Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire

by Hegi, Ursula

  Trudi was invited to two of Eva’s parties, a small dinner that included Eva’s parents, who hardly said anything all evening, and a fabulous costume ball, where people arrived dressed as gypsies with gaudy jewelry and scarves, Chinamen with yellow jackets and pointed hats, Indians with feather headbands, and fairy godmothers with magic wands. Trudi disguised herself as a little Dutch girl with wooden clogs and a starched white kerchief that Frau Blau had arranged in a triangle on top of her head, and her father went as a gambler, wearing the old eye patch from his pirate costume and his golden tie with the silver stripes that Trudi had given him many years ago.

  Somehow, Eva had gotten hold of a nun’s habit, going too far, most of her guests—and especially people who had not been invited but heard about her brazenness—would agree afterwards, especially considering the way she danced with her husband, who was dressed as a sheik. For all the layers of cloth between the two—her black habit and the white sheet he’d wrapped around himself—they could have been naked, rubbing against one another like that. But then, people said, it was known that Jews had huge appetites when it came to pleasures of the flesh. Marriage had changed Alexander, the people agreed. But maybe that wasn’t all that surprising, considering the influence. He used to be so dignified, a decent man, the kind of decent that’s glad to help you out but wants everyone to know about the good deed. Not that he was no longer a decent man—although that quality did come under doubt that night of the costume ball. Even when he stopped dancing with his wife and opened another bottle of cognac at the opposite side of the room from her, it felt as though the two of them were still touching.

  In April, Seehund began to lose control of his bowels. Trudi would feel his shame when she’d come downstairs in the mornings to light the kitchen stove and find him lying in his stench, dried feces crusting his fur. Pinching her nostrils to keep from gagging, she’d hoist the dog up and half carry him outside, where she’d settle him down while she’d return to the kitchen to clean the floor and warm a pail of water for cleansing him.

  Some mornings, frost still laced the air and shimmered in the sun, tiny particles of ice, reminding her of how Seehund had enjoyed his first winter. She wished she could bring him a huge bowl of snow and let him lick it, but the snow had melted, and only membranes of ice shrouded the puddles. One day, while washing his haunches, she knew he wouldn’t live another winter. She grasped his leather collar and tried to take him to one of the frozen puddles—a poor substitute for snow, but perhaps the closest he would come to it. When he hung back as if reluctant to trust her, that long-ago love for him broke through, and she cried and stroked his fur. He nuzzled against her neck.

  “Come,” she said, and he followed her to the puddle.

  With her bare hands, she broke the flimsy ice and held out a long sliver to him, letting him lick it as if, somehow, it could replace what she hadn’t been able to give him since that day by the river when he’d absorbed her humiliation. Each impaired step he’d taken since had reminded her that she, too, was damaged. He licked at the ice until the heat of his tongue had melted it, and then he kept licking her hands and wrists, his raspy tongue far more alive than the rest of his body.

  That afternoon, he dragged himself away.

  When he hadn’t returned by dusk, Trudi grew restless. She dusted every piece of furniture in the living room, then took all the rugs to the low carpet rod behind the house and, with her long rattan paddle, beat them until they did not even have one puff of dust left in them. Her father was silent while they ate their dinner of potatoes with pickled herring and beets, but twice he stepped outside to call Seehund’s name.

  Trudi left the dishes in the sink and lit two lanterns. Throughout the evening, as they searched for the dog, she felt a revival of the sadness that the fat boy, Rainer Bilder, had made the town’s legacy, and whenever she looked up at her father, she could tell that he, too, felt that sadness which was inflating to contain the loss of her mother.

  It was after ten when they cleaned silver-white pigeon droppings from a bench in front of the chapel and sat down to rest. Pigeons, hundreds of pigeons, dozed on the slate roof, their whisper of talons like gravesite prayers, reminding Trudi of the pictures of the dead bride on her father’s wall and of the rumors that she was the cause of her mother’s craziness. For an instant she felt as though she were falling, falling, but her father spoke into the dark as if taking up her thoughts and pulled her into the safe and constant web of his acceptance.

  He said, “She was not always like that.”

  Across the meadow, a half-moon illuminated the onion-shaped tower of the Sternburg, and a high moving wind bent the leafless crests of the poplars.

  “She was not always like that,” he said again, “and yet, it was always there … underneath somewhere. I don’t know why.”

  From the Sternburg came a sound, and Trudi leapt up. “Seehund!” she shouted. “Here—Seehund.” But it was just the water in the moat, rocking against the pilings of the drawbridge.

  “Maybe he found his way home,” her father said without conviction.

  “Maybe.” She wondered how her father would endure it if they never found the dog.

  “She was fine in our marriage.” He started walking back toward the center of town, and she kept up with him, their moon shadows side by side on the road, his nearly twice as long as hers.

  “At first she was fine. And before that, too, when we were still in school.…” He shook his head and his shadow head on the road looked as though it were spinning. “I don’t know why she was that way. At first I used to think it was my fault.”

  Trudi felt a deep sadness for her father and for the girl who had become her mother; yet it was a sadness that no longer carried blame for herself, a clear and separate sadness that swept through her body without residue.

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” she whispered, and her father stopped abruptly and drew her against his coat.

  They did not find the dog that night. The following day they kept the pay-library closed and continued their search. Shortly before nightfall they came upon Seehund, lying beneath a clump of bushes on the far side of the fairgrounds, near where Pia’s trailer had stood that one summer. His fur was soft, and he lay half curled, the way he had as a much younger dog when he’d slept and played with the same abandon. A fine membrane veiled his open eyes as if the frost had drawn him into a final embrace.

  Although Trudi would help her father to bury Seehund near the brook behind their house, she’d keep hearing him in the weeks to come, slurping water or eating, and she’d find herself walking carefully when she’d enter the kitchen, prepared to step around him as he sprawled on the floor. She’d ache for her father when he’d pull his comb from his shirt pocket and look around for the dog, or when he’d set aside a morsel of food for him on his plate and then shake his head as if remembering that Seehund was dead.

  They began to notice dogs everywhere: the Buttgereits’ poodle, the taxidermist’s dachshund, the black dog of uncertain heritage that belonged to the Stosicks, the Weskopps’ German shepherd.… Those dogs had been there all along, but now they only emphasized the loss of Seehund.

  To cheer her father up, Trudi decided to surprise him for his fifty-first birthday. She took money out of her savings account, told him to get all dressed up, and asked him to be ready to leave the house by one o’clock. She put on her best dress, blue velvet with a round neckline and half sleeves, and while she waited for her father, she printed a sign that the pay-library would be closed for the rest of the day. But what to give as a reason? Due to family matter? To illness? She finally decided to write Herr Montag’s birthday, figuring it might distract him from missing the dog if people congratulated him or brought him presents.

  She had to smile when he came down the stairs in his good suit and the glitter tie. A taxi drove them to a fancy restaurant in Düsseldorf, where a pianist in a sea-green gown played arias from Wagner’s operas.

  Trudi ordered champagne and her
father’s favorite dinner, Wiener Schnitzel with fresh peas and parsley potatoes. Their table stood in the heated glass enclosure that jutted into the sidewalk. It was set with a thick white linen cloth, long-stemmed glasses, and a crystal vase with fresh roses.

  At the next table, three young SA men were drinking Schnaps, and one table away from them sat the parents of the fat boy, eating with serious and silent tenacity. Ever since Rainer’s disappearance, their thin bodies had become bloated—not all at once, but bit by bit, as though they no longer had their son to absorb their indulgences.

  Herr Bilder’s brown uniform concealed the bulk better than his wife’s flimsy dress. Trudi had heard that he’d tried to get into the SS, and while he was certainly fanatical and bureaucratic enough for them, his body had not met the elite qualifications. But the SA took anyone—especially those who liked to bash heads.

  Long ago people had stopped asking the Bilders if they’d heard from their son. Since they never mentioned Rainer, his name had joined the informal list of those whose names—because of embarrassment to their families or church—were unspoken as if they’d never been born: the barber who’d been discovered at the zoo in Düsseldorf humping a wild boar; the woman who’d run off to Portugal with another woman and left her children with her husband; the man who’d been shot in the Opernhaus during the second act of Die Zauberfløte while robbing the ticket office; the nurse who’d been sentenced to thirteen years in prison for killing unborn babies, which was considered a Sabotageakt—act of sabotage—against Germany’s racial future. You might think about those people, shudder at their indiscretions, but you would not speak their names unless, perhaps, in a whisper to someone you knew well.

  A waiter in a white jacket brought the champagne, and Trudi raised her glass to her father. “To your birthday.”

  He smiled. “To my birthday—Oh, no.”

  “What is it?”

  “The Bilders.”

  The two had hoisted their bodies into standing positions and were ambling toward them. Pinned to Frau Bilder’s massive bosom was the silver Ehrenkreuz der deutschen Mutter—the cross of honor for the German mother. Every year on the birthday of Hitler’s mother, August 12, kinderreiche—child-rich—mothers throughout Germany were celebrated with the Ehrenkreuz: the most cherished in gold for eight or more children, silver for six, and bronze for four. Das Kind adelt die Mutter—the child ennobles the mother—was the inscription.

  “A special occasion?” Frau Bilder inquired.

  “My father’s birthday.”

  “Happy birthday, Herr Montag.”

  “They didn’t bring your food yet.” Her husband peered at Trudi’s father.

  “It’ll be here soon enough.”

  “What did you order?”

  “Wiener Schnitzel”

  “I had the Rouladen”

  “Exquisite,” Frau Bilder sighed. “They were exquisite.”

  “A wonderful gravy.” Her husband clicked his tongue.

  “The best I’ve had.”

  “We almost ordered the Sauerbraten.”

  “Next time.”

  “Yes, next time, Liebling”

  “Their potato pancakes are better this week than the dumplings.”

  “Nice and crisp.”

  “They serve a spectacular rainbow trout.”

  “With lemon and butter.”

  “On a bed of parsley.”

  “Fresh parsley.”

  “Always fresh here.”

  “Don’t forget to order the Käsekuchen for dessert.”

  “They have a fantastic Käsekuchen here.”

  “Last time I had the Bienenstich”

  “I hope you ordered soup?” Herr Bilder’s eyes took on a glazed look.

  “Their pea soup is like a stew.” His wife sucked her teeth.

  “That thick.”

  “But smooth. So smooth.”

  Trudi glanced at her father, who was listening with a pained expression to Herr and Frau Bilder as they blocked his view of the pianist, the front of their thighs bulging against the tablecloth as if waiting to taste his birthday dinner. Three layers of white flesh draped from their chins, and their nostrils were flared as if not to miss any of the culinary scents.

  “Your son—” Trudi started. “Rainer.… Now I have been wondering if you’ve heard anything about him.”

  Frau Bilder took a long breath as though she’d suddenly come to life.

  Her husband blinked and pulled out his pocket watch.

  “We must go,” she said.

  “Yes, we’re already late.”

  “Happy birthday, again, Herr Montag.”

  With amazing swiftness, they moved toward the door and, miraculously, squeezed through at the same moment without getting stuck.

  “Why do I suddenly no longer feel hungry?” Trudi’s father asked.

  “Because those two have already eaten for us.”

  “That was cruel, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Once in a while I do think about Rainer.”

  “He must be about sixteen now.”

  The waiter brought their food, and as they began to eat, they heard a thud. A blind man with a German shepherd had walked against the glass enclosure right next to them. A bewildered look on his face, he yanked the leash and took a few steps back. He was young, in his late twenties, with skin that looked chapped from the cold. His hands were bare.

  “Come on, doggie doggie doggie,” one of the SA men at the next table called. His pasty face was splotched with acne.

  His friends were laughing.

  Trudi felt her father go rigid.

  The blind man said something to the dog and, tightening his fingers on the leash, let the dog move forward, following it—again—into the glass wall. His round face showed an embarrassment so acute that Trudi wanted to look away. As he backed up for the third time, the dog kept straining forward as though hypnotized by its reflection.

  Trudi pushed her chair away from the table, making an ugly, scraping sound on the tiled floor.

  Her father laid one hand on her wrist and shook his head. “He’d be even more embarrassed if he knew we were here.”

  “Here, doggie doggie.…”

  “Idioten” Trudi muttered. “Thugs.”

  Her father looked alarmed.

  “They couldn’t hear me,” she whispered.

  “… doggie, doggie.”

  Once more, the blind man walked into the enclosure, his free hand stretched out as though he were expecting it, and if he felt anger, he hid it well behind a resignation that must have come from years of finding himself against obstacles.

  Trudi wondered if he sensed the faces on the other side of that fragile wall. Though she still wanted to rush outside and help him, she knew it would mean alerting him to his audience.

  “He must have borrowed someone else’s dog,” her father said.

  She nodded. “His own dog probably died.” Right away she wished she hadn’t said that. Even here, she thought, we can’t get away from thinking about Seehund. “Or maybe,” she offered quickly, “it’s his dog but hasn’t been properly trained yet.”

  Her father let out a deep breath when—with his fifth attempt—the man finally cleared the glass wall and walked away, his back stiff, depending on the dog who had betrayed him.

  The people of Burgdorf went to parades and speeches—some, like the taxidermist, because they genuinely believed in their leaders; others, like Herr Blau, because not to go would call attention to yourself. Most practiced the silence they were familiar with, a silence nurtured by fear and complicity that would grow beyond anything they could imagine, mushrooming into the decades after the war which, some began to fear, was about to happen.

  To justify this silence, they tried to find the good in their government or fled into the mazes of their own lives, turning away from the community. They knew how not to ask questions; they had been prepared for it by government and church. Over the years, they had forgott
en that early urge to question. For some, their one act of resistance was that—whenever they could avoid it—they didn’t raise their arm in the Heil Hitler greeting. But others, like Herr Immers and Herr Weskopp, used that greeting whenever they could, often as a challenge to test those they encountered.

  At his son’s engagement party to Irmtraud Boden that May of 1936, Anton Immers entertained his guests with stories of the First World War, as though he’d really been a soldier, and by midnight—when the beer kegs were empty and the butcher had opened five bottles of expensive wine—his few remaining guests, all members of his Stammtisch—began to recall that they’d seen him in battle, performing incredible feats of courage.

  “I’ll show you the picture of me in uniform,” he said.

  “We’ve seen it, Anton,” they assured him.

  But he insisted on leading them to the butcher shop, and the unsteady procession staggered to Alexander Sturm’s building. When the butcher set down his briefcase and unlocked his shop, he pointed to the framed enlargement of the photo that Herr Abramowitz had taken of him in Kurt Heidenreich’s uniform, and the men toasted him with an emotional “Heil Hitler”

  Herr Immers bowed to them. “The one regret I have … that I didn’t hire a real photographer.”

  “It’s a good likeness, Anton,” Herr Buttgereit consoled him.

  “A good …” Herr Neumaier frowned as if trying to remember what he’d been about to say.

  “Exactly like you, Anton,” Herr Weskopp confirmed.

  The photo hung between two other pictures—a close-up of Adolf Hitler, showing him from the shoulders up while giving a speech, and St. Adrian, the patron saint of butchers and soldiers. To show proper respect, of course, the Führer had been positioned several centimeters above the butcher and the saint.

  “But it was taken by a Jew.… I’ll always know that.” Herr Immers turned and peered into the dark beyond the display window as if looking for new evidence to place in the leather briefcase that he’d started to carry with him wherever he went, even to chess club meetings. No one had seen the briefcase open, but people said that, inside, the butcher carried lists of people who’d said something against the Führer. Even his new daughter-in-law, Irmtraud, who’d resented the old man’s abrupt manner ever since she’d come to work in his shop as a fourteen-year-old, didn’t have a better explanation for what the butcher carried with him.