My Own Dear Brother

by Holly Müller

  ‘Don’t get too attached to your new job, Uschi,’ she’d say, within earshot of Frau Hillier. Since Ursula had turned fifteen she’d been officially employed at the farm. ‘He likely won’t keep you on for long. Perhaps we’ll all be laid off.’ She glanced at Frau Hillier to see if her barb had stuck. ‘He’s already fired several workers because he can’t afford them. A desperate man running out of money is never reliable. And what can be expected when he’s treated so heartlessly that he’s lost his will?’

  ‘Ah, leave off!’ was generally Frau Hillier’s flippant response, but Ursula could tell she felt it bitterly. Even Schosi attacked her. Herr Esterbauer often shared alcohol with him at the end of the working day, his arm about Schosi’s shoulder, as though they were two men of the world, the farmer muttering in his ear and Schosi nodding. Ursula wanted to tell Herr Esterbauer to stop it, to stop planting ideas in Schosi’s head that would never come true. But she knew that nothing she said would make a difference.

  ‘He’s doing anything for you,’ Schosi hoarsely echoed, once he’d wended his way tipsily home. ‘I want my own room.’

  ‘No, Schatzi.’ Frau Hillier tried to pacify him. ‘You mustn’t say that.’

  ‘I want to!’ Frowning, he’d clumsily pull at her sleeve and repeat his demand.

  ‘What is he thinking of, getting my boy drunk like this?’ Frau Hillier fretted. ‘He’s not in his right mind. I’m not ungrateful. I’m not. But this . . .’

  Her defences, eventually, were overcome, besieged as she was from all sides. One day Mama accused her of using Herr Esterbauer, and said that she couldn’t truly love him if she tormented him like this. Frau Hillier, who was drying dishes, dropped the plate she was holding, quite on purpose, and watched it smash.

  In the silence that followed she shouted, ‘Will you shut up? Will you? Will you leave me alone?’ She drew a shuddering breath, her usual contrary mildness entirely spent. ‘I can’t marry such a man! A Nazi! Have you never felt troubled? Have you never thought about what he did? Executing helpless men. I suppose you don’t mind at all!’

  Mama looked shocked, then eventually said, ‘But he was trying to protect us all, Gita. And isn’t the whole country full of old Nazis now? If you care for him . . . He risked everything for you – for your son. Who else would show such kindness?’

  Frau Hillier began to cry. ‘One kindness, yes. Amongst so much unkindness—’ She wiped her tears as they fell. ‘Of course I care for him. I care for him very much. But it isn’t enough. He followed blindly that lunatic, that dreadful, demented man.’ At this Dorli stood brusquely, walked down the hall and upstairs. Frau Hillier carried on, glancing at Schosi. ‘It was only because of how he felt about me – because he’s my son.’ She leaned close to Schosi. ‘Don’t worry, little rabbit,’ she whispered and kissed his cheek. ‘But how can I make vows before the eyes of God, when he stands for everything I don’t believe in?’ She looked at Mama with genuine appeal in her eyes. ‘How could I take his name? Give his name to my son? I want to be with him, but I can’t.’

  Mama fiddled with her fingernails. There was a period of quiet; Frau Hillier breathed heavily.

  ‘Well, if you won’t explain this to him, I will,’ said Mama softly. ‘He deserves to know.’

  Frau Hillier caressed the thick curls at the nape of Schosi’s neck, her forehead wrinkling as she thought.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you think it best.’

  Mama spoke to Herr Esterbauer the following day. They wandered in the orchard and she put her arm through his. Afterwards, she told Ursula that he’d cried.

  ‘She doesn’t know how much he regrets – how he’s changed. He thinks of that day in the camp. He said he’ll never be able to forget.’

  After that, Herr Esterbauer drank as if there was something he wanted to scour away. His nose turned dark as a rotted strawberry. Ursula didn’t like to see him weak and sorrowful; so utterly depleted; she tried to speak with him several times. She’d her own reasons also; she was ready at last to hear the truth about Anton, but Herr Esterbauer was unapproachable. His fits of rage built daily to great thunderheads, unleashing and tearing through the farm; he’d curse the Soviets and argue with them, convinced they claimed more than their share of the harvest, or bring to tears some unfortunate farmhand. The fury dwindled to sodden grief, his sight clouded, his mind closed in with loneliness. His mother had died in the first cold of winter; his evenings were now entirely solitary, apart from the Russians who he refused to converse with. Ursula waited for him to recover, to return to himself.

  The Russian with dust-coloured hair waited again outside the outhouse and his palm this time revealed a coil of ruby fire. Such colour when everything else was grey – the snow, the soldier’s dirt-ingrained hand, the grey-green uniform on his back. It seemed to Ursula that the necklace shone more brightly than any imaginable thing. It didn’t matter that he unwrapped her much as he’d unwrap a loaf, a quick, perfunctory, necessary act, and lowered her to the floorboards of the upstairs Russian quarters, his coarse uniform against her skin resurrecting memories of other encounters. She thought of the jewels, the borrowed fire, and even let him hold her afterwards, his hand stroking her shoulder. He sang in Russian a wistful tune and smoked between verses.

  ‘Only one left,’ he lied, indicating the cigarette. ‘No more.’ But she didn’t want it anyway. When she dressed she put on the necklace and hid it beneath her collar, enjoying its heaviness, a yoke of gold and stones that slid on her breastbone and gave a faint clink when she bent forward to fasten her boot. She wondered whether for such a lavish offering the Russian would expect more, or tell Herr Esterbauer she was the thief. She was sure in any case that Herr Esterbauer would soon discover it was missing. A rather painful, hollow sensation arrived in her body as she slid from the back entrance of the farmhouse and returned to her tasks, self-loathing mixed with the fading thrill of acquiring the necklace and the perturbing knowledge that she’d crossed a line, made a choice she feared would alter her for always. She didn’t understand why she’d done it, only that she’d had to – she’d had to.

  That night her dreams were filled with boots at the door, chest-crushing weight, stillness in her limbs. She saw herself at a table, napkin tight to her throat, drinking red wine from an upturned bottle, rivulets spilling down her chin. Opposite, Immanuil picked slivers of toothpick from his tongue and eyed her with satisfaction. She woke sweating despite the cold and couldn’t be sure whose body it was that lay beneath the blankets, a horrid polluted thing, a hostile thing, like a nasty strangling coat she needed to struggle away from.

  In Felddorf she clasped Schosi’s hand firmly in her own. They walked through spaces where people moved hastily aside. Behind her, scandal flared. Do you see her hair, so matted? I suppose she’s always on her back! Her skin, how grimy! And just fifteen. A crying shame, but she brought it on herself, no doubt. Do you think she’s having it away with the handicapped boy? There’s no excuse for it. They were always ungodly – always strange.

  Sepp and Marta were outside the grocer’s when she exited, her shopping complete. Schosi had shielded her deft actions from the view of Herr Wemmel and the other customers – he’d stand wherever she told him to without complaint. In her basket was flour and sugar, and a container of coffee substitute, none of which had been on her ration card. Marta’s giggle reached her like a silver dinner bell. Ursula glanced morosely at her; Marta gave an impudent smirk. Sepp raised a hand and said hello. She hadn’t spoken to him since the spring. She’d only glimpsed him about the village with Marta or his aunt, and he’d tried to come close to her several times but she’d pretended not to see or hear and dashed away. Today she was too tired to do even that; she trudged slowly on. Sepp jogged to her side, pushed a hand through his hair and swept it over to create a kind of jutting fringe. He’d probably been listening to the American pop tunes that played endlessly on Vienna Radio and was aping some of the Yankee flair.

  ‘Are you all right?’
He reached tentatively to touch her thick coat sleeve. ‘You look terrible.’ For Ursula this was too intimate a gesture and she snatched her arm away with a faint sense of insult. She hid her eyes by looking at the ground. There was no way to hide the rest of it – the filth.

  ‘Answer me.’ He peered into her face.

  ‘Leave me be.’

  ‘But, I just want—’

  She didn’t care what he wanted.

  ‘Look at that!’ Marta suddenly flanked Ursula on the other side. She pointed at the ruby necklace, some of which showed between the buttons of Ursula’s coat. Ursula fumbled to conceal it, her fingers frozen in the November air. She was so used to wearing it that she’d forgotten to be careful; several times her secret had nearly been discovered. ‘She must have stolen it! Where would she get such a thing? Watch out, Josef! Keep an eye on your pockets!’

  Sepp’s gaze returned to Ursula’s wind-bitten face. ‘I just want to help you,’ he said softly.

  ‘I don’t want help!’ Ursula glared ahead. ‘Not from you, not from her!’ Marta tittered in shock. ‘Just stay away!’ Tears spilled and she ran as fast as she could towards home, Schosi sprinting after her.

  She took something each day, either from the farm or the village shops, food and trinkets of no worth – a comb or shaving brush that she thought Anton might like; money from the tin stashed beneath junk in Herr Esterbauer’s scullery cupboard, or from Frau Hillier’s purse at home. She took from the farm grain store and the mound of potatoes in the shed and traded with the malnourished city mothers who wandered through Felddorf bartering their last adornments, books and underwear. She hid behind hedges and made the exchange. The women breathed hotly and their mouths were dry and cracked. Sometimes they brought their babies and they too appeared feverish. Ursula was careful not to touch them – the city was rife with typhus. At home she stored the loot in her wardrobe and pored over it in moments of privacy, the secrecy and risk heating her blood, her exhilaration at owning such items pushing her worries aside. Thoughts of Siegfried sometimes dogged her, the high price he’d paid for his theft, and thoughts of Sepp and his devout aunt and what they’d think of her. The rest of the time she refused to reflect, or else there wasn’t the opportunity amidst her busyness. She gathered wood for the Hildesheim stove, tugged the stubborn-wheeled handcart to and fro, tying bundles of tinder. Gas and electricity flashed through in a sporadic Morse code and they needed more wood than ever. She wrestled with the tinder-cutting machine in the shed, the handle seizing up with age – she’d grown weak, thin, her kneecaps protruding like the knobbled hocks of a horse. It was on one such occasion that Immanuil slid his hands round her sharp hips, pressed a knife to her ribs and had his way. Afterwards he pulled the handle down on the cutting machine as if gloating at his own strength; the blade beheaded the sticks and the trimmings fell to the floor with a clatter. She staggered off with the basket full.

  ‘I have food for you,’ he called, leaning against the shed doorframe, his belt undone. She ignored his offer, anger sustaining her, her hunger erased; perhaps that was what the ember now consisted of, anger almost gone, like her energy, like her resolve.

  One late November evening the family had finished eating but remained at the table. Mama breastfed Traudi, Dorli seated herself on the officer’s lap, legs swinging, his thick arms around her waist. She shared his cigarette and tapped ash on to her dirty dish. Frau Hillier coached Viktor in the washing up: ‘You’re only tickling the plate – make an effort, man! Don’t put a bowl to dry that way – you must turn it over.’ Ursula, Schosi and Pasha began a game of cards and Immanuil pretended to join them but spent his time creeping his fingers into the folds of Ursula’s skirt. She moved closer to Pasha who said something sharply in Russian and Ursula was thankful for the look of shifty disquiet it brought to Immanuil’s face and the hasty retraction of his hand. She loved to play cards with Pasha. He was friendly and patient, especially with Schosi, and became utterly absorbed like an energetic child. Most nights they found time for a game.

  ‘We must go soon away,’ asserted Efim suddenly. ‘I go to Vienna – have duty there. Pasha, Viktor, Immanuil go to Felddorf barracks.’

  Dorli twisted to look into the officer’s face.

  ‘When?’ asked Mama.

  ‘Three days.’ Efim stroked Dorli’s arm.

  An awkward feeling filled the room. Frau Hillier finished the dishes and came with Viktor to the table. Ursula was shaken; her mind leapt immediately to the horror of the night in the bedroom, then the haystack, waking criss-crossed by slug tracks, the constant apprehension when the house was open to all-comers. But then Immanuil would be gone, so she’d have some respite. Schosi and Pasha continued the game. Ursula tried to play but she was distracted. Pasha whooped in celebration and Schosi leaned on the table with elbows splayed, forgetting to conceal his hand of cards. Immanuil sloped out of the front door; he preferred to smoke in the privacy of the shed and Ursula breathed a little easier. Frau Hillier and Mama spoke in hushed tones, Traudi suckling noisily, and Viktor bent studiously over his pocket notebook, filling it with Cyrillic scribbles.

  The back door opened. Ursula was disappointed Immanuil had been so quick to finish. But when she looked up it was Anton who stood in the frame. For an instant she felt pinned to her seat as she stared at the angular symmetry of his face, the burnished colour of it, in so many ways different to how she remembered, but still, it was he and she dropped her cards in shock, in sheer joy. He was taller, thinner, grubby as a chimney sweep. He wore thick trousers belted high above his waist, a shirt with collar hanging on one side, a long coat and top-heavy rucksack with straps trailing from it. He looked at her directly and her heart boomed. But his expression was stony. His eyes slid from her and took in the rest of the scene, all faces turned towards him: the Russians around the table, Dorli sprawled across the huge officer, Traudi guzzling at Mama’s nipple, Ursula, dishevelled and huddled close to Pasha, Schosi sitting in Anton’s place.

  ‘Toni!’ Mama stood and rushed to him, pulling up her blouse to cover her breast. ‘My God, Toni! You’re all right, you’re all right!’ She tried to hug him but he stepped away with a look of incomprehension. His boots unbalanced him on the lip of the doorframe; he teetered and wobbled, his face creased, his eyes ranging around the room, as if they couldn’t stand to rest on one spot for too long. Cold sweat broke out on Ursula’s forehead. Her tongue became sticky and dry. She could barely breathe, let alone speak, a sensation like a balloon expanding huge in her chest, threatening to burst with the incredible intensity of her relief. He wasn’t killed. He’d come back to her! She wanted to run to him and hug him as hard as she could. A wide smile cracked her face, the most sincere and irrepressible thing she’d felt in a long while. Anton gave her another cursory glance but again with such coldness that she felt it like a blow. Her smile faded.

  ‘Toni,’ said Mama. ‘Are you quite well?’

  Again he swayed on the threshold breathing hard as a runner. ‘God!’ he said, a ragged, strangled sound. ‘You shameless bitches!’

  He left the way he’d come, backpack lolling, boots rapidly crunching the grit. Ursula scrambled out from her place at the table and ran after him into the dark yard, past the firefly glow of Immanuil’s cigarette in the shed entrance.

  ‘Anton!’ she called. ‘Wait!’

  It was too cruel, to get only that brief glimpse – she’d had no time to adjust, to his older face, his long hair and the patches of stubble on his jaw – certainly no time to see what was beneath, his heart, his thoughts, to hug him, shake his hand or kiss him on the cheek, to remember what it was. She saw his dim outline climb the field gate and drop down at the other side. Shadow swallowed him. She pelted after him, climbed the gate, hurried into the field, directionless because he was already gone, she could see nothing; he could easily outrun her. Should she try to guess where he’d go and pursue? After a while of struggling uphill, she stopped. ‘Anton!’ she hollered again at the top of her lungs. �
�Come back!’

  But he wouldn’t.

  43

  The next day she shirked farm duties and searched for him. She wandered the fields and woods and went to the river pool, returned to the house as the light faded to wintry green on the horizon, and put on her coat and headscarf against the cold. She planned to walk to the church to check for him there – perhaps he was sitting in the porch or visiting Opa’s grave – but Mama forbade her. It wasn’t safe to be out alone. If Anton was coming, she said, he was coming. And if he wasn’t, he wasn’t. And that was that.

  Later, Pasha read aloud to Ursula and Schosi, curled on the chairs in the living room. Ursula listened more for the opening of the front door, for the scuff of footsteps in the yard, a telltale clatter from the shed. Perhaps he’d cool off and come to talk to them then she’d explain to him the Russians were soon leaving and everything in their home would be normal again. If only Efim’s deployment could have come the previous week, she thought, Anton wouldn’t have seen them here, would never have known.

  ‘Going to sleep,’ mumbled Schosi in a stupor, accustomed to a much earlier bedtime. He heaved himself upright, collected his comfort blanket and bade them goodnight. Pasha finished the chapter then began organising his books into his packing chest. Ursula realised she’d be sorry when he went. She’d have told him so, except she was too unhappy. Heavy torpor filled her limbs and her thoughts were slow with misery; they felt somehow sticky, like drowning in syrup.