The Road Beyond Ruin

by Gemma Liviero

  His mother was beaming, he noticed, with adulation in her eyes. His father stood ahead of them, ahead of the crowd, arms at his sides, sweat dripping from under the shelf of hair above his forehead, a small smile, though not a wide one, from the shape of his eyes. Erich detected a frown, too, perhaps from the glare.

  Erich felt proud of his father and marveled at the uniforms, at the order, at the control. The people loved him, he thought. The people wanted him.

  Then out of the crowd an egg hit one of the soldiers standing off to the side of the selected people on the stage. Erich looked back to see who had thrown it but couldn’t, the sun too bright in his eyes. Several Gestapo rushed at the crowd, and someone was dragged to the back through the parting crowd. All the while Hitler kept talking. Erich was disturbed by the incident, insulted for the führer. How could anyone be so brazen, so disloyal? Then he heard a sound beside him. His sister was sniffling, crying. He turned his head not too far, not wanting to disrespect the speech, but his sister needed comfort. He touched her shoulder and then shrank back when he saw. The noises were not from crying but from fits of laughter. She covered her mouth and looked down at her shoes.

  “Stop it,” hissed Erich.

  “I can’t,” she said back. “It’s too funny.”

  She composed herself eventually, but he was ashamed. He looked around to see if anyone had seen. One of Hitler’s security staff, dressed in black, looked directly at him, sneered at him, as if he were the cause.

  Erich looked forward, away from him, focusing on the führer’s words, the only things that mattered. He talked about loyalty, about greatness, about a future.

  Their town house in Berlin was magnificent, with a view of the Tiergarten, and only walking distance from the Reichstag where his father worked. The Steiners’ house had gas and electricity and a good heating system, several bedrooms, a foyer, and a sitting room.

  “Let’s go and spy on Vati at work,” said Claudine as she entered Erich’s bedroom one night.

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Why not?”

  His sister was always doing things that were adventurous or dangerous or stupid, as his mother described.

  “I can’t. I have to study.”

  “It looks very dull,” she said, her eyes drifting across his mathematics books before she turned suddenly, flicking her wide skirt around her. “Wish me luck then.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going out.”

  “Mutti won’t let you.”

  “Mutti won’t know. She is too busy with the baby who won’t settle. Mutti will not even notice me gone.”

  “All right then,” said Erich, exasperated. “We will go for a walk to Father’s work, but I am telling you that it is only for an hour, and then I must come home to finish.”

  Erich told his mother they were going for a walk. She never questioned him. She trusted him entirely. Claudine, alone, would have been questioned and likely not have been given permission.

  They walked past several people who milled on the sidewalk in a heated discussion. The people looked up at Erich and Claudine, then looked away quickly, as if they were guilty of something.

  “It is stupid they wear an armband to show their religion.”

  It was the first time he had heard his sister voice her thoughts on this.

  “It is something the government believes is right to do. You shouldn’t question that.”

  Erich had already spoken to his father about it. His father had confided in him that the führer had a magnificent plan to re-create the country, to make it stronger, to make Germany more powerful. But that was all he had told him. There was much that his father was doing that wasn’t spoken about.

  On the way to the Reichstag, they heard shouting and saw a fire blazing ahead. As they drew closer, they saw that the windows of a bookshop had been smashed, and the books inside had been set ablaze. Erich held his sister’s hand and told her to stay close. Several police had arrived on the scene already, standing beside their cars to watch.

  “What is happening?” asked his sister. Erich knew the reason for the destruction. He could see more shopwindows broken nearby. It was another of the violent protests against the Jews and their businesses, which happened regularly.

  “It is a riot against the government,” he told her instead.

  “But the bookshop is burning down! It is not against the government. It is against the bookshop owners!”

  “Let’s go.”

  “No! I like that bookshop. Papa bought me a book there once. And the police aren’t doing anything to put the fire out. We have to go and get Papa! We have to help them!”

  “No, Claud! It is too dangerous. We must go home.”

  He dragged his sister away and home, and she ran excitedly into the house to relate the events to her mother.

  “Go get ready for bed,” said Nene. “I will talk to your father as soon as he gets home.”

  Erich stayed in the kitchen with his mother.

  “It is getting worse,” she said. “It is just a matter of time before they have to do something permanently.”

  “What is going to happen, Mama?”

  “I think the government will have to take even stricter measures. We have to be tougher with their kind. We have to find them a place where they can live safely. And keep our people safe from them as well.”

  Erich was not sure what to think. He trusted his mother, but he also needed his father’s words to verify what she said. Only then could he form an opinion. His father was right about most matters of state. After all, he had the ear of the parties that made decisions. He had sat in Hitler’s office, presented his work, offered advice.

  His father came home. He had also passed the bookshop and seen the destruction. But he knew about it before he even left the Reichstag.

  “What will happen, Papa?”

  “It is not up to me, Erich. It is up to certain members of the government to stop this from happening. They will stop the violence, but they will also find a way to keep these people separate. Any troublemakers will be sent away.”

  “The Jews you mean?” said his sister, appearing in the doorway.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “From what I could see, they weren’t the ones that started it,” said Claudine.

  “They started it long before now,” said their mother, the baby finally rocked to sleep in her arms. “It is just that you aren’t old enough to see it.”

  His sister stood a moment, arms crossed, pouting, then turned away. She was too young to understand at that point. Erich had determined early that his sister would never be a follower, and would be hard to conform, but he could not have foreseen that this minor opposition would be the beginning of her decline. Later, when he looked back, he felt that his parents had failed to see clearly the principles his sister was missing. If they had only seen this back then, had kept a closer eye on her, then perhaps their family would have stayed together, perhaps even his father would still be alive.

  Present-day 1945

  When Erich returns from the ridge, Stefano has risen, though there is swelling below his eyes from a bad sleep. His hair is combed, but there is still a wrecked look about him that camp survivors do best, a closed expression, a sagging of the shoulders. His skin is damp and glistens with tiny beads of sweat.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I decided to make some of the coffee you found.”

  “Of course,” Erich says. “Is the boy still sleeping?”

  “Yes.”

  Erich notices that Stefano is favoring his injured leg when he moves to sit down. “How did you hurt your leg?” he asks.

  “It was at the end of the war. Your friends marched us from the camp when they feared the enemy was nearing, then shot me when I tried to break away from the group.”

  Erich wonders at first if it is Stefano’s attempt to instill shame, but his expression appears open and honest. There seems no shadow of blame, not toward him any
way.

  Through the window, he can see Rosalind walking toward the barn. After his words the night before, he doesn’t think she will come here. Georg must stay away, too. He wants to warn Stefano again of Rosalind and Georg, but it will sound too contrived, and he doesn’t want any questions about relationships that will test his ability to shade the truth.

  He brings out the linen bag that holds the food and retrieves the pie.

  “Tell me, Stefano, what did you do before the war?”

  “I studied languages, German, French, and English. I planned to travel. And you?”

  “Engineering. We were different, yes? Before the war. And more alike then, too, perhaps.”

  Stefano says nothing. He gives nothing away. Erich imagines he may have been hard to break in an interrogation room, and loyal to his associates.

  Erich cuts three small pieces of pie.

  “Please eat,” Erich says. “One piece for each of us. I will take mine with me. I’m running late.”

  “Are you working all day?”

  “Yes, till quite late,” he says, standing to leave. “Good day!”

  Erich walks from the door to the track that leads south toward the town. He is relieved to be out of Stefano’s sight and to have time now to think. There is something about the foreigner that confuses him, something he cannot yet put words to.

  CHAPTER 14

  ROSALIND

  From her window, Rosalind watches Erich walk toward town, toward a nonexistent job. He has plans, another life, which is why she is curious about his interest in Stefano, why he comes back. Erich hates it here. There is something he hasn’t told her. A year ago Erich would have had Stefano imprisoned, or worse. The previous night Erich had reminded her of things, of her obligations, of a past that she wants to erase. He also told her to keep away from Stefano. But she will do what she wants. She will not be eternally bound. He owes her, too.

  As she walks toward the gate, only one of the geese waddles to meet her. She checks the other, tries to examine her leg, but the injured goose is offended by Rosalind’s needling hand and takes a peck.

  “No!” says Rosalind. “I am trying to help you!”

  The goose stands, hisses, and fluffs out her feathers, walks a short way and perches on the ground, as if the effort of walking were too much. Rosalind can see that the leg is bent, likely snapped, and unlikely to heal. She scatters the grain in front of her, and the bird forgets her ailment and pecks hungrily.

  “You still have your appetite at least.”

  She then picks up two pails to carry river water for the man-made pond. Monique used to love the job of fetching water for the geese. Any excuse to be gone from the house. Sometimes it would be a long time before she returned, especially if she decided to lie on the platform to catch the morning sun. She shivers. She does not like to imagine Monique lying anywhere.

  When she turns to leave the pen, Stefano is there at the fence, watching her. She feels awkward under scrutiny. She is not good with most people, especially those she cannot help. The sick do not focus on her, rather on themselves, their pain. They are easier to deal with. The things they demand are the things she can give.

  “Hello again,” he says.

  “Do you have some advice about an injured goose, too?”

  He looks down, and she sees that his lips are now pressed in a line, perhaps amused.

  “No. I have had nothing to do with injured geese. Dogs, people, and languages. Not geese.”

  He is lighter today. He is also careful with the words and works hard to sound them correctly.

  “Where is the boy?”

  “He is still asleep.”

  “He is exhausted, yes?”

  “Yes. It is probably the first real sleep he has had in a long time.”

  “You saw his mother. Was she young?”

  “Yes, young like you.”

  And Rosalind is thinking of her own loss, of the grave that sits on the hill. She wishes she could talk to him, tell him everything. Though he is a foreigner, a man, and therefore unlikely to understand a loss like hers, she thinks.

  “Where did you learn to speak German?”

  “I completed two years of language studies before I signed up for the military. German first because war had begun, and I thought it would be most useful. Then I took my books with me to the battlefield and practiced on the German soldiers. I speak some English, and a little French. Though not as well.”

  “And what did you want to do with so many languages?”

  “A translator or a teacher . . . The world was, how do you say . . .” He looks for the words.

  “Full of possibilities.”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Why did you choose to go to war then?”

  “Joining someone else’s pointless fight was never on my list to do. But not joining would have meant I cared little about the ones who did. I could not sit idle while people, friends, around me were signing up.”

  It is intriguing to her that he is both studious and brave, and he is caring also. Yesterday she felt he was hiding something. Perhaps it was this. That he is anything but ordinary.

  “Do you hate us?” she asks, surprising herself, his answer suddenly important to her.

  “Who?”

  “Germans.”

  He shrugs. “I did hate once, but hate now lives in the past. And I prefer to remember the past, not live in it.”

  This answer brings a sense of relief, though it is still unclear to her why she is so affected, why her heart feels suddenly lighter. Why it is Stefano, a stranger, someone she might have left for dead in another time, who makes her feel this way.

  “Are you getting water for the geese?” he says, his eyes briefly leaving hers to look down at the pails, and stopping her from saying something she might regret, a futile apology perhaps for all that has happened.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I will help you,” he says, reaching for them.

  He walks behind her toward the river.

  “You must be looking forward to going home,” she says, filling in the silence as they approach the river’s edge.

  Stefano steps down the embankment and glides a bucket on its side to fill it with water, then passes it to Rosalind at the edge of the slope.

  “I’m a little cautious about going home. I’m not sure how I’ll be received. Whether I’m a hero or a traitor. I won’t really know till I get there.”

  “What did you do? Was it so bad?”

  He passes her the second bucket, then steps closely toward her, their faces only inches apart. Embarrassed by their closeness, she steps away.

  “Soldiers who worked for Germany aren’t probably looked at with any great gratitude there or here. I have to go back and face enemies in the streets and my family also.”

  “They will support you.”

  “I am worried what they will say.”

  She is intrigued by his candidness. The only time she witnessed such openness was from the soldiers who lay dying, whose affection they bestowed on her, their sins, their truths, in lieu of their wives and mothers who were not there to listen. She heard many stories. Some she remembers vividly. She carried out their wishes. She took their final letters and posted them.

  When she looks up at him, he is studying her with unblinking eyes as dark as ink, and she turns away self-consciously.

  They return to the house. He walks in front this time, and she looks at the large hands that wrap around the handles of the pails. The limp is not visible today, perhaps due to a night of rest.

  She opens the pen, and he empties the buckets to top up the small pond created for the geese.

  “Thank you,” she says, unsure whether she should invite him in for tea. Whether it is too much, too soon. Whether Georg will be waiting at the table for her when she enters. His reactions are becoming less predictable.

  “I’m here for another two nights at the kindness of your friend and neighbor. I could help you fix the leaking wall. I for
got to tell you that building is another one of my skills.”

  “You have many then.”

  He pauses, waiting for her response to his suggestions, which she has avoided offering.

  “Erich is in town, working again,” he says.

  She lowers her eyes briefly so she doesn’t give anything away. She does not want to reveal the truth. Though perhaps it is that they both know his employment is a lie.

  “I have seen some materials in the broken buildings across the road when I was wandering. I can rebuild the wall. I can fix it so there are no more leaks.”

  “The bricks in the fields across the road belong to someone else.”

  “By the looks of it, I don’t think they will be coming back.”

  It is a line that hangs for too long.

  “It would not be too difficult. I have such idle time. I am not used to being so idle. You would be doing me a favor.”

  “I . . .”

  “But of course, given that I am a foreigner, I would understand.”

  She shakes her head. “No. It’s not that.” But there is truth in it. She would feel uncomfortable, perhaps even disloyal. She thinks of Erich, who trusts him also. “You have an injury. I . . . have nothing to pay you with.”

  “I ask for nothing in return.”

  She thinks of Berlin in the final days. She shudders. But that was Berlin. This is different. He is different.

  1939–1940

  Rosalind began her nursing career, not with the desire to heal—oddly enough that had never been her goal—but with an initial idea that was more conceited: that in such a role she would be more appreciated by her parents, Monique, Georg, and by the party. But by the end of the first year, she’d quickly discovered a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging.