My Own Dear Brother

by Holly Müller

  The room Herr Esterbauer had taken for her was small, with space for a bed, a skinny wardrobe and a sink beside the window. The walls were white and the ceiling very high – dimensions exactly opposite to that of her own house, which had large broad rooms with low beams, and on every beam something hanging. The Viennese door was tall and fine, with bevelled panels and a golden handle and lock. Herr Esterbauer’s room was beside hers and only slightly larger. The key that she’d been given by the landlady was huge, as long as her hand and heavy. The landlady lived in the adjacent apartment – Ursula had heard her wireless waltzing late into the night and the clinking of cutlery. She seemed a stolid and surly kind of person, none too friendly, but the price was a lot less than a hotel, Herr Esterbauer had said, and it was close to Hartburg, only a few streets away.

  She rose and went to the small sink to wash her face. She needed daylight and opened the inner shutters and double window, then the outer shutters. She glanced down at the road below – she was high above the ground and the view made her dizzy, so she drew back. She concentrated instead on washing with the cracked sliver of soap then combed her hair. That morning they would walk to the hospital – she’d insisted Herr Esterbauer let her come, despite his protests. She dressed hastily, roughly, tugging her socks hard over her knees, her thumb tearing a hole in the wool. She struggled with her bootlaces and managed after much cursing to tie one of the smooth yellow ribbons around her hair. She took several deep breaths and commanded herself to be composed. She must remember Schosi. He needed her. She should keep a level head.

  ‘I’m sorry, mein Herr,’ said the Hartburg receptionist after they’d asked to see Schosi. ‘We can’t grant access to the patient at this time. He’s undergoing treatment and won’t be receiving visitors.’

  ‘Treatment?’ said Herr Esterbauer in a clipped tone. ‘What kind of treatment?’

  The woman raised her pencilled brows and looked at him coolly. Then she slid some papers into a slim cardboard file and wrote on it with a rapid hand – her voluminous curls vibrated on top of her head and her bosom shook beneath her thin blouse. ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss the treatment of patients. That’s for the doctor to do.’

  ‘Well then, we wish to see the doctor!’ retorted Ursula, gripping the edge of the counter.

  Herr Esterbauer touched her arm, three fingers resting just lightly, cautioning her. She let her arm fall back to her side.

  ‘None of the doctors are free today. You will need to make an appointment to see Dr Klein if you wish to discuss anything.’

  Ursula watched Herr Esterbauer’s fists clenching and unclenching and imagined another night in the rented room, not knowing whether Schosi was safe. Another telegram to Frau Hillier and to Mama. Another day when Anton might leave to join the fighting – and on and on and on. She couldn’t stand it. She bit her lip then let out a short, loud breath.

  ‘Well,’ said Herr Esterbauer, his voice raising, ‘please make an appointment with the doctor then. For as soon as possible.’

  The woman retrieved a thick leather-bound book, opened it and leafed through at a leisurely pace. ‘On Tuesday – at eleven in the morning. Shall I enter your name?’

  ‘Tuesday?’ exclaimed Ursula. ‘That’s too long!’

  Herr Esterbauer stepped closer to the receptionist. ‘Look, gnädige Frau. I have a business to take care of. I have employees. I can’t spend days hanging about. This is unacceptable!’

  The woman raised her face slowly and treated him to her blandest stare, her eyes seeming to grow duller, smaller, to shrink back into the recesses of her head. Herr Esterbauer opened his mouth then clamped it shut. His fists began their clenching and unclenching once more. His eyes darted here and there and his jaw muscles flickered and Ursula supposed he was worried about the farm as well as everything else. Both he and Ursula were silent for a moment as they contemplated five days of waiting, of not being able to do a single thing. Schosi would have no idea they were only blocks away. Perhaps somehow they could reassure him, thought Ursula. She stood on tiptoe and leaned on the counter so that her torso poked through the reception hatch.

  ‘Please, at least give him a message.’ She tried to catch the woman’s gaze to implore her to take pity, but the small eyes slid left and right, impossible to pin, like trying to spear pickled onions on a greased plate. ‘Can you just tell him that we’re here in the city and that we’ll be coming to see him very shortly? And that we’ll take him home as soon as we can?’

  ‘Patients are to receive no correspondence while undergoing treatment, not even from parents,’ the receptionist recited mechanically.

  ‘Can you at least tell us where the children’s ward is?’ demanded Ursula. The woman made no reply; her pen once again jerked across the page of a file. Ursula stared in anger at the placid face before her, the sliding eyes that refused to truly see them. Herr Esterbauer’s hand appeared on her shoulder, pulled her gently back till she was standing normally again. She felt despair enter her heart and tried to banish it. This place was a prison and the staff were jailors, just as they had been at Brauhausen.

  ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience,’ chirped the woman.

  ‘Tuesday, at eleven,’ said Herr Esterbauer; his grip on Ursula’s shoulder tightened to the point of pain. ‘May I please see the entry in the diary?’

  The woman looked up sharply. Then an expression of genuine offence came on to her powdered face. She raised the ledger and turned its pages towards them so that they could read her entry. Beside Tuesday’s date was written: Herr Esterbauer, to see Dr Klein at eleven o’clock. Regarding the early discharge of Hillier Schosi, a recent patient.

  ‘Many heartfelt thanks – for all your help.’ Herr Esterbauer tugged the brim of his hat, his expression stony, then they walked from the lobby, their footfalls resounding in the austere hall.

  21

  They kept their rooms on Gütteldorfer Strasse. Every morning they went to the green door of the landlady’s apartment and rang the tarnished bell. Frau Petschka, usually in her housecoat and headscarf in the midst of some soapy or dusty task, took their Reichsmarks and enquired after their health.

  ‘The rooms are OK?’ she asked each time.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ they invariably replied. ‘Everything’s in order.’

  Herr Esterbauer sent a telegram every day to Frau Hillier and to Mama with instructions for the running of the farm, and about his mother’s preferences so Mama could take care of her while he was away. The telegrams weren’t cheap, charged per word, and Herr Esterbauer said he wasn’t always as economical as he could be because he wanted to bring Frau Hillier some comfort. Sometimes Mama replied, berating Ursula, reminding her how indecorous it was to be in the city alone with a man, no matter who he was, and that she was fed up with pretending to the school that Ursula was ill. She said Frau Gerg had called at the house snooping, asking why Ursula wasn’t at the League. This provoked another wrangling match between Ursula and Herr Esterbauer. She did feel bad about the worry she’d caused Mama, but she couldn’t bear to give up and go home.

  On the third morning, Mama ended her telegram with: Anton has gone off with Rudi. Don’t know where. Ursula reread the words, trying to find something more, some clue, some hope. She gripped the paper, buckling it. Her face felt numb, her fingers icy – her lungs ached and her heart too. She sank on to the cold tiles. Her sobs echoed loudly in the peaceful post office. Herr Esterbauer, alarmed, stooped and stroked her shoulder, saying briskly, ‘Come, come,’ and, ‘Hush now.’ Anton was gone; she’d driven him off. He’d be killed. He’d be lost without her. He’d told her so many times he’d be lost without her. He’d go wherever was most dangerous and violent. He’d die. Herr Esterbauer propped her up and escorted her outside.

  ‘All boys want to get stuck in, Ursula. Can’t stop them, you know?’ He rubbed her arm with firm, even strokes like when he soothed a horse and blotted her wet cheeks with his handkerchief, and she thought it would be all right if only it were
that simple, but Anton had gone because she’d been unkind and had abandoned him. Now there was no one to keep him safe.

  Herr Esterbauer arranged with the landlady that she cook them a meal every evening for an extra fee. She wasn’t a good cook, and when she entered the room with another plate of steaming, wobbling meat, or a bowl of grey and undercooked stew, Ursula’s heart sank. She missed Mama’s cooking; even Dorli’s efforts were better than this. There were few vegetables to garnish the meals, not an egg in sight.

  In the evenings she was homesick; time dragged in the narrow room. She wished she’d remembered to bring a book, her thoughts without anything to divert them returning inexorably to the plights of Anton and Schosi. She and Herr Esterbauer played cards and dice and he tried to cheer her but she was poor company. He shared his newspaper with her sometimes but the articles were all about war and the approach of the Russians across Europe; they made no sense to her and only made her more afraid for Anton. Had he come here to the city or gone to the Front, to one of the places mentioned in the papers? Her mind was full of catastrophe, his bloodied face, eyes empty, tongue protruding, body torn and motionless on blackened ground. Should she search for him at the flak towers? Should she leave a notice there with her name and the Gütteldorfer address? She thought about Schosi, incarcerated somewhere in that grim, endless place, the terror he must feel. Did he know he was amongst murderers? Did he dread them every moment? Or was it already done? The stab of a needle into his frail arm, the fading of his patient, honest eyes? She choked on this thought. Sometimes she wept because it felt better than just sitting and thinking. For solace, she conjured pictures of Sepp, his liquorice hair, his elastic smile. But relief didn’t last long; she wondered again if Anton had reported the Sontheimers. She suppressed a shudder of mortification. She’d no idea what might happen – at the very least the boys would be real enemies now.

  One evening Herr Esterbauer brought her pencil and paper and an envelope, having gone out especially to buy the things. ‘So you can write to your mother,’ he said. ‘Or whoever you like.’

  The kindness made her tearful and she thanked him in a quavering voice. But the only people she wanted to write to were Anton and Schosi and she didn’t know where Anton was, and, even if a letter could miraculously bypass the spying hospital staff and reach Schosi, he couldn’t read.

  It wasn’t long before Aldo was taken away. He coughed and coughed through every night and eventually became so tired that he couldn’t stand. One morning he simply ignored the whistle and turned his back as the nurse came by, unable to open his eyes, unable to wake. The nurse lifted him easily in her burly arms. As Aldo was carried from the room Schosi wanted to call out to his friend but no words came.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ muttered Schosi’s neighbour with the large gums.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ echoed his friend.

  The dormitory once again filled with breathless chatter as everyone dressed. Boys glanced at Schosi, who was unable to hide his tears. He felt bad. He’d deserted Aldo on many occasions in the garden, or elsewhere, when Aldo had been slow and untalkative, or when his coughing had irritated him. Now he was sorry. The boy with the large gums patted Schosi on the back, rapidly as if he was beating dust from his clothing. He introduced himself as Moritz then introduced his friend, who had yellowish skin and sore, blinking eyes.

  ‘That’s Paulin,’ he said. ‘He’s all right.’

  Paulin’s grip, when he shook Schosi’s hand, was damp and limp as a wilted lettuce leaf.

  Later that day, Schosi, Moritz and Paulin dug in the sandpit in the garden. Moritz complained that it was goddamn freezing and that he hated playtime, but the sand was moist and formed easily into shapes and the three were soon building towers and smashing them and building them up again. It was the first time Schosi had enjoyed himself since arriving at the hospital and he even forgot for a moment where he was and about the perishing cold. Moritz dug a very deep hole in the sand that he said was nearly deep enough to get them beneath the fence and out of this damned place if only it wasn’t right in the middle of the lawn.

  The chalk-faced nurse came along the path behind them with keys jingling. She glanced at them then stopped. Moritz was using his hands to dig and spraying sand behind him like a dog, reaching far down into the crater he’d made, with backside raised, grunting with effort. The nurse’s expression hardened. She stepped off the path and was suddenly moving fast, a black shape swooping towards them across the grass. Schosi’s stomach lurched; he stuttered a high-pitched warning but Moritz didn’t hear and didn’t see until the nurse seized him by his jumper and hauled him up. With a powerful swing of her fist she crashed her bunch of keys into his face.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she shouted. ‘You rat!’ Blood ebbed from a puncture wound not far from Moritz’s eye. The nurse knocked him into the sandpit. ‘Fill that in!’ Cowering, he scrabbled, pushing sand back into the hole; blood dripped from his cheek.

  ‘And you two!’ She pointed at the lawn. ‘Tidy that up!’

  Schosi and Paulin hastily set to work, scooping spilled sand and throwing it into the pit. The nurse watched them, looming, frowning, the keys bristling from her fist.

  When the garden looked neater she walked away without a word. They watched her retreating back. She entered the building through the nurses’ entrance and was gone, her garden duty finished for the afternoon. Moritz wiped his hands on his jumper and gingerly touched the cut on his face. He winced. He looked frightening, blood smeared to his chin. The three squatted close together. They were all shaking. They rubbed their bare knees and blew into their cupped hands.

  ‘She can’t frighten me,’ Moritz muttered after several silent minutes had passed, his brow sullen and his lower lip and jaw protruding. Every so often he snorted to clear the snot from his running nose. After a while he said abruptly, ‘Wanna go and see Aldo?’ He squinted at Schosi. ‘I know where they’ve taken him.’

  ‘Now?’ said Schosi.

  ‘Yeah, now.’ Moritz spoke fiercely. ‘While Sister ain’t looking.’ The nurse now on duty was the young pale-haired one, who Schosi had learned was called Sister Kuster. Moritz rose, rather unsteadily, and beckoned for them to follow. Paulin gave a fearful grimace and shook his head. Schosi too quailed at the thought. That nurse would surely kill them if they were caught. Why did Moritz want to go now? But he remembered Aldo and how sad and small he’d looked when he was taken away. He wanted to see him again, to be able to hug him, to pet his hair and make him better. He recalled little bear and her bravery, going into the woods alone, finding her way, taking Schosi to the village to visit his father’s grave, and all the fearless games she played. She’d certainly go to see Aldo if she were here.

  On the other side of the garden, Sister Kuster was involved in an activity with a little girl and was distracted. They were seated on miniature chairs beside a low, mildewed table. She offered the girl wooden blocks and helped her to set them in place. When the girl dropped the blocks or arranged them upside down Sister Kuster swatted her and hissed a rebuke. Then she patted the girl’s sallow cheek to console her, glancing warily about as she did so. Moritz sauntered across the lawn and Schosi followed. Sister Kuster did not look up. They ducked around the corner of the building. Backs to the bricks, they were hidden from view and a few metres away was the door into the ward. At the base of a fir tree, a boy and a girl stopped their muddy game and stared.

  ‘We got to get past the office,’ said Moritz. ‘I’ve done it before but there’ll be some of those damn sisters around. They’ll be on the phone probably. Or smoking away like hell.’ He eyed Schosi appraisingly. ‘You up to it?’

  Schosi, heart somersaulting, tried to reply.

  Moritz’s eyes narrowed, a piercing, unblinking look. ‘You want to see Aldo, or what? Or are you too chicken?’

  ‘I want to go.’ Schosi’s stutter tripped his words.

  Moritz peered briefly through the glass of the door. He pushed it open and led them inside.
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  They tiptoed swiftly along corridors. They came to a set of double doors, which were bolted. Moritz made a good job of sliding the bolts without making any noise. He was trembling a lot and kept asking Schosi to look out for those bastard sisters. Schosi watched and listened but nobody came.

  When they reached the nurses’ office, the door was partly open and light fell out in a vivid wedge. There were low voices and shadows moving within. All Schosi could think of was the brutal bunch of keys, the shrieking whistles and foul mouths, quick-slapping hands and needles, the white jacket meant to strangle you, to imprison your arms. Somehow, with hand clutching his privates to prevent the pee from escaping, he managed to cross through the slice of lamplight. The phone rang, shockingly loud. He sprang into a run, shoes slapping heavily on the floor, only the din of the telephone disguising his reverberating steps. Just as he reached the end of the corridor and Moritz, the chiming of the phone ceased. A voice answered in a singsong tone – the chalk-faced nurse. ‘Good afternoon, Hartburg Hospital, Sister Franz.’

  Moritz dragged Schosi away down the deserted corridor. There were several broken bulbs overhead, throwing pockets of shadow on to the walls and floor. Schosi glimpsed the scribbled design on the plaster and he knew that they were nearing the freezing room. He didn’t want Aldo to be in there but also he wanted to see him very much. The covered cart was parked against the wall as before and Moritz peered cautiously through the keyhole, listening for any telltale sound. He turned the handle slowly, smoothly. Schosi gripped the back of Moritz’s jumper as they went inside. He suppressed a cough. The stench of pee and vomit was even worse than when he was here last.