Motherland

by Maria Hummel

  Did you eat something funny? Something you ate made you sick.

  Nothing.

  You must have eaten something.

  I didn’t eat anything.

  Ani. Tell the truth to me.

  It was Fräulein Müller’s cooking, Mutti, and he grimaced and blinked. Anyway, I’m getting better now.

  After the boys were in bed, Liesl posited various theories aloud to Uta. Ani had worms. Ani had eaten some poisonous mushroom in the cellar.

  “Write to the boy’s father,” said Uta. “He knows him best.”

  But Liesl still hadn’t. She couldn’t, at least not until the blood test results. Frank had just finished a miracle surgery on his old classmate. He needed to go to Berlin now, to become the surgeon he was meant to be. And besides, she didn’t want Frank to think she couldn’t care for the children. To send them away to his sister, to one of Herr Geiss’s contacts in the country. The baby was learning to walk—but not to anyone, just to her. Jürgen slammed his chest into her and hugged her with all his trembling strength. If she left the house without him, he cried. He was too big for his cradle, so she made a pallet on the study floor for them both, and all night he pressed his warm body into her spine and clutched her hair. He was the only reason she could sleep at all.

  “Did Anselm admit to eating anything?” Dr. Becker said after he closed his office door, leaving Ani alone in the examining room. They had been inside together for nearly half an hour without her, their murmuring too indistinct to catch any words.

  “No. Did he tell you?” She didn’t mean to sound so defensive.

  He regarded her for a moment, then nodded. “He didn’t tell me, but his blood showed a high concentration of lead,” he said.

  “Lead,” Liesl repeated faintly. The word conjured images of pipes. Lead pipes. But the pipes at Frank’s house were made of copper.

  “Enough to cause motor and cognitive damage,” said the doctor. “Too soon to say if it’s irreversible.” Then he lit a cigarette, took a few puffs, and stubbed it out while she summoned a response.

  “Could the test be wrong?” Liesl said, her mind sorting through all the possible objects in their house. Hans’s toy soldiers? Was he eating them?

  “Unlikely.” The doctor shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “I haven’t seen these exact symptoms before, but they’re not atypical for lead poisoning. It would also explain the fatigue, the loss of appetite.”

  Poisoning. The word didn’t belong to Ani. Not dear Ani who’d fed his baby brother his bottle that morning, and asked, Why doesn’t milk taste like grass?

  A sudden patience descended over Liesl. “But I don’t understand why he would eat something like that,” she said slowly. “He’s not a baby. He knows what he’s putting in his mouth.”

  Dr. Becker lit another cigarette. “Exactly why this is so troubling,” he said. “Very troubling.”

  All through Dr. Becker’s house call, she’d resented him, even though he had been kind. Here in the office, it was opposite. His clean soapy smell had the acid tang of lye, and his brown eyes looked cold. With a shock, she recognized the expression in them. He wasn’t sympathizing with her anymore. He blamed her.

  “Can’t we give him anything? A medicine?”

  “There is a chelating agent that would bind to the lead and help him excrete the metal,” the doctor said, “but it’s risky to use with children.” He explained that the agent could cause fever, abdominal pain, even a coma if Ani took too much. A proper diet, and no more exposure to lead, would be safer, and then if—

  Liesl cut him off. “I give him a proper diet.”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “This is a serious case. He’s worse than I saw him last. In addition, his recurrent nightmares appear to be infringing now on his conscious mind. He hears voices that aren’t there and experiences false sensations. He may need further examination.” He pulled out a form, scribbling in it.

  “He’s a good boy,” Liesl said. She heard a soft thump in the other room, and wondered if Ani could hear them.

  The doctor kept scribbling. He did not look up as he spoke. “Best-case scenario—he stops consuming lead now, and the symptoms subside. Worst case—the effects are permanent. The cognitive damage can be irreversible.” He set the pen down.

  “What are you writing?” Liesl asked.

  “If his lead levels don’t go down in two weeks, I am filling out a form that requires you to take him to an institution for psychiatric evaluation and potential admission.”

  She gaped at him. She couldn’t fasten on his meaning.

  “It’s my legal obligation, Frau Kappus. Such cases are best handled by professionals.” His fingers stroked the form. “I had some clinical training ten years ago at a very fine asylum in Kiedrich, where the patients are well cared for. And if Anselm’s case gets more serious, he can go on to Hadamar.”

  Hadamar. She knew that name. Liesl reached for the form. Dr. Becker tucked the paper in a folder, out of reach. He leaned back in his chair, regarding her, with all the weight of his medical degrees pulling down at the walls, heavy and glassy. She rubbed her cheeks with her hands, trying to find the right response.

  “For the safety of our fellow citizens—” he said.

  “Why would you do this to him? What do you have to gain?” she interrupted, her voice finally coming to her.

  The doctor looked surprised by her question. “As I said, this is simply standard medical procedure, Frau Kappus. Our system places the decision about a patient’s illness in the hands of those most qualified to make it.”

  “My husband’s a doctor,” she protested. “My husband is qualified.”

  “Ah, your husband,” he said, his eyes holding hers. “I’d like to hear his opinion. I’ll write to him promptly.” He picked up his pen again. “What’s the address?”

  “I’ll write to him, and he’ll contact you. Good day, Herr Doktor,” she said. As she rose, she saw the street below. For a moment the pedestrians all looked alike, all stalled in their places, gray coat, gray coat, gray coat, as if someone had planted them there. By the time her mouth opened to call for Ani, the people were moving again, but she couldn’t dislodge the image from her mind.

  Liesl held Ani’s hand tight as they crossed the street. His fingers had lost their softness. They were just sinew and bone now, and she hated the cold feel of them. She wanted to stop right where she was and breathe on them until they warmed, until the boy plumped to his old healthy self again. Terms from the doctor visit snagged in her mind. Lead poisoning. It dredged up memories of reading about lead-poisoned Romans slaughtering their own families. Chelating agent. It sounded like something cold and final—surely there was some other medicine they could give to children. Ani was a scared, grieving little boy. She’d seen children with all sorts of silly tics and imaginary friends—could Ani really be irreversibly ill? Hadamar.

  “Where are we going?” Ani stumbled after her, and for a brief flash, she pictured him in institutional pajamas, skinny and wild-eyed, alone on a metal bed.

  “In here,” she said, towing him toward the telegraph office. “Just be quiet for a minute.” She knew the message she had to write, and she wrote it quickly, confirmed it, and paid with a clatter of pfennigs. She nearly forgot to take her change, until the clerk cleared his throat. She spun away, flooded with nerve. There. She had done it.

  “Mutti? What’s wrong?” Ani asked as they reentered the street.

  “Just keep walking,” she said. “We’ll talk about this when we get home.”

  “What’s wrong with me?” he whispered. His face tilted up at her, his expression lost and spinning.

  She stopped then, and lifted him all the way up into her arms. He was too old to be hugged that way and he sagged as his legs clumsily found their way to either side of her waist. She pressed him close anyway, tucking his head into her shoulder. People turned to stare. She didn’t look at them, but from the corner of her eye, they took on familiar shapes—an elderly neigh
bor from Hubertstrasse, Marta the housekeeper, Herr Geiss. They were all watching her, judging, tensing, ready to report.

  A feeling like a laugh spread through her chest.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she whispered, but Ani was letting go. He fell to the street until his toes touched and then he pushed away from her.

  “I want to go home,” he said, pointing toward the streetcar tracks. “Can I ride on the outside today?”

  “No,” Liesl said, alarmed. She smoothed her rumpled skirt. What had just possessed her? She looked up to Dr. Becker’s window and saw him watching her.

  “Please?” said Ani. “I’ll be careful. Please. Please. Please.” He started to flick his head to the right.

  She lowered her voice to a whisper and cupped his cheeks. His head jerked against her palms. “Not today. It’s not safe.”

  He jerked again. “Another day. Please?”

  “All right. Another day,” she agreed, wanting to hold him again.

  “Mutti, let go,” he said.

  On the way home, they stopped to pick up Jürgen, who had made a repeat visit to the Hefter household after Frau Hefter’s numerous requests. A silent housekeeper ushered them into a parlor where Frau Hefter leaned on a fat, rolled armrest, blond and elegant, holding the baby. Liesl’s distaste for the woman increased at the sight of her now, in her cozy home, with all her perfectly healthy Aryan children. No one was threatening to send them away.

  “My daughters just fawned over him the whole morning,” Frau Hefter said, handing Jürgen to Liesl. “They want more babies. All in due time, I say.” She cupped her hands over her belly and smiled at Ani. “Why don’t you go find the other boys and girls?”

  Ani looked at Liesl and she nodded vigorously, not wanting to appear hesitant. He licked his lip and dashed into the other room, where the gabble of children’s voices rose and fell.

  “So what did the doctor say?” Frau Hefter asked when he was out of earshot.

  “He’s fine,” Liesl told Frau Hefter in a steady voice. “Just a nervous condition. Losing his mother, and now his father so far away.”

  “We all have nervous conditions these days,” said Frau Hefter, but it didn’t seem possible that the war had invaded this house. In the other room the Hefter children with their nanny were engrossed in some arithmetic lesson: counting cups and spoons. Their voices were as cheerful as the Hefters’ windows, each of them shined spotless. “How are your tenants?”

  “They’re settling in,” Liesl said, wondering what the other woman had heard.

  “Quite a lot of them, I hear.”

  “Eleven.”

  “Eleven? That’s practically a whole village.”

  “Yes, well, I should be getting back,” Liesl said, anxious to get Ani away from the others, to talk with Uta about the telegram. Had she really sent it? Had she really asked Frank to come home?

  “Sit down, sit down,” Frau Hefter said. “When was the last time you got off your feet? Have some tea.” She poured a cup and held it out to Liesl. A bitter scent drifted up—it was real tea. Liesl inhaled deeply. She hadn’t had real black tea since she’d lived at the spa six months ago. She put Jürgen down on the floor and accepted the cup.

  “I shouldn’t stay,” she said, listening for Ani.

  While Jürgen investigated the Oriental rug, Frau Hefter started talking about the problems her other friends were having with refugees—petty theft, terrible manners, unwelcome advances. She sounded so sympathetic Liesl found herself sharing Frau Winter’s terrifying stories and the Winter boys’ careless treatment of the shared kitchen—and the Dillmans, don’t get her started on Frau Dillman and her manners. “It’s like we’re living in a tenement,” she exclaimed. “Not one minute of quiet or privacy for any of us.”

  “You poor dears,” said Frau Hefter.

  “I know I shouldn’t complain,” Liesl said. “I know others have it worse, but they act like—like they can just take over.”

  Loud footsteps slapped down the hall. “Mother, Mother!” One of the gold-haired Hefter girls ran in, holding her slate high. “Fräulein Schultz gave me a perfect score!”

  “Show me,” said Frau Hefter.

  “We had to add up the diamonds in Cinderella’s crown and then subtract the lumps of coal in her stepmother’s stove. Ten diamonds minus four lumps of coal. That leaves six.”

  “My goodness. Six what?” said Frau Hefter.

  Her daughter turned to her, confused. She gripped her slate with both hands, offering the numerals to her mother. “Just six,” she said.

  “But they aren’t the same thing, diamonds and coal.” Frau Hefter brushed Mathilde’s hair from her forehead, and glanced at Liesl. “You can’t pretend they are.”

  Mathilde cocked her head. “No. I guess not.”

  “So it’s not a good lesson.”

  Liesl’s cheeks began to burn. She couldn’t tell if the woman was implicating her or not, but the meaning was clear: You don’t mix with those who are different than you. You send them away. You send them to Hadamar.

  “Keep the coal,” she said hoarsely, rising. “It’s worth more these days.”

  As Mathilde rushed from the room, Liesl tottered across the carpet toward the baby. Her legs felt as thin as sticks. “I’m sorry, I need to get out of here,” Liesl said, but a plane passed low overhead, drowning her words.

  “Pardon,” Frau Hefter said when the roaring died. “I missed what you said.”

  “I hate the sound of them,” Liesl said, picking up Jürgen and wrapping him in her shawl. “The planes.”

  Frau Hefter blinked, and for a moment Liesl saw a different expression steal over her face. It was almost sympathy. And then, just as quickly, it vanished.

  “I’ll never forget one question I got wrong in school,” Frau Hefter said. “‘What’s after the Third Reich?’” She paused. “I said the Fourth. Can you imagine?”

  “So, let me get this straight,” said Uta. “You sent Frank an emergency message to come home. Today of all days.” While Liesl was gone, the broadcasts had come from Berlin. The city was under heavy attack. “But you didn’t explain why.”

  “I’m going to follow up with a letter,” Liesl said, biting her lip. Regret was quickly overtaking the bravado she’d felt earlier in the street. Coming home, touching the familiar doorknob and banister, hearing the news of the smashed capital, she had been acutely struck by everything she had to lose.

  She hadn’t spoken to the boys yet. She’d wanted Uta’s advice first, and they were downstairs in the wash kitchen, stealing a quick conference while they took down a row of Uta’s stiff dried underthings. Jürgen was napping, and Ani was upstairs playing alone, waiting for his brother to come home from the ration lines.

  “A letter? How long will that take?” Uta said. “Your telegram urges him not to wait. You don’t want him to wait, do you?”

  “No, but I don’t want him to put himself in danger.” Liesl ran her fingers over the ribbons of a salmon-colored corset.

  “To desert, you mean.”

  The word made Liesl flinch, but she nodded.

  “He won’t get a furlough. Not now,” said Uta. “So you are asking him to run.”

  “I could send another telegram.”

  “That would make his superiors suspicious.” Uta sighed and looked off in the distance. “Bastards bombed the railroad stations. There isn’t anyone at the stations but civilians trying to flee.”

  Liesl folded her arms. “I can’t let them take Ani,” she said.

  “How hard would it have been to persuade that doctor to change his mind?” Uta said. “Or to get a second opinion?”

  “Not hard for you,” Liesl said sourly. She ripped the last corset from the line and tossed it unfolded into Uta’s basket.

  “You can have that one if you want it,” Uta said, more gently. “It doesn’t fit me anymore.”

  “I don’t want it,” Liesl said.

  “Maybe Ani does need help,” Uta said. “That twitching b
usiness is new since I came.”

  Maybe Ani did. Liesl was sure some parents would be grateful to get a problem child off their hands, to let Germany’s exemplary physicians help their son recover from lead poisoning. She might have listened to such advice if Dr. Becker hadn’t mentioned Hadamar.

  Liesl had seen a doctor from Hadamar once at the spa. She could still hear the cool, pitying way he’d said minderwertiger Kinder. Inferior children. She vividly remembered the short film he’d shown of his patients. A boy with two clubfeet swimming toward each other like pale fish. A girl with a drooping, toothy mouth and vacant eyes. A teenager with a mashed-in forehead whose pants still puffed over a diaper.

  No, maybe she had been reckless for writing Frank, but she couldn’t let Ani go to such a place. She was going to search the house again. She was going to walk Ani’s route to school and scour every block with her eyes. She would get a second opinion. Hans would help her. Breath flooded her mouth, tasting of dried soap and mildew and kerosene.

  The door slammed upstairs. Maybe Hans was already home. The thought of actually telling him about the lead poisoning made her falter. She could see his stern, boyish face filling with pain.

  “He blamed me,” she said to Uta.

  “Who?”

  “The doctor. He made it seem like—” She swallowed. “Like I was a neglectful mother.”

  “You?” Uta said scornfully. In the milky light of the wash kitchen, her movements looked slow as she bent down and lifted the laundry basket to the next line of clothes. Liesl waited for Uta to say more, but she didn’t. She just started in on the shirts, pulling them free of their pins and folding them. Then she sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her bare wrist. She wasn’t wearing her bracelet.

  “You can stay here,” Liesl said. “You don’t have to go back there.”

  Uta cleared her throat. She straightened. “I wouldn’t spare the rod. Ani ate something. Make him tell you what it was.”

  “You want me to beat the truth out of my son?”

  “Always worked for my brothers.”

  Across Liesl’s mind flashed an image of the Müller boys with their perpetually snotty noses and stained shirts. There wasn’t a particle of them that was as sensitive as Ani. She knew children—hadn’t she run the Kinderhaus for seven years?—and the thought of striking a boy like Ani made her ill. A retort rose to her lips, but she suppressed it. Uta was upset.