Stones From the River

by Ursula Hegi

  “My mother used to be locked up.”

  “Did she escape?”

  It was the most logical of questions. Trudi nodded. “Many times.”

  “Good.” The sister smiled. “Good. You must learn from your mother.”

  “Sister!” From the backdoor of the Theresienheim sailed the imposing figure of Sister Ingeborg, the supervisor of nurses. “Sister Adelheid!”

  The nun who was a priest knelt down. Her palms gripped the metal rods of the gate, and as she brought her face as close to Trudi’s as possible, her breath was sweet like that of a small child. “As long as you keep escaping,” she whispered, “they never get you. Even if they think they do.”

  By the time the German troops marched into Austria in March of 1938 and the Anschluss was celebrated by jubilant crowds in the streets of Vienna, Leo Montag had turned more of the pay-library over to Trudi. Confident that his daughter could deal with the customers, he’d reduced his work to his favorite part—choosing the books they would borrow.

  He’d moved a stuffed armchair next to the counter, and there he’d sit, wearing one of the many vests that the women of Burgdorf knitted for him, surrounded by stacks of books, the wooden phonograph from the unknown benefactor, and his classical records. Whenever a woman customer approached him, he’d take off the reading glasses that obscured his eyes. Though he looked older than he was and his limp slowed him down, the power of his gaze had escalated. Even in church the women felt his eyes, causing a sweet, unsettling heat to rise from their loins to their necks, and they would try to regain their composure by formulating the words of chagrin they would trade to the priest in return for the bliss of absolution.

  Distracted by the surge of confessions about impure thoughts that involved the proprietor of the pay-library, the fat priest had been watching Leo Montag for some time while he’d preached his Sunday sermon from the pulpit, flustered when he’d forgotten what he had been about to preach. He had started to write out his entire sermons and had waited for Leo Montag’s confession, but Leo only entered through the purple drapes of the confessional three times a year and would emerge afterwards, shaking his head, baffled by the priest’s repeated, “And are you sure, my son, there is nothing else you should ask God’s forgiveness for?”

  Herr Pastor Beier wished he could ask the old pastor about Leo Montag’s confessions, but his predecessor had died in the Theresien-heim the previous year, his poor, scaly shell so dried out that it had barely added any weight to the polished coffin. Besides, no priest should ever reveal what he’d learned in the confessional, even if—so the pastor had memorized as a seminarian—the sinner had committed murder. “It is one of the greatest burdens you may have to carry as a servant of God,” the bishop had told him. Still, he would have liked to know, because Leo Montag’s successes evoked his old, long-confessed fantasies of the flesh, driving him from his ironed sheets with prayers of shame that would bring him to his knees by his bedside. Often, he’d flee his bedroom and roam the dark halls of the rectory until he’d find himself at the kitchen table, blotting temptation with raspberry pudding and sardines, pigeon stew and marble pound cake, cheese Brötchen and ripe pears, white sausages and cold venison—causing the housekeeper he had inherited from the little priest to set her lips just so when, in the morning, she’d discover that the food she had prepared in advance had vanished again.

  Her raincoat buttoned up, and a covered basket over one arm, Fräulein Teschner would depart for the stores and open market, stand in line—no easy feat with her varicose veins—and wait with grim satisfaction for Frau Weiler or one of the other merchants to comment, “He must be at it again.”

  Although the pastor’s favorite foods were not always readily available, Fräulein Teschner knew enough parishioners who welcomed the chance to deprive themselves by giving her some delicacy for the priest—much in the way they’d add an extra rosary to their daily prayers—to balance out their sins and ensure their climb on the ladder of eternal salvation. She knew how to time her visits to their houses to coincide with entries from the pastor’s diary and rumors of recent transgressions.

  On days like this, when she served his midday meal late—through no fault of her own, of course—he would taste her resentment and triumph in the rich sauces and sweet puddings, and he’d rush to compliment her, profusely, on even the taste of boiled potatoes. He’d feel ashamed for not appreciating her enough, for all the times he’d let himself hope that she’d decide to work for some other pastor, far away. To fire her was unthinkable—not after everything she’d done for him.

  • • •

  “Do you think Leo Montag has any idea what he is doing to those women?” Frau Blau asked Frau Abramowitz one afternoon when they saw the optician’s wife enter the pay-library with a radiant smile and half a plum cake.

  Her face flushed, Frau Abramowitz shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  The old woman chuckled. “He is too good at it not to know what he’s doing.”

  “They come to him because they find they can talk to him … about themselves, their husbands and children—in a way they can to no one else.”

  “That too.” Frau Blau winked.

  “Leo is considerate … a wonderful listener.”

  “That too. Have you ever noticed how he strokes his face?”

  “Oh, stop it, Flora.”

  “No, really. His hands … he’s always at it, caressing his own face. That’s why he doesn’t need a woman to do that for him.”

  “It’s only a habit. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “He’s a very sensuous man—our Herr Montag.”

  Once, when Trudi left the pay-library with the small metal pail to buy a liter of milk, she returned and found the oldest Buttgereit daughter trying to embrace Leo.

  “But I want to,” Sabine Buttgereit said, her thin arms straining to keep her hold on Leo. She wore her church dress with the pearl buttons though it was the middle of the week, and her smile was frightened, determined.

  Leo held her as much as he pushed her away, his eyes gentle on her agitated face. “With Gertrud gone,” he said, “I haven’t been able to become interested in another woman.”

  “I’ll let you go as soon as you kiss me. I’ve never—”

  His voice reassuring, he loosened her arms and stepped out of her embrace. “If things were any different, Fräulein Buttgereit…” he said, letting her fill in the rest to suit her hopes as she smoothed her hair with both hands though not a single strand had come undone.

  If things were any different… Trudi had heard her father say the same words to Frau Abramowitz years ago and to other women who came to the pay-library. The potential of this promise still quickened a yearning in all of them, drawing them far stronger than any plaster saint possibly could. His tragic attachment to his dead wife became the women’s virtue. It was safe to long for Leo Montag, to cross borders you would never cross with another man, because Leo Montag would not take you up on your offer. With him you could feel safe to reveal your daydreams, your hopes—and you’d always be left pure.

  He was not at all like that friend of his, Emil Hesping, who’d never married but had left two generations of women who distrusted him. Frau Simon would have been the first to agree that men like Emil took whatever they could. With them you had to stay guarded. Your smile could be misinterpreted. A casual word. And yet, although she didn’t rely on him, Frau Simon always took him back when he returned to her, giving her new substance for the gossip she loved even more than him. Unlike Trudi, who guarded her own stories, Frau Simon could be counted on to circulate and embellish her own experiences because she enjoyed the notoriety. It amused her that people gossiped about her and Herr Hesping while refusing to acknowledge their relationship in public.

  No, Leo Montag was not at all like his friend. Leo Montag would handle it with instinctive diplomacy if women quarreled over him. He might retreat to the living room behind the pay-library when two or three of his admirers were com
peting over him—not openly, of course, but rather in hidden and cutting comments against one another—but soon, Trudi would notice, he’d be looking for those women again, for that adoration, and the next time he’d see them, the intensity in his gaze would have increased. The longer his celibacy lasted, the stronger that passion lived in his eyes.

  The women released their secrets to Leo because they longed to be understood, loved. They wanted excitement and purity all at once, something they could only get from him. When he turned his eyes onto you, you knew that—were it not for his tragic loyalty to his dead wife—you would be the most important woman in his life.

  You brought your secrets to Leo but guarded them from Trudi. Yet, as soon as you thought—I hope Trudi Montag doesn’t find out—she’d lure that secret from you as though you’d given off a scent, a signal that made her approach you like a hunter, the awareness of your secret in her eyes; and what she didn’t already know or find out from you, she would guess—usually with amazing accuracy. Even what happened inside your house. Inside your soul.

  You would recognize her from a distance—early evenings or during the midday break, her squat shape tilting from side to side as she propelled herself forward on those curved legs of hers. She moved with confidence and purpose, and though you’d long to find out the stories she carried, you’d often shy away from her—just in case those stories were about you. She was always curious about your life and gave you more attention than anyone you knew.

  No one else looked at you with such interest, such compassion.

  No one else knew how your secret burdened you.

  No one but Trudi Montag understood your relief once you’d shared that weight with her.

  Unlike other confessors, she would not assign prayers or punish you with disgust. She welcomed your sins, and it was tempting to tell her everything. But you had learned not to.

  You had learned it from listening to the secrets she had seized from others and spread about town, like the one about the pharmacist having been adopted, something everyone talked about now, although—until recently—only one of the very old men in Burgdorf had recalled that fact. No one else of that generation had deemed it important enough to keep alive by retelling it. But Trudi Montag had brought the pharmacist’s secret back. Trudi Montag had searched through dusty records in the Rathaus, where she’d found the dates of his parents’ wedding and of his christening, yet no account of his birth.

  “Not that it matters to me, but he could have come from anywhere,” she would tell you, bent on shaking the superior attitude of the pharmacist who’d been instrumental in showing films at the school, which claimed that Jews were filthy and neglectful in personal habits. Every single student had to watch the films, even the Jewish children.

  “He doesn’t even know his parents,” she would tell you.

  Even if you were determined not to talk to Trudi Montag at all, you couldn’t always guard your secret from her. You’d weaken: something in her generous eyes would make you want to tell her, and though you didn’t want to give in, you already sensed that it was too late, that your secret was becoming hers, and that from then on you could only watch it grow as Trudi paraded it around town—much in the way a new mother takes pleasure in showing off her infant.

  And yet, whatever the people gave Trudi was not enough, could never be enough. If she couldn’t have their acceptance, at least she’d have their stories. That’s what the people of Burgdorf owed her. Because she’d come into their middle. Because of her difference. Because they could not accept her—they owed her something. And she’d extract that payment, ruthlessly, banking on their pity, their guilt, their relief.

  But to her own secrets she held on, accumulating power by keeping separate what was hers and what belonged to others. One day it struck her that it was almost like hoarding money for people who worshiped wealth. How much she had that was hers. What she took away from others. What she gave to others. What she hoarded. There was even interest because what she already owned grew as she added that which came from others. It gave her a sense of wealth, of pride; yet, sometimes the mass of secrets felt totally useless, a sharp-edged block that encumbered her. Those were the times when she would have liked to give up all the secrets if only she could have had what she craved most deeply—the connection to others.

  eleven

  1938

  THAT SPRING OF THE ANSCHLUSS, WHEN GERMAN TROOPS MARCHED into Austria, came to be known in Burgdorf as the spring of the great flood. After eight years of tolerating its boundaries, the Rhein spilled its waters across a hundred towns, killing over four hundred people, five of them in Burgdorf alone. The old women said the river had become accustomed to human flesh from the two recent suicides, both of them Jews, who had chosen its chilly current for their grave, seeking out whirlpools and surrendering to their downward spin instead of escaping through the root of the vortex the way that children who live near the river are taught to by their elders.

  The river—so the old women said—was like a wild animal which, once it has sampled human blood, will always lust for that taste.

  When the old women whispered that the river was hungry for more, they crossed themselves and prayed for the flood—the most terrible flood even the oldest among them could remember—to recede from their kitchens and bedrooms. They longed for a day when they could leave their slippers on the floor next to their beds again, for a day when rowboats and kayaks would be used for family outings—not to navigate the streets which lay blurred under shifting, muddy waters. Gifts from the unknown benefactor appeared in many houses as if they’d floated there on invisible rafts. Perhaps there wasn’t just one benefactor, the old women speculated, but a whole group of benefactors. Because how could one person possibly collect and distribute all those gifts, each uniquely suited to its recipient?

  As the river retreated, it left hollows in the cemetery, where the earth settled on the coffins beneath, the deepest of them on the grave where Herr Höffenauer and his mother lay buried. Near the bank at the north end of Burgdorf, the Rhein cleaved out a long basin, giving the town a second swimming hole, one gouged by men, the other by the flood. Throughout the region, the wet stench of rot lingered in walls and floorboards, in mattresses and drapes that had been touched by the river.

  The first day the sidewalks were dry again, people dressed in the brightest clothes they owned as if to entice that brightness from the sky and back into their lives. What they wanted was a brightness far beyond the kind you can see with your eyes when the sun opens the sky, the kind of brightness that had been lacking from their lives since long before the flood, the kind of brightness that had been sucked out of each house, each town, and replaced with fear and suspicion.

  Frau Simon had her busiest morning in years: she sold seven hats—none of them gray or brown, but all in vibrant colors: yellow and blue and red and green—the most elaborate of them to her best customer, Monika Buttgereit, whose thwarted passions for the driver of the bakery truck had funneled themselves into one obsession that her parents thought it wise not to object to though it embarrassed them: hats. Hats with fabulous feathers, with lace, with fancy clasps. Her newest acquisition was a two-tone purple satin turban with a pearl-studded veil, which—Frau Simon swore—suggested a definite hint of mystery.

  Just before Frau Simon was about to close her store that noon, she walked out with her last customer, Trudi Montag, trying to persuade her, there on the front steps while the river-soaked wind blew heavily around their ankles, to let her set aside that second hat Trudi had liked, the red one with the speckled feather, which still perched on a wooden stand in the display window.

  “For at least a few days,” she implored. Her white blouse was tucked into the slim skirt of her elegant suit.

  But Trudi was staring past her at a slow black car that approached from the direction of the church square.

  “It suited you so, that red hat, Trudi. I’d hate to see it on anyone else.” Frau Simon reached down to fluff Trudi�
��s bangs and—with one practiced gesture—tilted the moss-green hat, which Trudi had just bought, slightly to the right. “There now.” She sounded pleased.

  On the opposite sidewalk, people walked faster, turning up the collars of their coats like half masks against the soggy, stinking wind, and in the street, women on bicycles pedaled harder, thighs straining against the fabric of their skirts, causing their shopping nets to swing from the handlebars like useless pendulums.

  “Not that green isn’t a flattering color for you, Trudi. Especially with that coat you sewed last month. It’s only that I like both hats on you. With all the self-improvement you’ve done … It would be a pity to let that hat go to someone else. A pity. Maybe I’ll mention it to your father when I return my books. Your birthday is only three months away, and it’s never too early to—”

  As the car came to a smooth stop in front of the milliner’s shop, two Gestapo officers slipped out.

  “Lotte Simon?” The shorter of the men stepped up to her.

  Frau Simon backed into the entranceway and rubbed her arms through her sleeves as though suddenly cold.

  “You have to come with us.”

  “But why?”

  “An investigation.”

  “An investigation? Into what? I—”

  “Only a routine.”

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  Trudi felt numb, angry, afraid. And then numb again. She glanced around for help, but the street had emptied as if in anticipation of an even greater flood, and in a second-floor window next door a lace curtain moved.

  “Let me call a lawyer—please!” Frau Simon’s fingers grasped her silver necklace.

  “Get into the car.”

  The short officer was giving all the orders while his partner stood next to him—more formidable because of his silence—as if prepared to back each word with force. Beneath his chin Trudi noticed an almost healed cut from shaving. His face was bony as though he deliberately courted starvation.