Caging Skies

by Christine Leunens

  She told me about her parents, Herr and Frau Kor, who argued over how to serve oneself butter. Frau Kor cut a thin slice off the side; Herr Kor scraped it off the top. They had two schools of thought about everything, from how socks should be properly folded — flatly in two, or one balled up inside the other — to how prayers should be said — punctually out loud while rocking to and fro as was pleasing to God, or spontaneously to ourselves any time of the day, since God didn't need ears or a fixed appointment to hear. She told me about her two older brothers, Samuel and Benjamin, who dreamed of emigrating to America to buy and sell second-hand cars, and mostly she told me about her fiancé, Nathan.

  Nathan was brilliant at mathematics, he could speak four languages: German, English, French and Hebrew. Who, I argued, would consider Hebrew a language? Even if you don't, she answered, that's still three languages, fluently written, read and spoken, which is more than most people, you'd have to agree. I didn't. I wanted to argue that a Jew shouldn't be allowed to speak the German language at all, but couldn't insult him without insulting her, which proved to be the case on many occasions.

  Nathan played no sports, spent most of his time reading history, philosophy and mathematical theory. I couldn't believe she was so enthusiastic about such a bore. She could talk about him hours at a time, her dark eyes lit up, her chest expanded, her face dampened. She tossed her thick head of hair about as she sat with her short girlish legs bent to one side, then the other, her unusually small, over-arched feet bare on the rug, though I must say they looked more as if they were tightly wedged into invisible ball slippers. If I asked her just a little question about him, what did he think about this, or do about that, mostly to manifest my own superiority, on and on she went. Sometimes she closed her eyes and tilted her head to the side as though she were imagining she would get a kiss from him before she'd open them. I found myself feeling irritated every time she brought up his name, partly because she had a superior Aryan right in front of her eyes, and all she had eyes for was him! Not that I wanted her, or was jealous.

  One day (well after learning that his favourite colour was blue because it was the shortest ray in the light spectrum and the most bent, therefore it penetrated the sea and sky the deepest, that's why the sea and sky were blue; that his favourite word was serendipity, he liked to repeat it for no reason in her ear; that she knew they were meant for each other when they first met because he had some Ludwig Wittgensomething's Tractus Philosophicus in his hands, just like her, though the coincidence was stupid because they were both in the philosophy section of the same public library, where the only people in the world to have ever heard of the dryasdust were a batch of humdrum Viennese who loitered there every afternoon! — and that his feet were Greek because his second toe was longer than the first, but that was about the extent of his Greekness) I got up the courage to ask her if she had a picture of him.

  It was strange. I felt betrayed that she did have one, right there in my house, hiding in that secret space of hers! I told myself my anger was only because I'd been imposed upon, in a way, with a second unasked-for Jewish guest. She proudly showed me her mousy-looking dirty-blond fiancé in ugly tortoiseshell glasses. If they magnified tiny print, they certainly magnified his eyeballs — talk about two billiard balls! How could two human eyes be so protruding and yet so absent? And he was uglier than me! Jews did like ugly things: they did, they did! I wanted to tell her I wouldn't trade my face with his for anything in the world. I felt mad at her, too, for thinking the world of such a wretched runt.

  'Isn't he darling? Isn't he?' she insisted. 'When the war is over, we will get married. That sweet, erudite man will be my husband.'

  I watched her caress the outline of his puny pea-brained head. I didn't want or intend for the war to end, but my reasons were still unclear to me. This was not the case for long.

  If Elsa was by then prominent in my life, so was Nathan. He joined me for meals at the table, rambling on about some far-fetched theory as she batted her eyelashes at him instead of me. He was cramped up in that tiny space with her, embracing her; I could feel it. I wanted to pull him out of there by his feet, toss him out of the window for once and for all! Our whole house was their playground: they ran up and down the stairs hand in hand, giggled as they tumbled over our sofas and beds. How sweet that kiss would be, so long awaited, every one of her senses having been dulled in that enclosure. I imagined his meek fingers touching her cheeks, bringing her face nearer until his lips touched hers. It enraged me. Once in a while I dared imagine that kiss being mine, and felt a lump in my stomach and a kind of sluggishness all over. Was I becoming sick? Was she contaminating me? I was lowering myself, but somehow I didn't care. Who would know?

  I began to read the newspaper with a fresh eye. Every victory now brought Elsa closer to me. Every enemy attack was only to take her away from me. The war lost any other significance. Winning meant winning her. Losing meant losing her.

  The kiss became an obsession. I, who'd gone through all manner of trials of courage, who'd defended the Reich, found I was too cowardly to undertake this minute act. And she wasn't even an Aryan! I was furious with myself for spending so many hours with her, thinking of nothing besides, then being incapable of doing more than dumbly listen to her talk, captivated by every movement of her Valentine heart lips, nodding my head the whole time. It was agony, especially when she began chatting about him: all that had seemed possible turned impossible as if by black magic. Each goodbye left me with a profound sense of failure.

  I swore to myself, on my honour, that the next time I saw her, no matter what, I would just kiss her, full stop. I rehearsed the kiss a thousand times in my mind. The fact that she was in my house made me feel she was more rightfully mine than his. Then the time came. She'd stopped speaking and there was a brief silence. I hadn't moved yet, but was just about to — had already taken the initiative in my mind and was concentrating as hard as I could — when she looked at me, at the ridiculous expression I must have been making, and burst out laughing.

  Though usually I was fond of the way she closed one eye more than the other when she laughed, as if winking at me, it now irritated me no end. Her lips irritated me too, stretched so that her laughing looked like crying, so enjoyable was it to her.

  'Do you still remember, Johannes, that time you came into your sister's room to throw your slippers at us?' Her laughter rose, grew melodic. 'I never saw such a bad temper in all my life! You said it was your turn to play with her. You almost broke her violin — you wouldn't let go!' She messed up my hair.

  So that's how she thought of me! A little boy getting dragged away by the collar! How miserable I felt at that moment. She still saw me as my big sister's little brother. True, I was younger than her and her dear Nathan, but I was seventeen by then. Not only had I turned into a man, but I'd already been a soldier, didn't she realise it, a soldier? I was more a man when I was eleven years old, training, going on survival camps, than he would be at thirty, forty, or even a hundred! Her mousy Jew couldn't lift a wedge of cheese!

  After that affront, I went out to deliver conscription cards. I fumbled around the city, made mistake after mistake. I was supposed to go to Sonnergasse in the twelfth district; I went to Sommergasse in the nineteenth. I went to Nestroygasse in the second without knowing (or checking) whether there was any other Nestroygasse in Vienna, and there was, in the fourteenth. I spent the whole time thinking bad things about Elsa, to the point that I didn't notice anything around me. She should be dying to get my attention. Even if I'd been injured, disfigured, my genes were intact, superior to his, and all she could do was go on and on about such a nobody, which really showed what a nobody she was herself, and I should just open up my eyes, face what an inferior being I was wasting my time on. Didn't they teach us in school all anyone should know about Jews? Why was I making an exception out of her? Why didn't I just turn her in? That would be the best way to get rid of her. And about time, considering how long she'd made a laughing stock
out of me — as far back as I could remember.

  A woman was selling very expensive apples in the street. As I walked by, I saw at her feet what looked like a bunch of garden-grown daisies, in a bucket, whose two centimetres of water were probably from our last rain; and felt myself forgiving Elsa, longing to give them to her. There was no price so I caught the woman's eye to ask. She stepped back, making no effort to hide her aversion when she looked at me, as if I set out deliberately to offend her with my face. Two other customers turned to see what the big attraction was. My legs weren't fast enough to escape their long intake of breath.

  I had one last card to deliver. I knew the chances of seeing Elsa at that late hour were close to none, but I hurried to finish. I would slam the door so she'd know I was home. I imagined her waiting all day to hear that. I'd wanted to make her wait long, but now the separation was bothering me more than it probably was her.

  On the way to Hietzing I saw a woman standing on a pillory, the cardboard notice around her neck saying she'd had relations with a Slav. The woman's hair was shaved, so at first I'd assumed she was a man. A group of people were insulting her. A newcomer read the placard and spat on her face. The placard cut into her chin, preventing her from lowering her face to elude, at least psychologically, the harshest verbal attacks, if not the spit.

  I felt awkward as I walked freely by, my legs heavier, my every step stuck to the ground. I ended up dragging one leg along. Once distant from the scene, I tried to reason with the boy I used to be to snap out of whatever it was that was taking hold of me, but the battle was already three-quarters lost.

  My last conscription card was never delivered. Before I got to Penzing I bumped into a group of German fellows my age in chic English clothes with hair past their ears, down to the chin, dancing to American brass music in the streets. These 'Swingkids', as they called themselves, weren't really dancing, as dancing requires dignity and self-command. No, here, clusters of two, three of them pranced around one sole girl, not one of them courteous enough to step back and wait their turn. They hopped like rabbits, slapped hands, rubbed their rear ends together! One guy with two cigarettes in his mouth, clenching a bottle of spirits, dragged himself around on his knees, his head thrown back. Others were doubled over, their upper bodies hanging while their shoulder blades made spasms. They weren't sick, no — it was part of their so-called dance!

  I had a feeling at that moment we would lose everything. In fact, I only had to look at the destruction around me to know it. For the first time I knew that we were going to lose the war, and with it the morals, discipline, beauty and sense of human perfection we'd fought for. The world was changing, I could sense it, and not in the right direction. Even me. That was the most disappointing part of all. I'd let down Adolf Hitler, whom I'd revered.

  I didn't go home that night. All I did was wander aimlessly around the city, the peripheral bombings sounding like distant fireworks and awakening in me something as nostalgic.

  vii

  My mother was waiting for me with her face pressed against the window. Before I'd reached the gate she raced out to throw her arms around me. The previous year had taken its toll on her. Her lips were split at the corners, the rings under her eyes gave her a beaten look. White hairs curved out of her fine brown hair like the broken strings of a violin. While hugging her, I rested my chin on her head and looked at the vapour mouth she'd left on the glass, the unspoken progressively fading.

  I debated with myself whether I should tell her I knew about Elsa then and there. Elsa thought I ought not to. She was afraid that if I did, my mother would worry about my safety; she was anxious enough as it was. I was convinced that if ever Elsa was found out, Mutter would have taken all responsibility; nevertheless, I feared that if she knew I knew, she'd have Elsa moved somewhere else. On the other hand, speaking up would ease tensions, and maybe I could see her more. I hated it when whole days would go by and I could do no more than scratch the wall in passing, or slip in a note on which it seemed a five-year-old had scribbled down one of our old greetings — Grüß Dich, Guten Tag, Hallo, Servus. This she would have to hide and I would have to throw away next time we met in case my mother came across it.

  Early the next morning I sprang out of bed with the good resolution to tell my mother all, but an unforeseen incident stopped me. Pimmichen, hearing me go by, grumbled that she wasn't feeling well. I guessed she just wanted me to make her breakfast in bed, the way Pimbo used to do, and I went in and opened her shutters. The twinkle in her eyes showed me I was right. Autumn was worse than winter in our house because we didn't put coal in the stoves yet, so there was a phase where it was cold, but not cold enough to heat. It would have to get colder before it could get warmer.

  That's when I saw 'O5' painted on the house across from ours. I thought it had been written for me to see as I opened up those very shutters, which was a ridiculous thought since I was not the one who usually did so. Pimmichen's room was on the same side as Elsa's niche, so I figured someone had intended it as a threat to her and, consequently, our household. 'O' stood for 'Oesterreich', in the way it was written nine hundred years ago, and 'e', the following letter, was the fifth in the alphabet, thus O5. In modern times the 'O' and the 'e' were replaced by 'Ö', hence 'Österreich'. It was the code of the Austrian resistance, painted on political posters and administrative walls across town. I couldn't get my eyes off it. Our neighbours, Herr and Frau Bvlgari, stood at their window also, and we eyed one another mistrustfully. It was evident to me that they knew. Had they seen Elsa go by the window just once? Had they been spying on my mother? Or was it to do with my father and his long absences? Were all these fears interrelated somehow? What did it mean?

  My worries were replaced by worse ones when my mother went outside to have a better look and came running back in. It was painted on our house, too — that's what Herr and Frau Bvlgari had had their eyes glued on. My mother saw it more as an accusation than an advertisement because it wasn't on any of the other houses. Losing no time, I went to the cellar to find a last can of Schönbrunner Yellow paint. The skin had to be removed to get to the liquid part. Plopped on the newspaper, it looked like the naïvely blissful sun of a schoolchild's drawing. No matter how many coats Mutter and I took turns applying, the yellow failed to extinguish the black. From then on, there was a mark on our house.

  My mother was a bundle of nerves after that. If I made the mistake of coming into a room without announcing myself she wheeled around, clasping her hands to her heart. Every time the wind jiggled a window she cried out, 'What's that? Who's there?' She claimed she heard little noises when she picked up the telephone, noises unlike the breathy curiosity of the women who shared our party line. She came downstairs in the morning never believing, as sure as she stood and snapped her fingers, that things were as she'd left them. 'What's that cup doing there?' 'It was mine, Mutter, remember?' She compulsively rearranged ashtrays until her nervousness affected me, and tended to Elsa's needs less, afraid she was being watched. She tended to herself less, too: remained in her dressing-gown and slippers all day and took long naps. Elsa began to live in the dark for days on end without relief. Luckily I went by in the afternoons to offer her a kind word, fresh water, or a cold boiled potato.

  The days grew shorter. It was dark before the afternoon was over, and stayed dark when the clock showed that morning was well under way. That autumn struck me as exceptionally cold; maybe it was just because we were eating little. Some days we had no more than broth, old bread and a turnip. I went to bed in my clothes, my pyjamas balled up under me, and only when the temperature was bearable did I make the switch.

  At three one morning the sound of weeping woke me up. I sat up and jumped out of bed. Elsa was on her knees with her head against the frame of my door. It took me a second to work out her position because her hair was covering her face like a veil, so at first it seemed her legs were going back the wrong way. I rushed to her; it was the first time I'd held a woman. She was so cold: I squeezed
and rubbed her everywhere I could, conscious of her every bone. She smelt of urine and her mouth had the acidity of hunger but it didn't bother me.

  'She doesn't come any more, your mother, Frau Betzler. Tsures! I will die!' she cried. I beckoned her to come back into bed with me to get warm, but it didn't work. She sucked her thumbnail without responding. I found a compromise. She could warm herself in my bed without me — if she hurried it would still be warm from me. This she accepted. She allowed me to rub her back through the covers.

  'Please, Johannes, find me something to eat.'

  I found my way with a candle, not giving two hoots if my mother heard me. I lit the gas, soaked the bread I found in a little leftover broth to soften it. It seemed forever before the first steam rose off the top, and the whole time Pimmichen's snoring irritated me. A full-grown man couldn't make such a racket through his nose in broad daylight even if he tried — I knew because I'd already tried to see if I possibly could and I couldn't — how could she do it in her sleep? All at once I felt as angry with her as I did my mother.

  Coming back was trickier: I couldn't hold the candle between my teeth and under my arm had its risks. I had to melt the candle on to a plate big enough to hold the bowl and walking with it was a balancing act. I was glad Elsa wasn't looking when I maladroitly set it on the bed. The flame encompassed us in a faded yellow spot.

  She just about choked gobbling the bread from my palm. I went back for some water, brought it to her lips, my lesser arm doing its best to hold up her head. Her face was sticky and wet from eating and crying. Her eyes, lit up with that perceptible gleam of intelligence, were set in an unusually pale, narrow face with dark rings under them, and straddled a perfectly straight nose that was set upon her face a bit too high, giving her a majestic bearing that could have, in other circumstances, bordered on arrogance. Her eyebrows were the only asymmetrical feature and gave the impression that each eye was feeling differently from the other. She breathed in a resigned way, one eye contented, the other one preoccupied. I kissed her before I knew what I was doing. She didn't do anything to kiss or push me back. What was love to me was passive gratitude to her.