The Hollow Bones

by Leah Kaminsky

One morning, just before Geer arrived, Herta felt faint as she stood shelling a bowl of peas, clumsily sorting the black ones from the green. She poured herself a glass of water and sat down. Although she ached to ask Ernst if he’d made any enquiries yet about Margarete, she hesitated to say anything, cautiously rehearsing the lines in her head. She tried to phrase her words prudently, so as to not anger him. Lately, it only took a dash of alcohol, or his feeling that he was the butt of a joke, or even a mere drop of sarcasm on her behalf, to unleash the flood of his fury. She felt a fissure between the Ernst she loved – a good man, a decent man, absorbed in the drudgery of repairing the garbage bin – and this beast that emerged. She was finding it harder and harder to predict what might short-circuit his demeanour. It was always small annoyances that triggered his rage. This morning, he was giving her a hand in the kitchen when he came across some mouldy bread. She felt the darkness encroaching as he rummaged around in the back of the breadbox.

  ‘Is this what they taught you in bride school?’ He waved the mangled loaf in the air.

  She tried to stay calm. Holding the shrivelled pea pods between forefinger and thumb, she pressed until she forced them open with a tiny pop.

  ‘We are in no situation to waste even the tiniest morsel of bread. You don’t seem to have the slightest idea how to run a household. Until I finish my doctorate, we simply have to tighten our belts.’

  He launched into a speech about family values and the nation’s struggle. She knew it would be safer to suffer the indignity of his barrage of complaints silently, but something rose up inside her, like a tiny firefly, penetrating her fear.

  ‘I was simply keeping the stale loaves to grind into breadcrumbs.’ She coughed, clearing her throat. ‘I asked you to fix the mincer last week. I didn’t notice everything had grown mouldy in the meantime.’

  ‘So, you’re saying it’s my fault you’re a sloppy housewife? You seem to have made a habit of blaming me for what are your own shortcomings.’

  ‘Ernst,’ she pleaded, immediately feeling regret at having challenged him, ‘that’s simply not true.’

  ‘It seems I’m a liar, too,’ he said, cornering his prey. ‘All I ever hear from you is criticism. Never a thank-you. A patriotic German wife would be delighted to take better care of her man. Just look at how Hildegard dotes on Bruno. That man doesn’t have to lift a finger at home. I, on the other hand, help you with shopping, tidying, cleaning. If my superiors knew about it, I’d be the laughing stock of the SS. What is it that you want from me, Herta? Am I not a devoted husband? How much more would you like me to do?’

  Sleet started falling outside. Herta got up from the table, wiping her wet fingers down the front of her apron, and walked slowly across the kitchen to embrace him. He didn’t move when she kissed his cheek. The floor undulated slightly beneath her feet. She kneeled down on the wooden floor, unbuttoned his fly and took him into her mouth as he thrust forcefully in and out. Sticky globules spurted into the back of her throat, making her gag, but she forced herself to swallow his bitter seed and, with it, her fear. They weren’t taught this in bride school, but she knew it would calm him down, at least. Her face filled with the musty smell of him.

  Geer arrived and sat in an armchair in the study for hours on end, taking calls, drafting letters and drawing up legal documents.

  The phone rang. Ernst grabbed the receiver; his nails were bitten to the quick.

  ‘Allo! Allo!’ a shrill voice called out of the earpiece.

  ‘Shut up!’ Ernst boomed, before even checking who it might be. He tore the receiver from its cradle, tossing the phone across the room.

  Geer sat still, watching Himmler’s charming protégé throwing a full-blown tantrum. Ernst’s face turned red with blistering rage, his eyes darting around the room like those of a wild animal, finally settling on the bearskin rug beneath him. He kneeled and patted the bear’s furry head, whispering something into its ears.

  Geer climbed out of his chair and, taking Ernst’s arm, helped him up and led him over to a sofa by the hearth. He sat on a stool opposite, watching as his colleague’s breathing slowed, the blood draining from his cheeks.

  ‘I – I’m sorry,’ Ernst stammered. ‘My humble apologies.’

  His outburst ended as quickly as it started, his anger dissolving into the smoke inside the fireplace, carried up through the chimney and out, leaving behind only the hissing of embers. Mounted on the wall, a row of exotic masks stared down at Ernst, like a tragic chorus of ghosts. Geer reached across to a table that stood between them and picked up a carafe. He poured his friend a shot of whisky, the orange flames from the hearth reflected in the sharp crystal edges of the glass.

  ‘It’s all too much,’ Ernst said, slumped at one end of the sofa. ‘I can’t see how we are going to manage this without wads of money somehow flying in through the window.’

  ‘We’ll do it together, my friend.’ Geer patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘The Ahnenerbe look like they might pull out, though maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’

  The expedition’s logistics were becoming more complicated by the day. Ernst wanted to trek beyond the forests of Kham to reach the Amnye Machen region, a white space on all his maps. But due to the rising unrest, with rival warlords roaming along the border, he would have to consider crossing into Tibet via India this time. That meant having to sweet-talk the British.

  ‘Leave the money worries to me,’ Geer said. ‘I’ve already secured a commitment from the Advertising Council of German Industry for 46,000 Reichsmarks. Between Eher-Verlag, the German Research Foundation and the Foreign Ministry, we should be able to cover the rest of the trip. And you said your rich American friend has promised to make a contribution, too. We’ll be fine.’

  Ernst sat motionless, dark rings framing his eyes. He lifted a feather from the table and rolled it between the palms of his hands.

  ‘Ah, that Brooky. Despite our differences, he’s been a good friend. Sometimes I wonder if I should have stayed in Philadelphia instead of coming back.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Ernst,’ Geer whispered. ‘This is where you belong. You’ve just got a lot on, with your thesis and all these preparations for our trip.’

  Ernst downed his whisky in one gulp. He screwed up his face, as if he’d just taken a draught of poison, then looked around his apartment. Although rather large by Berlin standards, it was antiquated, its creaky pipes groaning like an old man, the oil heaters flatulent and temperamental. His study was usually a sanctuary from the outside world. Today, though, he felt the room closing in on him; the mounted shaggy head of a yak he shot in China seemed to laugh at him, along with its stuffed companion, a crested grebe.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, turning to Geer. ‘I need to get away.’

  ‘Maybe you should have a check-up first? I know a wonderful physician over on Lindenstrasse. He took over the practice from the old Jew, Ehrlich, who everyone loved so much because he cured their peckers. He probably licked them clean!’

  ‘No, I’m not sick. Just exhausted.’

  ‘Ah!’ A smile crept across Geer’s face, a glint of camaraderie in his eyes. He lowered his voice. ‘A new bride can be very taxing on a man.’ He chuckled, taking a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiping his brow. ‘You’d better look after yourself. Keep your energy levels up, errhmm, along with everything else.’

  Ernst pondered his friend’s words. ‘I’m going away,’ he announced.

  His friend looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘You can all live without me for a few days.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You heard me. I’m taking my geliebten Frau, my beloved wife, on an adventure in the wilderness, right here on our doorstep.’ His eyes lit up with excitement, all the life that had been drained out of them now flooding back. ‘We both need it.’ He spoke quickly, words jostling each other to leap out first from his mouth. ‘I’ll send a telegram immediately to Reichsjägermeister Göring. He invited me to join the hunt at
Schorfheide this week. I told him I was busy with my thesis, but you know what, my friend, I’m damned if I’m not going to take him up on his invitation to spend some time at his mansion. I’ll let him know I’m coming tomorrow. I must tell Herta to start packing. I want us to be on our way by dawn.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Ernst, we’re supposed to be setting off for Tibet in a matter of months. You can’t just run off with Herta like that. Do you love her more than you love your team?’

  ‘Don’t make me choose, my friend.’ Ernst laughed.

  ‘Ah, yes, but if it ever came to a choice between Herta and the hunt, I have no doubt as to who would win out.’

  CHAPTER 18

  8 November 1937

  Herta sat beside her husband in the old Opel he’d borrowed from the university as they drove north along the new autobahn. Ernst had surprised her with news of a belated honeymoon at Carinhall. Named after his first wife, Carin, Göring’s country mansion was designed by Werner March, the same brilliant architect who had dreamt up the plans for the Olympic Stadium. The hope was that this escape from their apartment, from the city, would return them both to their senses.

  They stopped along the way for a break and Ernst took off into the forest to stretch his legs. Herta was standing by a small riverbank when she spotted two greedy carp in the shallows. They made their way towards her, their giant mouths gaping with the prospect of a fleshy snack. As they gazed up at her from their murky Umwelt, she wondered how she appeared to them. Did they see her in the same way a human might?

  She retreated to a grassy hill and sat in the weak sunshine, waiting for Ernst to return. Being alone in the wild often spooked her, but she would never admit this to her intrepid husband. The quiet out here felt ominous, as if danger lurked in every shadow. Birds interrupted the silence, calling from the canopy of the forest, and insects broke the monotony with their humming tsk, tsk, tsk. Surely the wife of a famous zoologist and explorer should be comfortable with the language of nature? The truth was that she preferred to be indoors, playing her flute. After all, wasn’t music the profoundest expression of nature? And whenever she had craved the company of an animal, all she needed to say was puss, puss, puss, and Klaus used to obligingly jump straight onto her lap, curl up and fall asleep, purring loudly as she stroked his back.

  She remembered when she had first found Klaus buried under a pile of rubbish and held the shivering mess of fur in the palm of her hand. His eyes were still closed and one of his hind legs hung limp. His pitiful mewlings were tiny darts that pierced her heart. She brought him back to Frau Lila’s, hidden inside her coat. Hildegard crept into the kitchen that night, bringing back cold offerings of fish scraps she had salvaged from the trash. Herta cared for the sickly kitten in the same way she had looked after Margarete. It was good to feel needed again. Over the next few weeks Klaus learnt to totter around, despite his bad leg, growing stronger and more playful each day.

  For Ernst, nature was inexhaustible. Herta imagined him at that moment among the wild things, crawling, running and hopping with them across the earth’s wrinkles, or simply perched on a rock reading his beloved Faust, as if it were the Bible.

  When she had again brought up her concerns about Ernst’s sponsorship through the Ahnenerbe after dinner the previous night, he became so defensive.

  ‘The Devil was the one who came to me, Liebchen. Not I it was who whistled him from hell. A self-willed bird, he flew upon the lime.’

  ‘You can quote your silly Faust as much as you like, but it doesn’t make what you are doing right.’ Herta was clearing the plates from the table and placing them in the sink. ‘Those Ancestral Heritage folk are dangerous, Ernst. I’ve heard they are up to some strange things and I’m scared of you being involved with them. I’ve listened to your conversations with Bruno, so I know you share some of my concerns. Having some of them at our wedding was one thing, but the moment you take money from these people you become part of the machine, whether you like it or not.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what hocus pocus they are conjuring in that haunted castle of theirs. If Himmler wants to believe ancient Aryans conquered Asia, who am I to challenge him? As long as he coughs up the money for the trip, I’m happy.’

  Herta was silent as she started soaping the dishes and rinsing them. Ernst ran his fingers through his hair.

  ‘You know I joined the party back in thirty-three because I didn’t have a choice. My father thought it would be prudent, to help advance my career, and I didn’t want to cross him, so I went along with it. It meant nothing to me at the time. Besides, you’ve seen firsthand how difficult it is to say no to him.’

  That doesn’t absolve you, she wanted to say.

  Ernst was a good man, not rabid in his views like Bruno, yet she could not stifle her unease. Being a part of it all, whether out of a sense of patriotism or sheer opportunism, led one into a moral cul-de-sac.

  She stared blankly at the suds in the sink. ‘Do you hate Jews?’ she asked him, the words erupting out of her.

  He sat there in silence, poking at some crumbs left on the tablecloth, forming them into two battlelines. A storm brewed behind his half-smile. He didn’t answer her. Somehow, she would have preferred a straight-out snarl, a shout, the slamming of a door.

  She abandoned the dishes, dried her hands with a tea towel and left the room, walking down the hallway and into their bedroom. She opened the bottom drawer of the armoire and pulled out a nightgown. Tucked in a corner was an embroidered linen handkerchief. She lifted it from its hiding place and unwrapped a faded photo of three children. A girl and boy stood on either side of a small child, whose blonde braids reached all the way down to the top of her withered legs.

  Herta sat at her dressing table. Propping the photo up against the mirror, she pulled pins out from her bun, her long, thick hair unwinding. She picked up a brush and started the tedious work of untangling knots.

  Ernst appeared in the doorway, his face still flushed. Without looking across at Herta, he pulled his pyjamas out from underneath his pillow. He sat down on the edge of the bed and started unbuttoning his shirt.

  ‘I was there when it happened,’ she said quietly.

  ‘What are you talking about, Herta?’

  ‘That night. When they burned the books.’

  ‘You mean in Waltershausen? I wasn’t even in Germany then. You know that.’

  ‘It wasn’t just in Waltershausen, Ernst. It was right across the country. It had to do with all of us. And that was just the start. Soon, Jews were locked out of everything. “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.” Wherever they burn books, they will also end up burning human beings. Heinrich Heine wrote that, and even his beautiful poetry went up in flames.’

  ‘I was in Western China with Brooky back then. I didn’t know about anything that was happening anywhere in the world.’

  Herta’s eyes bore into the mirror, watching his reflection. ‘Brecht, Zweig, Keller, Brod, Dreiser, Remarque, Hemingway. They forced Vati to empty his shelves, calling his library nichtdeutsch. A group of students threw his books in a huge pile in the middle of the town square, alongside all the other books they deemed degenerate.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this now, Herta? What do you want from me? You know I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘They distributed leaflets a day earlier. Fire oaths, they called them. They were to be read before hurling each author’s book into the flame. I still remember their eerie chants:

  ‘Against decadence and moral decay! For discipline and decency in family and state! I surrender to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Glaeser and Erich Kästner.

  ‘Against the democratic-Jewish character of journalism alien to the nation! For responsible collaboration on the work of national construction! I surrender to the flames the writings of Theodor Wolff and Georg Bernhard.’

  Ernst frowned. ‘But you know I’m not one of them, Herta. I’m just a scientist.’

  ‘Have y
ou ever thought about the scholars whose place you took? And what might have become of them now? Not only the students, but the professors, writers, artists, musicians, doctors, lawyers. All vanished.’

  ‘What would you have me do, Herta?’

  ‘You promised me there wouldn’t be a war, Ernst. But I feel something rotten crawling towards us.’

  ‘I gave you my heart. And my soul.’

  ‘I know you love me.’

  ‘So, you need to trust me. We are in no danger. It’s not us they’re after.’

  ‘Are you so sure, Ernst?’ She stopped brushing her hair and stared at his reflection in the mirror. ‘After what happened to Margarete, anything is possible.’ She picked up the photo of the three children, blood rushing through her fingers as if she were grasping a hot branding iron. Turning to face her husband of nearly four months, her friend of an entire lifetime, she handed it to him. The windowpanes shuddered. Outside, the gusts of wind rattled at the glass, trying to break in.

  ‘Vati gave this to me on the day of our wedding.’

  He took the photo from her.

  ‘I want to know where she is, Ernst.’ She placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘With all your connections I am sure you will find out something about her soon. It’s only a matter of time.’

  Ernst looked at her, the blood draining from his face. They undressed in silence and climbed into bed, Herta listening to an owl hooting in the distance.

  Herta continued to wait for Ernst by the river. She watched ripples spread across the water, a light breeze tickling the reeds along the banks. The sun disappeared behind the clouds and the air quickly turned crisp, sending a shiver through her body. Herta pulled out a second woollen shawl from her bag. She felt she needed to speak back to the unspeakable, but some things could not be said with words. She would sit quietly and observe, record her muted vision of the world. Herta: her name meant from the earth, but sometimes she felt she flew above it, hovering with the birds.