The Dark Room

by Rachel Seiffert

  —They would know why you come to our place. From Germany.

  Micha can see he is flushing, aware of his halting translation. I can’t tell them about Opa. It is too nice in this kitchen this evening. Micha tells them he is on holiday, I am a tourist, and they laugh. Andrej speaks, the other man translates.

  —We have people from the newspapers here. Chernobyl. The Pripet has radiation and they come past here on their way. It is not so far.

  —I am not a journalist.

  —No. Good. They are happy to have a tourist. Andrej and his mother.

  Micha drinks vodka with Andrej, his friend, and his mother; all together and smiling around the kitchen table. Andrej starts to ask more questions, but his mother slaps his arm. Andrej looks apologetic. He does his little sleep mime for Micha again, and Micha nods. They all stand up with Micha, and Andrej leads him back to his room. He shows Micha how the light works, and where the toilet is, and they say good night.

  Micha hears them talking on in the kitchen as he brushes his teeth and gets into bed.

  Now that he is here, he doesn’t know what to do. He should find people, ask questions, make use of his time. He has the stolen photo with him, still missing from the album Oma keeps by her bed. Opa on his honeymoon, standing in shirtsleeves in front of a lake. Not so long, only a few years before he came here.

  Micha has four days and he is afraid.

  Andrej lends him a bicycle, and a map of the area. He shows Micha the nice places to go, and his mother packs food in a bag. Micha cycles, eats his lunch, cycles some more.

  In the evening, he writes to Mina, propping the photo of Opa against his knee. Micha tries to imagine him in uniform. In the doorway of Andrej’s kitchen with a gun, standing at the crossroads at the edge of the town. The man in his head, with the SS insignia, he is Nazi Opa. The man in the photo is just Opa. Opa before Micha knew him, but still Opa, all the same.

  He tells Mina he is not getting very far. He crosses that out, starts again. Not trying hard enough. But he crosses that out, too. On a new sheet, Micha writes what he really thinks. I’m a coward. I don’t know what to do.

  Andrej drives Micha around in his pickup. Micha enjoys Andrej’s gentle banter with his customers, understanding nothing but the smiles, the serious handshakes. He walks through the villages past old men sitting on their porches, making the most of their warm Easter morning. He thinks about showing them the picture and saying Opa’s name, but he walks on.

  They could say anything. He shot my brother and twenty other men. Hunted down the Jews in the forest here. Look, here behind my house. He hated them, you see, wanted them dead.

  Micha tries to imagine a voice telling him that; a face. He tries to imagine how he would feel if that’s what he heard.

  Andrej talks to him in Belarusian, Micha speaks German, and they get on well. At lunchtime they drink scalding tea and eat heavy bread with butter and jam. A German brand. Sitting on a rise at the side of the road on a fresh spring day. Cars beep as they pass, and Andrej raises his arm in greeting. Micha buys beer on the way home, to share with Andrej and his mother. They sit together in the evening, watch TV in the kitchen. Andrej and his mother laugh, and Micha, too.

  I need a translator.

  He goes to bed, but he can’t sleep.

  Micha gets up early and goes out to find Andrej’s friend before breakfast. The German-speaker. The books in the library are Belarusian, he says, amused that Micha should want to read them. English books, German books, are in Minsk. Not here.

  —I have questions, though, about this place. Maybe only people around here will know.

  The friend shifts his weight onto his other foot. Micha doesn’t say Opa, he only says war, occupation, Nazis, and he looks at the friend’s collar, at his ear, while he talks. Micha tries to ask him: for help, to find people, translate. But it all sounds so vague and strange. Even in Micha’s head.

  Andrej’s friend is embarrassed for him, and Micha knows it.

  There is a museum, he says. Not in this town, the next one. He takes Micha to the road, flags down a car, leans in through the open window, tells the driver where Micha wants to go. They both look at Micha briefly, and the driver smiles and opens the passenger door. Andrej’s friend shakes Micha’s hand.

  —It’s a small place. But a good museum.

  Next to the old town hall Micha finds a wooden building with a concrete floor. Objects and photos are lined up along the walls. All done with care; neatly written tags; thin rope strung on hand-turned posts to keep visitors at the correct distance. A young woman sits at the door on a canvas chair. Micha drops coins into the box at her feet and she smiles and goes back to her book.

  Along one side are old paintings and photos of the town in the early years of the century. The main dusty, busy street of 1925 contrasted with the asphalt and two cars of last year. Bigger then before the war. Thriving. Houses, people, a marketplace. Outside the wind is blowing. Micha can hear it in the trees. The branches brush against the skylight in the roof of the museum.

  He has reached the first corner of the room. Opposite Micha, in the second, stand three tailors’ dummies, each with a uniform on. SS, Wehrmacht, and a third he doesn’t recognize. Empty arms hang loose and thin beside the stuffed chests. He doesn’t hurry toward them. He turns to check, but the young woman is not watching him, she is still reading.

  Between Micha and the uniforms are exhibits and pictures of the Jewish communities who lived in the town before the war. A small school, and a textbook written in Yiddish. A graveyard from which the stones were stolen to pave the streets. Micha blinks, moves on to the uniforms.

  They are creased, threadbare. Worn. Two are German, and the unfamiliar third is Russian. Micha sees a button missing from the heavy SS coat. Torn off, cut off, shot off, dropped off. This coat is real, not a replica. Someone undressed a corpse and kept a trophy. Or someone threw it off and ran away when the Red Army came. Or someone found it and wore it and maybe they were even glad of it, even though it was German, because it was wool and warm and it was winter and they were cold.

  All along the final wall are photos taken during the war. Micha sees them out of the corner of his eye while he is still by the uniforms. He prepares himself to look closer; tells himself what they will show. Public executions, smiling Germans, mass graves, mass shootings. He is right. Heads hanging loose, bodies hanging long from trees. Young men aiming rifles at kneeling children. Soldiers standing, smoking in the sunshine, and behind them, the dead lying pale and naked in rows.

  Micha looks at them all, looks hard into the faces of the soldiers, checks for Opa’s cheekbones, his high forehead, his deep-set eyes. A cigarette held in the fingertips, turned in toward the palm. Micha is sweating. He doesn’t find him. He goes back along the wall, looks again, but still he doesn’t find him.

  The young woman is watching Micha. He catches her eye and she looks away. He tries to imagine what he must look like, staring so hard at these terrible scenes. He wonders if he should hurry, or stand farther away, or cry. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care now; he is trying hard not to be a coward today. Micha calls across the room.

  —Do you speak German?

  She looks up, frowns, hasn’t understood. She says something. Micha thinks it sounds like an apology.

  —Do you speak English?

  —Yes, some. I am sorry.

  —Perhaps you can help me. Do you know if all the pictures were taken here? In this town?

  —Oh. The pictures on this wall? The occupation?

  —Yes.

  —Oh. I think so. I’m not sure, wait.

  She puts down her book, hurries to the wall, heavy shoes loud in the small room. Micha stands a little way back while she works her way along the pictures, reading the inscriptions, the names and dates.

  —These were.

  She points for Micha.

  —On this panel. The others were taken in Belarus, too, but further north, and also west. They are there to tell you that
these things happened all over the country, you see?

  —Yes. Thank you. Do you know which SS divisions served here? Waffen-SS?

  —They are listed here, I think.

  She goes to the shelves in the corner by the door, brings back a book, handwritten. Micha thinks she is excited to be helping, not self-conscious. He is still sweating; his scalp, his hands and feet.

  —Yes, look. Here on this page.

  A long list, Wehrmacht, SS, Police, but Micha sees Opa’s division. He thinks it must show in his face because the young woman avoids eye contact when he looks up.

  —Thank you.

  —You’re welcome.

  She smiles, embarrassed, still looking away, returns to her chair by the door and her book. Micha stands a while longer by the photos, not looking at them, and grateful, too, that the young woman is not looking at him.

  This is not so bad. Micha talks to himself. Very quietly, but it helps to hear a voice. I came here to see this; that Opa was here. I was ready for this. He is surprised to be so calm. Micha signs the visitors’ book; full name, full home address. I was here; so was he.

  —Do you know if there is someone I could talk to? About the occupation?

  —A historian?

  The young woman is surprised, her book held open in midair.

  —Or maybe someone who remembers it. Who was living here then?

  —I don’t know. I have to think about it.

  —I can come back tomorrow.

  —You want to speak to someone tomorrow?

  —If you can think of someone. Today, even.

  —Well, tomorrow. Maybe.

  —Yes?

  —I think maybe my grandfather can help.

  —He would speak to me?

  —Well, I don’t know. Maybe he knows somebody.

  She doesn’t sound so sure. Micha tells her he’ll come back in the morning, says he would be very grateful if she would ask her grandfather. She nods and takes Micha’s hand when he offers it, embarrassed again.

  In the morning the grandfather is there, but he doesn’t want to talk. He came to size you up, the young woman tells Micha. He hasn’t seen a German for years. She blushes as she translates, hides her smiles behind her hand.

  —He says there is a man in the next village you should talk to. Jozef Kolesnik. He will remember the Germans. You should go to him this afternoon. My grandfather will tell him you will come.

  —What time? After lunch? Do I have to wait until after lunch?

  Micha tries to catch the old man’s eye, but he just chews at his bottom lip and nods at his granddaughter. He walks away without another glance at Micha.

  The village is not far; three, maybe four kilometers. The clock outside the bakery says a quarter to two when Micha arrives, and it takes him no more than five minutes to find the house. There was no time arranged; just afternoon, after lunch, but Micha is nervous that there is nobody home.

  He checks the address again, knocks at the door one more time, and then he is not sure what to do, so he sits down and waits.

  The house is green. Wooden and painted blue-green. Micha sit on the steps leading up to the narrow veranda which runs the length of the building. There are more steps at the far end, down to a small garden and a muddy lane. Two low windows face out over the road, and after half an hour or so, Micha gets up and taps on the glass. No reply. He tries again, fingertips against the next window, cupping his hands around his eyes and peering inside. No noise or movement, nobody home.

  —Hello?

  Micha’s breath clouds the glass, and he wipes it away quickly with his sleeve. The house stays quiet and still.

  Micha’s hello sits in his ears: a loud voice in a quiet afternoon. On the veranda, he watches his hands shake, and then slowly steady again. He stands there a while, uneasy on the steps of the silent house, then he wheels the bicycle across the street and sits down on the low wall opposite. A safe distance, hands in his pockets, photo of Opa resting against his palm.

  If he remembers Opa.

  I want him to remember Opa, and I don’t.

  Micha gets up and walks, leaves the bicycle and walks. First to one end of the street, then the other. The minutes go by, a few people, a few cars, but none of them stop at the house. He sits down again.

  He had not thought of this.

  It is already late; shadows creep across the street toward him. From this distance, with the road in between, the house looks different. Not so empty, perhaps. Micha imagines a light coming on, behind a curtain, and the idea doesn’t seem so strange. Here, across the way, Micha can imagine there is someone inside. Behind a door, or under a window; sitting quiet and still while the stranger called too loudly through the glass.

  He doesn’t have a watch, doesn’t know how long he has been here. Two hours. Three. More.

  The sun is not warm now, but it is not evening, not yet, and so not yet time to go. Micha’s legs are numb from sitting. He walks up and down until the pins and needles come, and then he unlaces his boots and rubs his feet. When Micha looks up he is not alone.

  An old man stands on the porch, an old woman next to him, both of them watching him.

  —Jozef Kolesnik?

  Micha picks up the bicycle and wheels it back across the street. He didn’t see them coming. They must have come through the garden. From the lane. The old man holds a bag of shopping, and Micha thinks, It’s fine, he has been shopping. Shopping, not hiding.

  —Jozef Kolesnik? Do you speak German?

  —Yes.

  —You are Jozef Kolesnik?

  He does not answer. Micha stops walking.

  —You did get a call? Someone told me they would call.

  —Yes.

  Micha steps forward. He doesn’t know what to say. Three hours he has been waiting. The sun is low and Micha has not left the street in case he missed him. Afraid he would come, afraid that he wouldn’t. And now he is here

  —I wonder if I could ask you some questions? Just a few? Would that be possible?

  —About what?

  The old man is three steps up on his porch, and behind him stands his wife. Micha puts one hand in his pocket, fingers on the photo, resting against the smooth side, prints on the gloss.

  —My name is Micha.

  Micha pulls out his hand, holds it open, unsteady, and the photo stays hidden away. The old man shifts his bag of shopping from one hand to the other, but he doesn’t respond.

  —I am Michael Lehner.

  —You are German.

  —Yes.

  The old man turns to his wife, and she takes his arm, says something. Micha thinks she is asking him to leave; asking the old man to ask him to leave.

  —I was at the museum. I was told you might remember.

  The old woman talks to her husband. He answers and she breathes out, a heavy sigh. Micha waits for them to speak to him, but they don’t. They just look at him, and he looks at them, and Micha is terrified of what he is about to do. Of the reaction it might produce.

  No.

  It is too hard. He tastes salt. Panic at the back of his throat.

  If he remembers Opa. Will he remember good things? Will there be good things to remember, or only bad?

  Tears are on their way; Micha can feel them. In his chest now, but on their way to his eyes. The old man speaks.

  —Remember what?

  Micha doesn’t answer; he holds still.

  If I show him, then he will say yes, I knew him, or he will say no, I did not. It will be something. That will be something at least.

  There is sweat on Micha’s back and in his hair.

  —Wait.

  But it is too hard. The words don’t come, only tears.

  —Sorry.

  Micha’s mouth is thick, his eyes are full.

  —Sorry.

  He holds on to Andrej’s bike and hides his face with his arm. It is dark behind his sleeve.

  —Two minutes.

  The old woman steps down off the porch. She has
toilet paper in her shopping bag, and pulls off some sheets. Micha wipes his face, his nose, and the old woman pulls off more. Jozef Kolesnik looks down at his feet. His wife takes Andrej’s bicycle and leans it against the fence and then she goes into the house.

  He is shocked, the old man. A German boy cries outside his house. Micha thinks he is angry, too, but he doesn’t speak. He sits down on the veranda steps, and Micha wants so much to sit with him and lean against the smooth wood of the rail. His wife brings Micha vodka, and a handkerchief, but she is not friendly. Micha knows she wants him to go, and that her husband does, too. Stop crying and go.

  —Jozef Kolesnik.

  The old man holds his hand on his chest.

  —Elena Kolesnik, my wife.

  She nods and then he stands up.

  —Please go away.

  He takes a step closer to Micha, speaking quietly, one step down off his porch.

  —It was many years ago. A bad time. I am an old man. Please go away.

  So strange that he says please. It is deliberate, a kindness. He holds out his hand; a gesture to help Micha away from his house.

  Micha is close enough to look into his eyes, but he doesn’t. He could still show him Opa’s photo, but he doesn’t. It is dusk and it is too hard. He takes Andrej’s bike and he leaves.

  • • •

  When he gets back to Andrej’s, the house is dark and no one is home. Micha washes and shaves and gets into bed. He leaves the light off and stares at the wall, the day gathered like a headache behind his eyes.

  Later, Andrej knocks at the door, brings in a tray of food.

  Micha offers him his glass of beer, and drinks from the bottle. Andrej sits quietly with him while he eats. Micha’s eyes are still swollen from the day’s tears; he thinks that Andrej must see that. He stays with him and Micha is glad.

  In two days, I will be with Mina.

  Micha cries again and Andrej lifts the tray from his lap and pulls the blankets over his legs. He turns off the light and whispers something in the dark before he goes. Micha doesn’t know what he says, but it’s good to hear something. A voice before he sleeps.

  HOME, SPRING 1998