The Ghost Keeper

  But now, see, in the beam of light—something I would prefer not to have seen. A stone pressed into the soil. Crouching to touch it, I already understand: for here is another little stone resting on it, almost—but not quite—as if by accident. There are no other such stones in this place.

  Oh, Friedrich! I want to say. Perhaps you were lying to yourself. Perhaps, my friend, you created this story as a penance, and paid it tribute with your life.

  The feeling of dirt under my fingernails is one I’ve known almost nowhere besides cemeteries: we never had a garden, and I’ve lived always in cities. In digging, I am a child, and a youth, and a young man and a middle-aged man all in a moment, in the midst of a silence deep as a well. An awareness of faces peering over my shoulder—just here, so near they might lean in and touch me. We all stare together into the dark earth.

  How much is enough? I am bartering—even as I begin to sweat, as the little mounds grow beside me, as my hands turn black. I’ll try only a little farther! And then, when the silence deepens: Fine, a little farther still.

  When my trowel strikes metal I stop a long while and lean my head against the tree. I would like to cry. The tears seem to be drawn from a very long way away, and are long in coming.

  It is a baking tin or a square roasting pan, rusted and caked with earth. It is long as my forearm, elbow to fingertip.

  Bundle of cloth beneath it. Nothing gruesome, nothing accusing, nothing awful: this scrap of dirty linen like old laundry under the earth. Something that might once have been white.

  Here is what I do: take off my coat. Awkward, a moment, as I remove things from the pockets, try to fit all of it into my trouser pockets. Shivering through a thin shirt, despite the summer. I lay the jacket out flat on the grass, like a scarecrow belly-up to the sky. Loosen all the edges of the buried cloth in the earth with the trowel—this is not difficult; everything is light and easy. When I gather the cloth in my arms at last, I’m terrified of what I might feel, but there is nothing—it weighs nothing. Only ancient, and smelling of earth. I lay the bundle in the open jacket, fold the jacket around the dirty cloth.

  The tin and the turned-up earth I pat back down in the hole. Flattened over, the earth still looks disturbed, but why, I ask myself, would anyone suspect anything?

  The bundle held against my chest is light. I hold it so that it can rest against me.

  From the inside of the yard, with a little effort, the front gate can be opened without a key—and it swings open without much noise, nothing that would disturb anyone.

  I have made this walk so many times; I’ve seen this path through joy and despair; I could trace every tree and break in the sidewalk from memory, but tonight I wander along it as if through a foreign land. Maybe it is the feeling that I’m young again, a young father, and my city not yet touched by war. Maybe it is the train of followers I cannot turn to acknowledge—everything is strained with the weight of their patience. Or perhaps the world is different because my role in it is different.

  At the gate of the Währing cemetery, I fumble through various pockets for the key and find it finally inside my bundled jacket. This gate is a struggle to open, but it seems wrong to lay down the little weight in my arms to wrestle with the lock two-handed. It grates open at last. The black space beyond enfolds my burden and me, and with us the whole ghostly trailing multitude.

  There is a space halfway to the far wall from the entrance of the cemetery, a place where the earth is thrown up in little hills to trip you up. It’s shady here during the day, among tangled trees that dip their branches low, and the mat of vines hanging over them like sleep. Sometimes I surprise a partridge here, sometimes a squirrel. This is the place that beckons.

  Lay the bundle (this—can a person think it?—this child!) on the earth. One can dig with hands shaking, with head almost empty, almost faint. The earth opens up. There is room here. One can pray without words. One can watch himself praying and think, That man is praying—and not know what he is praying, and consider it right.

  I take the bundle out of the jacket to bury it. Wishing now, for a moment, that I’d brought a fresh shroud—but it’s all right, I feel. Just tuck the cloth as carefully as one can. Pat it gently (afraid to feel the press of bone, afraid to feel anything inside it), let it rest there while one finds the old prayer book and prays an older, far older prayer, standing under the branches in the quiet; how one’s voice sounds strange, wavering, as if here is a man who has not spoken in years. A fringed shawl lifting and falling in a little breeze.

  I don’t know her name, Lena’s child—or even if I understood Friedrich correctly in thinking it was a girl. I’m alone a moment, sober and clear—peering straight up through the branches at the black sky, then down at the black earth where the bundled cloth lies. How strange this is, but also how simple.

  As I bury the child, I am turning myself into a memory. Here now is my sister, taking my mittened hand in hers; here a young Jakob Dükmann pats me on the back; here my mother touches my hair as she pads past me, her eyes on a letter. A thickness in my throat; something of longing unstoppered, but I mustn’t yet allow it to flow freely. The earth can be flattened over the body I’m burying. A big stone can be placed there at the head, and a smaller stone laid atop it, to prevent any of it looking accidental. I wish I’d thought to bring something better, but it’s all very poor, very small. Still: this is an earth rich with sleeping bones—nothing ignoble, nothing lonely, about resting here. A family waiting to receive its newest child, it occurs to me.

  I sit on the earth here awhile. My heart beats heavy but slow. And now it seems that everything that just happened has been done by a different man, a long time ago.

  What does he imagine, this man? That he will be allowed, now, to walk away from everything entrusted to him? Perhaps a part of him believes it. But another, deeper part must understand.

  For he is ready to leave this place and put the whole thing behind him. And in the moment this fact spells itself clearly in his mind, he hears words spoken in his wife’s voice: We don’t know. How none of them know what became of their dead, and how this unwritten page becomes a wound—so here now are eyes that stare out at him from another time, asking, Can I trust? Lena, he realizes, does not know what became of her own dead, her child.

  So, so—he feels it welling in him as his vision swims (stumbling a little on his way towards the cemetery gate). One must allow one’s self to be seen. In his mind’s eye, a man picks a fish’s head off a table, peers through its mouth and out the open portal of its throat into the light of a clear morning. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, he thinks—to be seen, then, if only to be emptied out at last, nothing but air and light.

  14

  THERE IS SUCH QUIET THE NEXT MORNING, AND WHITE light on the apartment walls through parted drapes. Tobias has received two cups of coffee from his mother, who said, “Your father came in so late last night,” and he is carrying one of them to this old fellow who lies in bed. From his mother’s face he’s guessed already that his father is not well.

  “Vater, a drink for you.” He pushes the bedroom door open.

  “Tobias! Come here.” From the bed, Josef motions him close. The young man must dance a little to keep a hot mug safe from this grasping hand, to press the cup at last into his father’s fingers without burning him. “Sit, sit,” says Josef Tobak to his son.

  “What is it?”

  “Tobias, I need to write a letter.” Josef’s voice low, as if it is a secret between them. “But this morning I find—you know—my eyes—” He waves his hands before his face, and his vision seems not to focus. Tobias, kind young man, will not sigh at his father today.

  “You want me to help you?”

  “That would be perfect, Tobias. Yes—because who knows, who knows how long she’ll—which is to say, if it isn’t already . . . Tobias,” Josef says. He takes a deep breath, and then: “I need to write a letter to Lena. The one Friedrich Zimmel looked after. You know.”

&n
bsp; Tobias does know. He says, “Of course, Vater. Of course. I think Mutti knows where she’s staying, so I can just—”

  “Please, no need to tell your mother just yet. Not yet.” The man’s hands tremble as he raises his coffee to his mouth, so much so that his son reaches out to help steady them. He swallows and he says, “You won’t be upset, I hope, if what I have to say is a bit . . . strange?”

  “It’s fine, Vater.”

  “You’re very good, Tobias. Thank you. Only please bring some paper. I have it all in mind. All here.” (Tapping his head.) “I find looking at the paper makes me a little dizzy this morning, but if you help me . . .”

  “I’ll help you,” Tobias says. And he goes.

  Tobias, as I’ll learn, had never imagined Lena in great detail as a person, before the funeral; he’d been limited to the fact of her—how she was an emblem of his father’s friend’s decency. He had hoped, perhaps, that seeing her might be a gift to his father—something they might all point to, to say, See, there is still so much of good in this world. What disappointment, then, at the fact Josef could not even meet this woman without fainting. But now it may be, it may be (one can imagine Tobias thinking it as he retrieves a pad of paper from the desk in his bedroom) that the man will consider another survivor and find strength.

  “I don’t know her married name,” Josef says as his son sits down beside him on the bed.

  “It’s Lindner. Mutti told me after the funeral.”

  “Mrs. Lindner. Very well. You are ready? ‘Dear Mrs. Lindner . . .’”

  He says it, and he pauses. Tobias has written the words and sits with his pen poised above the page, waiting. Josef Tobak’s lips are parted, his eyes scrolling back and forth as if reading an invisible ledger. He swallows.

  “It’s hard to know where to begin.”

  His son says, “Take your time, Vater.”

  “If I am a little unclear,” Josef says, “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  In the almost half an hour they sit together, Anna comes in once to retrieve cups (says nothing but “Good morning,” wise woman), and Tobias writes on and off as his father reaches for the words that might say just enough, just exactly enough to satisfy his secretary without scandalizing him.

  Dear Mrs. Lindner,

  I must ask you to forgive my reluctance to approach you at Friedrich Zimmel’s funeral, but I hope very much that I might be allowed to meet you or correspond with you. My name is Josef Tobak. Your great-grandmother and my grandmother were sisters, I believe. Mr. Zimmel was a long-time friend of mine. He helped our family very much before the war. I also knew your mother, Sarah Kostner, but only a little; my sister knew her better. I wonder if already you know who I am? Perhaps one of them mentioned me.

  You must allow me to apologize for never being in touch with you before. My understanding—what I was told—was that you didn’t want to hear from us. Perhaps that was true, after all. It hurt me to believe it, but I believed it too easily. I wish we had been able to offer you help or friendship.

  You are on my mind very much because shortly before Mr. Zimmel died, he let me know that there was a great deal that still distressed him about his choices during the war. He told me there was much that he wished he could undo from that time. Some of the things he told me it seemed he had never before revealed to anyone, and I wondered perhaps for a little while even if they were true. I don’t wonder this anymore; I have seen enough for myself.

  But there is much of what he said—and of what I now understand—that I would like to share with you. It is not an easy matter, I appreciate. Understand that I don’t write this expecting gratitude or even acknowledgement; I don’t expect you to forgive him (or me, come to think of it). If you choose not to reply to this letter, very well. I may still feel compelled to write once more to you—forgive me if this causes you pain. But if you were willing to meet, or if you would receive mail, it would be a great relief to me.

  Mrs. Lindner, I leave this choice to you. You have my utmost respect. I wish you all happiness and blessing in your life.

  With sincere admiration,

  Josef Tobak

  He has Tobias repeat it to him twice; he says, “It doesn’t sound sinister, does it?” And, “No, I’d hardly say it does, Vater,” his son replies.

  Josef blinks, rubs his eyes. “I suppose you’ll have to ask your mother about the address.” And at Tobias’s affirmative, Josef shrugs and says, “Well, what good does it do us to have secrets from each other, after all.” Which leaves his son with a new and unfamiliar warmth, something that nestles into his ribs, and which will stay with him for several hours yet.

  LISTEN: SUCH THINGS do happen. A boy who is almost a man can carry a letter across town to a woman half-ready to leave Vienna. She can receive it; she can reply. We can wonder what need or curiosity abides behind the words she offers: “Yes, I will meet him.” How everything tilts towards this. This last piece that remains to be set down—open your hand, Tobak; let it fall.

  15

  IN A HIGH-CEILINGED COFFEE HOUSE NEAR THE CENTRE OF the city, the little family are huddled at a small round table. They are not so noticeable, these three: it’s early afternoon, the sky outside is overcast, and all around them are other little groups ringed round small tables. Another generation’s music plays above them. Many of these other patrons who surround them are tourists. (So there are tourists again, Josef reflects. So this city is a place worth visiting.) And there is the odour of coffee and baking, apples and marzipan beyond, and everywhere chatter and shifting, sounds shrunken by this wide, tall space.

  “We are a little early,” Anna says.

  In the time since Tobias spoke to Lena, there has been a strangeness among them. Anna is half-shy at it, as if this news is of royalty she needs to entertain. Tobias is quiet at her quietness, and the father—well, the father! He has said, “I’ll meet with her,” and now he feels he has handed over his whole life to be weighed. There is no need to say anything more.

  Anna and Tobias are looking about them. All these strangers, this noise. It occurs to Josef, in his silence, that it is possible she will not come. And here again is a shadow that reaches into him. For couldn’t she, as her mother once did, decide she doesn’t want to see him? And what then? He squeezes his wife’s hand, once, very tight.

  “Tsk, Josef. She’ll be here soon.” Anna’s other hand comes to pat his arm.

  It’s impossible, of course, for him to look for her. Better to look down at the table, at his hands, anywhere. So it is Tobias who says, “There she is,” and then, standing, calls, “Mrs. Lindner.”

  Anna also stands to greet her. (Josef finds he cannot.) This other woman’s voice, in clear German but with a hint of a foreign accent, is saying, “Thank you, yes, such a pleasure to meet you.”

  Someone apologizes for Josef on his behalf, and this woman bends and kisses his two cheeks. A certain hesitancy to the gesture, despite its gentleness. (What are her eyes like? Josef finds he could not say.) Her perfume has a hint of lavender. It makes his throat go tight.

  Tobias is catching the waiter’s eye; Lena is settling herself across from Anna and Josef. “What an unlikely meeting this is,” Anna exclaims, and it becomes, for a spell, a quietness draped over them.

  Then, “It is really our pleasure to meet you,” Anna continues. “I’ve thought about you so often.”

  “Oh!” Lena says. “That shames me. How lovely that you thought of me. I don’t suppose I deserve it.”

  “It’s not a question of deserving,” says Anna (all of her gentleness)—she has reached out to touch this new friend. “To me it was always that you were a blessing to us. It’s helped me keep a little of my faith.”

  This silences all of them. Something twists in Josef’s middle, and Lena makes a small noise, not quite a laugh.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it,” Lena says at last, “how we all end up tangled in one another.”

  “It’s so. Indeed. I’m very glad you’ve come—and do you l
ike living in England?” Anna asks it suddenly, perhaps out of her sense of how grave they’ve all become.

  “I do.” (Her tone lighter.) “It’s a good home for me. I met a very good man when I was in America—he was a displaced person too, as they say, but of course he’s made a very good life for himself in England. We have three children. The eldest is seven years old.” A slight creak to her voice when she says it.

  “How wonderful,” Anna says. “And you don’t ever miss Vienna, then.”

  “Miss this city?” A short silence before she says, “You understand, Mrs. Tobak—there was so little left to miss.”

  She says it, and they all think: Very well; but see, after their friend died, how she’s come to them.

  “Josef and Friedrich Zimmel were good friends since they were young,” Anna offers. “We tried to be family for him, but it’s not quite the same.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Lena’s voice quiet. “That’s very good of you, though. Very kind.”

  “We tried.” Josef says it. They have not yet heard him speak; they listen to him, but he can only add, “It’s so hard to know anything.”

  The waiter arrives, and for a minute after she orders, Lena turns to complimenting Anna on her beautiful son. (“He means to apply to medical school, I think,” Anna tells Lena, and Tobias says, “Perhaps, yes.” Both women make noises of approval at this. “You seem so steady, after all,” Lena says to him.) Josef sits through this and waits. She has not begun by accusing him, he notes. Perhaps it is that she’s waiting for him to speak. But how can he begin?

  “It’s been good to see Vienna again, after all,” Lena says at last. “My memory of it is so strange—mainly from before the war, and all that when I was a girl. I left so soon afterwards.”

  “Oh, I’ve so wanted to ask. I hope you don’t mind,” Anna says. “What was it like for you, staying in that house all those years?”

  Lena shifts in her seat. “Probably as you would expect. I feel I ought not to speak a word in complaint. I was one of the lucky ones, in the end.”