The Dog in the Wood

by Monika Schröder

  “Start now. Once the blood starts to set, it’s ruined and we can’t use it anymore,” Oma Clara ordered. Irmi gave him an encouraging nod before she walked over to an enamel bowl in which the intestines formed a bloody mass. Her job was to clean them for sausage casings.

  Fritz set the pot down in front of a stool and began to turn the wooden spoon slowly in the blood. Someone must have traded the runt to Oma Clara. But what did she have to trade? And who would trade with her since that was illegal as well? No one could get permission for trading or slaughtering since all the pigs were counted regularly by the Russians. If he were still talking to her, he would ask her why she wasn’t worried that the meat might be infested with a parasite. They could all get sick from eating bad meat. But he would not ask.

  Fritz sat with his back turned to the women listening to the sounds of their work. Oma Clara would need to burn the carcass once all the meat had been removed. But there would still be evidence. She would make sausages, and she would cook the meat. Those cans and jars would be stored in the pantry.

  He stirred the blood faster and stared at the red swirl in the middle of the pot. Then he turned the spoon the opposite direction, forming an eddy.

  The plan took shape while he stared into the blood. He imagined how he would go to Mayor Müller’s office and demand an immediate appointment. The mayor would receive him and listen. Fritz would tell him that he had some important information to trade. If Müller would tell him where Mama and Lech were, Fritz would tell him that Oma Clara had slaughtered a pig illegally, boiled the meat, made sausages, and hid it all in her cellar. He would trade Oma Clara for Mama and Lech. The Russians would come and raid the farm. Then they would take Oma Clara and return Mama and Lech.

  30

  The next morning Fritz woke up determined to do as he had planned. Oma Clara had gone to the Farmers’ Association office and would not be back before noon. In the washroom he combed his wet hands through his hair, making sure it was carefully parted. He checked himself in the mirror and plucked lint off his jacket. His arms stuck farther out of the sleeves than they used to, but he looked respectable enough.

  Winter fog wrapped the low houses along the village street in a gray haze. It blurred the outlines of the roofs and muffled the sounds of his steps on the sidewalk. Fritz inhaled the cold, wet air as he swiftly made his way to the mayor’s office. He took the three stairs in one leap and knocked loudly at the door. No answer. He knocked again, and a woman’s voice called him to enter.

  “Good day!” A woman dressed in a thick, black woolen sweater looked up from a desk in front of the window. “Who’s here?”

  “Hello! My name is Fritz Friedrich, and I need to speak to Mayor Müller.” Fritz was pleased with the firmness of his voice.

  “He’s not in.” The woman’s face was wrinkled, but her hazel eyes shone warm out of the creases.

  “When will he be back?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I will wait.” Fritz had stepped closer toward the desk and was now looking for a place to sit.

  “Well, if you have time, you can keep me company while I take a break from this boring paperwork.” She nodded in the direction of a chair. The woman spoke in the accent of the people who had come with the treks.

  “Are you from Königsberg?” Fritz asked.

  She smiled and nodded. “You must have heard the accent before.” She turned toward Fritz on her swivel chair. She wore a heavy woolen skirt that looked to be made from a blanket. She held out her hand. “I am the mayor’s secretary. My name is Lydia Kolbe. Nice to meet you, Fritz.” Fritz shook her hand and noticed the two wedding bands on her ring finger. Just like Mama, she wore her own and what was most likely the ring of her dead husband.

  “What’s so important?”

  “I can’t tell anyone but the mayor.”

  “You remind me of my boy,” she said. “He would be twenty-five now. But he died in Russia.” She paused for a moment. “He had the same sharp line running straight up from between his eyebrows when he was angry.” Frau Kolbe looked intently at Fritz, studying his face.

  “Why are you so angry?” she asked.

  “I’m not angry,” Fritz said, grabbing his knees with both hands and swaying back and forth on the chair.

  “There are lots of reasons to be angry during these times,” she said softly. “I’m often angry myself.” A crow had landed in the tree outside the window. From where Fritz sat it seemed the bird was sitting on Frau Kolbe’s left shoulder.

  “I am angry that I had to leave my beautiful home, the place I lived all my life, my horses, my trees, my parents’ graveyard, my fields, and that I was forced to come here. And of course, I am angry that my husband and my son died because the Nazis thought they could conquer Russia.” Her voice was trailing and she swallowed. “Are your mother and father still alive?” she asked. Fritz strained his ears for the sound of an approaching car.

  “My father is dead. My mother is alive. I live with my grandmother.” Maybe he should just leave and come back some other time, he thought.

  “Where is your mother?”

  “The Russian military police took her.” Fritz pressed the words out.

  “And you want to ask the mayor if he can help?”

  Fritz didn’t answer. He looked down at the floor, focusing on the grain in the wooden floorboards.

  “Let me tell you something, Fritz.” Frau Kolbe leaned forward. “Look at me.” Her face was so close Fritz could see fine blood vessels lacing the whites in her eyes. He squirmed in his chair.

  “The mayor is the Russians’ marionette. He dances on their strings. I’m sure your grandmother has come and tried to find out where your mother is. Even if the mayor knew where they take the prisoners, he wouldn’t tell you.”

  “I have something to offer him—a trade.” Fritz knew Frau Kolbe would explain why it wouldn’t be right to turn in Oma Clara. She’d tell him what he already knew—that they couldn’t run the farm without her.

  “My boy,” she said, touching his arm with her cool hand, “don’t even think of doing that. You cannot trade with the devil.” She nodded her head slightly, as if she knew and understood.

  Fritz felt his whole terrible story aching to come out. He wanted to tell Frau Kolbe everything, how much he hurt, how much he longed for Mama, how he wished he could do something. How he was so mad at Oma Clara for not trying harder. How he knew that they would never trade Oma Clara for Mama but that he hoped they would anyway. How the pain was like a missing tooth that his tongue kept caressing. But if he opened the floodgate, he would dissolve for good.

  He got up. “I’ll come back some other time,” he said, avoiding Frau Kolbe’s eyes and quickly walking toward the door. He did not hear her parting words. He hurried down the stairs, eager to inhale the cold outside air.

  31

  The cow was a good listener. Fritz leaned against her, not worried about the dirt and the smell. He could feel the rhythm of her pulse on his cheek. His body rocked in the same rhythm through the swell of his tears.

  The cow was warm and didn’t move when the words broke out of him. She wouldn’t tell anyone how he was ashamed of his plan to turn in Oma Clara. She wouldn’t tell anyone that Fritz just didn’t know what to do now. The pain had burst like a shattered ink pot, leaking black over him. Mama and Lech had been gone for three days now. He pounded his fist against the cow’s side, leaving a dark stain on her coat from his tears. The cow just shifted her weight and whipped him with her tail.

  Afterward, he was exhausted. Fritz lay down on the bales of hay. He pulled his jacket tighter and rolled onto his side, making himself small. He was thirsty, but he didn’t want to go inside. He didn’t want to meet Irmi, who would ask about his swollen face and red eyes. He couldn’t be comforted.

  He didn’t know how long he had lain there when Irmi found him.
r />   “What are you doing here? Are you sleeping?”

  Fritz got up, put his jacket on the nail by the door, and mechanically began to move the manure onto a heap.

  “Are you all right?” She stepped closer, but he pulled away.

  “How long do you want to keep this up?” Irmi asked. “You will need to speak to Oma Clara again, eventually.”

  He shrugged. “You’re not talking to me either anymore?” she said in her older-sister voice.

  “I’m just tired,” he said, too empty to talk. He stabbed the pitchfork into the dirty straw. Lifting the forkful into the wheelbarrow was harder than he remembered.

  “Come on! It’s hard for all of us. We have to stick together and keep up the farm.”

  “It doesn’t seem so hard for Oma Clara,” Fritz said, forcing the pitchfork into the next heap of dirty straw.

  “Of course it is. She just wants us to go on. When Mama comes back, she’ll be very happy and proud of us. Let’s not make it harder for Oma Clara,” Irmi continued. She picked up a shovel and began to help loading up the remaining piles.

  “When Mama comes back …, when Mama comes back …,” Fritz repeated her words quietly. “But when will she come back?” He looked at Irmi.

  “Oh, Fritz.” Irmi put down the shovel and walked over toward him. He let her put her hand on his shoulder. “We don’t know. All three of us hope for their quick return.”

  “But I wish Oma Clara would try harder,” he said, moving just one step aside so that Irmi’s hand slid off.

  “No one can do anything,” Irmi said.

  “I don’t believe that. Something needs to be done.” Fritz lifted up the wheelbarrow and pushed it toward the barn door. “I can’t stand just sitting and waiting.”

  Outside, he unloaded his smelly, steaming load onto the manure heap at the corner of the yard and hurried back into the warm stable. Irmi was shaking the fresh straw out over the floor, distributing it evenly.

  “Soon we get to spend some time outside the house anyway.”

  “How’s that?”

  “A letter from the school administration arrived today. We’ll both begin school on Monday,” Irmi said. “It’ll be good to meet some other kids.”

  Fritz hadn’t missed going to school. Right now he couldn’t even imagine mustering the strength to walk to the schoolhouse.

  32

  Fritz opened the gray notebook with the torn cover. Some pages had been ripped out. Fräulein Streblow, the teacher, had told them that due to a shortage in paper it would take a while until they would receive new ones. Fritz looked at the lines on the page, then up at the blackboard in the front of the room where Fräulein Streblow had written the first writing assignment on the board: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” All the men in his family had been farmers. He hadn’t written for a long time, and the pencil felt strange in his hand. Fritz had to look at the wall chart with the cursive letters to remember how to form them. The boy next to him was writing quickly. He had already filled several lines. Fräulein Streblow smiled at Fritz encouragingly. Before time was up, Fritz wrote a few sentences on how he would become a farmer.

  For recess the students went out into the yard behind the schoolhouse. Fritz unpacked his sandwich and watched the smaller kids draw squares in the sand to play hopscotch.

  With a sting, Fritz remembered Mama. She would have made a better sandwich than the dry one Oma Clara had packed. Mama would have accompanied him to school and would have had some encouraging words for the first day. But maybe Fritz was getting too old for that anyway. He could hardly remember the last time he had been at school. As he finished his sandwich, the boy he had sat next to came up to him.

  “Are you new here in Sempow?” the boy asked. “You don’t seem to know anyone either.” The boy had curly red hair and freckles. He smiled at Fritz, showing a large gap between his two front teeth.

  “Yes, I’m new.” Fritz looked at his sandwich, wishing the boy would go away then.

  “Where are you from?”

  “From Schwartz.”

  “Where’s that?” The boy spoke with the nasal vowels of the sea coast accent.

  “It’s about a day’s trip south of here.” Fritz turned sideways to show that the conversation was over.

  “My name is Konrad, and yours is Fritz. I saw it on the cover of your notebook.”

  Fritz wanted to say something mean, like “Oh, so you can read,” just to make him go away.

  “We came from Danzig in a trek,” Konrad said. Fritz suddenly imagined him on one of the rickety carts he had seen with Paul. Konrad was not smiling anymore.

  “How long did it take you to get here?” Fritz asked.

  “Three weeks. It was terrible. It was so cold. We had to sleep outside, and we were hungry. Once, a farmer took us into his house and gave us soup. It was the most delicious soup I ever had.” Konrad paused. “What did you write about?”

  “Write about? When?”

  “For the teacher. What do you want to be when you grow up?”

  “I wrote I want to be a farmer.”

  “I want to be a railroad man like my dad,” Konrad answered. “My dad worked for the Reichsbahn.”

  “Did he drive trains?”

  “No. He worked in an office, but he knew a lot about trains. We used to have a big toy train at home in Danzig, but I couldn’t take it with me. I could only bring my book with pictures of our trains.” Before Fritz could ask more about Konrad’s dad, the bell rang and they had to go back inside.

  Back in the classroom, Fritz observed Konrad from the corners of his eyes. Konrad listened closely to everything Fräulein Streblow said and raised his hand to answer questions several times. How could Konrad muster all this interest in school? Fritz grew tired from sitting inside for so long. He was glad when it was time to copy down the homework and pack up.

  Out in the hallway the boys took their rucksacks from the clothes rack. Konrad asked, “Would you like to come to my house this afternoon to see my train book? I live above the blacksmith’s shop.”

  Fritz didn’t know anything about trains. But he was curious about Konrad, who also had lost his home. Fritz hadn’t met with another boy since he and Paul had pushed the Russian on the motorcycle.

  “Yes, sure,” Fritz said. Just an hour in the afternoon to look at a train book wouldn’t hurt.

  33

  When Fritz opened the gate to the blacksmith’s shop, he faced the broad backside of a horse. A Russian soldier was holding the wooden handle of a small noose that was tied around the horse’s upper lip. Every time the animal jerked its head the soldier turned the noose and tightened its grip. Fritz shivered, thinking of the pain that must cause, being pinched like that on the sensitive upper lip. He stepped closer and noticed the quiver in the animal’s flank. The Russian soldier smiled at him, pretending to salute by tipping his left finger to his cap. Fritz smiled back. The blacksmith stood over the fire in a leather apron, holding a horseshoe in the fire with long tongs. With a swift move he put the red-hot iron on the anvil and began to hammer. Sparks flew left and right from the glowing horseshoe.

  “Guten Tag! Hey! We have a visitor!” the blacksmith said. “Aren’t you Clara Lendt’s grandson? What’s your name?”

  “Fritz.”

  “Nice to meet you, Fritz. What brings you here?” The blacksmith looked up quickly before he struck with the hammer again.

  “I came to visit Konrad.”

  “He lives right above us. You have to climb up the stairs.” The big man nodded in the direction of the back door. He turned around and cooled the horseshoe with a loud hissing sound in a bucket of cold water. Then, with a swaying gait he walked behind the horse and bent down to lift its hind leg.

  At the end of the steep, rickety stairs was a wooden door. His knock was greeted by a “Come in.” Inside, two beds were pr
essed against opposite walls and a small desk and two chairs stood under the window. Gray winter light on the desk surface repeated the pattern of the white curtains. A woman was sitting on one chair holding a piece of cloth and a needle toward the light. “Hello! Konrad told me all about you.” Her accent was even more pronounced than Konrad’s, but her voice was pleasantly low. Konrad ushered Fritz into the corner of the room and asked him to sit down on the bed while he knelt down to pull out a suitcase.

  “I’m going to leave you two alone,” Konrad’s mother said. “I must go look after the blacksmith’s wife. She’s not well.” She put her needlework in a small basket and wrapped her cardigan tighter around herself. “Nice meeting you.” Fritz got up to shake her hand for a good-bye. “I hope you’ll come back soon.” When he pressed her hand, Fritz noticed that her skin was cool and soft, unlike Mama’s hands that were always raspy and warm. This memory of Mama made Fritz swallow hard, but he managed to smile at Konrad’s mother and nod.

  Fritz looked around the room. It was small and smelled damp. On a rack beside the window he saw socks and a woolen skirt put up to dry.

  “In Danzig we used to have a nice big apartment, right in the center of town, with high ceilings and a big tile oven in each room. But we had to leave when the Russians came,” Konrad said.

  “What’s in there?” Fritz pointed at the suitcase.

  Konrad opened the lid. “The train book.” Konrad unwrapped the book from sheets of waxed paper. The pages were brown, and the hand-colored illustrations showed different types of trains.

  “I used to have this one and this one as models,” Konrad said, pointing to two engines. Fritz looked at the pictures. He didn’t know anything about trains. Some of the trains were red, others blue.

  “This is the E 19. The Reichsbahn had only four of these. One day my dad and I are going to take that train. It travels between Berlin and Munich and can speed up to 180 kilometers per hour.”