Caging Skies

by Christine Leunens

  'Rats.'

  That's when she began to find excuses to get me out of the house. Pimmichen needed some medication or another, even when Pimmichen insisted she didn't — yes, yes, she did, she had rashes on her backside, her throat was dry, she must be coming down with a sore throat, and what about some menthol cream for her arthritis? The minute she suggested maybe I could volunteer to help out with the war I knew she was trying to get rid of me. In a city that was being bombed, what I needed most for my wellbeing was fresh air!

  So I went back to my old Hitler Youth branch and volunteered to help. They were in great need of assistance and had no qualms about my handicap. That very day I was back in my Hitler Youth uniform, carrying conscription cards across the city by foot. I thought there had been a mistake when a man in his fifties took the conscription card, said it was for him, not his son, who was dead. The woman who answered the door at the next address was older. She called out 'Rolf' and her husband came out, leaning over with a stiff back to take the card. Why in the world old men were being recruited I could not understand. I massaged my knuckles, knocked on Wohllebengasse 12 in the fourth district and, after a long wait, Herr Grassy cracked the door open and stuck his head out. He took in my mutilated face, uniform, loose sleeve, as though instead of being proud of me, he was disappointed at how I'd turned out. He'd grown old since I saw him last. His sagging eyes and baldness reminded me of a turtle, or maybe it was just his glumness and slow movements.

  'Thank you.' He was only quick to turn the key behind himself.

  Back home, I wanted to sew my sleeve up in a way that would make it look less pathetic. Going through the drawers of my mother's sewing machine I found an old Danube Dandy candy box containing reels of thread packed so tightly together it was difficult to get one out. I wanted to compare the tones of brown to find the one closest to my material, so I tapped the back until the cotton-reels fell out. That's when I noticed that the tin container had two bottoms, and in between, a passport.

  Opening it up, I saw a small black and white photograph of a young girl with big eyes and a small, pretty smile. At first I thought it was someone in my family when they were younger. But then I saw the 'J' added on, as well as the name Sarah, to Elsa Kor. My heart was pounding. Were my mother or father taking special care of this Jewish individual? Had they helped her to escape abroad?

  All kinds of thoughts went through my mind at that moment. I would've examined the passport longer but I had to put it back before anybody found out I knew of its existence. I was infuriated at my parents for risking their lives, even more because it was in our house, where it could incriminate me along with them. At that point, though, what I regretted most was their idiocy. They were obviously illogical and unscientific. Then I was overtaken by an irrational fear: what if Elsa Kor was someone from our own family? Had my father ever cheated on my mother with a Jewish woman? Were any of my ancestors — just one, by any chance — Jewish? The possibility of not being a pure Aryan devastated me most. If ever the passport was found, some hidden fact could come flying straight back in my face. Perhaps this is what, above all, kept me from confronting my parents.

  Next time Pimmichen and my mother were outside taking air, I strolled about calling out, 'Yoohoo, anybody home? Yoohoo? Anybody upstairs? Downstairs? Answer me!' I was sure I heard a tiny noise upstairs — a crack, not more, barely perceptible. Careful to make little noise, I stepped up the first flight of stairs, up the more stiffly ascending second flight, down to the end of the hallway to my father's study, then retraced my steps back to the guest room to a wall I for some reason couldn't stop staring at, felt was holding its breath.

  That night I felt my way up slowly, step after step, and only after I'd reached the top did I light the candle. It took me a long time because I had to advance very little at a time in order not to make the floorboards creak. I felt a presence and became afraid, as though it could be my grandfather still among us. The wall seemed to breathe in its sleep, however softly, I could have sworn I heard it. I myself had trouble breathing. It was hot and there was no air up there. Then I saw it, in the flickering candlelight, a line in the wall, so fine it couldn't be seen in the daytime, but at night the shadow accentuated it. I followed it with my eyes; it led me to another line, then another. The ceiling was sloped because the rooms on this third storey were directly under our roof — this whole section used to be part of our attic. The walls were thus short, and one of them, two feet in front of the original, was made of panels covered with wallpaper. It was so well done, no one would ever have suspected it. Behind it there was a wedge of space wide enough for someone to lie down but not to turn over easily, high enough to sit up but not to stand, and in sitting, the neck inevitably must bend. Someone was behind this wall.

  All night I tossed and turned in my bed, wondering what to do. I cannot deny I considered denouncing my own parents. Not for the glory of my act, but because they were opposing what was good and right in opposing our Führer. I felt I had to protect him from his enemies. But in reality, I was too afraid for my own skin: something might come out that I would rather not have known. The best solution would be for me to kill the girl, if it really was her hiding there. My mother would find her dead, and this would serve her right, if not bring her to her senses. She had no right caring for a dirty Jew in the first place.

  My next problem was when and how to kill her. I decided I would wait until the next time my mother was out, then strangle her. That would be the cleanest way. But it might not be possible for me with one hand. From the picture, I could tell she was a sly, nimble little girl. What if she escaped? No, I would slit her throat with one of my pocket-knives. I looked at them carefully, turned them over one by one before choosing one of Kippi's old ones, given me by his mother. That way Kippi would be helping me.

  Two long days went by before my chance came — two endless days, two restless nights. My mother closed the front door and I dropped everything I was doing to rush upstairs. I didn't care that my grandmother wasn't sleeping; I couldn't wait any longer. I held on to my knife so tight the spine-like rucks of the handle hurt my hand, then had to open the panel, which I was unable to do. I kept forgetting I didn't have two hands any more. I slid the tip of the blade into one of the cracks and levered until it gave. It was fixed on five oily hinges and opened a thumb's width. I took in a breath, used my shoulder to swing it open completely, and resolved to come down with the knife as hard as I could on whatever I found. But my arm proved disobedient to my brain's commands. Stuck in the small space at my feet was a young woman. A woman. I was staring her right in the face as she tilted her head up sideways at me. A mature woman with breasts, whose life was entirely mine as she looked at me with stifled fear — or maybe it was only curiosity, a simple wondering as to who her murderer was. I'd even say that out of the corner of her eye she perceived my blade with resignation, as though whatever choice I made in the next tenth of a second she would accept. She didn't move at all, not even her eyes did, nor did she resist in any way.

  I was unable to breathe, unable to look away. I brought the knife down upon her in a soporific manner, just to prove to myself I could. By the time it stopped against her throat I was sickly fascinated. I knew at that moment that if I didn't destroy her, Jew that she was, she would destroy me, yet the danger was bitter-sweet. It was like having a woman as a prisoner in my own house, a Jew in a cage. Somehow it was exciting. At the same time I was disgusted with myself because I failed to do my duty. She must have known the knife wasn't her foe any more, because tears welled up in her eyes and she looked away, stupidly exposing her neck. I closed the panel and left.

  vi

  From then on, I observed my mother to see if she knew what had happened. If she did, nothing gave it away, not the slightest false batting of her eyelashes. She was more discreet than ever, yet everything she did, everything she carried up or down, however intimate, all at once became so obvious. I had to pretend I wasn't aware of the intrinsic organisation that
kept the young woman alive. Every time I opened my mouth I was afraid of making a slip of the tongue.

  Who was she? How had my parents known of her? Did they belong to some clandestine organisation? How long had she been there? Years? Had she become a woman in our home, closed up in such a small dark space? Was it possible? Or had the picture on her passport been taken years back? I went to look for it so I could check the dates, but it was gone; in fact, the box of cotton-reels was no longer there.

  From that moment on, whatever I was doing, freely, I couldn't help but compare it with what she must be doing, lying in the dark, feeling the walls. I wondered what she was thinking up there, what she thought of me. Did she fear me? Did she think I'd have her arrested? Did she expect to see me again? Did she say anything to my mother? 'Your son tried to kill me.' 'Be careful. He knows.'

  At the same time, I was aware I hadn't lived up to the standards of Adolf Hitler and a sense of guilt came and went inside me. I tried to convince myself I hadn't behaved so badly — what harm could she do to the Reich as long as she was closed up? Bothering no one more than a mouse in its hole? And who would know that I knew? Besides, she wasn't a guest in our house, she was a prisoner. Sometimes I tried to forget about her, and told myself over and over that she didn't exist. She was just a figment of my imagination: I had the power to make her come and go as I pleased. When the right time came, I would make her vanish.

  My father came home for the weekend and was nicer to me. I wondered if he knew that I knew; maybe that's why he changed his mind, decided I wasn't as bad as he'd thought. I couldn't know. I dropped hints to Pimmichen, talked about skeletons in closets, people never knowing how many were really living under their roof, but she had no idea what I was alluding to, just thought I meant ghosts and told me not to make loony conversation. Her behaviour proved her innocence. As the rations became smaller, she scraped my mother's leftovers into my dish, ignoring her protestations. My mother watched me to see whether or not I would eat them, which to me signified whether or not I knew. I looked her straight in the eyes and ate.

  Little by little, Elsa leaked out of her enclosure, strayed out into every corner of the house. The table was two floors below her and on the opposite side of the room but even there she got to me, made her presence felt. In my bed at night she switched places with me, she enjoying the softness of my bed and I finding myself cramped in her airless niche.

  I made myself wait before I went to see her again, but after a week my patience ran out. I don't know what I expected, certainly answers to my questions, but I changed my mind at least twice before going up. What did I have to be afraid of? Getting caught by my parents? The Gestapo? It wasn't just that.

  She frowned at the daylight; I think it hurt her eyes.

  'I don't know day from night any more,' she said, wincing, covering her face with her two small hands, whose fingernails were chewed down past the pink. Then she opened two fingers to uncurtain one eye, like my sister used to do when playing peek-a-boo with me.

  Her hair was primitive, thick and black, hadn't been combed for some time, and there were fine black hairs sticking to the sides of her face and neck. Her eyes had a raw, primal glaze over them and were so dark I had to look hard to make out the pupils. Even her eyelashes were plentiful enough for her to be defined as hairy. I looked away in distaste and caught a glimpse of myself in the glass of a framed lithograph of Vienna in the nineteenth century, with women in long dresses and feathery hats. My face was hideous. Framed, in sorts, it looked like one of those degenerate paintings we had cracked our sides laughing at when shown by our teacher in school. Half of it was as it had been, but the other half was minus the cheekbone, and that eye protruded slightly, enough to make my face two faces rather than one. The scars pulled my lips on the marred side, stretching them out in a smile as though death never wanted me to forget it had played a joke on me. Instead of me joining it, it had joined me, was alive and walking with me, grinning at my every move.

  I found it hard to look at her after just seeing myself, but she contemplated me as though I were peculiar, and not just because of my face. I mean, the way she looked at me, I never would've known my face had been mutilated. Other people looked from one side to the other in a moral panic, tried to pick one to talk to but kept getting drawn back to the other, which I could tell revolted them as they fought harder to stay focused on the good side. I saw all this confusion pass across their faces. But nothing on my face seemed out of place to her. It was one whole face in front of one person, and then, to my simultaneous satisfaction and dissatisfaction, I remembered that Jews were fond of the kind of ugly artwork they made.

  In my mind I was guessing how many years older she was than me — five, six, at least.

  'What's your name?'

  'Elsa Kor.'

  'I think you mean, Elsa Sarah Kor.'

  She didn't answer. I would've liked to feel an anger I didn't. I looked down to see what she was fingering: a puzzle piece of a daisy field. There were other pieces around her, mixed in with crumbs and candle stubs.

  'How long have you been in my house?'

  She made a know-nothing expression by pursing her lips, lips needing nothing of the sort to distract the eye to begin with; besides being full, her upper lip dove down in the middle like a child's stick drawing of an airborne bird or the top of a Valentine heart. I watched her as she picked up more puzzle pieces. She examined them individually against her eye as if she were testing monocles. Last time she had been wearing one of my mother's nightgowns. This time, despite the heat, she had an additional shawl wrapped around her. There was something forbidden about her — maybe it was the Nuremberg Laws, which made it illegal for Aryans to have physical relations with Jews.

  I told her she could come out. She said thank you, after which she took to biting her fingernails anew. We stayed like that in silence until I wanted to go away, but didn't know how I could. I wanted to just close her up and leave, as I had the last time, only I couldn't bring myself to. I wished she'd be the one to say something. Pimmichen coughed and we both pretended to jump. In my hurry to close the panel, and in hers to help me, she lost a puzzle piece. I picked it up, turned it back and forth, from the blank cardboard, strangely human in form, to the amorphous fragment of a field. The limited view made it all the more vast and desirable: it was like watching a garden from a dungeon keyhole. I dropped it in my pocket.

  After that, for some reason, I wanted her to hear me as much as possible. I came home hoping my voice sounded joyous and carried upstairs. 'Pimmichen! It's me! I'm back!' Before retiring, 'Pimmichen, goodnight! I'm off to bed!' 'Mutti, where did you put my map? I want to check something out.' I moved about the house stomping, grated my chair from my desk, added to my every cough and yawn. I wanted her to be as aware of my presence as I was of hers. My mother told me not to make so much clamour, but Pimmichen reminded her it was the only way she could hear me with her bad ear.

  A few days later I went to see her again, this time drumming my fingers on the partition before opening up. I actually felt I was intruding on her, she who was the intruder in my house! My pretext was that she'd lost a puzzle piece — I acted as if I'd just seen it on the floor. That's when she saw my hand, or I should say my missing hand. The pain on her face was terrible; my heart sank. It was as if she'd seen an ominous sight. She reached her hands out and squeezed it, I mean there where it should've been. Although I knew very well she was inferior to me and therefore I had no reason to appreciate it, no woman had ever made such a gesture to me before.

  'That was my greatest fear when I used to play the violin,' she whispered. 'Losing the hand I pressed the strings with. I used to tell Ute; it made her laugh.'

  Upon hearing my sister's name I was taken aback. She reminded me of someone fuzzy in my memory. Yes, something of her face rang a bell. She smiled at the sparks of recognition in my eyes. So that was who she was. The girl who used to come over all the time and practise violin with Ute!

  I looke
d down at the hand she was and wasn't holding. I was so moved that I didn't disgust her — a woman, any woman — that I thought I might cry. I had to get away before that happened.

  That night a drunkenness came over me. My life, so intolerable all these months since my injury, whose minutes and hours had been supremely boring, had taken an unexpected turn. Every minute was now intense; my heart drummed in my chest as I became aware of myself each morning, before I'd even opened my eyes. Would or would I not get to see her? How would I go about it? It was exciting, imaginatively challenging, and I felt alive. The tables had been turned. Now I was the one to suggest that my mother go out of the house to get some fresh air, that she was looking pale. Or shouldn't we go to see my father at the factory? Go for provisions? When my mother was ready, with her basket on her arm, I'd be overtaken by lassitude. Let her go on without me.

  If it's true I'd tried to get the young woman off my mind, by that time I was also trying to get Adolf Hitler off it. His constant reproach about my shortcomings irked me: my incapability, indecorum, infidelity, all starting with in and ejecting me out of his good opinion. Whenever I came across a picture of him in a magazine, father figure that he was, my insides contracted and I quickly turned the page.

  ***

  For over a year she and I lived together in the same house in this insane manner. The latent danger made the trust come and go. I went to see her whenever it was possible without anyone knowing, and gradually an awkward affinity grew between us. I asked her about my sister. I told her about Kippi, the survival camps, the way I was injured, but had to be careful of what I said. Oddly enough, it was harder for me to talk to her than it was for her to talk to me — she censored herself less. I told myself, rightly or wrongly, that this was more because of her loneliness than out of real trust in me: I was the only one close to her age she had to talk to. Sometimes she looked happy to see me, but there, too, I deemed it was because it was just time to step out of her confinement.