She returned the globe to the plate and picked up the key, wondered that this object could find her, could follow her across the world. The traffic was growing heavier at the window, the light was changing, a man called out on the street, the day was coming to life. She replaced the key on the tin plate with a little click. She gathered the medals and the compass and the globe into her open hands and the light, rising at the window, fell on them. For a moment they seemed to give off a light of their own, and a heat.
Then the light passed on and the objects in her hand were old, worn things again, relics. Any life in them was a life she imagined.
Part I
Emil
DUISBURG, 1902
In the summer, it did not matter that Emil was shoeless. The soles of his feet were as tough and dirty as leather. His friend Thomas left his own shoes at home in a paper bag stuffed behind the toilet in the outhouse, and so there was no difference between them.
Down along the Rhine, at the edge of the fields, dozens of men were building a huge factory. Ships docked at the pier and swearing workers unloaded bundles of timber planks and steel beams and crates of bolts, tools and machinery, while a crane swung pallets of bricks from the ship onto the bank. The boys were close to the world of how things worked, of metal and machines, and Emil watched carefully. He and Thomas ran around the crane operator as he peered up at the rope on the winch and then at the teetering bricks, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and then shifting the crank gently, wheeling in the load. They jumped and ran in circles, shouting encouragement, but all the time Emil followed the progress of the bricks, pieces of wire, moulds, pipes, planks of wood to see what would happen to them, to see what their purpose in the world might be.
One day they watched unbelieving as an entire load of bricks was upended into the river. It happened slowly enough to observe properly, to remember afterwards: the pallet dipped a little to the left and the crane operator overcorrected it. The bricks went in, sliding unstoppably, hundreds pouring into the water in a second. The boys hooted and slapped each other, pointed at the operator, a man named Dieter. The foreman came striding down the track from the office-cabin above the steep bank and stood in front of him. He cuffed Dieter around the ear and shouted. Dieter’s body crunched forward and he held his head in his hands. Blood was filling one of them, leaking from between his fingers. The boys ran home.
The next day there was a different man working the crane, one with a head like a bulldog’s. The boys stood on the towpath at a distance, taking in the impressive size of Dieter’s replacement. Emil approached the man, who was loading machinery parts onto a cart to pull up to the factory. ‘Come back!’ Thomas called from behind. But Emil’s curiosity forced him on.
‘Excuse me, sir.’ The man did not stop loading. Sweat darkened his vest. ‘When is Dieter coming back? Is he working inside the factory now?’ The man stopped at last, snarled, a wordless grunt from his throat. Emil froze, and then felt Thomas pulling at his shirt. He woke to himself and they ran back along the path, gasping and laughing.
As the building grew, the ragged rows of bricks blocking out more and more sky, they found that there was always some corner of the building site left unattended. They lugged armfuls of sharp-edged bricks stacked up to their chins to a hidden spot behind a hummock and built a den with walls high enough for them to stand inside the structure unseen. They peered over the bricks, watching the builders beyond the little rise of land, small from here, balancing like circus performers as they hurried across steel beams and up and down great ladders, the hods of bricks at their shoulders like no weight at all.
Every day was warm; the grass a little drier, coarser underfoot. Emil woke each morning expecting summer to be finished, for the rain to spoil his days, but it was just blue, over and over again. The men’s skin shone red as they worked, like his father’s when he came home from a day going door to door at the factories, looking for work. Emil’s memories of winter seemed distant: sliding along the iced-over river on Thomas’s toboggan, Papa pulling them both along, falling over, laughing, falling again for their entertainment.
Sitting on the grass in the deep shade of the den, he leaned against the wall carefully; they had no cement to make it strong. He said the thing he’d been carrying around all morning. ‘Mama says I cannot go to school this year after all.’
Thomas turned from his spy hole and reached down to punch him on the arm. ‘Of course you can. You’ve got to go to school.’
Emil shrugged, picked at the grass. ‘She can’t get me shoes. The ones Papa got for me last winter are too tight now.’
‘You don’t need shoes; you only need pencils and a satchel. Mama took me to buy mine last week.’
‘You wait till next year too and we’ll start together. Ask your mama.’
‘She’d whip me. Listen, Emil, have my shoes. I’ll get more.’
Emil was silent for a moment. Papa told him all the time that if you had a good education you would never have to look for work. But Mama would not change her mind about the shoes. His parents shouted when he was trying to sleep.
‘What would you tell your mama?’
‘I’ll tell her I lost them. I lose everything.’
Emil stepped out of the den and lay on the hummock. The men were on their lunch break. They sat on the pier hunched over their little boxes. His own stomach growled. If Thomas had not taken anything from his pantry, he would have to go home and find some bread and risk his mother roping him into some errand or other. Or they could go along the river, beyond the factories, to the copse where there were berries, but they turned his stomach watery.
Thomas followed him out onto the grass and lay next to him, chin on his hand. ‘Tell your mama you found them.’
‘She’ll say I’ve stolen them. I’ll tell her you grew out of them and gave them to me.’
Thomas nodded. It was decided.
They lay half asleep, the sun on their necks. Because it was summer, Emil’s hair was shaved for lice. Thomas’s curls rested on his shirt collar, black against the pale cotton of his shirt. Emil began to sweat against the hot grass. ‘Come on, let’s go for a swim,’ he said.
‘Are the men still there?’
‘No, they’ve gone back to work. Let’s go.’
They jumped down to the towpath and ran along to the pier, warning each other to be quiet, but the sounds of hammers against steel and men calling out to one another were much louder than they were in any case. They reached the pier and flung their clothes behind them onto the bank, naked and laughing. Throwing themselves down on the warm boards to keep out of sight, they slithered out over the water, rolling down the steps and into the river, gasping at the cold. They gripped the poles of the pier as the current pulled their legs downstream.
‘Look, I’m swimming!’ Thomas shouted, holding one arm in the air, swallowing water.
Emil had watched people swim at the lake on Sundays, had dipped his head under close enough to see their actions through the dark water. They pushed the water away from themselves and kicked out their legs like frogs. He practised the frog kick for a few strokes. Easy, smooth, legs growing warm in the cold water. He let go of the pole with one arm, scooped water out and away, did it again.
‘What are you doing?’ Thomas asked.
Emil smiled at his friend and let go of the pole. The tugging water pulled him back and thrust him down immediately. He thrashed his way to the surface, saw that he was already several metres away from Thomas and the pier. Flailed, splashed, forgetting the movements he had practised.
‘Emil!’ Thomas called. ‘EMIL!’
Push the water away, he told himself, and he began to do it. It was no good, his head kept going under. He stroked harder but he hadn’t got his legs right. Made himself wait for half a second, the river pulling him along, while he coordinated his limbs. There was shouting on the bank, Thomas, the men now. His head stayed clear, he did it again, pushed harder on one side so that he was running forward wi
th the current. Stopped for a split second to take a bigger breath, began to sink, made the movements again quickly, and again. He could keep his head up but he was surging with the water. Thomas’s voice was small behind him, like something he was beginning to forget.
The bank was a few metres away. He saw the individual blades of grass, the path. When he needed to he would be close enough to reach them. Movement at the corner of his eye distracted him. It was Thomas, racing along the path, three men behind him, calling out, red-faced. He turned away from them, concentrated on his strokes. They were running hard; he must be going very fast.
One of the men was sliding into the water just ahead of him. Another held the man’s arm from the bank while he reached out and grabbed hold of Emil’s hand. Emil was ducked under for a moment, water filling his nose and mouth, tasting of petroleum. He was furious, tried to slip from the man’s grasp, but he was too strong; he had thick, hard arms. He gathered Emil against his hot chest, his breath loud in his ear. ‘Stupid boy!’ he said, clasping him too tightly. ‘Stupid, idiot boy! Your father will skin you alive.’
Then a couple of men were grabbing at him and heaving him up the bank. They lay him on the path on his back. Thomas’s face was above him. ‘What did you do? What did you do? You were floating away! We only just caught you.’ Thomas’s head, his thin chest, were dark against the bright sky.
Emil coughed up some water and grinned. ‘Did you see me swim, Thomas? I swam. I swam so fast. You were running, I saw you, but you could not run as fast as I could swim.’
One morning at last the sky was grey. Emil’s father was standing over the couch which served as the children’s bed, shaking his shoulder gently. Papa was smiling, and he had shaved. He smelled of soap and there were little circles of colour on his cheeks. ‘Big day for us, boy! School!’ In his hand was a book. He laid it gently on Emil’s chest. ‘It is the Brothers Grimm. Wonderful stories, liebling. You will read them all before long.’
Emil picked it up; its paper cover was smooth. He looked at the letters on the cover, the lovely round symbols that meant nothing. Inside the book were pictures: a little girl in a cloak carrying a basket, two children in the dark forest.
He loved this object instantly, its smell and corrugated pages, the smooth inked illustrations.
His father reached into his jacket pocket, drew out a cone of sweets and laid it on top of the book.
‘How did you get the money, Papa?’ Emil whispered.
‘I’m a working man, don’t you remember?’
‘But you haven’t started yet.’
‘I start this very morning! Big day for both of us. I’ll walk you to school and then I begin. And when you come home for dinner your mother shall have ham on the table.’
‘Can I come one day and watch you pour the metal into the mould?’
‘Of course, when I have been there for a little while.’ Papa embraced him, his face smooth and soft where his beard had been before. He looked so naked and pink and young.
From the kitchen came the smells of coffee and oats. The season changing seemed not such a bad thing with them all here close together, these good smells, Papa happy. Emil stretched out a foot, kicked his sister under the covers. She snorted but did not wake. His father laughed.
‘Princess Greta,’ he whispered in Emil’s ear. ‘That’s your sister!’
After breakfast they said goodbye to Mother, who was bent over Emil’s new book at the table, and Greta, playing under the table with his tin soldiers. He kissed his mother near her ear. For a moment he wished he could stay, play with Greta. Mother held him briefly, tightly, pushed him gently towards the door, turned back to the book. His feet felt big and heavy as he clomped down the stairs in the shoes. They shone like black water—Papa had polished them the night before—and they had no holes. The boots he had worn the previous winter let the melting snow in and soaked his socks, giving him chilblains, so that his mother would no longer let him leave the apartment on a snowy day. And so he would sit inside while below on the street boys threw missiles at each other and shouted and laughed until it grew dark.
He and his father joined the stream of men walking to work, women off to the market with baskets under their arms, children with comb lines in their wet hair, socks pulled high. Without warning he was flying into the air, raised over Father’s head, onto his shoulders. ‘You begin school a king, young man. No walking for you!’ From here he could see into the windows of apartments: women cleaning, an old man smoking in a rocking chair, a couple kissing in their underclothes at the sink. Papa drummed out a tune on his ankle and Emil beamed at the passers-by, the tallest boy in Duisburg. His father nodded to the people he knew. ‘Can’t stop, my boy’s off to school today.’ And then, when his acquaintances had gone on their way, he would tell Emil stories about these people who lived in the streets around their apartment. ‘Frau Bern is looking better since her operation. Manning may cough up for beer occasionally now, if she keeps him sweet.’ ‘Oh, there’s poor Gunther. He injured his hand in the smelter and now he can’t get work. Won’t join the union—too proud.’
Emil heard the children shouting as they approached the school gate. Father swung him down and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m proud of you, Emil. This is the start of great things.’ He winked and was gone, running down the street. He was probably late. He often was. Always one to chat and gossip and let the time slip by. Mother laughed at him for it.
Thomas was already in the schoolyard, showing some other boys his new catapult. A tall, thin man in dark clothes approached the group, put his hand out. Emil saw Thomas give up his catapult, his head hanging forward, his hair a mop covering his face. Emil ran to him, brushing past the teacher who was looking around the yard serenely, as though it was his lovely garden. The other boys had their hands on Thomas’s shoulders. ‘He will give it back at the end of the day,’ Emil said. ‘He has to.’
The bell sounded, just like the beginning of a factory shift down at the river, and the boys looked about them, wondering what to do. The older children were funnelling into the school doors, so they joined the crowd at the entrance and squeezed into the building with the others. A teacher was pointing at the younger ones, beckoning them into a classroom behind him. He grabbed hold of Emil’s sleeve and pulled him into a bright room with tall windows and a smell of floor wax. Ahead of him stretched rows of desks, which the other boys were quickly claiming.
‘Take a seat, boys,’ the teacher called. ‘Herr Walter will be along in just a moment.’
Emil and Thomas were the last in and there were only a few desks left, at the front. They took them and waited while all around them boys whispered and laughed. The noise in the hall died down and the teacher entered. ‘Oh no,’ Thomas murmured. It was that man, who had taken Thomas’s catapult: as long and thin and upright as a new pencil.
Herr Walter glanced at Thomas, his face mild, smooth, quite handsome, his mouth set in an attitude of patience. But then something about Emil, sitting next to his friend, caught his attention. The teacher studied him for a few moments, bemused. ‘You,’ he said eventually, while chairs scraped and someone scratched through their shorts loudly with a ruler. ‘I know you. Your father is the socialist, Klaus Becker. Quite the agitator. Come, stand before the class. I will introduce you.’
Emil stood from his chair, uncertain, and approached the teacher, heart hammering. He felt Thomas’s eyes upon his back. He did not know whether it was good or bad to be introduced to the class but he was beginning to wish the teacher did not know him. He wondered about that word, agitator, wished Father was here to ask about it.
‘Here, by the blackboard.’ The teacher took a pointer from a shelf under the board and pointed at Emil, tapping him on the neck lightly, the wood cool on his skin. ‘Tell the class your name, child.’
‘Emil Becker,’ he said quietly, looking at the rows of boys who stared at him without smiling. He knew some of them but there was nothing in their faces. Even Thomas looked blank, a
s though these were not his shoes Emil was wearing, one pressing now at a blister on his heel.
‘This boy, Emil Becker, is a socialist boy from a socialist family.’ Herr Walter’s voice was gentle. ‘They are not like us, children. Aside from anything else, this boy does not believe in the Lord, our dear Father. Now, we must be polite to this boy, because we are Christians. He must learn to read and write like the rest of you. But he will never amount to anything. His life on this earth will be wretched and misguided. It is not his fault, the family he has been born into. But look at this boy, children. If you ever doubt that God sees you, and sees your sins, look at this poor lice-ridden boy with holes in his clothes and sin in his heart, and he will remind you never to stray. Sit down, Becker. We will do what we can for you.’
Emil did not know what had happened. He found his seat in a dream, his face burning, everything loud and bright. He looked down at his clothes. Herr Walter was right. The hem of his shorts was frayed and there was a hole in his pullover. He approached it with his finger, slowly, secretly. It fit perfectly inside.
The teacher was speaking. He was explaining something in the same reasonable tone in which he had spoken about Emil. The lesson had begun, he was pointing out letters of the alphabet on the board with the pointer that had touched Emil’s neck. Emil stole a look at Thomas. His friend’s face was hidden beneath his hair, a curtain that concealed him. All through the lesson, in which the teacher wrote on the board with taps and scrapes of his chalk and talked in his steady tone, Thomas remained behind the curtain and Emil felt an intermittent disturbance in his bowels.
After an hour in which he could make no sense of anything, the bell jolted them all in their seats and the teacher opened the door, smiling. ‘Playtime, children. Don’t get yourselves dirty in the yard, now. We will distinguish ourselves from animals.’
Hannah & Emil Page 2
