The Puppet Boy of Warsaw (29 page)

Max sat with the prince for hours at the back of the church, watching the flickering candles, the afternoon light pouring through the tall glass windows, dripping streams of light over him in every imaginable colour.

‘I could stay here for ever.’ Max sighed. ‘Maybe . . . with this sea of light, I could get over it. It makes me feel calmer inside.’

As the afternoon light faded and his stomach started to rumble, he picked himself up and made his way back to the train station.

A
week later, Karl announced he wanted to become a journeyman carpenter, try his luck that way. He was twenty-five by now and fully apprenticed.

‘But you won’t be able to come home for three years and a day!’ Max exclaimed. Tradition forbad journeying craftsmen to come within fifty kilometres of their home town.

‘I know, Papa. But I can write. I just need to see the world and get out of this stuffy village. You of all people should understand.’

It was true; not only had he survived his epic journey back from Siberia, but when he was Karl’s age, he had done the same, and as a child, Karl had often asked him for stories about his journey.

‘Do whatever you need to do, son.’ Max kept a brave face. ‘It’s just . . .’ He didn’t finish his sentence as Erna put her hand on his arm. He understood his son’s restlessness but couldn’t bear to lose him again so soon.

So Max and Erna hugged their son goodbye and Karl set off on foot in full traditional costume: a black broad-brimmed hat, waistcoat, bell-bottom trousers and
stenz
, a curled hiking pole.

‘He’ll be fine, Max,’ Erna said. Max nodded but didn’t reply.

Years passed. Karl wrote letters from all over Germany and phoned once a month on a Sunday.

Then, one day, out of the blue, a particularly beautiful envelope arrived – thick paper adorned with golden writing. Max and Erna opened it together.

‘You wouldn’t believe it, he’s getting married!’ Max had locked himself into the bathroom to talk to the prince.

‘My son, my boy, he’s tying the knot. Look at her, isn’t she beautiful? And clever too. So young and she’s already a doctor. Maria, she’s called.’

After the wedding Karl and Maria visited twice a year – at Christmas and in the summer. Days before their arrival the house would smell of soap and apple cake but the short visits often disappointed, as the pair only stopped over briefly before travelling to places with more exotic names, such as Venice, Rome and Salzburg.

Then, seven years later, their first baby was born – a little baby girl they called Mara. Max cradled her in his arms like the most precious parcel as she gurgled and squirmed.

‘She’s so beautiful,’ he marvelled, ‘just perfect.’ Tears streamed down his face. Erna smiled but Karl looked embarrassed. Over the next months, then years, Max followed Mara’s progress like an eager dog chasing a ball.

‘Can she walk yet? How about her teeth? Has she said anything yet?’

Max wanted to know anything and everything about his grandchild and it pained him deeply that he only ever saw her twice a year. Indeed, little Mara touched a place no one else could. Whenever Mara was around, Max hummed, made up songs, carved little animals, and even built a doll’s house for his grandchild; the one child he would be able to see growing up.

Max pieced it together from the few words that tumbled from Karl’s mouth down the phone line three days after Mara’s third birthday.

‘Papa . . . we had an accident.’ His son was struggling to speak. Max’s heart contracted like a fist.

‘We’d been to the sea near Kiel, just a Sunday picnic. We were singing in the car . . . Then this truck behind us . . .’ His voice broke. ‘It ploughed into us. Our little Ford had no chance. I’m OK but Maria is dead, Papa, she bled to death in my arms. They didn’t get there in time.’ Karl sobbed.

‘And Mara?’ Max’s heart hammered.

‘She has a broken leg. She’s in shock. Hasn’t said a word since.’

‘Please just come home, Karl. We’ll take care of you.’

Karl and Mara stayed for a few weeks, and even after they returned to Hamburg they visited as often as they could. One day, amid his grief, Max remembered the puppets of Siberia. Hadn’t he and his comrades found some escape during that terrible time by making puppets out of a few rags, potatoes, a piece of wood and some straw? Even when they were cold to the bone and ravenous as wolves, hadn’t the puppets nourished at least their spirits? He stomped into the kitchen, plundered drawers and cupboards and gathered together bits and bobs: a tin-opener, a sieve, a few forks and a nutcracker. As he bound them together with wire and string, bent the forks into crooked shapes and adorned the sieve with strips of a towel he had cut into ribbons, strange creatures emerged. As his hands moved them across the kitchen table they sprang into life; and right there and then he put on a play for his granddaughter. That afternoon Mara smiled for the first time since the accident and even Erna stood laughing in her apron, not bothered by his raid on her kitchen.

But the prince stayed in his pocket, for he feared Mara’s innocent questions might pierce his heart.

Mara grew quickly. She never sat still, made up songs with her bubbling voice, ran around the garden, chasing birds, looking for bugs under stones – she was the sunshine in the family. Her strawberry-blonde curls bounced on her shoulders, and she screamed when Erna tried to tie her hair into orderly plaits. Mara’s eyes reminded Max of the colour of the Siberian lakes in autumn, a dark, near-emerald green.

Max loved his granddaughter dearly and yet so much life choked him. While his little Mara ran about giggling, in the ghetto a Mara with that same brimming life-force had been squashed like a worm, her bright flame extinguished with a single blow. Those children haunted him, at day in his granddaughter’s presence and at night in his fitful sleep. Always two Maras lived with him: his own granddaughter and a Mara whose life he had helped to snuff out. Mara’s eyes and the eyes of another. Always a double following him like a shadow, a twin of dust and ashes.

Max’s mood changed like the seasons or the phases of the moon. Some days he joked with Mara, letting her sit on his lap, telling her stories, then all of a sudden he would grunt at her like an old bear that had been disturbed in its sleep. And yet, over the years, Mara had found a way into his heart and helped him collect new, precious moments: her open arms as she ran towards him; questions that rolled from her mouth like coloured marbles, tumbling into his lap. Why is the sun hot? How much does a heart weigh? Where do we come from? Why do we die?

‘Maybe I’m being given a second chance?’ he said to the prince one night.

But still Max held his breath. Was Mara really the eternal sunshine she seemed to be? Sometimes when he glanced at her, he could see how much she still hurt. Deep inside her heart lay a place like an empty nest. Her mother had been taken and nothing could replace her. But still she kept smiling for her Papa and her Opa.

One day Mara was sitting on his lap in the garden while he read from a book.

‘Do you think it was my fault, Opa?’ she asked suddenly.

Max was taken aback. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Did Mama die because of me?’

‘No, of course not, sweetheart! Don’t ever think such a thing.’ He hugged her hard. That was when Max decided to introduce Mara to the prince.

‘I’ll show you something, Mara.’ He pulled the battered puppet from his pocket. Mara’s face lit up.

‘Can I play with him?’

‘Sure you can, here.’ Max handed her the prince, and within minutes Mara had made up a little show.

The prince seemed to revel in being made to dance by a child’s hands once more, like Sara’s before and Hannah’s, the orphans’ – it had been so long.

One day Max decided to buy Mara a puppet of her own: a Kasperl. Mara slipped her hand into the Kasperl puppet, making it jump up and down, begging Max to tell her more stories.

‘Please, Opa, this one again.’ And Max did.

From then on, every year on her birthday, Max presented Mara with a new puppet, sometimes even two, and by the time Mara turned ten, she had a beautiful collection of her own, complete with a Kasperl, his companion Gretl, a crocodile, a princess, a villain, a policeman and a monkey. Max even built a little stage for her.

His granddaughter’s visits kept a tiny spark burning, but often at night the tormenting demons of Warsaw and Siberia returned to haunt Max.

‘The war has drained everything out of me, my life; gutted me like a fish. I just don’t know how to live with all this guilt and rage that’s churning around inside me. No one wants to hear me speak about the war – the neighbours, Erna, Karl. They say I was just doing my duty. But I know I’m guilty. I knew no good would come of the deportations east. And yes, I tried to protect the boy’s mother and aunt; yes, I took that risk. If Peter hadn’t kept his mouth shut I would’ve been found out. But in the end it came to nothing. They were caught and sent away just like all the others. And didn’t I set fire to those last hiding places with my flame-thrower? I’ll never know whether the boy made it out alive.’ He sat bent over, holding his head in his hands, heavy as the world.

‘I feel like I’m floating on a sheet of ice. I’ve broken away from people and although I can see everyone, I can’t steer myself back to land. Even Erna and me, we hardly speak . . .’ Max fell silent for a long time, gazing at the prince.

‘And yet I do still love her. And I do love Karl. And my Mara. You. I just can’t show it well. Maybe you can show Mara at least?’ He wiped his eyes and took himself off to bed.

Only Mara could glimpse behind his mask. Max made up story after story for her, and after some time he even told Mara snippets about his life and his escape from Siberia.

‘What happened next, Opa?’ Everything was one big adventure for Mara, and sitting on his lap, fooling around with the puppets, she made Max laugh. Those summers with her Opa lit a deep passion within her and she understood that with the puppets she could reach behind the barriers into people’s hearts.

I
n the first days of spring 1969, Max’s cough got worse. Once the coughing took hold of him he couldn’t stop. The doctor’s prognosis was short and grim: three months if he was lucky. In the end Max lived for five. It was the tree in his chest that gave up; the cancer had already taken over the lungs and spread to his kidneys and bones.

‘Death doesn’t scare me,’ he whispered to the prince one night, ‘I’ve looked it in the eye so many times. But I need Karl to know my story. And you, my friend, can’t come with me wherever I am going. You need to stay here and tell the tale.’

Erna sighed and rolled over – she had heard Max many times in the depths of night, pouring his heart out to the prince. It filled her with deep sorrow that she was less of a support to him than an old, shabby puppet.

‘But I do love you, Erna.’ Realising that she was awake, Max tried to reassure her.

‘I know, Max,’ she said, but she knew that the gulf between them could never fully be bridged. And now, after so many years of waiting, they had run out of time.

Erna broke the news and Karl and Mara came immediately. Then something extraordinary happened. Within the space of a few days all of the carefully composed distance and formality between father and son melted away. In the presence of the cruel hourglass, they shared their truths – father to son, son to father. It was as if the tall, blue oxygen tank by his side helped Max to shift memories from his innermost being, then gently release them from his lips into the ears of his son. He talked about everything: about Warsaw, the ghetto, Mika, Siberia, the camp, the comrades who didn’t make it and the long journey home.

And this time Karl really listened with his heart open wide. He became like a boy again in that room at the end of that summer, receiving the stories of his father. Some days he cried.

‘Papa, there’s so much I want to ask you, so much I still want to know.’ Karl poured out his love for his papa. Both admitted regrets and resentments in one last flood of emotion. Feelings. They were both so full of feelings now, carrying them willingly on their tongues, in their eyes, in their breath. Finally. There was no time to waste.

But still Erna held back, bringing food and hot tea, cushions and medicines. She was there to help, to make everything as comfortable as she could, but her eyes stayed dry. She would cry alone.

One morning, just as the light in the room changed from grey to golden, Max produced the prince from under his pillow and fixed his eyes on his son.

‘Karl, I want to give you this dear friend of mine. Please treat him well. He might not look like much, but he’s been my companion, a witness to all my trials. This puppet has more life in him now than I do. Let him be a comfort to you and Mara.’

‘Thank you, Papa, I’ll take good care of him.’ Karl took the puppet with both hands and stared at it for a long moment.

‘Please tell Mara my story when she’s old enough – and I mean all of it. I want her to have the prince.’

Max was struggling to speak now, coughing, wheezing.

‘And Karl, there is something else. The boy’s name is Mika. Mika Hernsteyn. Karl, please try to find out what happened to him. It eats away at me, not knowing. Always has. I should’ve searched for him. Please, Karl. Maybe he’s still alive.’

‘I don’t know, Papa . . . It was so long ago.’ His voice sounded slightly strained but Max knew it was only fear.

‘Please, Karl. I really wanted to be a better father, be there for you. I wish they’d never sent me to Warsaw. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me if you can.’

Karl said nothing. Not about searching for Mika, nor about forgiveness. How could he forgive? It wasn’t up to him, and most of those who could possibly forgive were dead. Instead Karl told Max he loved him.

In those last days Mara often sat on Max’s bed, her two small hands animating her puppet company for Max. She had brought her entire collection and made up one story after another with such passion and fury, as if her lively plays could infuse Max with new life. But Mara also knew about death and in some small way her plays were also a reminder that life would go on.