My Own Dear Brother

by Holly Müller

  For the rest of the day the grown-ups were made to dig new graves and lift and carry and lower bodies. Some of the younger children could not and stood together and waited, afraid and quiet. Schosi was given a spade but he stopped too often in his work and began twirling his comfort blanket, his mouth stretched over his teeth, and when a flock of crows flew over the camp cawing loudly he screamed and crouched on the ground. Eventually, the soldiers took away his spade. Once the graves were filled and covered and crosses placed at the head, all were directed to shovel soil into the large hole until it was no more. Ursula panted with exertion and her back ached and she observed sidelong as Frau Gerg with haughty disdain refused to cooperate and was hit in the stomach with the butt of a Russian gun, pushed to the floor and made to carry a dead man alone.

  ‘Take gloves off! Take them off!’ shouted the young Russian who guarded her. And so she was denied her gloves and handled the body with bare hands.

  Ursula felt a flush of horrible triumph and perspired with the guilt of it. Beside her, Frau Hillier and Mama, shovelling silently, watched their enemy’s punishment and degradation. Frau Hillier crossed herself and lowered her eyes. Schosi twirled his cloth around his fingers and released it and the material spun and spun.

  37

  In the early evening there was a loud knock at the front door and voices on the other side of the panels, in dispute it seemed, though it was difficult to tell because the Russian language often sounded argumentative. The door shook and the bolt rattled.

  ‘Hello! Hello!’

  The family were in the kitchen.

  ‘Should we open it?’ said Dorli.

  ‘No,’ said Mama, scooping Traudi from her basket. ‘Stay where you are.’

  A few minutes passed and everything went quiet. Then there was hammering at the back door, only a few feet from them. Traudi began to cry. Mama hushed her and tried to smother the noise with her cardigan but she kept on wailing, gaining volume.

  ‘Hello!’ A man’s face appeared at the kitchen window. He stepped out of sight. Another bang on the back door, of something hard like a log or a stone, some loud Russian, then another bang and a splintering sound.

  Dorli leapt to her feet. Mama yanked her arm and made her sit. ‘Where will you go?’ she whispered fiercely. ‘Stay here. It’s safer together.’

  ‘Open the door!’

  ‘We didn’t put on all our clothes,’ said Ursula. ‘The refugees said we should put on all our clothes.’

  ‘Get into the pantry,’ said Mama. ‘Quickly!’ She pushed them towards the cupboard and bundled them in, closed the narrow door and dropped the latch. She dragged the easy chair so it obscured the entrance and then hurried back to the table.

  Ursula pressed her eye to a crack and saw Mama push a cushion up the front of her dress so that she was transformed once again into a heavily pregnant woman. She answered the door with Traudi balanced on her hip.

  ‘Why are you breaking my door?’ she said, slowly and loudly. She pressed one hand to the small of her back, her belly thrust forward. The soldiers ushered her inside, talking in Russian and pointing their guns, trying to see beyond her into the kitchen. They surveyed the bare shelves and table, the meagre decor. Mama lifted the pan from the stovetop and tipped it towards them, showing them the contents; the remains of the potato stew from the day before. She smiled, only the tightness at the corners of her mouth giving her away. ‘Take it. Take it,’ she said.

  The men peered into the depths of the pan, suspicious; their eyes flicked here and there. The smaller man sidled forward with his gun jabbing. ‘Where is girls?’ he said.

  Mama feigned confusion. She gestured to Traudi. ‘My daughter?’

  The soldier shook his head. ‘Other girls.’ He looked into the hall; his gaze swept over the pantry door and Ursula drew back. Dorli crouched amongst the bags at the base of the shelves.

  ‘No other,’ said Mama. ‘This is my daughter.’

  The men conferred for a moment, tense and displeased, then they turned their attention to the pan on the stove. They made a gesture of eating. Mama darted to the drawer and scrabbled amongst the cutlery. She held out two spoons. With much clanging and banging, the men scoured the pan. When they were finished they slid the spoons into the basin.

  ‘Eating,’ said the taller soldier, pointing to his stomach. ‘Bread.’

  The only other food was in the pantry, which contained Ursula and Dorli. Mama shook her head and shrugged.

  ‘Eating,’ said the soldiers, taking a few steps further into the kitchen.

  ‘Ah!’ Mama exclaimed, and beckoned the men to follow her, smiling and inching out of the back door. The soldiers muttered to each other and then one of them went after her, while the other stayed in the kitchen. It was the taller soldier that remained. He leaned against the edge of the worktop and crossed his boots, scrutinising one corner of the room then another. The silence was complete and Ursula stayed as still as she could and prayed that Dorli would make no noise. The soldier began to explore the room, opening the drawer in the table as he passed. He rifled through the contents idly, picked out some letter-writing paper, a pen, Anton’s pearl-inlaid letter opener and a small leather purse. He pocketed the things.

  Mama returned with hair flattened to her skull from the sudden downpour that had begun outside, the soldier behind carrying jars of preserves. They were the ones from the shed, which they’d put aside as an emergency supply. Mama looked pale and shaken and forced her expression back to containment as she ushered both the men outside. The tall soldier touched Traudi’s rain-wetted cheek as he left with a sentimental expression and said something softly in Russian. Then they went out of the door and jogged away, casting looks over their shoulders as they went.

  ‘We come back!’ shouted the shorter soldier, grinning through the rain, before turning and splashing across the yard, both disappearing into the hiss of the evening storm.

  Together in their room, the girls got ready – Mama fully believed the soldiers’ intention to return and expected another visit soon. Ursula put on several layers of underclothes, and wriggled into a dress. Her best dress, the one with the fewest repairs, went on next and she didn’t care how she treated it, wrenching and yanking the fabric roughly. She put on two cardigans and wrapped a shawl around her head and face, and then several pairs of bloomers.

  ‘Now, help me,’ said Dorli.

  Ursula buttoned Dorli into various garments until side by side they looked as fat as cooks. Ursula felt a fool in her bulky outfit, her arms sticking out from her sides and so many layers of material between her legs that she waddled when she walked. She quickly became much too hot.

  ‘Do I need to wear all of it?’ she asked Mama when they met on the landing.

  ‘Yes! Of course you do.’ Mama wore a bed jacket back-to-front and belted with a piece of cord over several skirts and dresses and two pairs of bloomers. She wore Papa’s trousers too and the turn-ups showed beneath her hem.

  They were all too nervous to have much of an appetite, except Traudi, who cried a lot and needed frequent feeding and changing after her day of being abandoned in the house. But they boiled something up for dinner in any case and the steaming pans were some reassurance. It was raining again and the water flew against the shutters, rushed into the water butts and drilled against the roof – an oppressive sound. Dorli sat at the table with her hands resting on her knees and her eyes cast down. She had an air of doom about her that Ursula found infectious. Ursula listened for the crash of an intruder and couldn’t rid herself of the memory of the dead men in the grave. She sweltered in her clothing and almost wished that the Russians would just come, that whatever awaited her would happen quickly and be done with.

  There was banging on the door just as they were eating. Ursula threw down her spoon and stood, ready to run. A woman’s voice called from outside.

  ‘Frau Hildesheim! Are you there?’

  It was Frau Hillier.

  Mama laboured in her many layer
s to the door. When Frau Hillier and Schosi entered the warm kitchen steam drifted from them; drips pattered from Frau Hillier’s sodden and mud-splashed dress. Schosi stood almost on top of his mama, teeth chattering, his comfort blanket draped over his shoulder like a dead thing.

  ‘What’s happened?’ said Dorli, aghast.

  Frau Hillier smiled in a grisly kind of way. ‘They got me. Sneaked up behind me and hit me on the head. They got me all right.’

  Mama put a hand to her mouth and stared at her friend.

  ‘Yes,’ said Frau Hillier, but not very seriously. ‘He was so young. He didn’t even have facial hair. To think – an old thing like me.’

  ‘Were they at your house?’ said Mama.

  ‘Yes. They went off with my food. I waited until it looked as though the way was clear then made a dash for it.’

  Mama began to fuss. ‘You’d better get out of those wet things.’ She removed some of her clothes and handed them to Frau Hillier. ‘And you, Schosi. You can wear something of Anton’s.’ She went to fetch a towel and a couple of blankets.

  ‘Did he – you know—?’ asked Dorli once Mama had left the room.

  Frau Hillier nodded.

  ‘Was it awful?’

  ‘I suppose it was.’

  Mama reappeared and showed Frau Hillier into the scullery so she could undress in private. She emerged wearing an odd assortment of Mama and Dorli’s clothes. She had on a dress that was too small, undone at the front with a scarf wrapped around her bodice to conceal the gap. Then she put on two cardigans, the outer one on backwards. She turned so that Mama could do up the buttons. Schosi had been given a pair of trousers of Anton’s, long woollen itchy things that he wore in wintertime. He’d also borrowed a dry shirt and jumper. He huddled against the stove.

  After an hour or so, and Frau Hillier and Schosi had eaten, they all went upstairs. Mama brought the rifle and put it under the bed. The three Hildesheims lay tightly together, Traudi on the rug on the floor beside Mama. Frau Hillier and Schosi used Anton’s old bed. Ursula stared at the ceiling and couldn’t sleep; her sister squirmed against her. The many layers of clothing were uncomfortable, strangling around her legs, arms and waist. The pinched faces of buried Russians moved against the dark as though lifted on a wave. The more she tried to expel them, the larger they loomed and the sweet smell of decay seemed to enter the room so that she had to draw breath through her mouth. She turned and nestled against her sister, but it wasn’t a comfort, because Dorli’s body hummed with anxiety and exuded heat. She could feel her rapid pulse and the shallowness of her breath. Ursula turned back the other way. She slipped into dreams and came out of them again, because they were worse than the imaginings. Eventually, she slept.

  She woke when Dorli and Mama sat up in bed. There had been a loud noise – Ursula had registered it in her sleep.

  Mama swung her legs out of the bed. She twisted to look at her daughters, listening. ‘Someone’s at the door.’

  There was another crash at the front door, and then at the back door. Dorli put her arms around Ursula, which was an unusual thing for her to do, and Ursula supposed she must be out of her wits with fright. She began to whimper. The banging kept on and on and the shouting too. Ursula watched her mother for a sign of what they should do, but she seemed frozen, her profile an unmoving outline in the dark room, like a statue or a drawing.

  38

  Frau Hillier lifted the latch of the bedroom door and came in while the din from downstairs continued, guiding Schosi before her. He stuttered terribly, winding his piece of material and moving around, pacing in front of the windows. Frau Hillier perched on the end of the bed and she and Mama clasped hands. There was a metallic clatter. It was unmistakably the sound of the bolt flying off and striking the tiles. It skated the length of the hallway. The door crashed inwards and Russian accents filled the house. Frau Hillier went over to Schosi and held him by the shoulders to keep him still but he struggled free and went to Ursula and bent to look into her face, stammering something she didn’t understand, about a cart in a yard and being dead under a blue blanket. She pushed him away – he didn’t seem to realise what was happening and his frantic eyes scared her.

  The voices in the hall gained volume and glass splintered somewhere below, maybe in the kitchen or in the living room, it was difficult to tell. Dorli began to cry – Mama pressed a hand over her mouth as boots thundered on the stairs. Ursula could hear every word spoken by the soldiers but understood nothing.

  There was knocking and pounding on one of the bedroom doors, not theirs. A latch was lifted. ‘Hello!’ a soldier called. ‘Women, hello!’

  Mama snatched the rifle from below the bed, levelled it at the door.

  ‘Be careful.’ Frau Hillier pushed the gun barrel down. ‘They’ll be armed.’

  The floor vibrated with heavy footfalls as the soldiers explored the adjacent bedrooms, including Anton’s, where Frau Hillier and Schosi had been moments before.

  ‘Can we not get out of the window?’ Frau Hillier darted to the shutters and opened them, then unfastened the casement. Damp air entered bringing the smell of the fields. Schosi tugged Frau Hillier’s sleeve repeatedly, stuttering. ‘Quiet!’ She cuffed him around the head. He fell silent.

  Mama got up and lifted Traudi, who was awake and wide-eyed. She left the rifle on the bed and joined Frau Hillier. Frau Hillier put her leg out of the window and began to lower herself, feeling with her toes for a branch of the apple tree.

  ‘Am I close?’ she panted.

  Mama leaned out. ‘A few more centimetres.’ She grabbed Dorli’s sleeve. ‘You next!’ The bedroom door opened. Gun muzzles swept over them. ‘Quick! Quick!’ She shoved Dorli towards the window. Dorli struggled in her bulky layers to get her foot on the sill. Mama grasped her by the ankle, wrenched it higher.

  ‘Stop!’ A Russian soldier crossed the room in two strides and seized Dorli. His comrades followed, a jostling crowd, filling the room. There were six or seven men, two of whom Ursula recognised as their visitors from earlier in the evening – they held bottles that were nearly empty; their bodies moved with the slack easiness of drunks and they talked hectically, fingers resting on triggers. One had a torch and pointed it into each face, the beam loitering on Dorli, Mama and Ursula, passing over Schosi as though he wasn’t there.

  A soldier with a broad flared nose and whiskered cheeks snatched Ursula’s arms and held her in a rough grip. She didn’t struggle or cry out; she tensed, motionless. He twisted her wrists till they burned and forced her on to the bed, her face not far from the rifle.

  Dorli meanwhile was hauled backwards by the skirt, her captor deliberately unbalancing her as she pawed at the windowsill, hopeless as a spider in a bathtub.

  ‘Get off!’ Mama slapped at the Russian’s arms, a wobbling Traudi clinging to her shoulder. ‘Let go!’ Another soldier barged Mama out of the way. She staggered and cupped the baby’s head. Ursula wanted to call to her but there were no sounds, only a strange shadowy stillness in her limbs and thoughts.

  Frau Hillier was found dangling from the window ledge, balancing on a branch. She was dragged inside, her laughter high-pitched and frightening – the window was violently slammed. Hands gripped Ursula’s chest, the sore flesh of her new breasts. The shadow in her thoughts struggled; a writhing shape at the edge of sight set up a cry; her own voice was mute.

  Dorli’s assailant kicked her ankles from beneath her and she hit the floor with a crash. He drew out a short-bladed knife, knelt and pulled up her skirts. With a few strokes he cut through the layers of bloomers and ripped them entirely away. Ursula averted her eyes from her sister’s nakedness. Mama was accosted too – Traudi had been wrestled from her grip and another knife was put to speedy use. She was shorn of her clothes like a sheep in springtime. The flop of her breast set Ursula’s face ablaze. She’d never seen Mama without underwear – the flesh was pale and the nipple dark and rude. There was an atmosphere of awful inevitability, dirty like going to the toilet in
front of each other.

  ‘Shame on you,’ said Mama as she was struck to the ground.

  Dorli’s young soldier was clumsy and his uniform impeded him, a water bottle dangled and got in the way and he kept swinging it behind only for it to come windmilling back around to strike his front or the side of Dorli’s hip. A magazine of bullets sagged from his chest and snagged in Dorli’s cardigan so that he had to pull the bullets off over his head to free himself. They rattled on the floorboards and lay around Dorli’s head like a crown. The Russian holding Ursula called to the younger soldier, as though giving instructions. Within a few seconds he fell from Dorli, leaving her exposed and grappling for clothes to cover herself. The man holding Ursula howled with mirth and exclaimed boisterously to the exhausted young soldier. He pressed Ursula deeper into the mattress.

  When the man pulled her underwear to her knees she remembered in an instant how it felt to be a baby, manhandled and bared – a hot-cold fire burned across the surface of her body. Was it shame, anger, fear? The shadow grew larger, clearer, driven from hiding. The soldier’s uniform was rough as coarse hair, sharp as twigs, as stones beneath the snow; her face was pushed into the eiderdown; she fought for breath.

  The sensations that followed were a vivid blaze of pain. Through her mind flashed past injuries, the kitchen knife that cut her finger, the flesh parted and bloody as though it would never fit back together. Or when skin and tissue had ripped when she’d fallen from her skis, a gory hole in her knee that swelled and wouldn’t heal for weeks so that she walked with a stiff leg. She couldn’t mount the stairs without someone to steady her, hopping like a crippled frog. Perhaps it was the same, she thought, screwing shut her eyes. A bad thing happening to her body that afterwards would mean nothing at all, like a beating or a tumble down the riverbank. The shadow pressed close and whispered, accusatory, that it was more than that; it was sin. Much worse than the time she’d skinned her palms, scrabbling to be free, had escaped calamity, but only after he’d given his blaring shout, swallowed by the snowdrifts. She’d let it happen then too, lain still. Why didn’t she struggle? he’d demanded, furious. But what would struggling do? She twisted her head to look out, to glimpse the freshness of the air outside. Framed by the window was a bright moon caught in the branches of the apple tree.