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

  She remembers because of Marinus van der Lubbe. The Dutch queen, Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria, had appealed on his behalf to the old President von Hindenburg, asking him to commute her subject’s sentence to prison because at the time of his arrest the penalty for arson was not death—not yet. At dawn, on January 10, while the queen was still waiting for the answer to her appeal, the young Dutchman was taken from his solitary cell. Through the wet grass of the Leipzig prison yard, the executioner—white gloves, top hat—led Marinus to the guillotine.

  At exactly twenty-eight minutes and fifty-five seconds past the hour of seven, his head dropped into a basket of sawdust.

  Three days later, Marinus would have turned twenty-five.

  Nearly seventy-five years later his verdict, guilty, would be revoked by the German federal prosecutor.

  *

  Sometimes, at dawn, Marinus inserts himself into the young teacher’s sleep-awareness. Like this morning, when she was still adrift in half-sleep, and the gentle weight of her feather quilt felt like that of a lover bending over her. Emil? But as she burrowed deeper into her bedding, the one with her was the Dutchman Marinus without the buttoned jacket he wore in newspaper photos, moon on his chest. The first night in her apartment she had dragged the bed to the window though it would block her way to the door, but she wanted the moon on her pillow, on her throat, her breasts. And in this moon, now, the mouth of the young Dutchman, sullen. His eyes no longer clown’s eyes because the shadow of his cap is gone. Yet his black hair still in the shape of that cap, straight up from his forehead. Marinus. Hands fast, hands gentle—

  Thekla’s left foot slid across the sheet where her mother had darned it with embroidery thread that she split into single strands, her stitches so delicate you could find them only by touch, a silkier weave than the surrounding linen. Don’t think—

  Hands fast, hands gentle on her breasts her belly her thighs her buttocks—hands with rough skin, hands of a bricklayer—

  How would Marinus’s life have gone if someone had taken him to Russia? “Here, this is where you want to be. So be here.” But before he could leave Holland, he’d had an accident. Five months in the hospital and an invalid’s pension. Enough to make it to Germany, but not to Russia.

  Not yet, no, she was almost there, almost, hands of a bricklayer—

  But the hands were her own, not rough, and Marinus’s head was cut off forever—

  *

  Struck by sorrow for him, Thekla sat up. Pulled the quilt around her shoulders. Through the open door, she could see the kitchen table and her napkin holder with her gray Ahnenpass booklet and the supporting documentation of her ancestors. Next to it were two stacks of clothes and linens, ironed and folded. Mutti must have been here yesterday evening while Thekla was out dancing with Emil. She had a key, always let herself in to pick up laundry and return it, clean. Mutti says Thekla is good at nesting. And that’s true. Thekla likes making a home with a few belongings that matter to her: a pottery jar with dried cornflowers; the basket where she stores gifts she’s bought for Fräulein Siderova: a blue glass egg, a beveled glass box for jewelry, a glass figure of a ballerina that would remind Fräulein Siderova of taking ballet lessons as a girl in Russia.

  At least once a week Mutti stayed for a long bath. Thekla’s cylinder stove could heat more water than even her mother could want. In the tub, she would hum to herself, turn the faucet with her toes to add more hot water whenever she wanted, gray-blond tendrils on her cheeks and shoulders. For so many years, she’d taken shallow baths in the basin she’d fill once a week in her kitchen with water she’d heat in all her pots. She’d tack a bedsheet across the kitchen and sponge herself clean behind that, humming, singing. The children would get to bathe in the water afterward. Then Vati. It was the only place where Mutti insisted on being first.

  Thekla snaked one hand from the warmth of her bed to get a cigarette from her nightstand. Only then did she bring out her other hand and tap the cigarette against her wrist. The hiss of sulfur, then the familiar ease, that first blue drag through her body . . . ja . . . before she curled it down her throat, practiced, the smoke of her cigarette a shade duller than the frost on her window.

  *

  “Fräulein?”

  She coughs, embarrassed.

  “Pluie . . .”

  “Can we open our eyes?”

  “If you like,” she says. “But keep thinking of raindrops striking a puddle, or a pail ... causing rings to form before they bounce off the surface, but not as high as where they come from.”

  Her boys are nodding.

  “. . . Pluie,” Andreas says.

  “Pluie. . . Very good. Glistening rain, washing the roofs, the leaves . . . and a world within each raindrop—Would you like to know what the Italians call rain?” she asks.

  “Ja.”

  “Pioggia.”

  “Pioggia,” her boys call out.

  1904–1907

  Chapter 18

  IT WAS RAINING like that the afternoon Frau Abramowitz hoisted Thekla onto her desk in the living room and told her the most beautiful word in all languages was rain. “Pioggia in Italian. Now you say it.”

  Thekla moved her lips around the Italian word like Frau Abramowitz did, heard the sound of herself saying, “Pioggia,” and the sounds of pots and dishes from the kitchen, where her mother was washing the dishes.

  “That’s excellent,” Frau Abramowitz said. “Try it again, a bit softer. Pioggia.”

  “Pioggia?”

  “Very good. Now in French: pluie.”

  Above the desk hung the little mirror Frau Abramowitz had bought in Venice, shiny with gold around it

  “Pluie . . . Pluie—” Thekla tilted her head. “Like rain . . . on the roof.”

  “Such a brilliant little girl.” Frau Abramowitz smiled at her. Fine wrinkles, so many that her skin looked all of one piece, not one wrinkle standing out.

  “Thekla,” Mutti called.

  Frau Abramowitz jerked her head aside.

  Empty. Thekla’s hand empty now. Something wrong, I’ve done something wrong—what is it?—and the shame of that.

  Quickly, Frau Abramowitz lifted Thekla from her desk. “Go to your mother now.”

  —greedy like her mother—grapes, stolen grapes like water, green and cool and light—

  —Nein nein jetzt nicht. Weg damit— No no not now. Away with this—

  —and already no longer remembering but knowing it can come back—

  Frau Abramowitz flung open the glass doors to her garden. In the cold rain she picked violets. Mutti rinsed a crystal vase and filled it with water for her. After Frau Abramowitz arranged the violets in the vase, she set it on top of her piano and fussed with her little picture frames. The oldest photo was of her husband’s mother, Judith, as an infant in a wicker carriage outside the arched front door of this house.

  *

  It was that very photo Judith Abramowitz had kept by her bedside during the final months of her life—not pictures of her husband and children, only this one of herself—because in that final paring down her most enduring link was to herself. Instead of wearing the quilted bed jacket her daughter-in-law, Ilse, had bought for her, Judith Abramowitz asked for her silk piano shawl with the white fringes, and she draped it around her shoulders and breasts and arms.

  During the past year she’d given thought to choosing the most beautiful piece of glass she could find, hoping its beauty would ensure the beauty of her death once Fräulein Siderova arrived to read poems to her in her final hours. When that day came, Sonja Siderova could see that Judith Abramowitz was afraid of encountering her Vater after death. Still, she kept reading, and in her voice, Judith recognized the wisdom of one who had crossed countless times, one who could guide her, too, on that passage until she was ready to continue on her own. She yielded, let the fear be until it let her be, until she saw how it had all passed in one blink, from the baby in the wicker carriage to this old woman who—although motionless in the sh
immer of folds and fringes of the shawl—felt herself moving with startling grace.

  *

  Three nights and three days the rain came in torrents, silver and steady, too steady for Thekla to go outdoors and find a treasure for her Vati. So she searched indoors. On the second day of rain, she brought him Mutti’s rosary. As she tugged the wooden beads, one by one, through his slack fingers, it came to her that his hands were like the carvings of an apprentice toymaker, not of the master toymaker he was. It wasn’t right. She yanked at the beads, a flicker of prayers that would shorten his stay in purgatory and give him a soft chair in heaven.

  On the third day of rain, she brought Vati a photo from inside the lining of Mutti’s sewing basket. Thekla was good at finding things—too good, Mutti liked to say—because whenever something was hidden, it would tug at Thekla’s mind till she had to go find it.

  She laid the picture into Vati’s hands. It was of Frau Abramowitz holding a baby, both floating in the air. But the photo was all blurry from Frau Abramowitz’s tears. Why was she crying? Why—

  Behind her a sharp breath. Mutti. Who snatched the photo away.

  But Vati was still staring at his palms where the photo had been just a moment ago.

  Thekla’s curls felt heavy from the damp air.

  “Where did you get this?” Mutti cried and hid the photo under her apron. “Don’t you go snooping for this again.”

  That’s why Thekla had to get a new picture for Vati.

  She drew it for him. Of Noah’s Ark. Two of each kind to save during the flood. The animals were easy. And so was choosing the woman: Mutti. But then for the man? Herr Abramowitz or Vati? Thekla’s throat hurt from thinking. She’d seen the Rhein flow into her street. Had heard stories of other floods that had come inside houses and drowned people and carried away what belonged to them. If she took Vati on the ark, he’d sit in the middle of it, hands dropping from his bony wrists like dead things. But Herr Abramowitz was strong and fast. He could build the world all over again.

  Mutti covered her mouth when Thekla showed her the drawing. “Don’t let Vati see.”

  “But I’m taking you on the ark . . . and Herr Abramowitz—”

  “Your Vati would be sad.”

  “—and a girl and a boy and giraffes and cows and bees.”

  *

  Her mother must have shown Herr Abramowitz the drawing, because he sent the paperhanger, who pasted yellow wallpaper on the walls of Thekla’s bedroom and, along the top, a water-blue border of Noah’s Ark. All around her room: the ark and Noah and his wife and two of each kind of child and two of each animal, all in a row till it came to the ark again and the people and the animals.

  Now that the flood was in Thekla’s room, it felt urgent that she choose who was to be on her ark. But soon, mold bloomed from the lower edge of the border, a sign that the flood was receding. Now she wouldn’t have to leave Vati behind. She was relieved.

  But Herr Abramowitz said the paperhanger must have done something wrong and made him come back to remove the border. Thekla screamed and stomped till Mutti took her by the wrists and pulled her outside.

  “I have to save Vati from drowning.”

  Mutti’ s lips trembled. “What did he tell you?”

  “The flood—”

  “None of us will drown.” Mutti lifted her into her arms.

  After Mutti sent the paperhanger away, she filled a pail with water and soap, climbed on a chair, and scrubbed the mold away. But Thekla was glad when it grew back in lush shadings of gray, lit by green and yellow, purple even.

  Chapter 19

  EVEN AFTER Michel Abramowitz would have children with his wife, Ilse, he would never attach to them with this all-consuming love he felt for his firstborn, Thekla, a love that carried as much bereavement as bliss. And yet, there was the relief at the convenience of not having to be near her all the time, and the delight he could bring his daughter when he’d step inside her kitchen as if he lived right outside her front door. While Michel filled the house with food and with his deep laugh, the toymaker would retreat into the cave of his body.

  Ilse argued that it caused talk where talk could be avoided, but he wanted to provide for his child, and Almut encouraged that, though she did not encourage him in other ways. She’d thank him, politely. Always, now, polite and aloof with him, as if all he’d ever been to her was her employer, as if she wanted him to believe he had only imagined her mouth verführerisch—seductive.

  Of course the townspeople speculated that he was Thekla’s Vater. It was easy to figure out why Almut Jansen kept working for his family: jobs were scarce, and she was treated better than most domestics. But why did Ilse Abramowitz tolerate her? Granted, Almut’s darning was exquisite, her ironing flawless, but that hardly outweighed having her in the house six days a week. How did Ilse Abramowitz tolerate Almut Jansen’s hands on the clothes she wore next to her skin . . . washing, sewing, folding? Her husband’s clothes, too. Perhaps, some reasoned, Ilse kept her on because Michel wouldn’t let her dismiss Almut. But those who knew Ilse well said she was too smart for ultimatums. More likely, she’d made a trade with her husband: Almut could work in their house as long as he kept away from her.

  *

  Thekla liked to hold the pail with wooden clothespins while Mutti lifted the damp laundry from the basket. The freckles on Mutti’s arms didn’t reach the undersides, puffy and white. She could wring out more water than anyone else. Each piece of clothing she’d snap into the wind and, in its billowing, fasten that shape to the washline by a hem, say, or the ends of sleeves. Though she washed everything with Henkel’s Persil, the Abramowitzes’ laundry was brighter than the Jansens’ and claimed more space on the line, while the Jansens’ shirts and nightgowns were bunched at the far ends.

  Every morning Thekla went with her to the Abramowitzes’ house. It stood tall across the street from the pay-library, grocery store, and tailor shop. Whenever Mutti carried the basket with the Abramowitzes’ ironed laundry, Thekla would hold on to its edge, from Hindenburg Strasse to Schreberstrasse, through the Abramowitzes’ arched door, into airy rooms that were bright even on cloudy days, and up the stairs to the big bedroom.

  One afternoon, when Mutti knelt by the dressing table to arrange the clean laundry inside, Thekla scooted around her and sat on Mutti’s bent knees, felt the hard belly behind her. Baby-belly from the stork. Storks lived on the highest rooftops.

  In the mirror, Mutti kissed the top of Thekla’s hair. “That woman always wants what’s mine,” she whispered and glanced toward the open door. “She’d love to keep you here without me. But she knows I’ll take you with me wherever I go.” When she tossed her head, one of her hairpins slipped from her coiled braid.

  Thekla picked it up.

  “Always after me, ‘Do this and do that right now. . . . ’”

  Thekla was puzzled. At home Mutti was the one to say, “Do this and do that.” And Thekla obeyed. But in this house Frau Abramowitz said to Mutti, “Do this and do that.” And Mutti obeyed.

  In church everyone obeyed the priest. On the church steps, too.

  *

  After mass, last Sunday, Thekla had found a feather in the puddle by the church steps where Mutti stood with Herr Pastor Schüler.

  “If you keep praying, God will hear you,” he said to her. His body was little, but his voice was so big it could save your soul.

  The old pharmacist edged closer. “Excellent sermon, Herr Pastor Schüler.” His voice was the best in the choir, melodious and steady.

  “Thank you.” The priest beamed and scratched his chest through his vestment. Powder drifted from beneath, settled on his shoes and on the ground by the edge of the puddle.

  Mutti stepped aside.

  “I’m still waiting for your husband’s medicine,” the pharmacist said to her.

  “He has enough for a week.”

  “Good. I’ll send the delivery boy once it gets here.”

  “Thank you.” Mutti reached for Thekla’s
hand. As soon as they were out of the church square, she whispered, “Those priests, they lie.”

  Thekla’s feather was still wet when she lifted Vati’s hands and curved his fingers till they had to close around the feather. The rim of his white shirt was frayed but clean between his hairy-blond wrists and the black sleeves of his good suit. His left thumb twitched as it tested the fine strands. Falling then, Wilhelm, falling . . . and getting smaller and water in his mouth. . . forever falling—

  *

  Mutti pulled her other hairpins from her braid, turning it into crinkly angel hair. She pushed it from her cheeks, studied her face in the mirror of the dressing table. “That woman already has wrinkles. Her mother had skin like that.”

  Thekla stretched herself tall until her brown hair was below Mutti’s chin. Laughing, Mutti shook her angel hair, let it ripple around Thekla’s face, and touched the ends of her hair below Thekla’s nose in a blond mustache. Thekla giggled, leaned against Mutti’s apron, soft from countless washings. The baby-belly squirmed.

  Suddenly three heads in the mirror—

  Brown, blond, brown.

  Frau Abramowitz’s head above Mutti’s, Thekla’s below.

  Till Mutti stood up and was the same as Frau Abramowitz. In height. But not in clothing because Frau Abramowitz’s belly—big like Mutti’s belly, big from the stork—was under her silk dress as if her baby were already wearing silk. In that awkward silence, Thekla could feel the inequality, and though she didn’t yet have the word to define it, she would recognize it from now on, separating the rich and their servants, from whom they expected compliance, gratitude.

  Frau Abramowitz did not open her arms for Thekla the way she did when she was alone with her. She had such a sad face that Thekla made herself smile at her—she was good at making others smile back—but Frau Abramowitz didn’t.

  Mutti bent to kiss Thekla’s ear, whispered, “That woman’s smile muscles are broken.”