Stones From the River

by Ursula Hegi

  Many others had fled, trying in vain to sell their pianos and large pieces of furniture, settling their neighbors with the nasty fear of the survivor and with a yearning for news that could distract them and engage their imagination—like which wedding the dentist would go through with.

  From the window of her pay-library, Trudi had watched Brigitte Raudschuss’ father arrive at Klaus Malter’s office. He stayed one hour and twenty minutes. During that time, Trudi saw five patients enter. None of them departed. She imagined them cramped in the waiting room, which barely held four wooden chairs, hearing the voices of the lawyer and the dentist through the walls. If only she could be in that office. Perhaps the lawyer would challenge Klaus to a duel at sunrise to avenge his daughter’s honor. He’d pull off one glove and—

  No, it was summer. Too warm to wear a glove. Besides, duels happened only in those romances her customers kept borrowing. The lawyer would be more likely to offer Klaus money to rescue his daughter from everlasting spinsterhood. “An increase in dowry,” he would call it.

  Surprised by her compassion for Brigitte Raudschuss, Trudi wondered if Klaus was trying to pretend with her, too, that nothing had happened between them, although that would be much harder to accomplish after a six-year engagement than after one kiss. She thought of that morning in church when she’d seen Brigitte Raudschuss for the first time, and she asked her a silent forgiveness for the rage she’d sent her way. That rage should have been for Klaus—not for another woman.

  She remembered Jutta running into the church, late, squeezing herself into the same pew with Brigitte Raudschuss, who yielded reluctant space to her. It would have never occurred to the lawyer’s daughter then that the disheveled girl would dislodge her from the position she’d taken for granted.

  “Did you hear anything? Anything at all?” Trudi would ask each of Klaus Malter’s patients the day after he’d walked Brigitte’s father out, their faces solemn as they parted with a polite handshake. But from what she could surmise, the voices of the two men had stayed muffled during their lengthy discussion.

  “What was he like when he drilled on your tooth afterwards?” she would ask, nodding with satisfaction when she was told that Klaus Malter’s eyes had looked sad and that his hand had not been as steady as usual.

  Yet, the day of his wedding to Jutta, Klaus Malter’s eyes were not sad. He arrived at St. Martin’s too early and stood on the front steps with a dazed and exultant smile, the kind of smile you get when you amaze yourself by risking something you’ve never considered before. It was only a week after his meeting with the lawyer, sooner even than his wedding with the lawyer’s daughter would have taken place, and when his relatives arrived in the expensive clothes they must have planned to wear to Brigitte’s wedding, they looked disapproving, except for his mother, the professor, who took both of Klaus’ hands into hers and kissed his face before she let herself be escorted to her place in the front pew. Her white hair, which—Klaus had told Trudi a long time ago—used to be the same hue of red as his own, was braided in a thick coil around her head.

  When Jutta turned from the altar after the ceremony to walk up the aisle on the arm of her new husband, there was something skittish about the way she moved, and suddenly Trudi could see why the stable Klaus, who used to be so captivated by Ingrid, would also feel drawn to Jutta, who would balance that settled side of himself.

  But she still couldn’t figure out why Jutta had chosen him. With a tug of satisfaction and revenge, she whispered to Hilde Eberhardt, who knelt next to her, “I finally understand why he fell in love with her, but Jutta—she’s so beautiful and young—she could have chosen any man.”

  And Hilde agreed that Jutta could have chosen any man.

  Most people in Burgdorf did not wonder at all why the wild young woman was marrying the dentist, who already was thirty-six and so different from her in temperament. He would make a reliable husband, they agreed. He’d quiet her down. Besides, it was not at all unusual for men to be substantially older than the women they married.

  They regarded Jutta as odd, the people of Burgdorf. Not only did she paint pictures in which the colors were all wrong and far too bright, but she also, despite their warnings, swam in summer storms. “She doesn’t value her life,” some would say. Lightning and thunder, which made others seek shelter, would lure Jutta from the house. Rain would drench her even before she’d arrive at the quarry hole or river. “Crazy,” some of the people would say.

  But Trudi knew what crazy meant from her own mother, and Jutta was not like that although she, too, had that high flicker, as Trudi thought of it. Hers was not the kind of flicker that would burn itself out but would only grow stronger, she believed, and even when Jutta would die young in a fast-driving accident nearly two decades later, Trudi would stay convinced that, without that one accident, Jutta would have kept burning strong, her fire evident in her brilliant paintings of the town.

  Trudi would see that same flame in the child who would ensue from Jutta’s body—the daughter, Hanna, who rightfully should have been Trudi’s daughter if the dentist had followed up on that one reckless kiss.

  thirteen

  1941–1942

  THE WEEK AFTER KLAUS MALTER’S WEDDING, TRUDI BEGAN TO READ the marriage advertisements in the paper again—not that she was looking for a husband, but they gave her something to laugh about. Because of the war, the list of men was shorter than ever before, and most of the ads had been written by retired men. Late one evening she decided to answer one of those ads, Box 241, in care of the newspaper: the man was younger than the others, a thirty-four-year-old schoolteacher who collected stamps, did watercolors, and described himself as curious. She gambled on that curiosity when she sent him a letter without a return address, asking him to meet her at Wasen’s, an outdoor restaurant on the Königsallee in Düsseldorf, the following Saturday afternoon.

  I will know you, she wrote to Box 241, because you carry an umbrella and two white carnations. She had thought about this for quite a while, rejecting the idea of having him wear a top hat because he might have to buy that, making it too expensive to meet this woman whose description—tall and slender with a mane of auburn hair—Trudi had taken from one of the colorful book jackets in the pay-library.

  Actually, once she reread her letter, the woman sounded a lot like Ingrid, with her long hair and delicate hands, and when she looked at the book jacket again, the woman could have been Ingrid except that Ingrid would insist on martyrdom before letting herself be squeezed into a yellow dress that exposed not only her shoulders but also the high cleft of her breasts. The woman in Trudi’s letter was warm hearted, loved to cook and dance, was in line to inherit the family business, and adored opera as well as children. Her name, Trudi decided, was Angelika, and she was the same age as Trudi, twenty-six. I have been told that I am extraordinarily beautiful, she wrote, chuckling to herself when she decided against adding that she was also exceedingly humble.

  Not that she ever seriously intended to go to the restaurant and watch the man’s discomfort as she had with the others years ago.… After all, with the suffering going on around her, games like that were too frivolous. Still, that Friday she traded books for an almost new lipstick; Saturday morning she found herself washing and setting her hair, just in case, and struggling with the choice of what to wear if she were to go. Ready to turn back, she arrived at the restaurant twenty minutes early in her gray suit with the fitted skirt. She hoisted herself onto a chair next to one of the flower pots that separated the tables from the sidewalk, her back to the sun so she could see everyone.

  Although she was only planning to watch the man wait for this woman he would never meet, she was sweating under her breasts and arms when Box 241 arrived exactly at four, the umbrella hooked over his arm. By the door he hesitated. The skin around his eyes was lighter than the rest of his tan as though he usually wore glasses, giving him a startled look. Carrying the two white carnations like spears, Box 241 darted toward the last empty ta
ble without glancing at anyone, bumping into two chairs on his way, his lean shoulders curved forward as if he were accustomed to tolerating disillusion.

  Only after he was sitting did Box 241 allow his eyes to roam—quickly though, as if hesitant to intrude on anyone—and then he pulled thick eyeglasses from his pocket and studied the menu with intense concentration as if it could provide him with clues to the woman who had summoned him here. His black hair touched the collar of his suit jacket, and he had a timid mustache.

  Trudi was one of two women who sat by themselves—the other tables were occupied by couples or families—but the man’s eyes kept shifting past her as if she were not there, returning to a heavy, dark-haired woman who was devouring a piece of Bienenstich, scooping out the custard filling and spreading it on top of the glazed almond topping. Box 241 ordered tea with lemon, checked his pocket watch, then took off his glasses, hastily, as if he’d only now recalled that he was wearing them. Unfolding a sheet of paper that looked like Trudi’s letter from a distance, he frowned, and looked once more at the woman who was dissecting her cake.

  I’m prettier than she, Trudi thought.

  I’m much younger.

  I don’t eat like a pig.

  But the man never even glanced at her, and all at once she was filled with an ancient rage at him and every man who simply dismissed her, a rage that uncoiled within her, fast and savage, making her want to inflict suffering on him—far beyond the humiliation of waiting for a woman who would never arrive. It always came back to feeling different. Always. Knowing there always would be that difference, that it would not get any better. And one way to get back at them was to express the nastiness many of them didn’t dare to think. Though it was there, in their hearts, behind their smiles.

  She wanted to get up and walk over to the man’s table and tell him—Tell him what? She couldn’t think of anything vehement enough to say to him. Besides, it wouldn’t crush him if it came from her. She dug in her handbag for paper and a pen. I have seen you, she wrote, the notepad on her knees, and I find you too—She paused, thinking, and read what she’d written.

  Box 241 lit a pipe, spilling some tobacco onto the tablecloth. His eyes fastened on every woman who passed the restaurant as if he hoped Angelika would still step up to his table, raise his two carnations to her lovely face, and murmur something like, “I could feel you waiting for me” The heroines in the romances would say something like that. The bolder ones might even ask: “Is this how you imagined me?”

  Pitiful, Trudi thought. Pitiful, she wrote and finished her note. I have seen you, she read, and I find you too pitiful to consider. There. It was perfect. She signed it Angelika and paid her bill. Her heart a wild rhythm in her throat, she stood up. Her high heels felt wobbly as she neared the man’s table.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  Box 241 squinted, his eyes moving from a space above her head to her face as if adjusting themselves to her height, shrinking her. “Yes?” he asked. His mustache was not skimpy as she’d thought but rather full and streaked with bleached hairs. Though his suit wasn’t new, it was of good cloth and well cared for. But his shoes were dusty. “Yes?” he asked again and set his pipe into the ashtray.

  She blushed, realizing he’d watched her inspect him. “This woman—” she said, the taste of lipstick on her teeth. “You see, this woman was walking by … there on the sidewalk next to my table.” She pointed to where she’d sat, irritated with herself because she wasn’t nearly as composed as she wanted to be. “And she asked me to—to give this to you.” Before she could change her mind, she thrust the note at him.

  “Thank you.” His tanned hand reached for it. “When—”

  “Oh … about ten minutes ago.”

  Hastily, Box 241 pushed the thick-lensed glasses back onto his nose and unfolded the lined paper. “Why did you wait this long?” He spoke in a rapid singsong, and she couldn’t understand his words right away because they sounded outlandish and light as they floated from his lips and only came together for her after he’d stopped speaking. “Why didn’t you come right over?”

  “I’m—I’m somewhat shy.”

  For the first time he looked at her fully as though he knew what it was like to be shy, and it occurred to her that he seemed to be a man who was kind by nature. She wanted to retrieve the note, but his eyes fled down the words and then up again. He turned the paper as if hoping for a contradicting message, and then he gave a little cough that ended high in his throat. Carefully, he refolded the note.

  The voices of the other people had receded as if a wide space had opened around his table. A cool draft moved up Trudi’s legs, making her shiver. She no longer felt that rage—only deep shame. How could she have been so cruel?

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Her words jolted him as though he’d forgotten she was still there. He worked his lips as if to reply and finally shocked her with a burst of laughter. “You—young lady—you—”

  She took a step back.

  “—you are very lucky.” Still laughing, he pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit down.

  “I can’t stay.”

  “In some countries they kill the messenger.” He stopped laughing and regarded her so gravely that she was afraid he suspected the truth. “Fortunately, I don’t engage in that custom.…” His peculiar singsong had slowed down, making it easier for Trudi to follow him. “What did she tell you, this woman?”

  “Just to give the note to you.”

  “You know what it says?”

  “Oh, no. It’s private.”

  “Of course. Please … do sit down.”

  “I have to go.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “The woman?”

  “The woman.”

  “She—she was very beautiful… tall, with dark-brown hair pulled back. A yellow dress—she wore a yellow dress. With fabric-covered buttons.”

  “The poor woman.”

  “What?”

  He smiled sadly and relit his pipe, drawing deeply. “That curse of beauty … Finding pleasure in trying to destroy others.”

  “Did she—?”

  “Destroy me?” Box 241 rested his elbows on his knees and brought his face close to Trudi’s. “Do you think she did?”

  “I have to catch the streetcar and—”

  “One cup of tea,” he said. “Or one small glass of wine.”

  “I would. I really would, but my streetcar is leaving in ten minutes.”

  “Where do you have to go?”

  “Burgdorf,” she said, wishing immediately she hadn’t told him.

  “That’s where this woman lives.”

  “Really?”

  “Her first letter was mailed from there.”

  “I haven’t seen her before today.” Liar, she thought as an image of the book jacket flashed before her.

  “I’ll drive you home.”

  “No,” she said quickly, wishing she had mailed the letter from Oberkassel or Düsseldorf. “No.”

  “I’d be glad to. Thanks to your message, my plans for the afternoon have changed.” He added as though he really meant it, “I would welcome your company.” Extending his right hand, he introduced himself. “Max Rudnick.”

  She mumbled her name, making it impossible to understand as she shook his hand. Far too contrite to resist his invitation, she climbed on the chair across from him, her leather handbag on her knees, both hands clenching the curved handle. Two shimmering flies were knitting their legs on Max Rudnick’s saucer. As the heavy woman who’d eaten the Bienenstich walked out of the restaurant, Trudi felt oddly abandoned.

  “Tea?” Max Rudnick asked.

  She nodded.

  “Lemon?”

  She nodded. Her feet swung high above the floor.

  When the tea arrived, he squeezed the half-moon of lemon above her cup and stirred it. “Here,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She burned her tongue as she gulped the tea, all of it, withou
t looking at him. “It’s very good.”

  “Not too hot?”

  She sucked the tip of her tongue against her palate and shook her head.

  “Were you thirsty?”

  “I must have been.” Before he could ask her anything else, she said, “Are you from another country?”

  “Because of the way I talk?”

  “It’s not all that noticeable.”

  “The curse of being raised by my Russian grandmother, who played solitaire all day and refused to speak German. I stayed with her, talking Russian till I was old enough to go to school.”

  Now she was curious. “How about your parents?”

  “Both worked. I was much closer to my grandmother.”

  “Where—”

  “Köln. I lived there until recently when—when I was … let’s say, transferred.”

  Is that why you wrote the ad? she almost asked, blushing hard as she realized how that would have given away her secret. “Why were you transferred?” she asked instead.

  “It happens to teachers.” Max Rudnick studied her carefully. “I don’t know you well enough yet to tell you the reason.…”

  The yet alarmed her, but she was not about to inquire what he meant. Besides, he was already paying the bill, and then his hand was guiding her shoulder as they walked toward the door.

  “At least this time I can see where I’m going,” he said and pointed to his thick glasses. “And to think that there are people who say that only women are vain.”

  “They don’t look that bad.”

  “Bad enough. But without them I’m practically blind.”

  “At least that keeps you out of the war.” She brought her hand to her mouth. How could she be so careless with someone whose politics she didn’t know?