The Dark Room

by Rachel Seiffert

  —What will we call her?

  —I don’t know. I don’t know.

  Mina lies the baby girl on Michael’s stomach, and he can feel her faint warmth through his shirt, but no weight.

  —What’s your name?

  Micha sees Mina smile at him and he laughs.

  Mina sleeps, but Micha stays awake with their girl. At least he thinks he does, but Luise wakes him up when she comes in.

  —I have champagne.

  She has flowers, too, and Mina’s parents bring baby clothes that are far too big, and then Micha’s Mutti and Vati come. It is awkward, the crowd of family in the hot hospital room, and Micha gets drunk quickly on Luise’s champagne. It is a long time since his last meal. He stands outside in the corridor and watches as his tiny girl is passed from hand to hand around the room.

  —Will you phone Oma?

  Mutti asks as she leaves.

  —No.

  Micha watches his mother’s face contract, and out of the corner of his eye he sees his father turn his back.

  Luise stays on after the others have left.

  —I’ll phone her, then. If you like.

  —Whatever.

  —Micha.

  —What? I don’t want to see her. She knew about it. She covered it up.

  —You don’t know that.

  —He wrote her letters. He burnt them all afterwards. What do you think they said?

  —Not now, you two, okay?

  Mina gets out of bed and takes the baby from Luise. Micha watches his sister, but she won’t look at him. He thinks she might cry again, wailing like the day he came back from Belarus; at the kitchen table, fists balled, knuckles pressed hard against her teeth. But Lusie is quiet today. She takes a deep breath, watches Mina sit down on the bed with her new daughter, and then she stands.

  —I should go, anyway. Let you get some rest.

  Micha shrugs. Mina lies back against the pillows and smiles at his sister.

  —Come back tomorrow, won’t you? It was good to see you, Luise.

  After Luise has gone, Micha sits down. He leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

  —I was thinking you could maybe go, too.

  Micha opens his eyes.

  Mina is trying to feed their daughter, coaxing the small mouth through the folds of blanket and nightshirt to her breast. She shifts forward, tries to find a more comfortable position. Micha sees the hair at her temples, damp with sweat. Dark rings under her eyes.

  —Go home. Come back tomorrow. Don’t come when Luise is here.

  It is Christmas again, with a new baby this time. Days and nights of rain-soaked windows and colored lights. Milky baby smell and spicy biscuit gifts from friends.

  Micha often wakes angry, but it takes him some minutes to remember why. The events of the summer impossible to connect with the small body he wraps in blankets and diapers. Tiny creased fingers, long legs, black hair. Opa’s great-granddaughter.

  School holidays, night feeds, dark days. The weeks slide by. Passing their daughter between them, Micha and Mina smile at each other. He pulls her close as soon as he is allowed. After a while, she puts her arms around him, too. Everything is different again.

  Michael Lehner, thirty-one. Brother, nephew, son, and grandson. Schoolteacher. Boyfriend, and now father, too.

  In the months since he has been back, Micha has barely seen his family. Has told them nothing, only Luise. He has not been to visit Oma, and has had only two conversations with his mother. One at the hospital, the other on the phone, when she asked him to please go and visit his grandmother.

  —Just for an hour or two, Micha. She doesn’t understand.

  —No.

  —She keeps asking if you’ve gone away. She thinks something dreadful has happened.

  —It has. It did.

  —To the baby, I mean. She thinks we’re hiding something.

  Micha holds his tongue. Thinks of a thousand retorts. All of them angry. All of them obvious.

  —Michael?

  —No.

  Micha and Luise fight about whether to tell their parents. Every time she comes to see Mina, and also in cafés, parks, on street corners. They meet to talk, and always end up shouting.

  —They know anyway. Over a month you were away. You think they didn’t notice that?

  —They don’t know where I was.

  —Don’t be so naïve. They can guess. They can fill in the details. They’re not stupid.

  —So I can tell them, then? Fill in the details for them, save them the effort of speculation?

  —You’re such an asshole.

  —Fuck you, Luise. They’re still not facing up to it.

  —Why? Because they don’t scream and shout about it all day every day?

  —Like me, you mean?

  —Yes, like you.

  Micha turns away and unlocks his bike. Luise wheels hers around him, so she can see his face.

  —They know anyway, Micha. Just leave it alone now, okay?

  —What do you want to call her?

  —I don’t know.

  —I thought of Dilan. My dad’s mother was called Dilan.

  —That’s nice.

  —Really?

  —Yes. Yes, really. It’s beautiful.

  Micha looks at his daughter lying on his knees: soft, dark eyes, unfocused.

  —Dilan.

  He moves his face closer, and she widens her eyes. He touches a fingertip against her palm to feel her grip.

  —We can give her a German name, too.

  —No. I think Dilan is good.

  Mina is quiet. Please don’t say Kaethe. Just your grandmother. Not mine.

  —I didn’t have any names in mind, you know.

  —Okay. It’s okay. Dilan.

  Mina smiles. Rests her hand on the back of Micha’s neck.

  —Dilan Lehner.

  —Dilan Lehner.

  • • •

  Micha hates being alone.

  The trip to work and back is the worst part of each day. He takes books to read on the train, picks up discarded magazines, newspapers, scans the ads above the other passengers’ heads. For a while, he tries a Walkman; has the music up so loud that his fellow commuters stare. Nothing helps. Micha can’t concentrate on anything else.

  I have the photo. I can say: That’s Askan, he was my Opa. Married to my Oma, even then. And father to my mother, and later my grandfather. And all the while a murderer, too. How do I know that? I was told by a friend. Where is my proof? I have no reason not to believe it. There are no pictures of him holding a gun to someone’s head, but I am sure he did that, and pulled the trigger, too. The camera was pointing elsewhere, shutter opening and closing on another murder of another Jew, done by another man. But my Opa was no more than a few steps away.

  At home he does his grading in the kitchen, in the living room, wherever he can be with Mina and the baby. Lying on the blanket next to Dilan, pens and exercise books spread out over the floor.

  —She’s sleepy. I’ll put her down.

  —I’ll do it. Can’t we just wait a bit?

  —She needs a routine, Micha.

  —We could go for a walk. You and me. She can sleep in the stroller.

  —It’s dark.

  —That’s okay.

  Mina looks out the window.

  —Okay.

  —How is she? Dilan?

  —Great. Beautiful. Putting on weight.

  Micha and Luise meet and eat lunch together every other day or so now. Without discussing it: it just happens. A regular time, after school, in a café near the hospital. Luise always in a hurry, but always there just the same.

  —You okay?

  —Yeah. You?

  They sit in a window booth. Glass steam-edged against the cold spring days outside.

  —I really don’t think we can ever know.

  —So you keep saying, Luise.

  —Yes, I know. But what I mean is that we won’t get anywhere. If we just keep aski
ng that question.

  —You’re the one who’s still asking. I know what he did. I want to know if he felt guilty about it. It’s important.

  Micha clears his throat, irritable.

  —I’d like to look at the photos again.

  —Oma’s?

  —Yes. Before and after the war.

  —So. You’ll have to go to Oma’s, then.

  Micha doesn’t answer. Searches through his pockets for his cigarettes. Hasn’t been to see his Oma for over eight months now.

  —Yes. Well. No point, anyway.

  —What?

  —I looked at them. You can’t see anything.

  —When did you look at them?

  —After you came back. After you told me.

  —With Oma?

  —Yes, of course with Oma.

  —She saw one was missing?

  —Yes. From the honeymoon pictures. We looked all over the flat for it.

  —I’ve got it.

  —Oh. Of course.

  Luise stirs her soup.

  —Anyway. They don’t show anything, the pictures. They’re family shots, you know? Celebrations. Always happy. You can’t see anything.

  Micha stares at Luise. Doesn’t know whether to believe her. Doesn’t want to believe her.

  —He always looked away from the camera, though. Did you notice that? After the war.

  —So?

  —Doesn’t that say something to you?

  —No. I don’t think that’s true, anyway. I’m sure there are pictures where he looks at the camera.

  —No. Name me one.

  —Micha. God. Wedding anniversary. Thirtieth. Oma and Opa together in the Kirchenweg house. In the garden.

  Micha tries to remember it. Still thinks Luise is wrong.

  —So you don’t think he felt guilty?

  —No. I mean, I don’t know. We can’t ever know. I’m just saying maybe he never really knew what to think himself.

  —He killed people.

  —Okay, Micha. Just listen. Maybe that’s true. People do terrible things. It was war. I’m not excusing it. Not at all. But it was war, and it was cruel and confusing and he couldn’t tell right from wrong anymore, and he did something terrible.

  —Yes.

  —So, when people do these things. Maybe. I don’t really know, of course, but maybe sometimes they believe in these things, or they become them, or maybe sometimes they don’t. They just do them and then they go on.

  —That’s it?

  —What do you mean, That’s it? You haven’t even thought about what I’ve said.

  —I don’t want to.

  Micha tries to remember the photo again. The Kirchenweg garden. Can almost see it. Can’t see Opa’s face.

  —I’m just trying to help. Both of us.

  —I know.

  Mina goes back to work: part-time, see how it goes, she says. They time it to start at the Easter break, so Micha can be at home to get Dilan used to the nursery routine. At first for an hour or two, building up to lunchtime, and then early afternoon, ready for when Micha will come and collect her after he finishes at school.

  After he has settled her in, Micha waits in a café opposite the kindergarten, not wanting to go back to the flat alone. There is washing to be done, tidying, shopping, but he will do it later, when Mina comes home, listening to her talk about her day. He reads his way through the morning, eating, drinking, watching the waitresses chat behind the bar, the other customers come and go. It is a relief to pick Dilan up again, wrap himself in her smell.

  Micha wonders if his Opa took comfort in his children, and then his grandchildren, too. Mutti and Bernd. Luise and me. Micha remembers Opa’s arms, his lap, his soap-cigarette smell. Dilan shifts in the sling strapped to Micha’s chest. He pulls off her sock, inspects the small toes and smaller toenails, rubs the foot, pulls the sock back on. He didn’t deserve to feel comforted. Micha thinks it, and it feels right, but it also feels impossibly cruel.

  The week passes and the day comes that Micha is to leave Dilan until after one. Walking from the train, he changes his mind. The too-long morning ahead, he turns the stroller around, carries it back down the steps, and runs down the platform to catch the departing train. Dilan blinks at him, dark-eyed, as he takes them past their stop, and on into town, where he changes trains and leads them to the main line station.

  He buys pretzels from the kiosk, changes Dilan’s diaper in the women’s restroom, and gets them on the first available train to Hannover, even though it means a change at Kassel and a twenty-minute wait.

  —I’m looking for Steinweg.

  Micha tells the taxi driver above Dilan’s screams. She is hungry, and he’s already given her the bottle from home. The driver takes them there, driving fast along the wide streets of the center and the unfamiliar suburbs, postwar housing blocks.

  Micha stands on the pavement with Dilan propped on his hip. He has never been here, only seen photos. Knows the house number just like he knows so many other cluttered details of his family’s past. Not the pieces that matter. He has no idea now what he hoped to gain from coming here; his Opa’s first home after prison, after his crime. The house stands solid, respectable, suburban, impassive. Lived in by somebody else. Micha stands outside, confused, afraid, his hungry daughter screaming in his arms.

  The childhood times he remembers are all good. Even when the drunken rages are included; the letters Opa burnt; the photos in which he looked away. Even now, with all his certainty about what Opa did, where he did it, the faces on the museum wall he might have done it to, Micha tries, but he can’t make it all add up to anything. Guilt, remorse, pride, defiance, shame. Nothing definite. Nothing for Micha to pin everything to.

  Facts, events, places stand separate, distinct, and Dilan screams.

  Micha straps her into the stroller, walks away from the house in search of a shop or a café, a place to buy water, some formula, somewhere to warm it all up. Dilan won’t stop crying, and he is afraid. Over two hours home on the train.

  The streets are just one house after another and Micha can’t forget Kolesnik’s bleak answers. No guilt and no forgiveness either. No point in sadness. In any small human emotions. What did Luise say? People just do it and then they go on.

  Micha walks, Dilan cries, he finds no shops.

  All this time. Since the start of it all at the family dinner, on Oma’s balcony, in the library, reading and writing things down. Micha has thought for months now that there might be an end to this, but here in this unfamiliar suburb, with his hungry, angry child, he knows that for all these months he has been wrong.

  —Even when I cry about it, I’m crying for myself. Not for the people who were killed.

  Mina frowns for a while, dangles the bright starfish over her daughter’s face. She is still angry about yesterday, the fact that he went off without saying anything, without food for Dilan, without proper thought. Micha can see Mina collecting herself.

  —That’s okay, isn’t it?

  —Do you think so?

  —I don’t know.

  Dilan’s hands reach, fall away again. The red and yellow starfish jangles, tiny bells on each of its points. Soft toweling body squashed between Mina’s fingers. Nails bitten to the quick.

  —Who do you cry for?

  —When I see things about the Holocaust?

  —Yes.

  —You. At the moment. Me. Her. I’m going to walk a bit, get her off to sleep.

  Mina moves slowly back and forth along the path in front of the park bench, with the baby leaning on her shoulder. Micha looks at the small face lying against the soft wool of her mother’s coat. Cheeks pink in the cold morning air, lashes like black ink lines on her skin.

  —When I was young I used to think it was awful, all the children who lost their parents. You know that photo? The little boy running along the road in Belsen when the Allies came? All alone.

  —Yes.

  —Now I think about the parents who lost their children. Childr
en were killed first in the camps, no?

  Micha nods.

  —I think how terrible that must be. To survive after that. To have to live without them.

  The baby is asleep. Micha wants to hold her. Knows it would wake her. Mina stops walking, starts swaying gently, side to side.

  —You look at things differently. Everyone does. You loved your Opa. You found out something terrible about him, maybe you feel like you can’t love him now. You have to cry about that.

  Mina lays the baby down in the pram, and Micha rocks it with his foot, tucks the blanket over his daughter’s feet.

  —I know that’s all very logical.

  —Yes.

  —Difficult to be logical.

  —Yes.

  —He still did all those nice things you remember, though. He still loved you.

  —I can’t think about that, Mina.

  —No.

  She pulls the bag off the pram handles, searches for something among the jars of cream and bundles of diapers.

  —What would you do?

  —What do you mean?

  —If it was your Opa.

  —Honestly, Micha. I don’t know. I’d maybe piss on his grave. Sorry. I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t want to think of the good things either.

  You look at things differently. Micha repeats Mina’s statement to himself, but it makes no difference. Doesn’t make it easier at all. He thinks about himself, this is true. Selfish. But what Micha finds far more difficult are the others he thinks about, too. Opa, and Jozef. What they did, and they each lived a whole life afterwards. Micha always finds them in his mind’s-eye maps; replays the choices they made; follows the unraveling lines. Years and generations. No way to change it. Never enough sadness and no forgiveness.

  It revolts him that he thinks of them. Doesn’t tell Mina, because he knows it would revolt her, too.

  It is late. The baby is asleep. Micha stands in his pyjamas in the dark hallway and answers the phone.

  There is an echo on the line; long distance. A voice he doesn’t recognize speaks in halting German. A familiar heavy accent.

  —This is a telephone call from Elena Kolesnik.

  It is a woman’s voice, but not Elena’s. Micha hears Elena speak in the background. The voice on the phone translates.

  —Am I speaking to Michael?