The History of History

by Ida Hattemer-Higgins

  As you may be able to guess, I was not insensitive to the allegory, and neither, I am certain, was Herr Apfelbein. I was even interested in having both birds, as a test. It stayed with me, in any case. It became a marker in my mind. There is nothing like fear to make one begin to see oneself mirrored in animal life.

  The problem came with the woman upstairs, Frau Schivelbusch. She lived in the apartment on the top floor of the house, and back then we lived in the apartment beneath hers. She thought the canaries were too loud. And it was true, the canaries were unusually eager to sing, in competitive spirit with each other.

  Frau Schivelbusch had been our friend for several years. Not the closest friend, but Frau Schivelbusch had an amiable face. Her eyes were wide-set and merry, her smile broad. She was a good woman. At first, the summer we got the canaries, everything was all right. She even let Rahel lead her to see the birds in the back bedroom shortly after we got them, while Rahel was still so excited. But then September came and the war began, and her son, Karl, who worked in the typewriter shop at Viktoria-Luise-Platz, signed up as a soldier right away. And while everything was going so well, Karl fell, in May of 1940 during the invasion of France. He got a posthumous Iron Cross, and she was proud; it was sent to her in a red velvet box, which she showed me, weeping. She added a lock of his hair to the box, that she had cut off while he slept when he was just a babe, and then she kept the whole thing open on the sideboard, in the dining room where she no longer entertained. The dead son had been her only child, and his father was a fallen hero of the Great War, so Frau Schivelbusch was left very much alone.

  Even then it was still not so bad with the birds and Frau Schivelbusch. It really only got bad with the first air alarms, when we started having to go into the cellar together. Frau Schivelbusch had taken in a war orphan by then, a young boy of twelve. His parents had given him the Nordic name of Björn. Frau Schivelbusch must have felt pity for the child because his mother had been killed in the early bombings, before there were really any significant fatalities. So they had this in common—both their losses were early losses, out of synch with the nation, which was just then on the cusp of glory. Squeezed by the public’s happy delirium, they both had no choice but to shut up—I saw that distinctly, how their Nazi friends made them hide their tears.

  But Frau Schivelbusch changed after she took in the boy. She became a model of what was then called “good citizenship.” I saw the lonely widow carefully sewing a giant Nazi flag as big as a bedsheet, actually partially made from a bedsheet. And Frau Schivelbusch left off talking with us, and she cupped her hand on the side of Björn’s eyes as she and he walked past us in the stairwell, like blinders around the eyes of a horse. And so what could I do, I grabbed the girls’ hands and pulled them out of her path. But it was a betrayal; yes, it was a betrayal.

  A year passed. The birds, Sarto and Ferdinand, sang uninterrupted, in a fight to the death. In July of 1941 I discovered I was to give birth again, and I was not glad. But what could I do? Franz was so unhappy in those days, and suddenly he was happy about my pregnancy, naïve, still convinced no one could harbor ill will toward an expectant mother. And Franz also, I think, still hoped we would be granted a son. Of course, Frau Schivelbusch did not congratulate me—by the time my condition was obvious, the ordinance against friendly relations with Jews had already passed, and she, with her eagle eye, made sure that the other women in the building followed it to the letter. That winter, Franz was not allowed to perform concerts or give lessons at the conservatory any longer, and his brother, sister, and father cut off contact with him, thinking that in this way they would encourage us to divorce, not destroy his promising career. Only his mother still spoke to us, and then by post. At this time, Franz was becoming sicker with the melancholia that had plagued him since 1935.

  At around the same time, I saw that the white bird, Sarto, was flourishing, while the yellow bird, Ferdinand, was losing his gloss, looking smudged, the feathers of his breast spiky as if wet. By this time the shop at the top of the apartment house on the Motzstrasse had closed, and in any case Herr Apfelbein had disappeared.

  So now I often said a prayer for the bird Ferdinand at the same time I was praying for my family.

  When I was already quite large with the baby in January, the Nazis made an ordinance that Jews had to give up all clothing made of wool or fur—it was all the warm clothing I had. Franz and I discussed it and we decided that since I did not have to wear the yellow star, being privileged through my marriage, I should simply ignore this ordinance. That was really the best thing—just pretend as if I hadn’t heard about the rule.

  But Frau Schivelbusch began to eye me, and I could see she was estimating my fur coat. It wasn’t long before she had given the tip to the Gestapo—I knew it was her by her eyes. They came banging on the door. Franz went to answer with Gerda in his arms. My little girl was two years old then.

  When they left, they had my fur coat and all the wool sweaters with them. The sweaters I had knitted myself.

  I became sick with influenza the next month, most surely because I was always so cold, rubbing my red hands together. My ears when I came home from work every night were pink like the flower they call the bleeding heart, as Franz said, always his way to see the beauty in things. Perhaps that was what caused his terrible melancholia.

  During my illness I had a very high fever, my lungs were so full of fluid I couldn’t sleep, and my cough was painful like a blunt knife scraping my lungs.

  In my sickbed I became more and more deeply removed from myself. My head was spinning, my soul was floating. After the days without sleep, I was somewhere far away. Thinking back on that time, I have memories, very vivid memories. For days on end, I left my body and went to some place of hallucination.

  In my sickened state, my thoughts about my belly, now round with eight months of child, completely changed. I dreamt this roundness was a unit of earth burying me under the ground—the weight of it. As I lay sweating and feverish on my back, I dreamt I was already buried. Or, more precisely I should say: I dreamt my body was already buried. My soul, for its part, flew straight off. As it happened, straight into the Alps of Switzerland.

  As a girl, my father used to take me with him when he went on business to Paris, and afterward we would travel to Switzerland to see an old friend of his, a certain Oswald in Basel. My father was a hobby botanist. He used to say that you didn’t know what it was to love a plant or flower until you had loved it in the pure sunlight and sweet clover scent of a mountainside in Switzerland, where the colors are brighter, and life a more virtuous adventure. Myself, I don’t remember the scent of clover so well as I remember the mountain reek of cow dung, fresh milk, and the cheese of Gruyère, but these memories of smells are happy ones.

  So in these days of sickness in February of 1942 I remember my soul floating into the Alps and coming to rest next to a waterfall on the mountainside, in heavy sunlight. I was weightless, carefree, as if all things in the dark world were very far away. I sat by the water, the sun warmed me just enough, and the rushing water exhaled a cool windiness that refreshed me, also just enough. The grass blazed green, the sky blazed blue, and the mountaintops stretched off and off into the far azure. I released my feet from my pinching winter shoes as if I had been bound in the leather for a hundred years, and my toes spread at last. I dangled my feet in the water, as I had as a girl. I breathed deeply, filled with the soaking joy that only a dream can bring.

  After a while, on the bough of a fir tree standing just a few paces away from me, a canary of a bright yellow color alighted, like a dab of ochre paint.

  “Ferdinand,” I said in surprise.

  The bird cocked his head

  “Ah, Ferdinand,” I said, my mood drawn down by this reminder of home.

  The bird fluttered to the ground, and hopped onto one of the stones not far from me. He cocked his head at such a jaunty angle, and then he spoke to me.

  “What is it you’re doing here?” he asked.


  “I don’t know what you mean, birdie.”

  “You die, lady. You leave your children who are living.”

  I was very surprised at this suggestion that I was dead or dying. Up until that moment I had not really thought of it in those terms—I don’t know how to explain. It was true I had a strong sense that my body had been buried. And yet, I did not think of myself as dead. So I went over this news of my death. I tried to examine my emotions. I found to my surprise that I felt no unhappiness, only relief. And I knew I should feel both more and less than relief, and yet I couldn’t seem to gather the necessary passion.

  And so I had a moment of revelation. I was extremely pleased at the discovery of the worst not having brought me any unhappiness or pain.

  Realizing I was happy, I turned to Ferdinand and said, “You know, I don’t mind to die.”

  “But you leave your children who are living,” the bird said.

  It struck me that Ferdinand seemed to be suggesting I had some choice in the matter. Gracious me! I thought, if I’m dead, then the influenza has taken me. What can I do?

  But then it occurred to me that perhaps I was not fully dead, and there was still some element of choice after all. Now this struck me with its heavy light. In the mountain sun, I was silent for a long time.

  The odd part was that although I felt tender and loving—not cold at all—I still felt very removed from the idea that my life need last forever, even that my life need be, ideas that before I had always gripped with fervor. Instead I thought: Life is not enough. Life is not enough on its own. One must also have a goodness, a place, a time, a happiness. Really, not having these, it is not so bad to die.

  And so I said to the bird, “To die is not such a bad thing.”

  “But lady,” repeated the bird stubbornly, “you will leave everyone behind.”

  With this third reminder, the bird’s words struck my heart. A heavy pain fell over me; I didn’t know if I would ever see my Rahel again, or my Gerda again, and a sudden ache in my breasts came for the baby I would never know. And how would the children get along without me? So I was split in two. On the one hand, I thought: I would like to be finished now with living. On the other: If only there were a way to bring the children with me.

  And that is just what I said to Ferdinand.

  He replied, “Go then, go and bring them all. Take them away, up into the mountains. Together, forget Schöneberg.”

  I considered his suggestion, quite taken aback. “All come together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Won’t they condemn me?”

  “No one will condemn you.”

  I went over this. My mind quickly sketched out the edges of a plan. But still something held me back.

  “I would do it,” I said, “but I’m afraid I would never be able to recognize the moment. What if we died too early, and I stole from my children days of life, or too late, and I took from them the possibility of a soft death? I would never forgive myself.”

  To this the bird replied, “Just as every day is a good day to be born, so too, every day is a good day to die.”

  And then it was as if the reel caught on fire. The scene vanished in a half second of hot whooshing. I opened my eyes, my fever broken and my hair slick with sweat. The sounds of Sarto’s twitters and songs seeped into my sick chamber from the adjoining room. Heavy curtains were drawn across the doorway. A dark light filtered through the blackout shades, meant for times of air raid, which Franz must have drawn so I could sleep. I didn’t remember. But my headache was gone. The air in the room was close and motionless, smelling of dust and sour sweat.

  I told myself then: Regina, you will get back into the habit of living, in order to cultivate, with cheer and strength, the habit of death.

  After my recovery from the illness, the dream I had of the Alps and the bird faded from my mind. I lost this idea that I would take my own life, bringing the children with me. I regarded the notion as a passing madness, an excess of illness’s despair, and it never crossed my mind that I would go through with such a plan. However, there was a change in me. Having once been introduced to the idea that it would not be so terrible to die, I was never again intimidated by the fear of death in quite the same way. I was like the tame bear who has discovered he is stronger than his master.

  As I neared the end of my pregnancy, I reached a point of near perfect inner stillness. At night I read to Rahel and Gerda until they fell asleep. I looked out the window for long, empty minutes; I took aimless walks. I remember that I began to recognize patterns with greater alacrity than I had ever been able to before. Once we had rain followed by a cold snap. Afterward the trees were encased in sleeves of ice, so that the skeleton of wood glowed with an inner fire.

  I saw Jewish friends and acquaintances infrequently now. Most were spending all day in faraway factories where they had been called to do forced labor. They rose before the sun and came home exhausted long after dark. I was released from this by my condition, but Franz expected a call from the Gestapo any day. He had managed to convince them, so far, that he was too ill and had too many influential friends, but this sham could only deceive so long. During the day he sat by the living room window.

  I continued my work as a maid at the Tombanzens’. I should have worried over what would happen when I finally had to give birth and could no longer work there. But instead I told my baby, “Stay down below just as long as you can, little submarine of mine,” and I think I remember believing that if I communicated passionately enough, the baby might shrink back down in size, stay in hiding, in my body, forever. These sorts of thoughts also released me from the impatience that usually accompanies the end of pregnancy.

  Strangely enough, through all this, Ferdinand the bird stayed alive. It was as Herr Apfelbein had said it would be, at least in part: the bird did not thrive and he ceased to sing. But perhaps thanks to Rahel, who took such care of the birds, little Ferdinand clung to life.

  At night I read to the children stories of the mountains, of the oceans, of faraway cities. After little Gerda fell asleep, I told Rahel about the cafés and boulevards of Paris, about what I could remember of the silks the ladies wore there. My girls had never been to the sea, never been to the mountains. They had never been anywhere but the sandy plains of Berlin. I read to them about Wally of the Vultures in the Alps of Tyrol, and about Heidi of the Swiss Alps, and Winnetou on the American plains. I reminded Rahel of the time before the war she hardly remembered. I always fell asleep instantly as soon as Rahel’s eyes closed, so exhausted I was. But never did I consider letting go of these nightly readings, as they held my dreams gentle. Often Franz would come and sit in the chair by the bed where Rahel and Gerda and I lay together, facing away from us and looking out the window, but inclining his head to hear the story, and sometimes turning his face to meet my eyes. We exchanged a look of pride when Rahel asked one of her questions at once naïve and wonderfully precocious.

  I got a letter from my sister, then still living in Schwedenhöhe, saying that she was to be resettled with her family further to the East. Then came no more letters.

  One night at Eastertime I slept poorly and woke up to the air-raid siren. Again we would have to go down to the cellar. I noticed that the bedclothes around me were wet, and it wasn’t long before I realized I was in labor.

  Our midwife from my last births was gone from Germany—she left already in 1939. Franz telephoned Dr. Epstein, but there was no answer—of course in the middle of an air-raid there was no answer; Franz rang up his sister, who hadn’t spoken to us in so long, again no answer. We went down into the cellar with the neighbors and for a while I tried to disguise my contractions, shutting my eyes. But it wasn’t long before it was impossible for me to hide my pain, and the contractions were closer together. Franz’s face became whiter and whiter.

  We waited together for half an hour, and then another half hour. My contractions continued. But a little later I began to realize that the all-clear would not come b
efore the baby. So I sent Franz upstairs again, to again try Dr. Epstein, but the switchboard operator told him something ghastly: the doctor was deceased. Franz called over to Sveta Grigorieva. She said: Didn’t you hear? Epstein took his own life with veronal.

  Well, the gas in our building had been turned off, but unbeknownst to anyone, Franz went into the front cellar and turned it on again. Then he boiled my sewing scissors, and boiled more water and brought it back down in a washbasin with the scissors. He got newspaper for the floor. His face was so white. During my previous deliveries he had always waited in the parlor. Now he held my hand. I began to scream. The intensity of the pain was more than it had been during my other labors and I felt sure there was some sort of terrible complication. Still no one in the room moved. The neighbors were silent, their faces, as Franz told me later, white as snow. Frau Schivelbusch held Björn’s head against her chest, although the boy kept twisting backward to see.

  Ah, and Franz, poor Franz. Always one never to set foot in a grocer’s shop for it was a woman’s place and not a man’s, who stayed clear of the kitchen, was uncomfortable with the sick—such a man was he. And now here he was, with his sleeves rolled up before the cold eyes of his neighbors, forced to deliver our child like a midwife, his heart beating, his eyes full of fear. I was so proud of him. I don’t remember much of this, but after a time, in a fog of pain and sweat, I began to push the baby. What I do remember is that I was, in those last moments before her birth, happy at last to think that I would see this child. For months I had been willing her to stay inside me forever. She came out, and I cried. Franz washed the baby at my direction on the floor of the cellar, and then he put her to my breast. The child was yellow with jaundice, her skull cone-shaped from the squeezing. I put her face to my face and kissed her, and when the afterbirth came out, we improvised the cutting of the cord, neither of us knowing if we were right. We felt terribly uncertain. I thought my child would die.