Albert disliked it when he felt that someone, especially the nun, was predicting his actions. And Alfonsa had a particular talent for doing just that. He stood at the entrance to her room. The space between the crown of his head and the top of the doorframe seemed vast.
“I’m here,” he said.
“I can see that,” said Alfonsa. She rose from her writing desk, came over to him, and patted his upper arms with both hands, as if measuring just how wide he was.
Her smile contracted to an equivocal smirk. “You smoke?”
“Occasionally.”
“Often, it smells like. Not very healthy, they say.”
“No kidding.” Albert tried to imitate her smirk.
“We’ve missed you terribly, smart aleck.”
Albert couldn’t help himself: though it sounded like irony, it didn’t come across that way at all.
Alfonsa nodded toward the chessboard. “How about a game?” Even in the floor lamp’s meager light, he could tell that she’d polished the checkers she still made him use.
“That isn’t why I’m here.”
“You’re here because of your mother.” No question, and nevertheless her words affected Albert. He reached for the makeup compact in his pocket, but didn’t find it. He’d left it behind in the car. Alfonsa bent over the laptop on her desk, and cued up Frank Sinatra with the mouse. Albert knew what was coming next. In a dreamy sort of tone, she’d say, sighing: What a stunner of a voice.
Alfonsa settled herself on one of the wooden stools: “What a stunner of a voice.”
Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Albert didn’t stir from his place by the door. “Really, I don’t want to play right now.”
“But of course you do.” She pointed to the empty stool across from her. “And afterward, we’ll talk.”
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars
Was it just him, or would nobody give him what he wanted? Where was it written that things couldn’t just run smoothly? Sister Alfonsa, for example, could’ve just told him—no drama at all: “This is your mother.” Or at least: “That was your mother.” It wouldn’t even have to be true, just as long as he could believe it.
In other words, hold my hand
Children, thought Albert, not for the first time, should be allowed to choose their parents. Parents were far too careless in producing offspring. What had his own parents, no, what had his mother, been thinking? He would have been spared a good deal. He would have been spared worrying about Fred, whom he’d left back in the Saint Helena infirmary. He would have been spared holding Fred’s pale hand, promising him that he’d be back before Fred “went dead.” He would have been spared the five-minute walk from the infirmary to Alfonsa’s room, which had ballooned to half an hour because on the way he’d paused again and again to ask himself whether he ought to go back and say his good-byes to Fred—which course he finally rejected, preferring the risk of never getting the chance to say good-bye over the prospect of having to do it twice. And he would have been spared—along with all of the irritating, stressful, painful things that had filled the last nineteen years—sitting down across from Alfonsa, now, just after midnight, not even an hour after their arrival at Saint Helena, behind his army of white checkers, and for his first move sending one of his pawns to certain death.
In other words, baby, kiss me
Albert wanted to get this game over with. So he had to lose. A quick win against Alfonsa was a contradiction in terms. But to lose deliberately without her noticing would be almost as hard as bringing her to checkmate. Albert would have to go at it shrewdly. For a while he went on the attack, guns blazing, and so let her take three pawns, a knight, and a bishop. (Alfonsa, teasing, said he was rusty.) Then he regrouped, played cautiously, and even took one of her rooks. (Alfonsa purred a respectful Hmm or two.) Secretly, though, he was working to wall in his king, using his own retinue to cut off all escape routes, so that finally the black queen was able to set up the deathblow. (Which Alfonsa punctuated with a satisfied Ha!) Albert glanced at the clock. They’d been playing for barely forty minutes.
“Let’s talk,” he said.
Alfonsa took one of the white checkers and looked at it carefully. “Were you actually making an effort?”
“Yes.”
“Rematch?”
Albert just looked at her.
“I understand.”
“I want you to tell me what you know,” he said. “Now.”
Ever since they’d left for Saint Helena, there’d been an unpleasant feeling squatting in Albert’s chest. At first he’d thought it was simply the fear of finding himself stuck in some new impasse. But that hadn’t been it. It was the fear of finding no new impasse at all. Fear of the truth. What do you do with the truth, once you’ve finally found it?
“We have to go to the Zwirglstein,” said Alfonsa.
“Zwirglstein?”
“It’s a mountain. There’s an old-folks home there.”
“And that’s where my mother is?”
“She’ll be there.”
Albert leapt up. “Just tell me her name.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Why!”
“It’s complicated.”
“What’s so complicated about a name?”
“You’ll understand when we get there.”
“And if I go there alone?”
“Then you’ll never find her.”
Albert stepped over to the window, stared out at the night. His whole life he’d been waiting, for nineteen years he’d searched and hoped and waited, and Alfonsa, who’d raised him and whom he’d trusted, this woman could have helped him, could’ve put an end to his waiting long ago; she couldn’t just sit there now, refusing to cough up the truth, sit calmly, as if everything were fine, he wasn’t a five-year-old chess student anymore, he had a right to be told his mother’s name, who she was, and why she’d abandoned him.
But when he turned back to Alfonsa to make that clear to her, she was already sitting at her desk, flipping through her papers, and wishing him, without glancing up, a good night.
He left her room without a word, walked quickly down the corridor, away from her, starting to run now, across the yard, toward the chapel, where it was even chillier than outside, and hid himself, the way he used to, in one of the confessionals.
PART VI
Head-Shaking
1924–1930
Anni and the Somebodies
Later, my sister told me that she’d stared at the plumes of smoke and sweated in the heat of the fire that was devouring our house, until somebody covered her eyes and threw her over a shoulder and carried her away.
The next morning she was woken by a gentle voice; she opened her eyes to tell Papa or Mama or me about her nightmare—but the light falling through the window was unusually bright, and the air smelled different, like cow dung, and someone, somebody, passed her a cup of milk. Later a different somebody gave her a violet dress. Yet another somebody ran hot water for her to bathe in, water boiled especially for her. The same somebody who’d given her the violet dress suggested they milk the cows together, bake a cake, play with the cat. But Anni shook her head. The somebody with the gentle voice explained that she couldn’t go back home, that from now on she’d live here, with her new family. But Anni didn’t see any family. There was only a somebody, another somebody, and yet another somebody. She shook her head again and shouted for Julius. Somebody said, “Your brother’s in heaven now.” And then Anni shook her head so long that she got dizzy, and nobody said anything more.
Anni and Mina
Anni didn’t realize she’d set our house on fire. Her eight-year-old’s mind screened her from the knowledge. It rejected the truth for her own protection, as Anni herself rejected so many things. As the months went by, she practiced shaking her head, training herself, whenever other children called on her to play with them, or at lunch, when s
omebody suggested eating a little more. Or after her First Communion, when Farmer Egler asked her in a whisper whether she was interested in the closely guarded secret he kept inside his pants. And one day, when she discovered my I love you carved into the winding root on Wolf Hill and asked herself who’d written it and when, she shook it as if she never wanted to stop again, left and right and left, with raised chin, staring eyes, and white lips pressed firmly together, locks of hair whipping against her cheeks, wiping the world away.
When winter came, our burned-out house, surrounded by snow, looked like a black-and-white photograph. She went there looking for something, without knowing what. Something pretty, small, familiar, something to press against her breast and cherish. She poked a stick through the mound of ashes, whipped it at rats, wrote Mama and Papa and Julius with it in the soot. On each of these forays she pocketed something. A collection of Most Beloved Possessions accumulated in a basket under her bed, which she guarded like treasure: hairpins melted into one another, a stove tile broken in fifths, the spine from the cookbook, two smooth, gleaming candlesticks, a dagger, a handful of nails, arrowheads, teeth, and much more. A dirty black film covered everything, which Anni couldn’t get rid of, no matter how much she scrubbed each object in the cold water of the Moorbach. And whenever a somebody suggested she choose one of them for the Sacrificial Festival, she just shook her head and said, “It’s already been burned.”
One of her chores was to go and fetch rolls from the bakery every Sunday. If Reindl’s daughter was at the shop, the two of them would swap Most Beloved Possessions. Sometimes Mina would roam through the burned house as well, hunting rats and stuffing her pockets with whatever junk was lying around. In her company it was rare for Anni to shake her head, because, like many Klöbles, Mina treated her no differently than she had before the fire.
All the other people of Segendorf had changed. No matter whom she met, even people she didn’t actually know, they would greet her, ask her how she was doing, praise her new home, invite her for a slice of poppy-seed cake, or slip her an apple.
One day, while trading Most Beloved Possessions, Mina’s polished boots caught her eye, and she couldn’t resist the temptation to touch them.
“Do you like them?” asked Mina. “You can hug my leg, too, if you want. The leather came from Hunter Josfer.”
“Where did you find them?”
“They’re mine.”
“What will you trade for them?” Anni spread some of her Most Beloved Possessions before them. “You can take whatever you want.”
“Whatever I want?” Mina’s eyes glittered, she bent down, biting her lip and reaching for the dagger—then drew back, folded her arms. “No. These are my favorite boots.”
“Please, let’s trade.”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you something.”
“What?”
“My secret.”
“Like Farmer Egler’s?” said Mina. “Then I don’t want to know it.”
“No. A real secret.”
“Maybe I already know it. You have to tell me first.” A moment ago Mina’s hair had been gray, but now it shimmered blond, as if the sun shone on it.
“But you can’t tell anyone else,” whispered Anni, glancing back at the door to make sure they were alone. “Nobody!”
Mina nodded eagerly.
Anni held one hand in front of her lips and leaned forward: “Sometimes I wake up. Late at night. And then I have this feeling, as if …”
“What?”
“As if Julius is thinking about me.”
“Julius Habom!” gasped Mina.
“‘That’s impossible,’ I say out loud to myself, ‘he’s—’”
“Anni!” Master Baker Reindl interrupted them, shoving her long, lean body between Anni and her daughter. “Your rolls are getting cold.”
Anni nodded, silently gathered her things, and set off. Back at the somebodies’ house she put the rolls in the breadbasket, covered them with a kitchen towel, went to her room, pressed her face deep into the pillow, and screamed: “He’s burned, he’s burned, he’s burned!” Afterward she felt a bit better, washed herself, and went to milk the cows, shaking her head. She tried a few more times to get her hands on the leather boots her father had made, but had to concede that it was as good as impossible to separate a Klöble from something she liked. And Mina loved her boots.
Anni and Markus
As the years wore on, the attention people paid to Anni didn’t dwindle half as much as Anni did herself. She ate now only when her stomach ached or her fainting spells increased—a swig of milk fresh from the udder for breakfast, and half an apple at lunch. When evening came she was often too tired to chew.
Her cheekbones stood out, throwing shadows across her face, and her curls hung slack from her scalp as if exhausted. She could assist with the milking for only an hour or so before black filled her vision, and her arms were so thin one of the somebodies would have to help her lug the milk pail. On her excursions to our former house she was seized with fits of convulsive coughing, so she could seldom enlarge her collection of Most Beloved Possessions. Women beckoned to her, called her over to them, invited her inside; Master Baker Reindl gave her bacon rolls with cheese crusts, the innkeeper foisted jars of sweet rose-hip marmalade on her, and Farmer Obermüller’s widow let her sample her viscous cake batter. Not even the most persistent head-shaking could repel them. It was scarcely more effective at repelling people’s looks.
Sometimes, washing herself in the Moorbach, she found herself breaking out in goose bumps, even though she wasn’t cold, and then she’d glance around and notice half a dozen boys stretched out in the riverside pasture, chewing grass stems and staring at her. Mina explained that it was Anni’s own fault, she’d reached the age when one started to bleed. Shrugged shoulders greeted every question Anni asked: Where, why, when—and who was one?
It was only after months passed without a single drop of blood that her worries evaporated. After all, Anni told herself, Mina’s just a Klöble.
One rainy autumn evening Anni sat atop Wolf Hill beneath the shelter of the oak, running a comb carved from a stag antler through her hair. The moor steamed in the distance. Now and then she ran her fingertips across the I love you carved into the tree’s meandering root overgrown with moss. She liked touching it, this root; she was proud that, apart from Pastor Meier, she was the only person in the whole village who could decipher the letters.
“Aren’t you cold?” came a husky voice. A boy leapt down from the oak’s branches and landed beside her with a somersault. Right away Anni’s heart was beating harder, she did her best not to increase the pace of her combing, and she said, “How long have you been hiding?”
“I could smell your hair. Even from up there.”
At first glance Markus looked slight for his age, he was barely bigger than Anni, yet he’d herded many a fat swine for his father to Butcher Scherfeil; there was plenty of strength in his arms and legs.
“I have to go,” said Anni.
“Just talk with me a little.”
Anni shook her head. She noticed that Markus was handling his words differently than he used to.
“You never play with anyone. Why not? Are you scared?”
“I have to work.”
“You don’t have to work now.”
Anni stood without looking at him, tied back her hair, and moved calmly away from him, which wasn’t so easy. Her legs wanted to run.
“I love you,” called Markus.
Anni stopped short.
“I love you,” he repeated. “That’s what it says there, right?”
She turned back to him.
“Did you carve it?” he asked.
“No!” she shouted. And then softer: “You?”
“Me!” He laughed. “You Haboms, you’ve always had books.”
Anni stepped from one foot to the other. “Then how do you know what’s carved there?”
“You aren’t the only one
s who can learn to read.”
“Who helped you? The pastor?”
“You’d like to know that, wouldn’t you?”
“Tell me already, who?”
Markus gnawed at one of his black fingernails. “Let me smell your hair. Then I’ll tell you.”
Anni balled her hands into fists, the comb’s teeth bit into her flesh. “But only for a moment.”
Markus came over and stuck his nose into her mop of hair. Goose bumps broke out across Anni’s back.
“That’s enough.”
“Why?” His husky voice was now very close to her ear, almost inside her head, he tugged at her violet dress, his breath grazed her throat. One of her hands was shut tight around the comb, with the other she clutched Markus’s shirt. “You smell good,” he said, and shoved a hand under her skirt.
A tingling ran through her skin and wandered into her belly. “Don’t do that,” she said. Markus pulled her to the ground. The grass was damp, it prickled and stroked her as if it were alive. Raindrops slipped across her brow, she opened her eyes—when had she shut them?—saw her hand on Markus’s face, her fingers in his mouth, felt the soft, warm wetness of his tongue and lips, the way his fingernails brushed her leg. Lightning split the sky, and she tore herself loose, slashing with her comb at his many hands and words, ran away, slipped, tumbled over, went rolling down the hill, got to her feet again, ran stumbling on, and reached our old home. She threw herself down on a heap of soot in a dry corner, wanting to disappear.
She swore to herself she’d never touch another piece of soap, that she’d shun water from then on, be it rain, the Moorbach, or the weekly hot bath. She wanted to be more than merely dirty, since everybody in Segendorf was dirty already—to be precise, in Segendorf dirty was considered relatively clean. Anni wanted to look filthier than Butcher Scherfeil after a day at the slaughterhouse, wanted her mouth to stink even more than Blacksmith Schwaiger’s. Then nobody would stare at her anymore. Or try to feed her goodies. Or smell her hair and grope around under her skirt.
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