives it to me. Right before walking in, I see my face again in the reflection of the glass door. The red stands out against my pale complexion, the line of lipstick can’t decide where my lips end. I take a tissue from my pocket and wipe them until the color is entirely gone.
* * *
AS SOON AS the elevator doors open, I recognize Agnes’s profile. She’s waiting for a hot beverage to come out of the vending machine. She’s ten years younger than me and looks even younger than that, despite the curve of her belly, which pulls on the fabric of her blue slacks until its pattern is slightly distorted. But she still has a smooth face, Agnes, a face that hasn’t caved. She takes out the cup, blows on it, uses the stirrer to mix in the sugar, and then sees me.
“Rosa! There you are.”
I had been standing there holding my suitcase, yet again a cat caught in the headlights.
“Hello, Agnes.”
“How nice to have you here. Did you have a good trip?” She hugs me, being careful not to burn me with her piping-hot cup. “How long has it been?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, pulling back. “Too long.”
“Do you want to give me—” She reaches out her free hand.
“No, I’ll keep it. It’s not heavy. Thanks.”
Agnes doesn’t show me the way, stands there.
“How are you?” I ask.
“Like people normally are in these
circumstances.” She looks down for a second. “And you?” She stands there holding the cup, doesn’t drink from it. When she notices I’m staring at it she holds it out to me. “Do you want some?” Immediately realizing her mistake, she turns toward the machine. “I mean, do you want something? Are you thirsty, hungry?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine, thanks. Margot and Wiebke?”
“One’s gone to pick up her son from school, she’ll be here later. The other is working, so she can’t come today.”
Agnes doesn’t drink her beverage. I’m neither thirsty nor hungry.
“And how is he?” I ask after a pause.
She shrugs, smiles, lets her eyes fall to her beverage. I wait in silence for her to finish drinking it. After she’s tossed everything into the trash can, she distractedly wipes her hands on her slacks. “Shall we go?” she says.
And I follow her.
* * *
HE’S ATTACHED TO an IV, two thin tubes up his nose. His head has been shaved, or maybe he’s simply lost all his hair. His eyelids are closed, he’s resting. The June light coming in through the window pulverizes his features, but I recognize him.
Agnes has me put my suitcase in a corner, then goes to the bed, leans over. Her belt cuts her tummy into two sections, but she still has smooth hands, the same hands that caress the sheet.
“My love, are you sleeping?”
She calls him her love in front of me. It’s not the first time, it’s happened before, too many years ago for me to be used to it. She calls him her love and he wakes up. They’re blue, his eyes. Rheumy, slightly pale.
Agnes’s voice is so sweet as she says, “You have a visitor,” and she steps aside so he can see me without needing to rise from his pillow.
His blue eyes lock on to mine and I no longer have anything to cling to. He smiles at me.
“Hello, Gregor.”
45
Agnes told him she would take advantage of my being there to go for a coffee. She had just had one, it was an excuse to leave us alone. I wondered if she did it for me—because she was afraid I was embarrassed—or if it was embarrassing for her to be in the same room with her husband’s ex-wife and him, now that he was dying.
Before leaving, she gave him a drink of water. She placed a hand on the back of his neck to raise his head, and Gregor rested his lips on the edge of the glass like a child who hasn’t yet learned to drink from one. Water trickled down, dampening his pajamas. Agnes wiped his neck dry with a paper towel torn off a roll resting on the nightstand, straightened his pillows, tucked him in, whispered in his ear something I’ll never know, kissed his forehead, adjusted the roller shutters so the sunlight wouldn’t bother him, said goodbye to us both, and slipped out the door.
It’s strange to see another woman take care of Gregor, not so much because the man was once my husband but because I myself had fed him, bathed him, warmed his body when, a year after the war ended, he returned home.
* * *
THE DAY GREGOR reappeared, potatoes were boiling in Anne’s kitchen. I was living with her and Pauline. It was summer, like now. Pauline had stayed outside to play hide-and-seek among the rubble of Budengasse while Anne and I, having come home from work, had gone upstairs to cook something. My apartment was still uninhabitable, and Anne—who was also without a husband—had offered to let me stay with them. All three of us slept in the same bed.
I poked one of the potatoes with a fork to see if it was done. As always, my feet were aching. Between home and work it was an hour-and-a-half walk at a good pace, but fortunately after dinner I would share the footbath that Anne prepared every evening. We would sink our blistered feet into the basin together and sigh. Pauline, on the other hand, was never tired, despite spending all day chasing the other children through the ruins of the city while we hauled buckets, pushed wheelbarrows, stacked bricks in exchange for seventy pfennigs an hour and a special ration book.
The potatoes were ready. I put out the flame. From the street Pauline cried, “Rosa!”
I looked out the window. “What is it?”
A frail man was leaning against her. He looked crippled. I didn’t recognize him.
Then, with a barely perceptible voice, the man said, “It’s me.” And my heart broke.
* * *
I SIT BESIDE the bed. I weave my fingers together on my belly, rest them on my lap, smooth my skirt out beneath my legs, clasp my hands together again. It’s because I don’t know where to put them. It’s because I don’t dare touch him.
“Thank you for coming, Rosa.”
He has a frail, broken voice, like the one I heard from Anne’s window that evening forty-four years ago. His skin has grown tight, making his nose look larger, the bones of his face protruding.
With my finger I search for a trace of remaining lipstick, not wanting him to see me looking sloppy—it’s stupid, but it’s true. I was afraid he would ask Agnes, Who is she, who is that woman standing in my hospital room, her eyes sunken, her face wrinkled? Instead he had known at once who I was, had smiled at me.
“I really wanted to see you,” I say.
“Me too, but I didn’t think you would.”
“Why not?”
Gregor doesn’t reply. I stare at my fingernails, my fingertips—they aren’t smudged with lipstick.
“How’s it going in Berlin?”
“Everything’s fine.”
Try as I might, nothing comes to mind to say about Berlin, about my existence there. Gregor is also silent. Then he asks, “And how’s Franz doing?”
“These days he’s got his hands full with his granddaughters. His son brought them to Germany on vacation, and he keeps them in the shop while he shaves customers or cuts their hair. More out of kindness than interest, his customers ask, ‘What’s your name, how old are you?’ and the girls answer in English. The customers don’t understand and Franz gets a real kick out of it. It makes him so proud that his granddaughters speak another language. Since he became a grandfather he’s become quite a fool.”
“No, your brother has always been strange.”
“You think so?”
“Rosa, he didn’t write to you for years!”
“Oh, you know, he says he wanted to cut his ties, that Germans were looked down on after ’18, that some even changed their last names.… Then, when America entered the war, he lived in terror of being interned.”
“Yes, yes, I know the story. What was that offensive dish? Hold on.…”
“The offensive dish…? Oh, sauerkraut!” I laugh. “They changed its name, called it ‘liberty cabbage.’ At least that’s what Franz says.”
“Exactly, sauerkraut.” He laughs too.
He coughs. It’s a thick, chesty cough that forces him to raise his head. Maybe I should hold it for him, help him. “What should I do?”
Gregor clears his throat and goes on as though it were nothing. “That telegram he sent, do you remember it?”
He’s accustomed to coughing and wants to talk—that’s all he wants. “How could I forget it?” I say. “‘Are any of you still alive?’” That’s all that was written, except a phone number and address.
“Exactly. And you called more than anything to make sure it wasn’t a joke.”
“Yes, that’s right! And the moment Franz heard my voice the cat got his tongue.”
Gregor laughs again. I didn’t think it would be this easy.
“When the girls go back to Pittsburgh at the end of the month, you’ll see—he’ll go crazy. But then again, he’s the one who decided to return to Berlin. Some people, sooner or later, need to return. Who knows why?”
“You returned to Berlin yourself.”
“I was forced to leave Gross-Partsch. My case doesn’t count.”
Gregor falls silent, turns toward the window. Maybe he’s thinking about his parents, who died before he could see them again. I never saw them again either.
“I’ve missed them a lot too,” I say, but Gregor doesn’t reply.
He’s wearing long-sleeved pajamas, and the sheet is pulled halfway up his chest.
“Are you hot?”
He doesn’t reply. I sit there on the chair, lace my fingers. I was wrong—this isn’t easy.
“If you’ve come all the way here,” he says after a while, “it means I really am about to die.”
This time I’m the one who doesn’t reply.
Gregor comes to my rescue. “As if I would die now that you’ve come back.”
I smile and my eyes well up.
* * *
AS IF YOU would die now that you’ve come back, I would tell him whenever he lost heart. Dying is no longer an option, sorry, I won’t let you.
He weighed fifteen kilos less than when he had departed. In the prison camp where he’d been held he lived in hunger and came down with pneumonia, had been left with chronic fatigue. His leg was lame—it hadn’t been treated properly because he had run away from the hospital in a state of delirium. Since all the cots around him contained only amputees, he was convinced they were going to amputate his leg too. The pain had slowed him, left him easy prey to capture. It didn’t seem possible to me that he’d done something so reckless—it wasn’t like Gregor.
“But what if I had returned to you an amputee?” he asked me once.
“Your being back would’ve been enough.”
“We were supposed to celebrate Christmas together, Rosa. I didn’t keep my promise.”
At the Wolf's Table Page 25
