Motherland (34 page)

“I saw the picture she painted of Ani and his mother,” Liesl said.

His heavy eyebrows rose.

“When you asked me to clean your house.” She coughed. “It was a good likeness,” she said.

“It was a good likeness,” Herr Geiss mumbled, tucking the brushes in the pocket of his shirt.

“I don’t think he meant any harm,” Liesl repeated.

“I hear that he’s been ill,” he said.

“He misses his mother,” she retorted, surprised by the umbrage in her voice. “I don’t know why no one accepts what grief does to people.”

One brush slipped loose from the others, and Herr Geiss caught it.

The temperature of the air was dropping. Liesl could feel it in the squares of wrist skin between her gloves and coat. She couldn’t imagine the homeless in Dresden surviving a night this cold. And Frank—

“I should go in now,” she said.

Herr Geiss raised his eyes to the front balcony, where Frau Winter had hung several pairs of boys’ underwear and a woman’s lacy girdle.

“This used to be a nice street,” he said, turning away. “A very nice street.”

In the study, propped on the dresser Uta had used, a note on thin white stationery:

Dear Frau Kappus
:

An associate from Hadamar was in town for the day, and I am sending him with this letter to your address to examine your son. Our last meeting left me
concerned about Anselm’s welfare and the safety of your household. After hearing that your husband has been declared missing and your own repeated attempts to avoid another visit, I consider it best to involve an expert opinion. Dr. Pfeizer will be able to personally escort your son to Hadamar if he determines that this is the proper course of action. I trust that you understand that resistance in this matter will be considered a criminal offense
.

Sincerely
,

Dr. Paul Becker

There was a P.S. in Uta’s hasty scrawl:
Dr. Pfeizer determined that he won’t be back again. Help yourself to my things. I left what didn’t fit me anymore. Love, Uta
.

“Ani, I want to talk to you,” Liesl called out, but she stayed where she was, reading the note again, slipping it back in the envelope, opening the dresser drawer. It was empty except for Uta’s gold bracelet.

Liesl stared down at the bracelet, trying to move. Recognition had frozen her: Uta had been preparing for a day like today—for a grand gesture and an exit. She could have left the country altogether. To buy a fake passport, to start a singing career elsewhere. Instead, she had come to Liesl, and then given everything to her—her money as a bribe to Dr. Pfeizer, and the bracelet in the drawer. Liesl could picture it clearly, having seen Uta operate so many times before: Uta’s giddy laugh, her sidelong looks, her hand on the doctor’s arm gently guiding him out the door.

And if Uta hadn’t done it, Ani might be gone by now. Taken to Hadamar. Liesl knew she would have screwed it up somehow, she who didn’t “understand” men—she would have been too truthful or fearful, and she would have lost him.

She lifted the bracelet. In all her years of friendship with Uta, she had never slipped it on. The metal felt cold and heavy, and Liesl had a hard time fixing the small amethyst clasp. The bracelet was too big for her,
made her thin wrist look stickish, as if she were a girl playing dress-up with her mother’s jewelry.

“Ani,” she mumbled. “I need to talk to you.”

She raised her arm, and the bracelet slid up to her elbow. She lowered her arm; it tumbled down to her hand, almost slipping off on its own. Raised, slid. Lowered, tumbled. Raised, lowered.

She needed to retrieve the baby, quiz Ani, refill the stove, heat some milk, cobble together some supper, fill a washpan, scrub the dishes, let down the blackout blinds, turn on the radio, sort the laundry for tomorrow, give the baby a bath—but she couldn’t. She just kept moving her arm, like someone slicing the air to make a point, or signaling another person a long way off. The gold band moved with her, up and down, trapped on its axis.

The next morning, Liesl combed her hair back and fixed it with a tortoiseshell pin. She found a smidge of Uta’s lipstick in the bathroom cabinet and rubbed it on her lips. A fleck of soot smoothed her eyebrows. Her best blouse and skirt were ironed and crisp. She took the photograph of Emmy Göring that Uta had cut out from some magazine, spoke to it silently, practicing her responses to the man who might come looking for her friend.
I don’t know where she is
. At this, Emmy’s lovely aging face appeared downcast, almost forgiving.
She disappeared one afternoon
. Emmy’s thin lips pursed. There was a butterfly on her dress, just below her right shoulder.
I was at a Frauenschaft meeting
.

Liesl sat by the stove with the baby, jumping up at every noise. Hans had gone out. Ani was sitting with his
Setzkasten
open, waiting for her to call a word so he could spell it. She named simple words, like “rain” or “cold” or “egg,” and sometimes she had to say them again because he forgot what he was spelling. For three minutes he sat there, holding an
A
, as if it contained some peculiar mystery, and then set it down, saying, “What’s the word again?” She tried not to think about how he would fare in school. All the children were behind now, she told herself. And besides, Ani was a good boy. He tried to listen. That’s all teachers really cared about. And he was safe—she’d woken up that morning without
fearing for his life for the first time in more than a month. He was safe. Hadamar had passed them over.

She turned on the radio to hear reports from Dresden, the announcers listing the numbers of bodies in the streets and interviewing politicians who decried the attack on civilian Germany. It was still impossible to know who was alive and who was dead.
Tens of thousands still missing
, said the announcer. He made it sound as if “missing” were a consolation, better news than “dead.” But missing didn’t console. Missing meant you couldn’t put bread on the table without thinking,
When has he last eaten?
You couldn’t hear a dog bark without wondering if he was being chased. The passage of hours—light to the dark to the light to the dark—none of it felt real. The sun and the moon were the same, because you lived in stalled time. Your days gaped like a ripped pocket: Everything that you put into them fell out again.

And yet she still hoped. Frank was almost home. And if Uta’s lover came today, it meant Uta was also free.

Liesl licked her lips so much the color wore off them, and her armpits grew damp and wrinkled by sweat. Jürgen rubbed his nose on her collar. She looked at the windows. The glass panes had a cold gray hue. She could see them blasting inward as shards. She wished she could pull the blackout blinds now, seal herself and the boys away.

Finally she left Ani and stripped off the ironed skirt and blouse, laying them out flat on the couch where Uta used to sleep. She put on an old housedress, fumbling with every button. Her temples hurt from trying not to cry. Her hands found the portrait of Emmy Göring on her dresser and crumpled it. The actress’s chin smashed into her blond curls, her calm eyes disappearing last. Liesl worked the paper until it was a tiny ball and shoved it in her pocket.

She told Ani to come down to the kitchen, to keep at his spelling and watch his brother while she prepared their midday supper. Ani set up
his tiles again and waited. But suddenly Liesl couldn’t think of anything to spell. The words that came to her mind were too big, too vague, like “friendship” and “homesick.” He would never manage them.

She tried to think what Ani would know. He knew grief. He had lost his mother and yearned for her. He must yearn for concrete things. She missed Uta’s laugh and Frank’s warm strong arms and the way her aunt used to run a comb through her hair. Ani must miss Susi’s touch and Susi’s voice. He’d told her that he had taken the paintbrushes from Herr Geiss because he loved his mother and wanted “to make her.” To paint her? Yes, to paint her.

“I need a new word,” Ani said.

Liesl searched the kitchen. “Bread,” she said.

B-R
. He stopped. His head flicked to the right.

Ani was lost, too. He lived in the world of the windowpane, caught between outside and inside.

“What’s the word again?” he said after a whole minute passed. He frowned at her expression. “Mutti, what’s wrong?”

She pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, trying to swallow the sob. “It’s all right,” she choked out. “You finished spelling it already.”

The boy watched her, puzzled. “Why did you change clothes?”

“I was cold,” Liesl said. She fisted the handkerchief and tried to smile at him. “You need a new word. How about ‘bird’?”

A mysterious parcel arrived the following week. Liesl unwrapped it slowly, knowing what was inside by the familiar weight and hollowness, the smell of leather and sweat.

He’s taken me back. He’s quite pleased and proprietary about the child, and spoiling me far too much. Only three months left, and then I’ll come visit you, and you can
show me everything I’m supposed to do. I’m not a natural mother like you, and I will need lots of training! And don’t worry your head about Dr. Becker
—
he was eager to pass on the case to his Dr. Pfeizer, and Dr. Pfeizer was happy to drop it. I hope you find my castoffs comfortable
.

The paper was tucked in the heel of Liesl’s boot. Another paper, tucked in the left boot, said simply,
Forgive me
.

Liesl read the first letter again. It didn’t sound like Uta at all. Liesl’s mouth filled with a sour taste. She wound the paper around her finger until it curled, and then pulled it free, and wound it again.

Forgive me
.

Never
, Liesl thought.
Not for endangering your own life
.

Not an hour went by when she wasn’t telling something to Uta—Uta, her conscience, skeptical and loving.
I think Berte may become a friend, after all . . . It’s silly, but I think whatever Ani ate might have been in Herr Geiss’s house . . . I looked at the map and counted the kilometers
—
even if he was walking, Frank would almost be home
.

Liesl threw the curls of paper in the stove. She couldn’t forgive Uta, but she couldn’t stop talking to her. She would never stop talking to her.

Motherland

Hans rubbed the crusty sleep from his eyes and turned down the street to the brewery pasture. Another air raid last night, close enough to sound the sirens, to hear the thunder of bombs, but not to feel them shake the earth.
Not you
, they seemed to drum.
Not yet
. For hours, he’d huddled next to Ani and his stepmother in the cellar, now crowded and smelly with bodies, and waited for the attack to come. He’d waited with the candles lit, then blown out. Waited with silence, with Frau Winter whispering a story to her restless sons about a girl who ran outside during a raid and dragged herself back with an iron pole through her belly.
It was broken from a street lamp
, she said in a wondering voice. Hans had waited with the stink of sweat and the explosion of someone’s fart, and the humiliating awareness that Berte was on the other side of the hole, probably thinking the fart was his. The lack of sleep made him feel raw and old now. He had the feeling that all his morning dreams had been bad dreams, but he couldn’t remember them, only their sticky, shadowed residue.