Motherland

by Maria Hummel

  “Please hurry,” Liesl said to Uta.

  Uta opened the door. She’d spent all morning plucking her eyebrows, and her penciled hairs darted up her forehead.

  “If there’s cake, I want some,” she said. “I’ve been dying for some cake.” Then she walked over to the couch, pulled a blanket up, and closed her eyes.

  “You don’t have to go back with him,” Liesl said.

  “Present me with another option,” Uta said in a muffled voice.

  “All right, I will.” Liesl bent down and patted Jürgen, dozing in his cradle like a loaf that has outrisen its pan. He would have to move to a real crib soon. Frank had promised to build him one when he returned. She blinked hard.

  She clomped down the hall. In the past few days, Hans and Ani had made another fort of their closet room, blankets drooping from the hooks that had once hung coats, casting cavernous shadows over both their beds.

  “Ani!” she said, and the boy hatched out, his fair hair feathery with static. Overall, he looked better—not well, but better. He hadn’t gone outside since the day the children had hurt him, and the bruises were gone. He wasn’t complaining of stomach pain anymore. If she could get him to the country, away from the rough kids and constant air raid alarms, he could continue to improve. Last night, she’d written a polite note to Dr. Becker explaining that she had found a new doctor and declining any more of his services. She’d post it on the way to Frau Hefter’s.

  “Fräulein Müller is going to stay with you and Jürgen while I go to the meeting.”

  “Why can’t I go?” said Ani, holding his green blanket aloft.

  “I need you to help Fräulein Müller with the baby,” she said.

  The boy made a face, but he didn’t protest.

  “Can birds be born in bars?” he said, then corrected himself when he saw her puzzled expression. “In a cage?”

  “You and your questions,” said Liesl. “I suppose so. Why?”

  “Parrots live really old,” said Ani. “I could live really old if I were a parrot.”

  “I like you as a boy.” She kissed him and hurried from the room.

  Uta was sitting up again, next to the cradle, puffing on a cigarette. “You can’t show up in those boots.”

  “They’re all I have,” said Liesl, plucking Jürgen from the cradle and hugging him to her.

  “You take my word for it: The others will be wearing their finest at her house,” said Uta. She stared into the clouded air in front of her.

  “No one owns anything fine,” Liesl protested.

  “Oh, yes they do,” said Uta. “They may live fifteen brats to a bedroom but they’ve got a silk blouse and lace hanky stashed away to impress the Empress Hefter. Trust me.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” said Liesl, but she slid out of her warm sturdy boots and put on the evening slippers that she had worn to the dances at the spa. “I won’t be gone long.” She handed the baby to Uta, ignoring his protests, and ran out the door.

  Uta was wrong. Of all the people in the room, only the infants were well-dressed—swaddled in thick blankets and suits that predated the war. An infant did not run and fall in the mud or stain his pants with gooseberry jam. An infant didn’t wear out the elbows of her dresses or have holes in her heels. Hovering by the table with its few proffered Kuchen, the older children all wore mismatched sizes and patterns. The women’s stockings and footwear were in the worst shape. It was clear who had darned a hole more than once, or who had run out of polish. Even Frau Hefter’s skirt seams were slightly faded, and the buckle on her right shoe had been obviously repaired.

  Liesl took an empty chair, trying to think of something to say. The women’s conversations, all hushed, seemed coded by long acquaintance, only first names mentioned, and fragments of news. Most of it was bad news. She gathered that one woman’s son had lost an arm in France and was home now, but never left the house. Another mother was worried about her daughter, who’d stopped hearing from her fiancé. Another kept complaining about someone named Heinrich, and what he had stolen from her. Uta would know how to interject, how to turn attention on herself long enough to be included, but Liesl sat there stiffly, biting her lip. Cups clattered against saucers. The air smelled of bitter ersatz tea and the dregs of cologne the women dabbed against their necks.

  She was surprised when Berte Geiss sat down beside her, holding an issue of Frauen Warte, the national magazine for women. “Good reading?” Liesl said.

  “It’s all right.” Berte looked prewar, her legs smooth as tusks, her prim blue skirt topped by a white silk blouse with puffy sleeves.

  The magazine had changed since Liesl had last read it, in her first days at the spa, trying to accustom herself to the idle talk of the mistresses and female staff. Back then, the articles had focused on motherhood and fashion, and the supporting roles women could play to their beloved soldiers, workers, and farmers. But the articles Berte flipped through were about making temporary furniture after an air raid, and profiles of the women who served the war as anti-aircraft gunners. In the illustrations and photographs, the female faces seemed thinner and more determined, as if the war had sharpened them.

  Liesl debated about saying something to Berte about the transformation. She didn’t approve of Berte, but the girl had kept her distance and left Hans alone. And they were neighbors, after all.

  “The women of 1945. We all look so grim in the pictures,” she said finally. “You’d think we’re made of iron.”

  “This issue is actually a year old,” Berte said, flipping the page. “They didn’t have any newer ones.”

  A plane roared low overhead and the room fell quiet. It was a curious kind of quiet. No one stopped talking, exactly, but they stopped knitting and sewing and gesturing in response to each other, and the words just cluttered in the air, unlistened to, until the whine of the engines lessened and the plane rose out of earshot. When the chatter resumed, every conversation in the room revolved around someone missing or dead: a brother, a father, a son, even a few daughters and sisters. And worse, nothing really distinguished missing and dead. People used the same past tense to talk about them.

  “Has Hans come to talk to you about his father?” she said.

  Berte’s eyes were fastened on an ad for Nivea cream. “No. Hans has not come to talk to me,” she said, enunciating each word. “I believe that was prohibited.”

  Liesl threw up her hands. So much for trying to be friendly.

  Two of the Hefter boys came in, hauling a hay bale.

  “What is this?” several of the women cried.

  “Friends,” said Frau Hefter, clapping her hands. “I give you the latest example of peasant hamstern. I had to trade some lovely hand-painted porcelain for this bale of straw.” She pulled out a few booklets from her skirt pocket and held them up. “Today we’re making slippers for our soldiers in the hospital. Their boots are in awful disrepair.” She paused, her eyes falling on Liesl and Berte. “Let’s do this together. There should be enough here that everyone can work in partners, doing one slipper each.”

  The boys cut the twine on the bale and began doling out handfuls. The smell of the dried straw pervaded the room. The scent was like an autumn field after a long hot dusk, like the days when her whole family pitched in at haying time, raking the straw cut by the mower. Her aunt and uncle sang folk songs. They all wore long sleeves to keep from scratches and bugs, and hung the sweat-soaked clothes outside to dry overnight, donning the stiff cotton again at dawn. Liesl could still remember the salty taste of her own dress sliding over her head and mouth.

  She tried again with Berte. “I’ve been thinking of moving the children to the country.”

  “Which country?” Berte took the straw and pamphlet the Hefter boys delivered to them.

  “I mean a farm. For Ani’s sake,” said Liesl. “I think the quiet would help him.”

  Berte snorted. “There isn’t a quiet spot in all of Europe right now.”

  “Porcelain for this stuff!” exc
laimed a neighbor, the straw sliding through her hands. The other partners were bending together, giggling over their clumsiness as they tried to understand the pattern. One person had to hold four blades at either end and make a loom, while the other person wove single blades through. You were supposed to make a tight flat mat for the sole, and then use felted gray wool for the shoe. Three things were clear: The hay was from last summer. The footwear would be brittle, uncomfortable, and mostly useless. And the women would make it anyway.

  “Who’s going to wear this crap?” whispered Berte.

  Frau Hefter’s eyes swung toward them.

  “Never mind,” Liesl snapped. “I’ll do it. Read your magazine.”

  But the girl took the straw and started to sort it, too, hissing through her teeth. All around Liesl and Berte, the room fell into the hum and buzz of separate conversations, but the two of them remained silent. The sound of the other women talking made Liesl feel intensely alone. She wished Uta had come.

  Berte suddenly spoke. “Your upstairs neighbor is going to work for us.”

  “Who?”

  “Frau Dillman. The old man hired her as his new Putzfrau,” said Berte.

  “She can hardly keep her own house straight,” Liesl grumbled.

  Berte rolled her eyes. “I don’t think she’s coming to dust and mop.”

  “Oh.” Liesl blushed.

  Berte smirked. “At least she’ll be too busy to eavesdrop on you now.” Her voice sounded friendlier. “Look. I’m sorry about what happened with Hans. I just wanted to get out of here, and Hans said that he would help me get a message to someone.” She looked Liesl in the eyes, pressing her painted lips together. “I knew I could trust him. He’s that kind of kid. I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings.”

  Liesl fumbled with another piece of straw. It broke as she tried to weave it. “Where will you go?”

  Berte didn’t answer for a minute. “Nowhere,” she said in a small voice. “I’m stuck.”

  Liesl didn’t know how to reply. Uta was stuck, too, and Liesl couldn’t help her, either. She turned the slipper over and tried working the straw through backward. The stalk slit her knuckle, making it bleed. She let the slipper fall and sucked on the cut. The blood tasted rich and strange.

  “I’m no good at this,” she said.

  “No one is. You want to go? I’ll go with you,” said Berte.

  Liesl shook her head. With Uta leaving, she needed friends.

  “You go,” she said. “I’ll finish both.”

  A door slammed. “Dresden is totally destroyed!” shouted a voice.

  The room fell quiet as a boy ran in, declaring the city was burning; two or more separate attacks had flattened the central core and were sending fires raging through the rest. From somewhere the tinny sound of the radio began to seep through the questions and replies, and people shushed to listen. Liesl saw Berte slump forward.

  “I’m going to be sick,” said Berte, cupping her mouth.

  “I’ll take you to the bathroom,” Liesl said.

  Berte shook her head. “Outside,” she said through her fingers.

  Liesl rose and grabbed Berte by the shoulders, steering her through the falling straw, the unfinished shapes of men’s feet. The wives crowded closer to the radio.

  “But there are such big factories there,” protested a woman. “The Americans invested a lot of money in them.”

  “Firestorm in the city center . . .” said the voice on the radio. “Walls of flame . . .”

  Liesl shoved through them, towing Berte. “Excuse me,” she said. “Excuse me.” They passed Frau Hefter, her pretty face condensed by fear, then a threshold, and then the cold air. The windows of the houses flashed with the orange light of late afternoon. Liesl stopped, uncertain. The girl’s hand fell from her mouth and she gulped for breath.

  “Do you want to go back in?” Liesl asked after a moment.

  “No.”

  “Home?”

  Berte nodded.

  Liesl checked the skies. Clear, empty. She knew she ought to say a proper good-bye to their host, but she towed the girl away from the house. Berte was still breathing hard.

  “Did you know someone there?” Liesl asked gently.

  “No,” said Berte. “Everyone I know is in Berlin. Or dead.” She made a little noise, almost a laugh. “I thought it would be easier to live among strangers. That way I wouldn’t care if—” She glanced sideways at Liesl. “I know I’m supposed to be stoic like the rest of you. Your husband’s missing. But no weeping, right? They had a sign up in the public shelter near our apartment: NO WEEPING.”

  “I’m not stoic,” said Liesl, but she didn’t know what else to say to the girl’s outburst. She couldn’t tell Berte about Frank. She was suddenly anxious to get home to Uta, to convince her once and for all to hide somewhere instead of going back to Berlin. She squeezed the girl’s arm and they hurried along in silence, heads down, as if they were afraid of being seen.

  When they reached Liesl’s gate, Herr Geiss emerged from his front door. He had something hanging from his fist. It was Ani, bent in half, stumbling.

  “Trying to steal from me!” Herr Geiss shouted, lurching down his front steps. Ani clattered after him. Old paintbrushes fell to the snow. The boy crawled among them, whimpering.

  “Careful,” Liesl shrieked. “Please—”

  Herr Geiss scowled. “I caught him sneaking down my stairs.”

  Liesl turned to Ani. “But where is Fräulein Müller?”

  “She left,” said Ani, talking woodenly to the snow, the scattered brushes. “The man said he could give her a ride in his car, but not me; I didn’t have to go.”

  “Where’s your baby brother?” Liesl cried, and tore away from them. Herr Geiss called her back, but she barely heard. Her feet floundered in the snow—oh why had she been so vain to wear these useless slippers! The glass-plated door seemed to get farther and farther away.

  “Frau Winter,” Ani said. “Frau Winter has him. I didn’t have to go. You said I had to go, but I don’t. He said I don’t.”

  Liesl stopped, her coat falling against her damp neck. She groped for her pockets, for a handkerchief. She pulled out the wool scarf, pressed it to her chapped lips. “Was it the man who came before for Fräulein Müller?”

  “No,” said Ani. “She took her suitcase. And your boots. I didn’t have to go.” He was still on his hands and knees, staring at the brushes in the snow, and his head began to twitch. Liesl grabbed his hand and towed him to his feet.

  “Frau Kappus. If we could discuss the matter at hand,” Herr Geiss said, his chest puffing.

  “Leave her alone,” Berte said.

  Herr Geiss cleared his throat. “Go inside, Berte.” His face was still furious.

  “I think you should leave her alone,” Berte’s voice rang out.

  “Go inside,” he repeated, louder.

  Berte turned slowly and walked up the steps. She looked back once at Liesl and gave a sad shrug, as if to say, What else do you expect?

  “Now, about the boy,” Herr Geiss said again.

  Ani trembled under his gaze. Liesl cupped the boy’s shoulders and propelled him toward their door. “Go ahead in. I’ll be along in a moment.”

  To her relief, Herr Geiss said nothing. She bent and picked up the paintbrushes from the snow. They felt lighter than sticks. Their handles were rough with spattered paint. The bristles had been poorly washed and she could see the colors they’d been dipped in, green and white mostly, and one ochre. She made a quiver with her fist and held out the five brushes. Between them, the tips had hardly any hair at all.

  “Ani took these?” she said, forcing herself to put one word after another. “I don’t think he meant any harm.”

  The old man accepted them slowly. “They belonged to my wife,” he said.

  “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 coug
hed. “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.