by Ursula Hegi
“Then go.”
“Stefan wouldn’t leave the restaurant for that long. Especially now.”
“Then go without him. Just take Robert.”
“But Greta and Tobias—”
“Can stay with me. Maybe some of the time with their grandparents. You’ve never had any time all alone with your son.”
“I haven’t.”
“Just take him with you.”
Here on the roof, both women often made decisions as each heard herself talk to her friend and, listening to her own words, found out what she wanted. With Pearl, Helene had come to expect that their conversations would go right to where things mattered, that she would feel upheld—in big and small matters alike—and that she was capable of doing the same for Pearl. With Stefan there was usually more kept back than revealed.
“Mein Lenchen,” he liked to call her when he saw her attending to the children. “Mein Lenchen.” Other than that, his rare words of tenderness were for his children. He would have felt stunned had he guessed at the accumulation of loving words Helene had held back over the years. Anyone listening to him and Helene talk about their days would have assumed a partnership rather than marriage because their duties were so clearly divided: while he operated the restaurant and supervised repairs, she took care of the children and the apartment. A woman of strong and few attachments, she’d come to know her limitations—that she could only love very few people and then with an intensity that kept her breath high and shallow in her throat. Robert was one of those few. So was Pearl. Stefan had been once, but her love had lived for too long in a place where it hadn’t been nourished, and she’d survived by becoming immune to that passion until it had faded.
As she tried to explain this to Pearl, her friend smiled. “Passion,” she murmured, “can be restored.”
Helene leaned back in her chair and smiled, suddenly feeling glamorous. It sometimes was like that when she was with Pearl, talking with such ease, and she would take that image with her and, for hours afterwards, feel glamorous and confident. “And how do you know so much?” she asked.
“I just know about people.” Pearl got up to sit on the brick ledge.
“I get vertigo just looking at you,” Helene protested. Extending one hand, she pulled Pearl back.
“I see you and Stefan …,” Pearl said, “and it is still there.”
A few months after Horst’s death, Gertrud died in the sanatorium. When Helene tried to make travel arrangements to be with Leo and Trudi, she found that quite a few ocean liners had either been confiscated or were not ready for passage so soon after the war, and it wasn’t until September that she was able to book a cabin for Robert and herself on a freighter.
Though she felt selfish not taking the other children, Stefan urged her to leave them with Pearl. “It’ll be more affordable … and I’ll see them every day.”
Robert hadn’t known the earth was big enough for anyone to travel this long. From the German coast, he and his mother took trains to Burgdorf, and the closer they got, the more excited she became despite her sadness, pointing through the rain-streaked windows to show him the country where she’d grown up. It warmed her to hear familiar sounds, to be surrounded by the language she’d grown up with.
Although Leo had written to her about his knee injury, she was startled to see him limp toward her from the pay-library as if the loss of his wife and son had manifested themselves in his movements. He’d always been thin, but now he was gaunt. Unhealthy. It seemed that he had to remind himself to smile. Except when he played with his daughter. Then he was joyful, patient. It moved Helene to see her brother in the role of father, the kind of father she wished Stefan could be.
She had felt afraid of meeting Trudi, afraid of feeling repulsed, yet all that vanished the instant she held the little girl who, indeed, was hard to look at. When Trudi brought her short arms around Helene’s neck and kissed her on the cheek, Helene felt choked with love and guilt at having sacrificed her for Robert. Still, it was better to have both children alive than to have lost Robert—even if it meant that Trudi would not grow like others.
Except for her large head and short limbs, she looked a lot like Robert, and that’s what the children seemed to think too because over the five weeks of the visit they kept going to the mirror, strong chins forward as they faced their images. Sometimes they’d laugh, Robert’s laugh slow but lasting, Trudi’s sudden and high. Until she’d remember about her mother and grow solemn.
One afternoon, when he stood with his fingers linked behind his back, Trudi tried to copy that posture, but her arms wouldn’t go that far. She stamped her feet, furious that she couldn’t do something that simple.
Robert was watching her in the mirror when her eyes trapped him there.
“You do it.” She turned. Stuck her left arm back toward him. “Hold this.”
He grasped her square little hand while she swung her other arm back.
“Put them together now.”
He tried. But her fingers barely reached beyond her torso.
She craned her neck to check in the mirror what was happening behind her. “Make them touch,” she ordered.
Afraid of hurting her, he tugged at her hands.
“Now? Are they touching now?” He shook his head.
“Make them.” She curved her chest forward, threw her shoulders back. “Now?”
“Not yet.”
“Now?”
He hesitated. And then he lied for the first time in his life. “Yes.”
She let out a long breath. Snatched her hands from his. Cupped them against her chest to stop the hurting in her fingers and shoulders. “Tomorrow I’ll do it allein—alone.”
He followed her into the living room where she hoisted herself onto the piano bench and, standing, jabbed at the keys, making horrid noises.
“Sshhh.” Robert climbed next to her.
“Let me. I have a piano teacher.”
“I want a piano teacher.”
“He’s in America. His name is Mr. Howard.” Robert waited for her to stop before he raised himself on his knees and played for her.
When Helene came in and stood behind the children, they didn’t notice her.
“I have a brother,” Trudi was telling Robert. “He is in a box.”
“I have a brother. A sister too.”
“Are they in a box?”
“No, in America.”
“My Mutti went to the box. To fetch my brother. She’ll come back. When I’m tall. And won’t steal sugar.”
All at once Helene was angry at Gertrud for dying and leaving her child with such confusion. To distract her, she said, “Look at that, Trudi,” and picked up a clay pot with the curled, brown remnants of a fern. “All dried out. Shall we give it some water?”
Trudi slid from the bench while Robert kept playing.
“Any other plants? You can show me.”
With a tin milk can full of water, she followed Trudi as the girl pointed out flowerpots, most of them dry. Trudi’s legs couldn’t move as fast as her energy was propelling her forward, and Helene felt a deep pity for the little body in struggle with itself. When Trudi opened the door to her father’s bedroom, Helene froze. Photos of the dead Gertrud hung on the walls—everything in white: the candles and flowers and pale dead skin. Quickly she placed herself between Trudi and the photos.
But the girl slipped right past her, and as she stood facing the pictures of her mother, it was obvious that she’d seen them before.
“My Mutti is coming back real soon,” she said.
That evening, when both children were asleep, Helene implored Leo to take those photos down. “Not only because of Trudi. But it isn’t good for you either … looking at Gertrud like that.”
But he was reluctant. “I keep thinking of everything I was not for her.”
“And I keep thinking of all you were to her.”
He shook his head.
“You brought her happiness, Leo.”
“
How can you know that?”
She recalled how he’d once spoken of Gertrud as his sister. A second sister. “More happiness,” Helene said resolutely, ignoring her uneasiness, “than Gertrud could have had on her own. Everyone could see that.”
But he did not look convinced. The brown wallpaper behind him made the room feel darker.
“Gertrud’s oddness,” she reminded him, “was in her long before you married her. But I’m sure she would not have wanted you to have those pictures around you. No woman would. It isn’t… proper.”
“I didn’t think about them that way. I just wasn’t ready yet to let her go.”
“I know. But it isn’t right for Trudi to be reminded of her mother’s death so constantly.”
“I’ll do it then … take them down.”
“I’ll help. If you want me to. Did you know that Trudi talks about a box and about Gertrud bringing Horst back?”
“At the funeral—” His eyes grew bright with tears. “At the funeral, Frau Weiler tried to console Trudi by saying her Mutti was with her little brother now.”
“What a stupid thing to tell her.”
“She meant well. It’s what people say at funerals.”
“Meaning well is not enough.”
“Still, it has to count…. Did you know that you have an accent?”
“Of course. People in America tell me—”
“No, here. In German.” She was stunned.
“Not much of an accent,” he hastened to tell her. “It’s like a different melody almost that runs beneath the language.”
“A different melody…. That means I have an accent in both languages now.”
“Does it bother you?”
Slowly, she nodded. “It marks me. Instead of feeling connected to both countries, I belong to neither one.”
“A foreigner?”
“That’s what it felt like over there at first. And it still does—not as often though.”
“For me feeling foreign goes deeper than language … into values … customs. Being an exile in the world. It was like that when I came back from the war. For other men too. Michel, for him it was worse because he’d been away longer. You come back and everything is changed. Even if it still looks the same.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s how it is for me.”
“People, too, they’ve changed. Those who stayed. They don’t understand that when you come back, you’re not the same. And neither are they. It’s like that with grieving … you enter a foreign country. And sometimes you don’t come back.”
“Unless you want to?”
“Oh, but wanting to come back is just a small part of it, Helene.”
They stayed up late, talking at the kitchen table, and whenever Leo spoke of Gertrud, he sounded far more passionate in missing her than he had been in loving her when she’d still been alive, and Helene thought how deadly a kind man could be if his kindness were to take the place of passion.
All at once she felt an urgency to do something significant for Trudi, and it was that urgency—born of guilt and compassion—that compelled her to offer, “I could bring Trudi up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Take her back to America with me,” she said, thinking this is crazy. What am I doing? The three I have are already too much for me.
Leo looked stunned. “I’ll make us some tea,” he said.
She kept silent as she watched him prepare his favorite Russian tea, brewing its essence in a small pot, and boiling water in a larger pot, so that they could each choose at what strength they liked it. He served it in paper-thin porcelain cups.
“Gertrud’s?” Helene asked.
“Part of her great-grandmother’s dowry.” He closed the white kitchen cabinet and sat across from Helene.
“What I mean is that I would raise her along with Robert. And with Stefan’s other children. Of course you could always visit…,” she added. What am I doing? Three already. “I like Trudi,” she said quickly. “I like her fierceness, even her bossiness with Robert. Because it gives me such hope for her. And I see so much of you in her, Leo. That sageness and—”
Leo squinted at her. Shook his head.
“I already feel closer to her than to Stefan’s children.”
“I am … grateful. Of course I am grateful. How could I not be? But she is my daughter.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I want to do something.”
“But you are doing something. You are here.”
Every day she visited the Blaus next door, answering their hungry questions about Stefan, watching their delight in Robert while she told them about life in America. She didn’t object when her mother-in-law insisted she pack her telescope and star charts for Stefan. With her, as with others of that generation, Helene found that she slipped right back into that politeness of her childhood, where with Americans she felt equality regardless of age.
Whenever Margret came over, she and Helene would be right back to where they’d left off, eight years bridged in moments as they talked about their childhood and about their children. But not about Helene’s offer to raise Trudi. She was too embarrassed to tell Margret how she’d trespassed with that offer. And yet there were times when she could picture Trudi in the Wasserburg growing up with Robert and the other children.
The small girl would snuggle up to her, listening closely when she and Margret talked about the people in town, like Axel Lambert who had not been right ever since he’d come home from the war, the one survivor of his battalion.
One afternoon, when Margret was whispering to Helene, Trudi leaned closer, and though she didn’t know what an affair was, she understood it was something bad between the lady from the bakery and the man who sold asparagus.
“Ottilia is pregnant again. In her last month,” Margret said, “and confined to bed.”
“I loved being pregnant.” Helene stroked Trudi’s hair.
“Seven daughters so far. Bettina is their youngest… the same age as Robert and Trudi.”
Margret’s parents watched the children while Helene and Margret went for long walks along the Rhein. One morning at the cemetery they planted yellow chrysanthemums on the graves of both families and said prayers for Helene’s parents, as well as for Leo’s wife and son.
“I worry about Leo,” Helene said as she set a plant into the earth. “He doesn’t look healthy.”
“Sadness,” Margret said. “I think it’s sadness, mostly. My mother goes over there at least once a day. Others too. Like Ilse Abramowitz. And Emil Hesping, of course.”
The way she said Emil’s name made Helene glance at her.
“Have you seen him yet?”
“A few times. He usually stops by the pay-library for a quick game of chess.”
“Your brother likes slow games better.” Margret’s eyes followed the black shape of a widow on her bicycle. On one handlebar dangled a shopping net with gardening tools, on the other a watering can. “People talk about Emil.”
“They always have.”
“Only more so now. Because he stayed out of the war. Some say he … loves your brother.”
“And I’m sure Leo loves him too.”
“They’re not talking about that kind of love, Helene.”
“Their friendship was always passionate in spirit. Just because Leo isn’t very… physical with women doesn’t mean he looks for that with men. It’s just never been all that important for him.”
“And that was painful for Gertrud. It distracted her. Embarrassed her. Some say Emil courted her to—”
“Emil flirts with almost every woman.”
“Not like that. I think he courted her to get her away from Leo. So he could have Leo for himself.”
“Wait.” Helene sat back on her heels. “I don’t understand the logic. Sleeping with a woman to get the man?”
“My mother saw her on the back of his motorcycle when Leo was away in the war.”
“Maybe Emil just—”
“His reputation is a
lot worse now than when you used to live here.”
“I never really believed in his terrible reputation. Beneath all that, he’s a decent man.” Helene pulled a candle from her handbag. “For Gertrud,” she said and rummaged for matches. “I forgot matches.”
As she searched on other graves for a lantern with a burning candle to light hers from, she was devastated by the many new names on gravestones, young men who’d died as soldiers. Most of them she’d known. A few had even been her students. Children.
With the lit candle she returned to the Montag grave; but it was too long to fit into the lantern. Suddenly she found herself sobbing.
“It’s just a candle.” Margret smoothed the earth around a chrysanthemum she’d just planted.
But Helene cried. Cried for all who had died in the war. Cried for the waste of death and the waste of war. Cried for her parents and for Leo’s wife and son. And all along—while a woman with a baby carriage and two widows walked past her family’s grave—she kept holding on to that burning candle.
“Let me,” Margret offered.
“It’s the wrong size.”
“The wrong size for the lantern. That’s all.”
Helene only sobbed harder.
“It’ll fit the candle holder on my table. Let me keep it for you. Please?” Gently, Margret placed one palm between her friend’s shoulder blades and rubbed it up and down. “You’ve been away a long time.”
Although Helene had heard about Axel Lambert, she was not prepared for the change in him when she saw him in the street outside Immers’ butcher shop, where she stood waiting in line with Robert and Trudi to buy Weisswurst—white sausage—for their Mittagessen—lunch.
A secretive smile on his lips, Axel was circulating both hands in a strange and repetitive pattern between his face and his chest. Devastated by the recognition of what the war had done to him, Helene left the line and stepped up to him. His smile got wide as though he were glad to see her, but his eyes looked through her.
“Axel? It’s me. Helene. Helene Montag.”
He dropped both arms, then raised them, one toward his nose, the other toward his chest, touching briefly with his forefingers, then dropping his arms again.