Stones From the River

by Ursula Hegi

  nine

  1934

  RAINER BILDER WAS QUICKLY FORGOTTEN WHEN GÜNTHER STOSICK’S ten-year-old son took the lyrics “Für die Fahne wollen wir sterben…”—“For the flag we want to die …”—to a dreadful conclusion. A bookish and obedient boy, who had learned to play chess at the age of two—a year younger even than his father—Bruno Stosick had won his first trophy in a tournament before he’d been old enough to attend school. By the time he was eight, he’d already beaten every one of the men in the club.

  No one questioned that the boy was destined to become one of Europe’s great chess champions, and the town showed its pride by granting him the kind of respect reserved for adults. Yet, his parents treated him like the child he was, and when Bruno entered the Hitler-Jugend the week after his tenth birthday, he did so secretly, knowing his parents had nothing but contempt for the Nazis. He was called a Pimpf and had to prove himself by running sixty meters in twelve seconds, jumping 2.75 meters, and memorizing the promise of eternal duty, love, and loyalty to the Führer and the flag: “Ich verspreche in der Hitler-Jugend allzeit meine Pflicht in Liebe und Treue zum Führer und unserer Fahne.”

  For Bruno this meant an escape from the narrow life of his childhood—from books and chessboards and polite family dinners—an initiation into something grown-up and significant. Infatuated with the mysterious force of the songs and drums and flags, the future chess champion of Europe would climb from his window at night to attend meetings and march in parades. Upon his return he—who’d never cleaned one single item of his clothing—would brush off his uniform, wrap it lovingly into a clean towel, and hide it behind the potato bin in the cellar.

  While two of his classmates, who were reluctant to join the Hitler-Jugend, were assigned extra multiplication tables and an essay titled “Why I Love My Vaterland” Bruno learned how to build a magnificent Lagerfeuer—bonfire—by the Rhein where, eyes blazing along with the flames, he recited the promise he had memorized alone in his room.

  Bruno was in love—fervently and irreversibly—in love with Adolf Hitler and his youth group leaders and the other boys; and, like many great and tragic lovers in history, Bruno would not survive the separation from his love. When his parents found out that he’d joined, they not only pulled him out of the Hitler-Jugend despite threats from his leaders, but also supervised every moment of his day, walking him to school as though he were a little boy, picking him up, letting him leave the house only when one of them was with him.

  When Bruno hanged himself in the birch wardrobe, where his father kept the club’s chess sets and ledgers of games dating back four generations, he wore his uniform and, on his collar, a pin with the emblem of the red, white, and black flag to which he had sworn eternal love, as if to validate the song “Für die Fahne wollen wir sterben…”

  The morning after his son’s death, Herr Stosick felt an unfamiliar draft against his scalp when he awoke, and as he brought his hand to his head, he touched bare skin.

  His wife stared at him. “Günther,” she whispered and pointed to his pillow, which looked as though it had become a nest of brown caterpillars.

  As Günther Stosick picked up a tuft of his thick hair, he let himself hope for one moment, one deranged moment, that he could strike a trade with God—his son for his hair—because, certainly, to lose both at once was too much for any man to bear.

  • • •

  At the boy’s funeral, Ingrid leaned down to Trudi and whispered that, while she couldn’t see dying for a flag, she could certainly imagine dying for her faith. “It would be a privilege,” she sighed, her eyes taking on a faraway look of ecstasy as though she could see herself being tortured for Jesus.

  “Maybe for Bruno that was his faith,” Trudi said.

  “You know there can only be one faith.”

  Trudi shook her head, impatient with her friend’s intolerance. Hands folded, she stood between her father and Ingrid in the crowd of mourners—most of them Protestants—that encircled the narrow grave which had been hacked into the frozen ground. The cemetery felt more like the home of the dead in winter than any other time of the year: without the distraction of all the flowers and blooming shrubs, the headstones were stark and far more noticeable; it even smelled more like a cemetery, with that odor of damp earth and rotting leaves.

  Trudi shivered. The waste of it, she thought, the waste of a country that would incite children to die for it. She thought of all the things Bruno Stosick would never do—ride a motorcycle or kiss a girl or learn a profession.… How she ached for the boy’s parents, who stood alone as if the town held them responsible for their son’s death. After the coffin had disappeared into the hole, she followed her father to where they stood. Frau Stosick’s face was hidden behind the black veil that draped from her hat, and she kept her black gloves on, but Herr Stosick’s hands were bare and feverish, and he held both of Trudi’s hands until she felt his anguish seep through her skin.

  When she left the cemetery with Ingrid, who tried to talk with her, she barely listened and gave brief, distracted answers.

  “Klaus Malter …” Ingrid was saying, “he asked me to go dancing with him.”

  Trudi felt a sudden jolt of hate. How could Ingrid betray her like that? “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself,” she said, keeping her face impassive.

  “But I’m not going.”

  Trudi stared up at her. “Why not?”

  “Because—I liked it better when the three of us did things together.”

  “Is that what you told him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he—what did he say?”

  “I—” Ingrid’s eyelashes fluttered as if she were winking. “I don’t remember.”

  “You have to remember.”

  “I don’t. I really don’t.” Ingrid looked miserable, already burdened—Trudi saw—by this lie she’d have to carry to her next confession.

  But Trudi felt light and warm. Reaching up, she looped one hand through Ingrid’s angled arm. She hadn’t thought she’d ever have a best friend again. Not after Eva. Or Georg. But Ingrid had proven herself because only a best friend would rather be with you than be half of a romantic couple. “Let’s go to Düsseldorf,” she said impulsively, “see a movie.”

  “Not after the funeral. It doesn’t feel right.”

  “I know. Still—it’ll be good to think of something else.”

  “I don’t have enough money with me.”

  “I’ll buy your ticket.” Trudi knew she was being pushy, but she didn’t want to go home, where she’d only be thinking about Bruno.

  “I still have to do my midday prayers,” Ingrid said.

  How Trudi resented all those hours that Ingrid spent on her prayers each day—hundreds of Hail Marys and Our Fathers for the dead as well as those living their sins, one entire rosary for the conversion of one pagan baby of God’s choice, another rosary for her family. In addition, Ingrid did three rosaries a day on the mysteries: the first, meditating on the joyful mysteries; the second, meditating on the sorrowful mysteries; and the third, meditating on the glorious mysteries of the life of Christ. The leather cover of her prayer book was so worn it felt like silk.

  “Can’t you do your prayers tonight when we get back?” Trudi suggested.

  Ingrid hesitated.

  “Or you could do them on the streetcar. I’ll be real quiet.”

  As the blue-and-white streetcar rumbled toward the city, they sat so close on the wooden slat seats that Trudi could feel the stays of her friend’s corset. Ingrid submerged both hands in her leather bag, where she kept her rosary. Her eyes were half closed, and her lips moved ever so slightly as her fingers slid across the beads.

  From the empty seat across from them, Trudi picked up a leaflet with a caricature of Adolf Hitler—the open mouth and mustache taking up most of the face. Instead of pupils, he had Hakenkreuze in his eyes, and a procession of tiny uniformed people goose-stepped from his mouth and dribbled down the front of his jacket like vomit.r />
  Trudi held the sketch out for Ingrid to see, but Ingrid was praying. Ever since she had started her studies at the university, she’d added an extra sorrowful rosary on Fridays to commemorate the day of Christ’s death; even if she was in class, she’d pray at three in the afternoon—the hour the pharmacy was closed because Herr Neumaier hauled his French Jesus around the church square.

  A hand snatched the sheet of paper from Trudi’s hand. “Where did you get this?” The Schaffner—conductor—had lots of hair but hardly any chin. When Trudi pointed to the seat across from her, he grabbed the other leaflets. “Did you put them there?” His breath smelled of stale tobacco.

  “No.”

  “Then who—”

  “I didn’t see.” She curved her back, making herself look even smaller than she was.

  “You didn’t see anyone?”

  “They were already there.”

  “Do you know you can get arrested for reading those?” His voice had the tone adults liked to use with small children.

  Trudi’s feet dangled high above the floor. “If I get arrested, I’ll have to tell.… That I found them here. In your streetcar.”

  Grumbling something to himself, the Schaffner stuffed the pages into his uniform jacket. She handed him the money for the tickets, and even the clicking of the coin changer that hung on his chest didn’t distract Ingrid from her prayers.

  “Don’t do that again,” he said and walked away.

  She leaned her head against the back of the seat, her face and neck sweaty. As the streetcar crossed the Oberkassel bridge, the sound of the wheels on the tracks grew tinny, singing careful careful careful.… On the other side of the bridge were far more cars than in the streets of Burgdorf, as if the wealth of the city began right there. Newspaper boys hawked their papers at the stop, yelling out headlines, and two women with fur coats got onto the streetcar.

  Outside the movie theater, posters inside a wide glass frame announced coming attractions. Before the film started, the weekly news show—Wochenschau—depicted rows of trim uniformed men, Hitler giving a new speech, athletes achieving incredible feats. Ingrid’s brother, Holger, was a well-known athlete, who’d won dozens of trophies as a member of Emil Hesping’s gymnasts’ club, but a month earlier he’d been summoned—“invited” was the word his proud father used when he’d told people about it in his bicycle shop—to join the sports club of the SA.

  “It’s an honor for our entire family,” he’d told Trudi when she’d arrived to pick Ingrid up for a visit to Frau Simon’s millinery shop.

  She dodged his wide, oil-stained hands as usual when he tried to stroke her hair.

  “Now our Holger can really pursue his athletic career,” he called after her as she ran up the stairs to the apartment above the bicycle shop.

  She was glad he was busy selling a tire pump to Herr Weskopp when she left with Ingrid, but his eyes touched both of them, and his voice stopped them by the door.

  “What’s that you’re wearing, girl?”

  Ingrid’s hand smoothed down her skirt.

  “I want my daughter to wear a decent skirt.” His fingers rubbed the fabric by her thigh.

  “It is a decent skirt,” she wailed.

  He’d laughed and turned back to his customer while Trudi had grasped Ingrid’s wrist and pulled her from the bicycle shop.

  On the big screen, a runner broke through the finishing line, face naked with ecstasy, arms flying out as if he were about to leave the earth. Then Adolf Hitler was shaking people’s hands. You could tell by their faces how proud and delighted they were to be near him. Trudi couldn’t look at Herr Hitler without remembering the leaflet and all those people marching from his mouth. But here in the theater his stern features were in the right proportion and ordered around the square mustache—so unlike the stripped face of the runner. His hand filled the entire screen, again and again, grasped by other hands. Trudi thought of the pharmacist shaking the Führer’s hand. Der Scbweiss unseres Führers—the sweat of our Führer.

  The film was about to start: it was about the love between a blond forest warden and the blond daughter of a doctor. They finally got married despite the attempts of a Jewish banker to steal the young woman’s affection. Not that he ever had a chance—considering how all the others would pinch their nostrils to avoid his terrible smell.

  Trudi found it unbearable to keep looking at the movie. It was frightening to see how people felt justified to discriminate, how that attitude of superiority was drilled into ten-year-old children like Bruno Stosick. More than once she’d overheard comments on streetcars or in restaurants about Jews smelling bad. Though not directed at specific Jews, who’d sit stiffly, their arms tight against their sides, the remarks were always loud enough for everyone to hear. Some people would laugh, but most would pretend not to hear. Including herself. It was terrible, that uninvolvement, and she wished she knew what to do about it without getting hurt. But she’d seen people shunned or beaten because they’d come to the defense of Jews. Once, she’d witnessed a group of schoolboys push a woman from a moving streetcar when she reprimanded them for taunting a gray-haired Jewish man. As they shoved her toward the door, they shouted that she was ignorant, that it was a scientific fact that Jews smelled, that they’d learned about it in school.

  And they didn’t even feel ashamed, Trudi thought, as the black and white of the screen flickered across Ingrid’s face and hands, summoning images of Bruno Stosick bending over his father’s chessboard, riding his bicycle past the pay-library, saluting the flag.… She shut her eyes, but it was impossible to dodge the final image, the persistent image that all the others pulled her toward—that of clumps of earth dropping on the small coffin.

  Only a few of the people in Burgdorf had read Mein Kampf, and many thought that all this talk about Rassenreinheit—purity of the race—was ludicrous and impossible to enforce. Yet the long training in obedience to elders, government, and church made it difficult—even for those who considered the views of the Nazis dishonorable—to give voice to their misgivings. And so they kept hushed, yielding to each new indignity while they waited for the Nazis and their ideas to go away, but with every compliance they relinquished more of themselves, weakening the texture of the community while the power of the Nazis swelled.

  But not everyone looked away when injustices happened to others. When little Fienchen Blomberg was stoned in front of the Weilers’ grocery store by six older boys, Frau Weiler let out a howl, grabbed her broom, and whipped from the store. The boys were smashing Fienchen into the display window, smearing the glass with blood. Wielding the broom handle like a sword, Frau Weiler forced herself between the thin girl and the knot of boys.

  “I’ll tell your parents,” she screamed, and pounded at whatever parts of the boys’ bodies she could reach.

  They covered their faces, their chests, as they backed away from her. “Witch,” they howled, “crazy old witch.”

  “I’ll tell your parents.”

  “Witch.… Witch.…”

  “Enough, Hedwig.” Leo Montag caught her in his arms. “It’s enough. They’re gone. Trudi is getting the Frau Doctor.”

  Frau Weiler’s great jaw trembled, and in that moment when she let herself be braced by Leo’s body, too weary to continue on her own, it occurred to her how foolish it was to live next door to this man, both of them without someone to warm them at night. A slow heat climbed into her cheeks. She freed herself from his arms and comforted the crying girl.

  Klaus Malter came running across the street, the sides of his white jacket flapping. “It’s an outrage,” he said, “an outrage.”

  Leo Montag carried Fienchen into the storage room behind the grocery store. Several of the stones had cut her skin, leaving gashes on her arms and forehead. Blood from her nose was running into her mouth and down the front of her sailor collar. While Leo sat down on a wooden crate and held the girl on his knees, Klaus carefully washed off her blood.

  “How about a nice piece of choco
late?” Frau Weiler offered, eyes glistening with sadness.

  Fienchen nodded, parting her lips as though she could already taste the rare treat.

  But Klaus advised, “Better wait until Frau Doktor Rosen has taken a look at her.”

  “Here.” Frau Weiler slid a wrapped piece of chocolate into the girl’s skirt pocket. “You can eat it later.”

  Fienchen sniffled and leaned her head against Leo’s chest.

  “It may be a good idea,” Klaus told her, “to have a few friends with you when you walk around town.”

  The girl mumbled something.

  “What is it?” Klaus bent closer.

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Friends, you mean?”

  Fienchen squinted.

  “You must have at least one,” Klaus pressed.

  “Don’t—” Leo started.

  “I used to have two.” Fienchen’s voice was monotonous as if reciting something she’d been told repeatedly. “They are not allowed to play with Jews.”

  “But that’s—” Klaus Malter looked startled. “That’s not right. You—you are a good girl, a sweet girl. You—” He would have kept talking if Frau Doktor Rosen hadn’t rushed in, followed by Trudi, who was out of breath.

  “You can stay right there, Fienchen, on Herr Montag’s lap.” The doctor knelt in front of the girl, and as Fienchen rested against Leo’s knitted vest, the doctor’s fingers moved across her face as if in a caress. Her dark eyes barely contained the anger, which did not spill from her until Trudi and Klaus walked her back out through the grocery store, where the display window was still smudged with Fienchen’s blood.

  “There has been more and more of this. The children who’re brought to me, the adults too—as if some essential law had dissolved.… A free hunt, and we’re the trophies.”