by Holly Müller
‘That is correct. He’s receiving treatment.’
‘Treatment for what?’
‘To correct his abnormalities.’
A vague response – an evasive one.
‘We must visit him,’ Herr Esterbauer asserted. ‘He’ll be very distressed by all this. We can’t return home without at least seeing the boy.’
Dr Klein shot up from his chair. ‘Sir!’ he said. ‘I have other appointments besides yours. You’ll have to wait for your visit until the boy’s treatment is over.’
Herr Esterbauer quickly stood and collected his hat from the back of his chair, gesturing that Ursula should do the same. She did so, fumbling her arms into her coatsleeves.
‘But when can we visit him?’ she half whispered.
‘I don’t know!’ snapped the doctor. ‘I’m not aware of the itinerary of each of my patients. I’m a busy man. You’ll need to speak to the receptionist, or the nursing staff. Now, if you don’t mind—’
He came out from behind his desk; his polished boots clicked across the room. He opened the door and signalled towards the corridor. A flash of bright metal on his lapel caught Ursula’s notice; he wore the Golden Party badge – Anton had shown her pictures in his manuals. It meant he was connected very highly indeed, to the Führer himself perhaps. A chill passed over her skin. She hurried out.
Bleached winter sun came through the hospital windows as they walked down the passageway and they quickened their pace to warm their blood. Ursula was very glad to be out of the doctor’s company.
‘We should take pains to avoid any further dealings with him,’ muttered Herr Esterbauer. ‘He’s cold as a reptile and with less conscience.’
23
The group of boys from the ward were taken outside and along a path that ran between brick pavilions. Nurses flanked them and to their right was a lofty hedge of fir with skinny trees waving beyond it. Black birds snagged in the branches like scraps of cloth and Schosi shivered with fear. The scratchy twigs in the trees and ragged birds brought to mind the Krampuses. The bundles of sticks gripped in black hands, misshapen silhouettes moving outside his cottage, scuttling and calling in a way that filled him with uncontainable terror. It would soon be December. They’d come. He fought the urge to run.
They were led, wordless and shuffling, into a square courtyard surrounded by inward-looking windows. Beside a door was a cart covered in blue canvas. Its wheels were tall, just like the one that stood outside the freezing room. As they crossed the yard and neared the cart, Schosi slipped on the algae-green paving stones and nearly lost his footing. Moritz seized his elbow, righting him.
‘They put the dead ones in there,’ he whispered. ‘Arms and legs hanging out, like turkeys at Christmas.’
Schosi looked at the cart in fright. He thought of Aldo. Was he in there now, concealed by the blue canvas? He could feel the tremor in Moritz’s grip. Where were the nurses taking them? They’d broken the rules and would be punished for it. He was always caught whenever he did anything bad. Little bear said he should tell better lies.
Inside, the doors had glass panes of bottle green, blue and frosted white, watery colours that made Schosi remember that he was extremely thirsty. There were rows of strong white doors with hatches closed tight. Banging came from behind them as they passed, and weeping. Other than this it was a quiet place – there was no hustle and bustle of nurses coming and going, no rattle of trolleys, no echo of sports in the red hall, only the sound of birds, occasional cawing and the flap of wings, the stomp of the accompanying nurses and rustle of the boys. A voice cried out, startling them.
‘Sister!’ It was a child’s voice. ‘Please, Sister!’
They kept going. After a moment the calling stopped. Schosi tried to breathe normally but silence filled the corridor like being underwater and the doors hid blank spaces containing unknown things, miserable creatures rather than children.
There was the slip-slip of soft footsteps and two other nurses approached. They stopped at one of the white doors, jangling keys. They greeted the nurses with Schosi’s group then disappeared through the door. As he passed, Schosi peered into the room, no bigger than the scullery in his house. The nurses knelt on the floor, between them a roll of grey material, a misshapen tube about five feet in length. One nurse worked busily to unbuckle leather straps that fastened the bundle in three places. The tube of material shifted, bending slightly.
‘Stay still!’ the nurse said, leaning on it with all her weight.
Twenty metres down the corridor was another set of glass-panelled doors; the nurses herded the boys through these and into a spacious, brightly lit room with warm pink tiles along the walls, green curtains and a carpeted floor. Weighing scales stood to the left of the entrance where the boys were told to form a queue. There were several nurses drinking coffee at a low table and smoking. Two men stood close together with their backs to Schosi looking at files in a clean and pleasant kitchen area. One was bald and wore a white coat and the other was tall and stooped, wearing a military jacket, red armband and storm trooper boots. Schosi recognised him immediately as Dr Klein. He took a step backwards knocking into one of the nurses. She grabbed his wrist.
‘Line up, I say!’ she called to the group.
At this the doctor turned and the bald man too. Dr Klein looked directly at Schosi. A disapproving crease appeared between his brows.
The nurse who held Schosi’s wrist addressed Dr Klein. ‘Apologies, Doctor. These are the maladjusted from pavilion fifteen. We’re just recording initial weight on entry to the cells.’
Dr Klein continued to glare at Schosi, his eyes crowded in at either side of his fleshy nose. ‘You’re the one who stole fruit in Felddorf?’ The doctor left no time for Schosi to respond. ‘And now stealing blankets from dormitory thirteen. We can’t have that.’ He stared ahead into thin air for a moment. Then he smiled almost gently and looked at Schosi again. ‘A bout of drink treatment. For your own good.’ To the nurse, ‘See to it, will you?’ Then he and the other doctor bent over their files once more.
24
They returned to the hospital every day for the next two weeks. They became so well acquainted with the receptionist of the main building that before they even reached her desk, she’d call out a greeting. ‘Good morning! His treatment’s not over yet. You may not visit today.’
Herr Esterbauer tried to convey a sense of resolute confidence to Frau Hillier in his telegrams. He’d find his way to Schosi, as a tenacious dog eventually suffocates its larger prey by clamping over the throat and refusing to release. But neither he nor Ursula were so unwavering and sure. With each cajoling lie from the hospital staff about Schosi being perfectly well, about his ‘treatment’, their foreboding mounted, each passing moment the loss of another opportunity to save him. Ursula became hopeless, overwhelmed, exhausted. Herr Esterbauer too was beginning to flag. He worried about his mother, his farm.
They went a few times to search the Hartburg grounds, hunting for the children’s ward amongst the many buildings, looking in at windows, though most were too high and they could only grab the bars and shin up to peep over the sill, seeing little. Herr Esterbauer turned the handles on doors but found them bolted. Twice, a patrolling security guard came and questioned them. They pretended to be lost. The guard, poker-faced, escorted them from the grounds, unresponsive when Herr Esterbauer joked about being a forgetful old Opa with no sense of direction.
‘It’s time to act,’ the farmer said one day as they sat together on a bench in front of the Hofburg Palace, having not long returned from Hartburg. He rubbed his hands to warm them, an agitated motion, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. ‘Our luck won’t last, they’ll call the police and that’ll be the end of it.’
‘What would be best?’ said Ursula, her mind darting instantly ahead; yes, they must do something, something drastic, anything at all. It was too, too horrible to just sit like this, to go back to the apartment for a meal, to sleep on clean sheets and pillows.
She leaned forward also. ‘What shall we do?’
‘What shall I do?’ Herr Esterbauer cleared his throat then said levelly, ‘You must go home now, Ursula.’
She said nothing for a moment. Of course, she’d known at some point this would come. He wished her gone; she’d been nothing but trouble. She looked up at the symmetrical, curved wings of the Hofburg Palace. This time it sounded like he meant it. But she couldn’t go, could she? Without her, all would fail – she felt this rather than thought it, a conviction in her gut. It was she who must make this right. Herr Esterbauer could ask her all he liked, implore, command her. Mama’s infuriated telegrams and her own homesickness wouldn’t dissuade her either; she’d not go back. In her dreams Schosi called her name, the name he’d given her, little bear, pressing his wristwatch to his ear as if there he’d find an answer, needing her to come. Sometimes he blended with Anton or Sepp, the three merging, becoming one, lost, mutilated, killed, and she to blame, desperate, searching, getting no closer.
‘Ursula, this is no task for a young girl. You’d be more help at home, running errands for Frau Hillier.’ The farmer’s tone was straightforward. ‘You make this harder – you do more harm than good.’ He tried to catch her eye. ‘I need to go into that place and get him out. I need to do whatever it takes. It’ll be risky and unpleasant. You must go home.’
She shook her head just a little.
‘For God’s sake, girl!’ He thumped his leg, his voice rising to a bellow. ‘I’m sick to death of arguing with you! I expect to be obeyed! Do as you’re told!’
‘No!’ She moved away from him, along the bench. ‘I shan’t!’ She knew she was behaving very badly but she couldn’t stop.
He lunged to grab her arm, squeezing hard, eyes bulging. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that! What’s the matter with you?’
She gasped, almost crying, though it wasn’t from pain or even because of his anger. He’d strike her and she’d deserve it. Her blood thumped. She pressed her fingernails into her palm. ‘It was me who stole the fruit. I didn’t say a thing! Not a thing!’
Herr Esterbauer was silent. He released her and turned in his seat. She wanted him to shout – to clobber her as hard as he could. His gaze roamed over the palace, pausing on the central balcony that dominated the building – imperious, exultant. This was where the Führer had stood and given his first speech to the Austrians, welcoming them to the Reich, to Germany.
After some minutes he looked around to check they were alone, then spoke. ‘What has happened to Schosi—’ He shook his head. ‘It makes me think . . . it’s a cruel time. That you would take it on yourself—’ He rubbed his moustache, looked again at the palace. ‘You’re not to blame.’
He drew out his smoking kit, placed a cigarette in his mouth, struck a light. Tobacco smoke rolled over Ursula, the burnt smell of the match. The farmer leaned back on the bench and continued to puff, white rags curling away on the breeze. They watched two passers-by with a chocolate-coloured dog. The dog scampered into the nearby park and the owners followed, calling it. Herr Esterbauer raised his eyebrows, smiled a little. There was something about the companionable hush that made Ursula feel almost like the farmer’s equal, instead of the defiant brat of a moment ago. Her anxiousness abated; her guilt calmed, stirred with the smoke and dispersed slightly.
‘Such a good lad,’ he said eventually.
She nodded.
‘He’s like a son to me.’
‘Perhaps he will be your son one day,’ she ventured, thinking of the farmer and Frau Hillier as man and wife.
This time he didn’t seem uncomfortable. He exhaled, long and slow. ‘I do hope so.’
She realised it wasn’t strange any more to imagine them together, to picture them as lovers. It was true that their love was very different from that of the courting couples outside the Gasthaus who were laughing and beautiful and free. It was heavier and slower. It seemed to her that Herr Esterbauer carried his love like a weight on his back, dragged it everywhere in hope, to the hospital each day and to his bed at night. She thought she knew the feeling of such love, which pulled downwards and was more important than anything, but unhappier than anything too because it was lonely. She had to love her brother even though he hated and mocked and drove away every friend she made, and told her she was no good. She kept expecting him to appear somewhere in the city. Several times she had glimpsed his tawny hair, square shoulders, the sharp slope of his cheekbones. From the head of Gütteldorfer Hill she had scanned the skyline for the bald angular flak towers, ignoring the serrated needle of Stefansdom, the pale copper domes of the Belvedere, the double spire of the Rathaus. Was he amongst that great sprawl? Or in Hungary on the flat plains, dodging bullets, forgetting her angrily, not caring like the other young men did whether he saw the miraculous future that Zara Leander promised in her songs, hurting because of his sister, hurting himself?
Her tears fell easily. Dark spots quickly covered her lap. She bowed her head to conceal the sobs that shivered through her. She wondered if she ought to get up and move away. But she didn’t want to leave Herr Esterbauer’s warm presence, the muddled closeness she felt and needed.
‘Why so sad?’ he asked. ‘All too much?’
‘No.’ Then after a few steadying breaths: ‘I’m just worried about my brother as well.’
‘He’ll be fine. He’s a strong boy.’
‘He’s not,’ she said. ‘Not really.’ She sobbed then, overcome with remorse for everything.
Herr Esterbauer crossed his boots as he always did when he was waiting. He let her cry. ‘He’s very dear to you,’ he observed when she was quieter.
She wiped her face and nose. ‘He’s my best friend.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘What do you mean?’ She looked at him, hot-cheeked.
‘I worry about you holding him up so high. I don’t think it’s good for you. He’s not so perfect, not so . . .’ He trailed off.
She sniffed. She couldn’t think what to say. ‘I know,’ she said finally.
‘He’s a troubled young man. I don’t want you to get hurt. He’s wild.’ He compressed his lips, as though keeping words at bay. ‘I never told you about when he shot that Russian.’ He glanced at her and saw that she was paying attention so he kept on. ‘The prisoner never cut him. Anton went for him like – like I’ve never seen. The cut happened in the struggle, perhaps even by mistake.’
Ursula swallowed and fixed her eyes on the grit in front of the bench.
‘He was so hungry to pull that trigger. And the worst thing – how he watched the poor man kick and twitch on the floor. Greedy. He stared and stared till I forced him away.’
In Ursula’s chest a space opened and pushed everything outwards; nausea rushed in.
‘You probably don’t want to believe me,’ the farmer continued, tapping his cigarette repeatedly with his fingertip. ‘But I’m telling you because I worry. About you holding him up like you do.’
When at last she responded her voice was slow and thick with anger, the words forcing out of her mouth as if through dense cloth.
‘You’re wrong. You don’t know him.’
She shut her ears, shut her mind, and let fury burn with a blinding light so it used up all the air.
25
It was early the next morning, around five o’clock, when Ursula, Herr Esterbauer and the people from the Gütteldorfer Strasse apartment block descended the stone cellar steps into cool underground air. A cacophony of sirens called from near and far in an eerie discord and Ursula shivered in her nightclothes, overcoat, socks and shoes. There was a strong musty odour in the basement, unpleasant. Someone flicked the light switch and a large low room appeared, partitioned here and there with arches in the plasterwork; boxes were arranged along one wall and there were a couple of old sofas, wooden chairs and stools in a circle; and there was a wardrobe with no doors, which was stacked with cans and jars of provisions. There were blankets rolled up on the sofas, and cushi
ons. A rug had been placed amongst the furniture and a gramophone on a table; a rocking horse peeped from behind the wardrobe and a football waited in the expanse of the floor. Families claimed their patch of cellar by dumping their bags or by dragging a stool or chair into position. Residents of the apartments continued to arrive and there was soon a gathering of about fifty individuals.
Ursula sat on the edge of an upright chair and watched the fuss and busyness. Blankets were unrolled and tucked over the knees of the elderly, several of whom took out rosaries and started to pray. Some of the small boys and girls began a rowdy football game in the empty section of the cellar; the rocking horse lunged to and fro with a girl astride its back. Ursula tried not to think about bombs falling from the bellies of planes, blown off course by strong winds, bricks and mortar thrown to the heavens – bodies and limbs and God knows what amongst the mess. Raids here were different to those that might happen in Felddorf where the only targets were the munitions factory and the freight railway line that connected the factory to the rest of the Reich. In the city, houses were packed tight alongside government offices and other important buildings. The bombers came often.
A woman in a flowing dressing gown put a record on the gramophone – sweet strings trembling faint as gossamer – then perched on a stool and puffed on a slim cigar. She was willowy and tall, with narrow eyes, attractive even with rag knots tied in her hair. This was Frau Wilhelm, about whom Ursula had heard much tittle-tattle from Frau Petschka: apparently her baby had starved and her man had been killed in the East. The tragedy had turned her peculiar. She never replied to a ‘Good morning’ any more or stopped to chatter or to pass on news.
Eventually the children were lured to their seats with morsels of food. The rattle of flak began, distant and massive. The hairs on Ursula’s arms rose. It was a hellish sound. She imagined Anton on a parapet, a dark drop beneath, his slender arms straining to control the great gun muzzle, to swing it in arcs across the sky. And Schosi deafened in his hospital ward, not knowing if the world was ended, with no one to comfort him. Herr Esterbauer eyed her from the opposite sofa; he’d probably have tried to reassure her if she didn’t prickle at his every approach. She wondered if he’d made a plan about Schosi – he’d said nothing, and nothing more about her going home either, but then she’d not met his eye or spoken to him since the previous day. She felt confused; he’d been kind and yet she couldn’t bear the things he’d said. She didn’t want to remember. Her thoughts returned to Schosi continually, to her helplessness. Did Herr Esterbauer feel no sense of urgency? He seemed not to now, squinting down at the newspaper folded on his knee as if it were an ordinary morning. Wasn’t he anxious that the raid would drag on and keep him from Hartburg? Was she the only one distracted for Schosi’s sake? And yet she must rely on Herr Esterbauer for everything.