The Ghost Keeper

by Natalie Morrill

  It must be some loud voice in the crowd that suggests it, but the thought seems to come out of nowhere—the thought that these street cleaners should be shuttled on to the Prater grounds, now that the pavement is nearly clean. A few of the cleaners are given white paint and told to paint the shopfronts with new slogans. The rest of them, Josef among them, are herded down the street towards the fairgrounds.

  This movement forward happens on its own, it seems to Josef. Hands reach out now and again to catch him or to push him—hands of angels, hands of friends. The sky above him is strangely bright: now purple, now almost orange. He cannot feel his feet.

  The mob herds them into a field, pushes them to their knees, and yells at them to eat the grass. Above the trees that ring the field, the Riesenrad Ferris wheel stands watching without yes and without no.

  The young man beside him says he will not eat grass, and a boot strikes his ear, tears a red weal along his hairline. This white spring air is thick with slime, as if they are under water, and Josef is certain he will vomit; but the girl beside him cannot make herself swallow grass and so he has to show her, to make her feel less shame, that it can be done. Yes, we can eat grass. See? No problem. Just another vegetable.

  Bitterness, bile in his throat, and the sky still this sickly winking colour. The Ferris wheel spins and reels. Josef’s hands tingle like static on the radio. He tries to take another mouthful off the earth, wonders if he could not just sink into it, here, so low down. A fist is twisting harder and harder into his gut. His forehead drips sweat. The noises of the mob and of the girl vomiting in the grass are now so far away he can barely hear them.

  And then it is as if someone has opened a hole in the back of his head and let all the feeling out. These colours flashing brilliant, fireworks sparking. He’s on the grass, curled into a ball against the spike of sick in his middle.

  He will never be able to remember what happens just then, up until the moment he feels the earth bucking beneath him, his head lolling this way and that. Jakob is kneeling over him, shaking him, face ripped with something like rage. Josef watches as if on a film reel as a man kicks Jakob in the ribs and tells him to get away.

  But they are dispersing now, the mob. One or two glance back at the men and women who have fallen over in the grass. Some of these aren’t moving and won’t move; some are beginning to vomit green and yellow. Jakob crawls back to Josef and rolls him onto his side, speaks many strange words to him, asks a question again and again—but Josef cannot hear the question. He can’t recall any words to answer with.

  11

  THERE WAS A TIME A BOY HIT ME ON THE SIDE OF THE head with a stick when we were young. I lay on the ground with no memory of falling and watched the boy’s feet as he ran away, and for the next few days there were moments when I wasn’t sure if things people said or things I saw were real or if I was imagining them. So it is like that again, for a while. The first time I come fully awake, I see that I am lying in a bed with white sheets and a green cover, in a room with peach-coloured walls, and I don’t recognize it at all. This is a horror. I call out, in a voice that is hardly a voice, “Hallo?”

  Footsteps on a staircase; the door opening. My fingers tight around the covers when Friedrich looks in.

  “You’re really awake,” he says. “Yes, good. This is very good.” He’s wringing his hands. “How do you feel?”

  “I don’t know.” I feel awful, is the truth, but I am only beginning to realize it—pain in my ribs and arms, sickness all through me. “What happened?”

  He sits in a chair, a bit removed from my bed. “Jakob brought you to Anna, after the . . . incident. At the Prater.” As he says it, I can’t remember what he means, only flashes of colour, stabs of pain. “And she sent a boy to me, and I thought—I thought the hospital might not be safe. So I brought you back here. My doctor’s been seeing to you.”

  So this is a room in his house. “How long ago?”

  “Four days,” he says. He’s leaning forward; his forehead is tight.

  “Four days! What must Anna think?”

  “I’ve sent a message every day. The doctor will be back in an hour. No one else has been in here, and of course Anna couldn’t bring the baby.”

  My chest hurts so that I must breathe slowly. I’m wearing someone else’s pyjamas, too, I can tell. “I should go home,” I say.

  Friedrich snorts. “Out of the question.”

  “Really, you can’t keep me. They’ll find out I’m not—”

  “It’s not that.” He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about that. It’s that you’re under quarantine.”

  “What?” I want to sit, but all my bones are screaming. “For what?”

  “Dr. Teuer says it’s scarlet fever,” he says. “I’ve hired a nurse. She’s off until lunch. The staff haven’t come up here. It wasn’t hard to persuade them.”

  I say, “But you are here.”

  “Well.” From the corner of my eye I see him tugging at his shirt cuffs. “My cousin had it when I was a boy, when we spent the summer at his parents’ villa. I never got sick. Maybe I’m immune.”

  “But your visitors—”

  “I told them my colleague from out of town is here and has come down with something awful. They’ve stayed away so far.”

  I cough, and the pain of it is awful enough that I have to close my eyes tight for a moment. I ask him, “Does the doctor think I’ll be all right?”

  “He might,” says Friedrich, “now that you’ve woken up. You can ask him when he gets here.” He stands. “Do you need anything? Water? An extra blanket?”

  “Water, yes.” Though I can’t imagine how I’ll drink it. As he turns towards the door, I say, “Friedrich—thank you. For all of this.”

  He pauses before he says, “Well—good, good.” I can’t see his face as he leaves.

  MY MOTHER AND father have left Vienna. This is one of the first things I understand. Friedrich tells me: to visit Zilla, perhaps to emigrate to France, if they can. Did they leave a message? I ask.

  Friedrich reads a letter from my mother:

  Dear Josef,

  I wish this were a better goodbye; but never mind, I hope we’ll see you again before long. What an embarrassment is this new administration! The Spanish Inquisition in proletarian uniform, as your father says. I wish you hadn’t crossed them, Josef. It worried us terribly when we heard about what happened to you. You can’t reason with these types. They’re thugs. Still, like all thugs, they’ll drive their movement into the dust before long. In the meantime, best to get out of the way.

  Anna says you’re in good hands and will be well soon. We wouldn’t leave if we weren’t confident about that. But after all, you have so many good friends in this city—more than your father and I ever had, perhaps. I know you feel at home here. We, meanwhile, are going to stay with Zilla and her husband in Paris. I hear he’s a fine fellow, this Mr. Repaci. What a strange way to meet one’s son-in-law! You and Zilla both flew the nest very early, I must say. Try not to forget your old parents.

  I hope to see you very soon, little Josef, though I understand you have your wife and son to look after. Still, won’t you consider joining us in Paris? I imagine you might like it.

  Papa sends his love. He reminds me that his mother doesn’t intend to join us. You might check in on her, when you’re well.

  They’ve closed up their apartment, Friedrich tells me. Their things are in storage. If they need me to try to ship things, they will send word. Friedrich says he doesn’t think that will be possible, and I try not to wonder what that means.

  “I wonder if they will have a telephone,” I say to Friedrich. And I ask, “Did they see Anna before they went?”

  “Yes, and the baby. They left the letter with her.” Friedrich always looks tired now, but I cannot tell how much of what I see is from my sickness.

  And so I begin to dream of leaving for Paris. Because it seems, suddenly, wise: like everyone who can read the signs of the times is doing this. O
f course, I don’t want to leave. I want to go home to my apartment in the Leopoldstadt and I want to go to work and to the cemeteries and to the synagogue and I want to live my life, just like that, troubling no one. In my own city.

  But then this: I think I am dying. Some nights, the pain so desperate, the heat in my body making me sure I will never see or think clearly again—“Friedrich,” I call out, “tell Anna they should go.” Because they must, they must be safe. To me the gravestones are always here, teeth of the earth, in front of my eyes. And these become people, standing closer than they’ve ever stood—so close I can almost make out their faces. They are wrapped in wire and vine, these people, and it bites their arms as they stand with their hands pinned to their thighs. I want to cut their wires, trim back the vine, but I cannot; because aren’t my arms, my hands, pinned as well by this wire that is beginning to rust, these vines coiling up from the earth—and the squeeze around my chest a vise, so that with every breath my lungs find less air?

  “Oh my God, why don’t you go!”

  A man cries out into the night. But when the morning comes, I find myself alone.

  THERE ARE NEW laws. Friedrich tells me about them in my long sickness. You need papers for everything—to cross the street, it seems, or to take a drink of water. Also, how the embassies are swamped: “The lines stretch around the block,” my friend says. They wait outside all day for the chance to get a visa. More often than not, they’re denied.

  And I’m left to think about this, about what it means. I ask Friedrich to take a note, which I dictate: Dear Anna, I say, it may be now that you ought to get out of Vienna. You know I can’t join you yet, but I will. Perhaps Jakob will take you. Please let me know your plans. And please believe that I trust you in everything. Your Josef. I see Friedrich add something to the note as he finishes, but he won’t tell me what it is and I’m too tired to press him.

  When Friedrich comes back with a reply, I can tell he doesn’t want to read it to me, that he doesn’t like it—and, my Lord, it must mean they’re leaving. But he says, “They won’t leave.” He reads it to me: We’ll stay, thank you. Your Anna. And now I don’t know what to feel or think.

  Friedrich says, “You should press them.”

  “I should press them,” I repeat. My brain is a thick, hot fog and it takes me a moment to understand.

  “Tell them to go,” he says. “They can’t afford to wait. Really, Josef. If you think it’s bad now—” He trails off, staring at the wall. My bedside light is on and it throws shadows across one side of his face. “What I mean is that I hear things,” he says. “And if I were you, I would make them leave.”

  “Friedrich,” I say, “how can I make her leave?”

  He shakes his head; he doesn’t look at me. For a moment we are quiet together and the trees beyond the window seem to breathe in the wind.

  He says, “I’ll pay their way.”

  I peer at him from the bed. “You can’t.”

  “Of course I can. Don’t be ridiculous.” His hands run over his face. “If you’re worried about people finding out—well. They won’t, is the first thing. I can handle this kind of business. But if they do—it’s not a crime. It’s what they want, really: the Jews gone. And if it’s the money—” He laughs. “But of course you don’t mean the money. I’m sick with money.”

  I feel strangely drunk—my bones fizzing; love and misery straight through me. I say, “Friedrich, I will pay everything I can—”

  “Which is not enough,” he says. “But I have enough.”

  Darling J,

  What do you want me to do with these letters? Anyway, your handwriting is a little like you (small, not so neat, but lovely) and it makes me happy to have daily samples of it. Apologies if your son doesn’t appreciate it as much just yet; he misses you so he’s almost without words. (Though I think he may have said “ma” on Tuesday. I’ll write to you when I have confirmation.)

  In the meantime: get better, my love, and come home quickly. I don’t mean to live without you in this mad old city.

  Love from your A

  GO, I TELL her; but over and over she writes me back, We will stay.

  SO THERE IS a day when Friedrich goes to her. The days hot by then—Lord, how this illness lingers. I lie in bed and realize, with my eyes on the ceiling, that he’s really there with her. I think into the quiet: It is because he loves us.

  When Friedrich gets home, I hear him downstairs awhile before he comes up to me. He arrives in my room holding a drink; he folds into the chair beside my bed.

  “She wants to talk to you first,” he says, and then all but finishes the drink in his hand—one long gulp.

  “Oh.” I sit a moment, thinking. “Before what?”

  “Before they go.” A sigh as he rubs his eye. “Before she decides to go, I suppose. But she’s nearly there.”

  “What did you tell her?” I want to know, and I don’t want to know—I want her to stay. I want them to be safe. Both at once, please!

  “That things will get worse,” he says. “I told her what I know. And what’s rumoured. Perhaps I embellished things a bit, but I don’t think—” He stops with a sound like a hiccup, but it could be his thought catching him all of a sudden by the throat. “I don’t think I went to any kind of excess, given the circumstances.”

  I rub my chest. The rash around my middle, the thing the doctor pointed to, to say, “See, scarlet fever,” is gone now, but my ribs still ache and sometimes a flush of sweat still hits me, leaves me parched. I ask him, “Did you frighten her?”

  He shrugs. “As best I could,” he says. “She’s a brave little cat, your Anna.”

  “I don’t want her to be frightened.”

  “Yes, you do, Josef.” His face is always sad now, if not angry. “Frightened enough to run.”

  I roll my tongue in my mouth. “To run.” I can’t imagine running—my legs rubber, thin as beans. “That’s what they want us to do.”

  “Josef.” He never raises his voice with me these days. “They want you dead.”

  AMAN TALKS to his wife on his friend’s telephone late in the evening. She is at a neighbour’s house, borrowing their line. There is no breeze tonight, no rain. Beyond the windows, only quiet.

  Is Tobias there?

  No, he’s with my mother.

  Ah. I was hoping to hear him.

  I’m sorry, love. He’s asleep now, anyway.

  Well.

  So. You’ve thought.

  Friedrich gave us a lot to think about.

  I’m sorry, Anna.

  Do you think it’s all true?

  All . . . ?

  What he told us. Or did he just want to scare me?

  I have to admit, I don’t know exactly what he told you.

  I think it was mostly a lie. Or his worst fears, at least. Nothing he knows for certain.

  He’s worried. I know that.

  If it’s true—if any part of it’s true . . .

  You’ll have to leave. I know.

  I mean that you have to leave too. Have you thought of that?

  What are you going to do?

  I’d have to get well first.

  You might not have time.

  I wouldn’t be allowed on any ship in this state.

  Oh, God, a ship!

  I just mean—

  No, you’re right.

  We have to go far away, I think.

  Friedrich seems to think it’s best.

  But you have to join us.

  Josef?

  I will.

  Josef—

  I promise I will, darling.

  All right. I believe you. Good.

  Have you thought about where you’ll go?

  Well, I would like to go to America or Canada. But I don’t know anyone there, and it’s next to impossible to get a visa.

  Perhaps Friedrich knows someone. He’ll help you.

  I know he will. But it’s really very hard, Josef. You haven’t seen it. And it’s in the news, always
—that these countries are full with refugees, and they’re done with it. They won’t take any more. It pleases these people very much, you know, to see that no one wants us. They’re practically singing.

  Anna, you must be hopeful.

  Josef, honestly. I love you, darling, but you’re very strange about these things.

  So you’ll go, then.

  Yes, if we can. As soon as we can.

  I’m glad.

  Are you glad?

  Anna—what would you like me to say?

  No, it’s not that.

  Please don’t cry, love.

  It’s just a cold.

  Mama won’t come with us.

  Did you tell her—

  But she wants us to go.

  Oh. Well. That’s good, I think.

  And you will come soon.

  I will come very soon.

  Yes. And then won’t we all be terribly happy!

  It may still be that everything will be all right, darling.

  And it may be that we’ll come home soon.

  We will come back home soon.

  I wonder, though, Josef. Will we want to?

  I think we will always want to, love.

  12

  I CAN’T IMAGINE, AT THIS POINT, HOW HARD IT WILL BE FOR Anna and Tobias to get a visa. I think, Of all applicants, a woman and a baby—surely they would have it easiest? But it isn’t so. And the ships fill up, and the weeks go by, and people in the embassy lineups are arrested for loitering, or assembling publicly, or anything else the police care to charge them with. Anna tells me that Jakob has been arrested, and charged, and sent to a labour camp—not yet an absolute terror. He comes back, after two weeks, a little thinner, and with a tan.

  And then Friedrich comes to me one day and says: “I think I’ve found something.”

  I sit in the chair in my room, a little removed from the window to avoid the drafts, with a blanket over my legs, reading a biography of Schiller. I feel about a hundred years old. Friedrich sits on the edge of the bed.

  “Where?” I ask him.

  “You’re not going to like it,” he says, “but it’s a real option, and I think they should take it.”