The Sound of a Horse Neighing
The church stood halfway up the hill above the village. Cream-colored with a red roof, it stood out against the mossstreaked rock. Inside, six carved wooden pews bore traces of green and blue paint. Christ in a red robe prayed in Gethsemane on the gold-rimmed pulpit. A miniature cathedral, Charlotte thought, recalling how she and Max had sat on folding chairs and eyed a potted plant in the lobby of the bank on Pariser Platz on their wedding day. Her mother hadn't wanted to attend. Bank lobby? Should she bring a deposit slip?
The hillside religion always confused her—Ragnar raising his head to the sky and the old woman singing to birds or conjuring powers up from the earth. And here was the familiar Lamb of God preparing to sacrifice his life for the old woman. Charlotte felt she'd known Christ from the start—all those paintings of the annunciation featuring the holy spirit riding a golden ray, directed between the Virgin's breasts. But that mystery no longer enticed her the way the secrets of the old woman did.
She ran her hand over her hip, as if the old sheet were something she'd just bought at Bernstein's, Max's department store. The hillside people sat in the pews—rubber-shoed farmers and their strong, pale wives, silver brooches rising and falling on their bosoms. The minister had a christening on a farm deep in the end of the valley. The wedding would have to wait.
A farmer in the back row was explaining bovine fibroid tumors to his neighbor in a loud voice. Nonni from Butterdale's wife placed a hand on each of her thighs and turned toward the back of the church. Charlotte withdrew into the shadows. It wasn't too late. She could still flee. The daily bus to town would leave in half an hour. She'd scramble to the back, keep her head down so they wouldn't find her—just another runaway bride.
Rubbing the goosebumps on her arms, Charlotte headed for the steps and the indoor bathroom. Ten minutes ago she'd seen a line winding up the stairs, heard people flushing. But now she entered the empty bathroom, breathing in and out slowly. Holding everything back, she grinned into the mirror until her mouth hurt.
You have such a pretty smile.
Her mother used to say it. The door opened. Gisela's taut face appeared in the mirror. Her friend giggled, and Charlotte pictured Gisela's long winter of thigh squeezes under the silent gaze of sheep. They stared at one another. Then Gisela opened her arms. Charlotte buried her hot eyes in her friend's shoulder and moved her trembling lips against the stiff fabric of her dress.
"It'll be over soon," Gisela said, patting her back.
Arm in arm, they reached the top of the stairs too quickly. Charlotte could see the old woman sitting in the front row, a silk scarf with a rose pattern over her shoulders. A circular cap of black silk lay on her braids. A silver serpent climbed her tassel holder, warding off the evil spirits that threatened marriages.
The minister had arrived. He stood at the altar in a white robe topped by a ruffed collar big as the moon. Nonni from Butterdale's wife sat at the organ now, her hands held high above the keys. The minister pointed toward heaven, and the organist's fingers pounded out the hymn, I am a lonely flower in God's sight. The old woman often sang the words when she crushed yarrow between two stones. As if he'd suddenly found Charlotte, the minister gestured toward her, and the fibroid tumor farmer jumped to his feet and grasped her arm.
Walking to the altar on the farmer's arm, Charlotte sensed something leaving her, floating out through the window, and gliding over the dark green grass out to sea. When she married Ragnar, she would be taking the entire hillside into her arms, the wind in the tussocks, the rain that stalked you, the sun that burned your face at noon, then ignored you for a week, and the sea that insinuated its bitter seaweed stench into your dreams. And she'd lose something precious. She shuddered.
Eyebrows bristling, the minister began to chant words that everyone but she understood. Obey or burn in Hell, she thought he said. Ragnar mumbled something. Here and now, she told herself and thought about her red dress and Petronella preparing for the mating dance. The minister raised his voice. Focusing on Christ's suffering, Charlotte nodded assent. She extended her hand for the ring and wondered what she'd promised.
Afterwards, at the farm, she and the old woman served coffee and rhubarb cake with whipped cream. The farmers sat in silence, examining their fingers for cuts. They nodded their heads for refills whenever Charlotte brought the coffee pot. At last, they argued about the poor yield from the winter fishing season.
"Akurey brought in nothing this year, just enough for Butterdale," Nonni said, sitting next to Gisela on the sofa.
Gisela did not respond.
"We lost our catch several times. Didn't survive the surf landing. Once the keel comes up in the surf, you lose fish."
She eyed him with interest. "And do you lose men?"
Nodding, he brought his head closer to hers, his shoulders level with his ears.
Her lips were forming another fishing question when he placed his hand between his thigh and hers. Gently, she slapped his hand. Several of the farmers raised their chins from their cups. Charlotte made a diving motion, indicating the strip of sofa between Gisela and Nonni. Reluctantly, Nonni moved.
Gisela leaned against her. "I was afraid you'd run away," she said.
"I tried to, but the big farmer held my arm," Charlotte said.
Soon they were laughing and hugging each other. Nonni rose to his feet and stared. The old woman followed him to the window and filled his cup.
When the guests were gone, and Gisela had climbed into the loft, the old woman nudged Charlotte and handed her a cup of raspberry-seaweed tea. Ragnar's empty cup was on the table.
"Honeymoon tea," the old woman said.
Charlotte blushed. The drink was the color of her dress. She held her nose against the fishy taste, and—her heart hammering from the coffee—drank it quickly while the old woman watched.
In the bedroom, the curtains were open. Outside, the daylight blurred into the summer night. Ragnar lay on his back in the center of the bed. He looked as if he were sleeping. She whispered his name. Like a big dog, he rolled over and opened his eyes.
She started to unbutton the dress. The old woman had spent hours on the buttons. A zipper would have been better, but the cooperative store hadn't gotten its shipment. When the dress finally sank to the floor, she remembered Petronella and kicked out her foot and raised the fabric with her toe, dropping it on the chair.
His gaze burned her skin. Travelers in the desert, they suffered from the same thirst. How long had it been for both of them? With a deliberate slowness, she pulled her slip over her head, enjoyed his eyes on the swell of her breasts above her brassiere. Max had loved this ritual. Languidly, she rolled down her stockings. She regretted she had nothing prettier than the big square cotton underpants that everyone wore during the war in Berlin. At last, she unhooked the brassiere and let her breasts fall forward. His eyes drew an arc under each breast, and her nipples hardened.
He lifted the sheet.
"Come."
She slipped under the sheet and rolled toward him. His hardness brushed against her thigh. When her breasts touched his chest, she felt his whole body quiver. Through the rush of her own blood came the sound of a horse neighing somewhere in the home field.
Ragnar's voice was a ragged whisper.
"He's happy for us."
His large hands stroked her shoulders, her breasts, her thighs, the backs of her knees. She raised her body to his. He slid his hands under the small of her back, ran them over her buttocks, squeezed gently. She vowed to make love to him all night long. But suddenly he opened her legs and thrust himself inside her. It was over too quickly. She and Max had always dawdled, prolonging the stroking and caressing.
Ragnar lay on his side, touching her hair the way he did the lead horse's forelock before bringing it to the barn. Beyond his shoulder, through the window, she glimpsed the outline of the hillside in the gray summer night. For ever and ever. What had she done?
In the morning, Charlotte
was startled when her arm brushed against his. Remembering the weight of his body on hers, she stretched her arms above her head and arched her back, wanted his hands on her breasts again.
The sound of chickens fussing in the henhouse broke through her desire. Another reality passed over her happiness. Had she rubbed the life out of the memory of Max? Forgotten Lena? She'd wanted to flee her ghosts. But now she mourned them and wished Ragnar would go away.
He reached for her. Pretending a daytime shyness, she pulled back and watched his fingers on her arm, how they clasped her like a rake. She had a vision of cleaning sheep pens and turning hay until she too slipped over that leaden horizon. How many aprons would she wear out with no reward but this man's hands on her at night? After he was gone, she swung her legs onto the floor, pulled on her work clothes, tied the old apron around her waist, and went to feed the chickens.
II - Max
Jewish Jokes
In the fall of 1928 Charlotte was twenty years old, and Berlin felt tight as a rubber band. The Communists fought the Nazis on the streets. Nude women danced with midgets on the stage while couples in tuxedoes and furs laughed. Poor people rented out their own beds when they weren't sleeping in them.
Certain Germans, according to the Nazis, had less value than the rest of the population. Jews with thick lips or bulbous noses felt the knuckles of the brownshirts. But, like the center cyclist of three, blond, pug-nosed Jews went unnoticed. Max Bernstein was not one of these. In fact, his hawk-like nose looked as if it had been broken and reset wrong.
At the Berlin art academy that afternoon students were painting quickly, taking advantage of the faint winter light that still lingered over their canvases. A model sat on a stool, her nipples dark and puckered against blue-white skin. Charlotte chewed the handle of her brush. She'd painted the model's arms thick as thighs. Her neighbor stood behind her and stared at her drawing. He made her nervous.
"Add some curve to the hips," he said, picking up a piece of charcoal and measuring the space between the crook of an arm and the waist. He rubbed out the original line and drew a new hip.
A stool leg squeaked. The model rose stiffly and wrapped herself in her robe.
"Maybe a bit of yellowish-green," he said, folding his arms and studying her canvas.
The instructor was in the front of the room, arranging bruised apples, brown bananas, and a wilted cabbage on the table. Charlotte didn't want to paint decaying food, and she needed to get away from this blue-eyed critic. Outside, scanning the dark, gritty street for her bus, she heard a voice in her ear. "Hardest thing is seeing the bones under the flesh." She turned to face her hawk-nosed classmate. He smiled and extended his arm. "Join me for a beer?"
When her bus arrived, she didn't get on. Her mother would be holding a bowl of steaming potatoes, waiting to discuss typing lessons. And she wouldn't be there.
"Max Bernstein," he said.
The name brought to mind elegantly dressed mannequins in the window of a luxurious department store. She'd stood under her mother's elbow, her nose on the cold windowpane, studying Bernstein's dolls, the finest in Berlin. Her mother's voice had sounded metallic.
Too expensive for us.
"Sophie Charlotte."
"Goddess of wisdom?" he asked.
"Wife of the elector in Brandenburg. My mother admired her."
She wouldn't tell him about her waitress job.
The pub was packed with men in blue overalls. Sitting on a rickety wooden chair, she watched the waitress drop two coasters on the table, mark them with a pencil she kept behind her ear, lower the tray, and place two sweating glasses of beer on the coasters. Charlotte couldn't have done that. She'd have sloshed the foam on the customer's shoulder. Feeling like a little girl in the front row at school, she watched Max take a small square book from his backpack and open it to the photos of Rembrandt.
"See the red on the tip of his nose? How the painter matched it with the red in his eyebrow?"
He was a real painter. Why was he spending time with her?
"Watch the light. Does it land on the model's elbow? Does it change the color of her skin? How many colors did Renoir use for each breast?"
He cupped an imaginary breast on his own chest, pointed to where the nipple would be.
"Pink, then yellow in beige, light green where the breast's connected to the body."
The door opened, and a cold gust blew across the room. A young man in a brown shirt and brown pants tucked into black leather boots entered. The metal in his heels clicked on the nails in the floorboards.
"Watch—no sense of humor," Max whispered.
The brownshirt approached the poster on the wall, an advertisement for a cabaret. A topless woman with spots of rouge in her white cheeks raised her leg. The brownshirt's hand shot out as if to punch the woman's breast.
"Juden Dreck," he said, tearing the poster from the wall.
The workmen at the next table froze. The brownshirt clicked his heels and walked out.
Max spoke out of the side of his mouth. "No sense of humor."
"Why Jewish dirt?" Charlotte asked.
"Whatever's wrong, it's the Jews' fault."
Her stomach clenched at a memory. She'd asked her father for coins to buy bread.
Go look in my briefcase.
She'd found a Nazi newspaper featuring a fat Jew sitting on a German bank, buttocks hanging like flaps over the eaves of the roof. A hooked nose the size of a squash dominated the face. She'd asked him about it.
Somebody gave it to me. One of those people who stand on the corner.
Max gestured toward the shreds of poster still tacked to the wall. The name of the cabaret, Schall und Rauch, 44 Unter den Linden, was legible at the bottom of the poster.
"Have you been there?" he asked.
Did walking past with her friend Lulu count? Two men in tuxedoes and a woman had been getting into a taxi. A rubber penis lolled from the woman's cleavage. A clown with black slitted eyes stood in the doorway, a thin line of smoke wafting from his mouth. He waved at the departing taxi. The woman waggled the penis at him.
"The cabaret mocks everyone—especially Jews," Max said.
She raised her glass, set it down again without drinking.
"You know Don Carlos?" he asked.
Attending Schiller's play—a class field trip—they'd giggled so hard when the wizened emperor approached his peachfresh young wife that the teacher had taken them back to school during the intermission.
Max dropped his voice.
"My uncle's cabaret made Don Carlos into a Hebrew, Markwitz, a big-nosed cartoon figure who talks Jewish, but wears a tiny imperial mustache and gets baptized every ten minutes."
He laughed, but Charlotte didn't think it was funny.
"My uncle hired a famous director, the one who matches the scenery to the actor's mood. Yellow and green forests if the actor's sick. Blue and purple sky if he's suicidal. He made Jews laugh their heads off at hook-nosed little men in bathrobes, bowing at the Wailing Wall."
She indicated the torn poster.
"And the Jewish Dirt man?"
"I was there the night Mr. Blackboots showed up at the cabaret. He and his friends roared at the Jewish jokes. Even the Jews hate the Jews, they probably said. When the Nazis published my uncle's jokes in their paper, he understood. After that, no more Jewish jokes."
By the time they left the pub, Charlotte's neck ached from bracing herself against Max's truth. Some things she'd rather not know. At the Friedrichstraße cigar shop, the poster gleamed in the street lamp—a woman with pouty lips, a monocle at her eye, held a midget to her bosom. He waved a white-gloved hand.
Max's breath warmed her ear.
"Cabaret?"
Excitement rose in her.
"We'll go as artists," he said quickly.
She saw the fun in his eyes and herself, a tiny figure, mirrored there.
You're an Artist.
At Aschinger's, Charlotte balanced a tray, struggling to keep the
curry sausages from rolling off the plate and the beer from sloshing over the rim of the glass. Sometimes she had leftovers. Today it was a half-eaten sausage. When nobody was looking, she raised her tray and bit into the other end. She never went to class on an empty stomach.
Later she stood in the back chewing a leftover fricassée of chicken and sipping a Bock beer without touching her lips to the rim of the glass when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to face the manager.
"I saw you," he said and pointed to the door. His other hand went to her waist, wiggled a finger under the waistband of her apron. He wanted the uniform back. She went home wearing her coat over her underwear.
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