The Wish Child

by Catherine Chidgey

  The smoke hurts her eyes and she spits out gritty fragments of brick. A burning curtain drifts past like a bird. She sits down again, and at her feet she finds some of her shrapnel collection.

  ‘Sieglinde!’ calls Herr Metzger. ‘Just stay where you are, I’m still looking for a blanket but I’ll be back soon.’

  And all of a sudden Sieglinde does not want to stay where she is, not at all; she wants to get away from the broken things, the things she is not supposed to look at but has looked at, away from Herr Metzger and his blanket, which, she knows, will not be her own blanket from her own bed. She pulls the fox free from its burrow of brick and wraps it about her neck, and then she sorts through the pieces of shrapnel, recognising some, picking out the best ones and putting them aside: a flower, a tree-trunk, a snowflake, a star. And then, before Herr Metzger returns and wraps her up, she creeps back to Mutti and lays the flower at her head, and for Vati the tree, and for Jürgen the snow. And Kurt – at his head she lays the star, which was one of her favourites; it hung above her bed and she watched it every night as it spun on its thread. Yes, she places a star at his head, and then she slips into the smoke that is already in her throat and in her eyes, already part of Sieglinde Heilmann, and the ashes rise and flurry about her, black sycamore wings, black feathers, and she disappears.

  Goodbye, calls the fox. Goodbye, goodbye.

  April 1945

  Leipzig

  FRAU MILLER: Shall we get out and stretch our legs?

  FRAU MÜLLER: Why not. A bit of a walk, some fresh air – how long do we have?

  FRAU MILLER: Seventeen minutes and forty seconds.

  FRAU MÜLLER: All right, but we’ll need to keep an eye on the time. Heads must roll for victory.

  FRAU MILLER: Wheels, Frau Müller. Wheels must roll.

  FRAU MÜLLER: What did I say? Never mind, you know what I mean.

  FRAU MILLER: I do.

  FRAU MÜLLER: When Dieter was little he always said he wanted to be a train driver.

  FRAU MILLER: So did Hans-Georg, for a while. But all little boys say that, don’t they?

  FRAU MÜLLER: How can we know what all little boys say? Do we listen in on all little boys?

  FRAU MILLER: Be careful, Frau Müller.

  FRAU MÜLLER: I am careful. I’m always careful. I’m merely pointing out that it is not possible to know what all little boys say. Is that not true?

  FRAU MILLER: What’s true is this: our boys will never be train drivers.

  FRAU MÜLLER: Imagine what they’d say if they saw us now. How much time is left?

  FRAU MILLER: Sixteen minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

  A train is waiting at the station; it has so many cars that Erich cannot make out its end. Among the crowds of Red Cross nurses and soldiers and refugees he sees two women in Reichsbahn uniforms on the platform.

  ‘Are there any seats?’ he asks.

  ‘Seats!’ says one of the women. ‘He wants to know if there are any seats, Frau Miller!’

  ‘Seats!’ says the second woman. ‘Does it look like the Orient Express?’ She gestures to the string of freight cars, iron-walled, windowless.

  The first woman says, ‘May I interest sir in our dinner menu? The roast goose is especially fine today.’

  The second woman says, ‘Allow me to show sir to the sleeping wagon. In the evening the guard will turn down your bed.’

  ‘… and bring you a cup of hot chocolate.’

  The women laugh, shake their heads. Above them the clock says six o’clock, but that cannot be right, and the hands do not move.

  ‘But can I buy a ticket?’ Erich asks.

  ‘A ticket!’

  ‘That’s a first, Frau Müller! A ticket!’

  ‘I don’t mind sitting on the floor,’ says Erich. ‘Is there any room?’

  ‘There’s plenty of room,’ says the first woman.

  ‘It’s completely empty,’ says the second.

  ‘Room is not the issue,’ says the first, ‘but they’ve left it in a terrible state.’

  ‘Which just goes to show.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  The first woman taps her colleague’s wrist. ‘How long do we have?’

  ‘Four minutes and seventeen seconds.’

  ‘Will there be any more trains?’ says Erich.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ says the second woman. ‘Not passenger trains.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Erich. ‘Only I need to get to Berlin, to fight for the Führer.’

  ‘Do you indeed,’ says the first woman.

  ‘The Führer,’ says the second.

  ‘Are you going to Berlin?’

  ‘Where’s our next load, Frau Müller?’

  The first woman consults a clipboard. ‘Sachsenhausen. So yes, we’ll be passing nearby.’

  ‘Sachsenhausen?’ says the second woman. ‘Sachsenhausen?’

  ‘Sachsenhausen,’ says the first.

  ‘That can’t be right. Word was sent – they don’t need the train any more. I thought I told you …? I know I meant to.’

  ‘That is not the same thing, Frau Miller,’ says the first woman.

  ‘I’m tired. I must have forgotten,’ says the second.

  ‘Everyone is tired, Frau Miller. I am tired. This boy looks tired. I imagine the Führer is exhausted. At any rate, Sachsenhausen is next on the list. Do you see? Right here.’

  ‘I do see. I do see the list. However, I believe I am correct that word was sent.’

  ‘You are saying that I – that we – are to deviate from the list?’

  ‘Yes. The list is superseded by the word that was sent.’

  ‘And where is this word? Do you have it?’

  ‘I did have it. I’m sure I can find it again, if you give me a minute.’

  ‘We don’t have a minute.’

  ‘It’s an expression.’

  ‘All the same,’ says the first woman, ‘the list is the list. It says Sachsenhausen. Therefore we are to proceed to Sachsenhausen.’

  The second woman is silent for a moment. She checks her watch. Then she says, ‘Very well, Frau Müller.’ She glances at Erich. ‘And the boy …?’

  They lower their voices.

  ‘He could travel up the front, with us …’

  ‘It’s against the rules. He might be anyone.’

  ‘He’s just an ordinary German boy. Think of Hans-Georg.’

  ‘You know, he’s a little like him. Around the mouth.’

  ‘Don’t you find? With Dieter’s eyes.’

  They regard him for a moment, which lasts six seconds, leaving them fifty-six seconds in total, and then they say that Erich can travel up the front with them, but he must not touch anything and he must not tell anyone.

  ‘Do you have somewhere to go once you’re there?’ the second woman asks him.

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Erich, because anybody in Berlin will be able to point him to where the Führer lives. And when Erich does meet him he will ask him which book he loves best, because he knows that the Führer loves books, and that he loves Karl May books in particular, which Erich also loves, and perhaps his favourite book will be Erich’s favourite too. The soul lives in the blood, the Führer will say, exposing his forearm and cutting himself with a knife. He will let a few drops of blood fall into a bowl of water and then Erich will do the same, cutting his own forearm and letting his own blood fall into a bowl. We two warriors wish our souls to merge to form a single soul, the Führer will say. Then my thoughts will be yours, and yours mine. Drink! And each will drain the other’s bowl, and they will be blood brothers for life, just like Winnetou and Old Shatterhand.

  The women ask Erich if he would like a sandwich. Or perhaps a blanket? It can get cold in the trains. They’ll drop him off at Schlesischer Bahnhof, if it’s still there by the time they reach it.

  April 1945

  Berlin

  And am I to enjoy the spectacle? The flash of flak, the radiant clouds? Shall I delight in the bubbling asphalt, the rubble rain, the fus
es that play dead? The firestorm gusts that bend trees four storeys high? The haphazard blockbusters, the incendiaries that drop into chimneys and gutterings, fierce stars deaf to any wish? The phosphorus fires that cannot be put out with water, the phosphorus burns that cannot be treated? Feet without legs, hands without arms, eyes without sight: oh, the monsters I could make. Hasn’t Herr Mammon lit his palace splendidly for the party? Everything is wrong: the living are buried, the dead exhumed. We sleep outside for warmth and offer diamonds for bread, chalk our names on the places we used to live in case anyone comes to find us. I can’t unsmash the glass, re-pin the grenade, and it’s far too late to leave: two-and-a-half million men are gathering at the edges of the city, two-and-a-half million beasts who will nail us to doors, cut out our tongues, cut off our breasts, two-anda-half million savages waiting to pick our bones. They are selling the skin of the bear before it has been shot. As they draw closer our pictures fall from the walls and our telephones start ringing by themselves with nobody but ghosts on the line. At the concert hall the orchestra plays Twilight of the Gods and boys distribute ampoules of poison, glass semibreves that sound their long, low notes in the private thoughts of those who tuck them into pockets and handkerchiefs and fists for when the time comes. We’ve been swallowing it for years; what’s one more taste? Enjoy the war; the peace will be terrible.

  It is fine and mild on the Führer’s birthday; the women queue for water, the traitors and the suicides rock in the early spring breeze, and from beneath the earth the Reichsminister speaks to us: Führer, command! We will follow. He is in us and around us. See, he has not deserted us. See, he is emerging from the ground, blinking in the daylight and touching the children’s faces, feeling for something vital. But why does his left arm tremble as he makes his way along the line? Why does he hold it behind his back as if hiding a surprise? The day is mild but his greatcoat is belted, his collar turned up. Is this really Our Führer, this slumped and slackened creature, as pale as the dead men who sway with their heads at thoughtful angles, reflecting on their transgressions, placards strung about their necks: I Did Not Believe in the Führer? Is this who we hung in every wise home, this revenant blinking in the daylight? There must have been a switch; this must be one of the doubles; the real Führer is on his way to South America, and he will be safe there, and he will release the wonder weapons to save us. But as he comes closer and closer we can see that he is Hitler, we know that he is Hitler and nobody else, and we catch the scent of the hole from which he has emerged; the grey woollen coat drenched with the smell of earth, of rotting leaves, of dark and buried things: when the victim is dead, the vampire dies too. And yes, here he is, the shadowman, the Nachzehrer risen from his grave to consume his winding sheet, to make the church bells ring so that all who hear them perish, to kill any his shadow touches. To devour his own. A fly drifts around his head and settles on his hair but he does not notice. He stands before the youngest boy and offers him a listless hand, a bloated smile.

  ‘How old are you, my child?’

  ‘Twelve, my Führer.’

  ‘Were you afraid when you helped the wounded soldiers?’

  ‘No, my Führer.’

  ‘And would you like to go home or would you like to go to the front?’

  ‘To the front, my Führer.’

  He strokes the boy’s cheek the way a parent might, and the boy wishes him a happy birthday, but already he is eyeing the next child.

  *

  There has been a mistake, Erich thinks. They have taken a wrong turn, they have brought him to some primitive place – but look, the train is stopping and the women are handing him his knapsack and a blanket and an extra sandwich and wishing him luck.

  ‘Where do I go?’ he asks them, because it is clear that his map from the airman will not help him.

  ‘Anywhere,’ they say. ‘Take your pick.’

  I see him passing streams of people fleeing to the untouched heart of the country, their possessions piled high on handcarts and sledges, on dented prams, on wagons pulled by dark-eyed oxen: pots and brooms and dining chairs; ladders, bedsteads, buckets; tables lying on their backs like dying animals; children packed in tight around bulging suitcases and feather beds; and everything tied down with rope so that it is not lost, because so much has been lost already, and this is what remains. We have slaughtered our animals, set fire to our homes, destroyed our bridges so the enemy cannot follow us. There is no going back; the country grows smaller every day. And should we move troops from the west to fight the hordes devouring the east? And what then of the undefended west? What possibilities remain? We are emptying the camps, covering our tracks, bringing back into Germany all the criminals we sent away: the gypsies and the Jews, the homosexuals, the asocials, the defeatists and the degenerates. The many heads of Hitler lie buried in our gardens and sunk in our lakes. Beneath arches of thorns, o my brother, we blind clock-hands climb towards midnight.

  ‘Are you lost?’ a man asks Erich. ‘Where is your mother?’

  No, says Erich, he is not lost, even though he does not know where he is. (How long has he been walking? Two hours? Three?) ‘I’m older than I look,’ he says, and this is quite possible; rationing has stunted us, and we are a smaller people than we were, and shrinking all the time. Some of the refugees eye him as if he might pick their pockets.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asks the man.

  ‘To fight for the Führer.’

  ‘You’d better hurry then.’

  But this cannot be right. This cannot be Berlin. The buildings are crumbling and collapsed, sliced open, insides hanging out, windows missing, chimneys toppled, roofs gone; here and there Erich can see right into abandoned rooms where mirrors and clocks hang crooked on waterstained walls. S-Bahn cars barricade streets littered with baths and couches and tables and radiators and beds, and boys on bicycles wind their way through the mounds of rubble with Panzerfausts clipped to their handlebars. Ashes are falling like dead leaves, like dirty snow, catching in Erich’s hair, settling on his shoulders. In the ruins mothers squat before campfires stoked with books, cooking for their children, and crosses made from chair legs mark hasty graves in front yards. The trees are charred, the lamp posts bent double, and a great yellow haze hangs over it all, blocking out the sky, stinking of sulphur and gas and things that need burying deep. No, this cannot be right.

  When the noise starts up it cracks him open and rushes inside, filling his skull with iron bees battering themselves against bone. He cannot breathe. The sound tears through the smoke and he does not know which way to run. He can tell that people are shouting because he can see their mouths moving but he cannot make out a word. He thinks of Frau Ingwer reading to the class from her little book: Panic is always more dangerous than the danger itself. Where can panic arise? In any place where people are together in large numbers, and not just in an enclosed space, but also outside. What do I do if panic erupts? I remain calm and keep my wits about me. I assess the situation quickly and accurately. I call with a calm and firm voice, ‘There is no danger at all!’

  And then a girl is grabbing his sleeve and dragging him through the maze of rubble, and he is stumbling behind her, half tripping over a dented sign saying Nollendorfplatz. He tries to watch his feet, tries to keep his wits about him and assess the situation. She runs ahead of him, weaving through the smoke, a fox-fur stole hanging over her shoulder. Its paws jump and dance, as if it too is running, and it watches Erich with bead-black eyes. The girl gestures to him to follow her down a flight of steps; the door at the bottom is blocked with rubble, but she climbs through a smashed window and then helps Erich in.

  To begin with he can’t see much, but the girl takes his hand and they make their way through a set of swinging double doors and down another flight of stairs, carpeted this time, to a subterranean room. He can feel broken glass cracking beneath his feet, and he remembers one winter when he walked out on the frozen lake before the ice was thick enough, and Mama calling him back.

&nb
sp; ‘Wait here,’ says the girl, and he stands alone in the blackness with the noise still thundering above, and when he pushes his knuckles into his eyes to stop the tears he sees black honeycomb, and he wonders why on earth he came to this place. His stomach growls and twists; he has already finished the sandwich the women gave him on the train, as well as the sausage he brought from home, and all but one of the apples. He hears footsteps, and then the girl is setting a torch on a ledge and swinging herself up next to it, and he sees that it is not a ledge but a stage: they are in a theatre.

  ‘What were you doing out there?’ she says. ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘I lost them,’ he says, ‘Mama on the farm and Papa somewhere in Russia.’

  ‘A farm? In Berlin?’

  ‘Oh, no – I came here to fight for the Führer.’

  ‘Are you in the Volkssturm?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’d have an armband if you were.’

  ‘I don’t have an armband.’

  ‘We could try to get you one.’

  ‘It’s all right. I don’t mind not having one.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to fight for the Führer.’

  Erich looks away, shakes his head.

  The girl nods. ‘Well, just say if you change your mind.’