by Ursula Hegi
I cut the thread—
“Good,” he says. “My wife bites the thread. I worry she’ll ruin her teeth.”
“How considerate you are.” I push the thread through the eye of the needle.
“Bees.” He tilts his head. “In your walls. I hear bees in your walls.”
“We don’t have bees.”
I could tell him that bees have chosen to build their hive in the ceiling of our Annunciation wagon, but I don’t. I don’t want to. Heike adores our bees. Too respectful to sting us, they prove their gratitude with honey that trickles from above so we can set out bowls and feast on the freshest honey without getting out of bed. Our skin has turned golden as honey, and our bodies move like silk to their humming. My daughter and I grow light-headed at the scent of honey, swoon. It was good until a month ago when the balance of bees and humans shifted: we’d awaken with honey in our hair, honey on our sheets, and when we’d arise, our feet would stick to the stenciled floor.
“Should I take off my shirt?” Kalle blushes.
“All you need to do is stand still.” My needle pricks his skin.
A sharp breath. He doesn’t complain.
I don’t say I’m sorry. Because I’m not.
“My neighbor is a beekeeper.”
“I know. He was just a boy when I first met Lotte.”
“She trades him marmalade for honey. Our children don’t get ill because we eat honey that comes from blossoms in our neighborhood.”
Our children. He has forgotten, I think. For one merciful moment he has forgotten the freak wave, the horses’ strong-muscled movements. But I’m forever running across the flats to search for his children while bellies of clouds grow weighty and heavens turn crimson laden with gray. One woman says the colors in the sky are a sign the children are alive. Or proof of their deaths, another says. Red sky at night sailor’s delight, a man says and then cries because there’s nothing delightful about this sky.
“But you—were there.” Tears in Kalle’s eyes.
I nod.
“My children—”
“We all searched, you and the beekeeper by boat.”
He picks up the satin bodice I’ve pinned for Luzia The Clown. Sniffs it. “Honey—even here.”
“Careful with the pins.”
“Sticky.” He taps his index finger against his thumb. “When we get to Nordstrand I’ll ask the beekeeper to take your bees away.”
“We don’t have bees.” I prick him again. Because I’m furious how easy it is for men like him and The Sensational Sebastian to run away from their women and children, afraid they’ll turn to stone if they stay too long.
* * *
Lotte closes her shutters against the rumble of the Zirkus wagons. Within an hour, neighbors enter her house to comfort her with food and commiseration.
“Your husband will be back,” they say, voices prim with disapproval.
“He and you have such deep love—”
“Bottomless love, I mean. Oh—”
Flustered, they’re flustered. Agree that Kalle is devoted to her.
“He is devoted to you, Lotte.”
But he ran away—
“He will be back.”
Lotte holds herself tall—drawing on rage and guilt—until Sister Elinor and Sister Ida pull up in the carriage to take her and Wilhelm to the St. Margaret Home. When they lead her into a chamber on the second floor where the Sisters live, Lotte collapses on the narrow bed.
“Wilhelm—” she cries.
“We have him in the Little Nursery with the other children and the Girl who nurses him.”
“Just for now. Until you are strong again,” says Sister Elinor.
Lotte sleeps. For twelve hours she sleeps. Is roused by Sister Ida who feeds her soup. Sleeps again.
* * *
The St. Margaret Girls adore Wilhelm, and he adores them right back, most of all Tilli whose smile glows when she carries him or nurses him or washes his hands cupped within hers. Wilhelm. Who became hers when her own girl was taken from her. Destined. Seamless. Wilhelm. Sometimes she locks her eyes with him, wills him to always remember her. Always. Even if she starts out sad, he takes her into bliss. Sometimes, alone in the dormitory, that bliss gets to be so much that she’s afire and must press her bare breasts against the window, let the cold glass mirror her to herself, and she is glorious.
Sister Franziska says, “Two other Girls have milk now.”
Tilli bounces Wilhelm on her hip.
Sister Franziska says, “Any time the nursing gets too much for you, I’ll ask—”
“It’s not— It’s not too much.”
“—the other Girls.”
“Wilhelm won’t drink from anyone else.”
“That’s a good reason to try.”
Tilli says no. “Please no,” she says.
Wilhelm’s eyes move from her to Sister Franziska and back. His lower lip quivers as if he understood every word.
Still, Sister Franziska arranges for two other Girls to nurse Wilhelm, and he fights the unfamiliar smells and breasts. Tilli feels vindicated when Sister Franziska returns him to her. He nuzzles his face into the dip between Tilli’s neck and shoulder, but she’s careful not to show how much she loves him because Sister will pry him off, gently, and send Tilli to help with bigger children, the four- and five-year-olds.
7
For Medicinal Reasons Only
The Old Women share meals and medical advice but compete with one another to become the Oldest Person. Knee-bends and toe-touches and jumping jacks. Two can still do a handstand and one practices ancient Chinese eye exercises she got from a visiting missionary for a donation.
They didn’t become Old Women during the same decade or century: it’s rather that their circle replenishes itself as girls become women and women become Old Women who pass through lives, generations, floods.
They drown in great floods.
They survive great floods.
They birth fifteen children.
They are barren.
They steal a neighbor’s husband.
They help neighbors who are poor.
They are impatient with those who believe they can ward off Hochwasser with gifts: paintings of powerful waves with tiger claws; porcelain bowls decorated with roses floating on a glass sea; carvings of shipwrecks on the backs of whales. Kitsch. When there is so much you can do instead: dry out the Neuland; separate it from the sea with dikes that you stabilize by planting grass; herd your sheep to graze and fertilize the earth; dig long ditches into land that lies below sea level and must be protected; build windmills to pump seawater from those ditches.
* * *
The Old Women know how to relieve a hacking cough and reduce the swelling in your ankles and cure that dryness deep inside your down-there. They find out from Frau Bauer who cures her dryness when she asks the nurse, Sister Konstanze, for advice.
In the infirmary, Sister shows her how to release her own wetness. “You rub this little pearl-sized bump.” She guides Frau Bauer’s hand. “Right here.”
Joy like a hiccup, then. And Frau Bauer blushes high-red.
“For medicinal reasons only,” warns Sister Konstanze.
“But then Sister winked at me,” Frau Bauer reports to the Old Women, “and said I must be vigilant … not take too much pleasure.”
“At what moment will this rubbing turn into sin?”
“I trust Sister.”
“Oh, I’m not surprised.”
“She knows about women.”
“She knows about medicinal issues.”
“And she has practically given us permission to attend to our health.”
“Oh, you!”
“Our own health … take it in hand.” Maria laughs and covers her jaw.
But not enough to hide the new bruise. Custom is: You avert your eyes. Pretend not to see. Avoid questions when someone is injured or distressed. Prop up dignity with your silence. But as you get older, you’re no longer afraid to ask.
&nbs
p; “What happened to you, Maria?”
“You know you can come to my house—”
“—any time of night or day.”
Two Old Women stroke her hands, whisper to her.
“He is a good Doktor,” Maria says.
The Old Women nod. “True.”
“He respects his patients.”
“But he harms you.”
Silence, then, until Maria laughs. “What did I do all those years without Sister Konstanze’s permission?”
The others are quick to fill in. Normality.
“I thought I invented that little pearl when I was a girl.”
“You did.”
“We all did.”
“I didn’t.”
“Stop it, or I’m going to wet myself.”
Laughing hard. Teasing.
“Who gets to say what’s too much pleasure?”
“Sister did not say that we must not take pleasure.”
“Like absolution … only in advance.”
“You all knew about the little bump?”
“I didn’t,” says Frau Lindmann.
“Ha!”
“Really now?”
No one believes Frau Lindmann anymore. She’s been lying about her age, adding years—five or seven—so she’ll earn the honor of becoming The Oldest Person of Nordstrand. Whenever the Old Women press to see her birth certificate, Frau Lindmann claims she lost it when she immigrated as a child from Jutland with her parents and grandparents.
“People from Jutland are rugged.”
“It’s the cold that hardens their bones.”
“People from Jutland should not be counted.”
By then Frau Lindmann is shunned even more than as a child when she immigrated in dirty embroidered boots.
* * *
Every summer solstice, Nordstrand honors its Oldest Person with a Fackelparade—parade of lanterns. Church bells echo in recognition of the one who has succeeded in living the longest. First communion children braid a crown from Kornblümchen und Klee—cornflowers and clover, fasten it to the hair of the Oldest Person or, if no hair is left, to the top of the head with a chin strap. Only four men have earned this honor during the past century. There almost was a fifth, but when he went out in his fishing boat and was lost in 1876 the day before the Fackelparade, the next Oldest Person stepped forward in an embroidered silk dress no one had seen on her before. A dress like that would take weeks to sew and embroider.
How convenient, people gossiped.
How convenient that her rival vanished in the Nordsee.
To offset their unease, people joked, speculated.
“Did he bend over too far to haul in his catch?”
“Was she in the boat with him?”
“Was he helped to a stumble?”
Dangerous, they agreed, to be a very old man on Nordstrand.
Tradition has it that the Oldest Person teaches a class in Heimatkunde—local history, of value to the children, but also to the old because it keeps them alert and spry to consider their favorite topic and assemble details. Generations have learned from Oldest Persons about history and nature and events of Nordstrand. Some lessons teeter between fabrications and facts, more enchanting than what teachers are allowed to teach.
Oh, to be crowned, to be celebrated—a recognition that validates your life, your endurance—
PART TWO
1842–1845
8
Sisters and Girls Thrive in the Salt-Drenched Air
Sisters and Girls thrive in the salt-drenched air. At dawn they waken to the screams of peafowl scratching in the yard; and they convene in the chapel. A few Sisters become more devout and crave the structure of religion to validate that they haven’t taken a wrong turn. In the chapel one Sister will lead, recite a prayer, while the voices of the others collect in the responsorial and offer intercessions for the Girls, especially those who dive from their beds frog-style and land on their bellies to shake out the baby.
“We understand your wish to be free of all this again,” they tell the Girls.
“We can also understand God’s wish for your child to come into the world.”
“They don’t act like real nuns,” the Girls whisper to each other.
“They don’t even punish us.”
“Maybe they’re not real nuns.”
* * *
The Sisters educate all Girls, not only those younger than fourteen and still of school age. Each Sister teaches the art form she’s passionate about, plus one scholarly subject: Sister Konstanze tapestry and biology; Sister Hildegunde painting and mathematics; Sister Ida theater and physics; Sister Elinor music and history; Sister Franziska poetry and health.
Of course, there is prayer, too. Along with poetry. And weaving. And ballet taught by Sister Elinor. So what if the Pregnant Girls look clumsy while dancing? Their laughter, even if it comes from embarrassment, sets something free in them—humming and light—that distracts them from their dread of childbirth. In their hometowns, many graves have headstones with the names of dead mothers and their dead babies, and the Girls know death may chase them to the St. Margaret Home. Even if they cannot imagine the dying. Even if some are confused about how babies get inside you and how they will get out. But they’ve been to funerals of Girls who split open when their babies got out of them.
Nights, when they’re frightened of the dark, the Girls huddle and dance and wait for dawn when they’ll help the Sisters launder and iron piles of musty damask sheets and tablecloths; scrub through layers of scum on walls and floors; peel moss from the wide stone steps; prune the dense growth between mansion and dike; hold still while Sister Konstanze cleans their blisters and cuts, slathering them with lanolin salve extracted from sheep’s wool.
Mesmerized by the finch couple, the Girls take turns spreading a frayed altar cloth across the cage so the birds will sleep. Afterward, Sister Konstanze steps outside to offer prayers of gratitude beneath the stars. She has done all the asking she’ll ever need to do: God has granted her the one she loves, and their lives are suffused with His blessing. At dawn she’s the first to rise. Without waking Sister Ida, she slips from their cell and walks down the stairs to visit her finches, lifts the altar cloth. Orange beaks poke from the grass cocoon she has woven for them.
* * *
Once a week all Sisters meet to discuss the Girls’ health and achievements and fears. Together, they figure out how to help the Girls, encourage them to become friends, to have confidantes their age, especially if they’re cast out by their families. They know what the people of Nordstrand say about them: that they don’t act like real nuns, that they float in a floaty world with art as their God; that they are dreamers.
“They say we’re too generous with the Girls.”
“And that we are not strict enough.”
“Oh, but we are strict. About kindness.”
“If one can talk about kindness that way, yes.”
“Strict about separating Pregnant Girls from Birthing Girls.”
“Because it would terrify them. For good reason.”
“Dangerous, to give birth.”
“Even more so for the youngest Girls whose bodies are narrow.”
“And tight.”
The Sisters know that one of five Girls will die from complications during birth or from childbed fever, a deceptive killer that lets them recover for a day or two before claiming them. Infants die so frequently—one of three—that some mothers won’t name them before they leave them behind at the St. Margaret Home. Many families are superstitious about naming and wait till their children’s first birthdays. Until then, they believe, they’ve given birth to a little death that may solidify into life and celebration. Only then.
* * *
The Girl who traveled the greatest distance is from Burgdorf where neighbors recommended the St. Margaret Home to her parents. A mansion by the Nordsee, they said. Where daughters can give birth and give away babies. Just a day’s train journey away. And so
discreet. These neighbors vouch for the St. Margaret Home because their daughter is its founder. When Sister Hildegunde was just eighteen, she asked her parents to relinquish what would have been her dowry so she could leave the Mother House in Burgdorf—where her passion for art was considered frivolous, rebellious—and establish her own community of Sisters.
“You know we’ll do anything for you, Waltraud,” her father said, “but not for the church.”
“Sister Hildegunde,” Waltraud reminded her father.
That name! It made her mother want to chant in her loudest voice: Waltraud Waltraud Waltraud Waltraud Waltraud … Such a humorless child when she was growing up. Fromm und verwöhnt. Pious and spoiled. And much loved.
“The church takes everything a nun or priest owns.”
Waltraud snorted. A childhood mannerism that still disgusted her father.
“It matters to me,” he said.
“Because it’s about money.”
“Because—” He studied the barges that strained against the current, the same view of the Rhein as from their villa half a kilometer upriver. “Because the church has already snatched our only child.”
“Surviving child,” her mother whispered.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” Waltraud said. “I get so focused on one plan that I don’t consider how it affects you.”
“Thank you,” her mother said.
“I’ll pray to be more aware of that. Four of our Sisters want to leave Burgdorf with me.”
“Renegades?”
“Artists. We believe it’s a calling to bring forth the talent you’re born with, that the talent will destroy you if you do not bring it forth.”
* * *
Or mock you if you do bring it forth. Of course Waltraud’s mother couldn’t say that aloud. She’d never seen a talent for painting in her Waltraud—only the fierce belief that she had a talent. She felt her husband’s eyes on her. Embarrassed by Waltraud’s gaudy paintings, they took them off the walls and stored them in the wine cellar, wrapped in two layers of linen.
