Kindergarten

by Peter Rushforth

  On the outside covers of the paperbacks were reviews from obscure newspapers in American cities, always ending in exclamation marks, always in block capital letters. Inside the books he found himself staring absorbedly at the photographs of what lay at the end of those long railway journeys, those many, many trains converging from all over Europe on the concentration camps, and the extermination camps, those places with clumsy, uncouth names far away in the east, in Poland: Majdanek, Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzec, Auschwitz. With compulsion and dread he stared at the heaped masses of skeletal bodies, long thin arms and legs like the pale twisted roots of heaped and rotting vegetables lying crushed beneath the earth, and brought to light, mouths open as if screaming, stomachs fallen away beneath the jutting ribcages, the impenetrable thicket of limbs; stared as he turned the books at different angles, trying to recognise human faces, trying to see the expressions on them, the hideous things that had once been men, women, and children.

  THEY had names. They had faces.

  He held their letters in his hand, he recognised their handwriting, he knew their names, he saw their faces, he had shared their most private hopes and fears, he knew who had not managed to leave Germany in time. He knew the obscenity that lay ahead for these families, parents and children, walking together hand in hand in that darkness, carrying their possessions in suitcases and in rucksacks from family camping holidays.

  Some things were not to be thought of. Some things were not to be endured. In nearby countries, only a few years earlier, in the lifetime of his mother and father, millions of people had been humiliated, robbed, degraded, and murdered, the populations of entire cities.

  If Hitler had completely succeeded, would the Jewish people have become a lost and legendary race, cloaked in mysteries and myths, like the Babylonians and the Assyrians, as distant and strange as the Old Testament people in an illustrated children’s Bible? Opposite the English translation of The Children’s Haggadah, sections of the book had been printed in Hebrew script, like the carving of forgotten alphabets on fragments of stone in museums. This year we sit at the table half glad, half sad, here, far away from our own land; but next year we hope to welcome a joyous Seder in the land of Israel. This year we are still as unhappy as slaves in many countries, but next year we pray to be a free and happy people.

  HE HAD been sitting in the bare room for a long time.

  Before he closed the door of the inner room in the bedroom, and turned the key on the returned and neatly sorted files, he looked at the photograph on the front of the final postcard from Nickolaus Mittler, the sepia faded and cold—as in all the other postcards—like a picture of something from long, long ago.

  Friedrichsbrücke und Nationalgalerie, Berlin. (Friedrich Bridge and National Gallery, Berlin.)

  He was looking at a scene which was like a model he had once seen in a museum, a reconstruction of Imperial Rome, stone statues dark against the skyline, naked and draped figures of gods and goddesses, columns and colonnades stretching into the distance. The bridge—the same bridge that had been visible in the distance in the aerial view of the cathedral—crossed the river in three shallow arches, with figures as tall as three-storey houses holding lamps in the shape of torches high into the sky, two on each side of the bridge, above the foundations between the arches. Four tall columns, one at each side of the approaches to the bridge, were surmounted by colossal eagles about to soar into flight. Beyond the bridge, on the far side of the river, lining its bank as far as another bridge in the distance, a row of tall columns rose straight up, like an illustration in an art book of the five orders of architecture, shafts, capitals, and architraves enclosing a columned building with a pediment, like the Acropolis or the Capitol, the great national temple, rising above its surroundings, floating above the trees, the columns, and the river. The whole scene was like a triumphal way through a pagan city, along which slaves were to be led into perpetual bondage.

  Victory was everywhere in the immense city, stretching away across the plain to the forest and the mountains: on the column in front of the Reichstag, huge, winged, holding aloft a wreath for the victor in her right hand; above the Brandenburg Gate, the trees of Unter der Linden so large and close together in the boulevard that the street seemed like a long narrow park between solid walls of buildings; in the soaring eagles on the Friedrich Bridge—everywhere was victory, victory, victory.

  The whole city was depopulated, all its people vanished. There had been no human figure in any of the photographs on the postcards from Nickolaus Mittler. The massive buildings, larger than any human scale, were there for ever, more solid and important than the ephemeral figures, tiny and fragile, of men, women, and children holding hands to stay together. The streets of the great deserted city stood out in sharp relief in the cold light of early morning or late winter afternoon. The columns of shadows were long, stretching away and narrowing into the distance.

  The same shadows stretched out across the empty playing-fields outside the window.

  Scientists had now invented a bomb which could destroy human beings but leave buildings undamaged. The body’s cell structure disintegrated, the molecules came apart.

  JO’s COPY of Emil and the Detectives was a Thomas Nelson school edition, a reprint of 1942.

  The English schoolchildren in their evacuated school read about the adventures of Berlin schoolchildren as the bombs rained down on Berlin from the English planes. On the Contents list it said: “III. The Journey to Berlin Begins: 26.” Corrie thought of the boys in Nollendorf Square, saying good night to each other and shaking hands like grown-up men who are very serious about something.

  He had flicked the pages of the book over, and looked at the page open in front of him, the illustration on page thirty-nine of Emil’s nightmare on the train: Emil running for his life past the skyscraper two hundred storeys high, pursued by the horses, and the train, and the engine-driver with the whip. “The city was so large, and Emil was so small.”

  He wondered whether Emil Tischbein was a Jewish name, and where the little boy from the small country town who loved his widowed mother would have been in 1942. Emil, Mrs. Tischbein, Grandmother, Pony Hütchen, Aunt Martha, Uncle Heimbold, Gustav, the Professor, little Tuesday, Gerold, Friedrich the First, Arnold Mittler and his little brother: where would they all have been, what would have happened to them all, caught in the flames as the book burned?

  BENT over in the quiet room, Nickolaus Mittler carefully and painstakingly wrote at the table near the window, filling the postcards with his best handwriting. He was absorbed like a figure in a Dutch interior, bowed over a letter or a musical instrument, his inner feelings possessing him more completely than his surroundings.

  He needed more time.

  He needed the future to approach more slowly.

  nine

  “GOD WILL not forsake us,” Hansel said to Gretel. “Don’t believe that we can ever be totally abandoned. Sleep peacefully, my dear little sister.”

  They prayed, and then, comforted, they both went to sleep.

  Next day, when it was still dark, before the sun had even started to rise, the woman came into the children’s bedroom, and woke them up, saying, “Come on, get up you two! We have to go into the forest to collect some wood for the fire.”

  She gave each of them a tiny piece of bread, and said, “This is the only food that we’ve got left. Save it for your dinner. If you eat it too soon, you’ll have nothing at all to eat later.”

  Gretel put both pieces of bread, hers and Hansel’s, into her pinafore pocket, because Hansel’s pockets were filled with the pebbles. Then the whole family began to walk into the darkness of the forest.

  When they had walked a little way, Hansel stood still, and looked back towards where their home was. He did this again and again as they walked further into the forest.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” his father asked him. “You’re holding us all up with your dawdling. What on earth are you looking at?”

&
nbsp; “I’m sorry, father,” Hansel said. “I’m looking back at my little white cat. He’s sitting up on the roof, all by himself, looking for me. I never said goodbye to him.”

  “Don’t be such a fool!” the woman said. “That’s not your little cat. What you can see is the morning sun shining on the chimneys.”

  Hansel, however, had not been looking back at his cat, or at the sun shining on the chimneys, but to check that the white pebbles he had been secretly dropping from his pockets had been leaving a track that he would be able to follow back out of the forest.

  When they had reached the very middle of the forest, where it was darkest, the father said, “Now, children, collect up some wood, and I’ll light a little fire for you so that you won’t be cold.”

  Hansel and Gretel worked quietly together, and piled up the pieces of wood they found until they had made a little white hill of dead wood. The father set fire to it, and when the flames were burning very high and very bright, and the shadows were flickering amongst the trees, the woman pretended to smile, and said, “Now, children, you must be tired. Lie down beside the fire where it’s nice and warm, and your father and I will go into the forest and cut a good supply of wood. When we’ve collected enough, we’ll come back for you, and then we can all go home, and sit round a lovely warm fire together.”

  The adults went away, and Hansel and Gretel sat together beside the fire. In the middle of the day they ate their little pieces of bread, and, as they could hear what they thought was the sound of an axe nearby, they thought that their father was working only a short distance away from them. It was not an axe, however, but a branch which their father had fastened loosely to a withered tree, tapping backwards and forwards as it was blown by the wind. As Hansel and Gretel sat there in the warmth, listening to the slow tap-tapping coming through the trees, their eyes began to feel heavier and heavier, and they fell into a deep sleep.

  When they woke up again, the fire had long ago died out, and it was cold and dark, the deep night fallen all around them in the forest.

  Gretel was frightened, and began to cry.

  “We will never be able to find our way home,” she sobbed to her brother. “We’re too deep into the forest ever to find our way out.”

  Hansel put his arm about her shoulder and comforted her.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he said. “Just wait a little while, until the moon has risen, and then we will be able to find our way home. I promise you.”

  When the full moon had risen above the trees around them, the white pebbles that Hansel had dropped behind him shone with a cool silvery light. He took his little sister by the hand, talking to her and encouraging her, and then began to follow the trail of pebbles through the forest.

  All night long they walked through the forest, guided by the pebbles, and, just as day broke, they once again found themselves at their father’s house. They knocked at the door, and the woman opened it. When she saw that it was Hansel and Gretel she disguised her real feelings, and said, “You’ve been very naughty and thoughtless! Why did you sleep for so long in the forest? Your father and I were beginning to think that you were never coming back!” The father, however, rejoiced inwardly, because it had almost broken his heart to leave them all alone in the dark forest.

  A few months later, there was another great famine in the country, and the children, lying awake in bed, again heard their stepmother talking to their father.

  “The only food we have left is half a loaf. When that has gone, it will be the end of us. We must get rid of the children. That is the only possible solution. We must again take them into the middle of the forest, and make sure, this time, that they can’t find their way out again. It’s the only way we can save ourselves.”

  The father was overcome with guilt and grief.

  “We cannot do that,” he said, angrily. “Parents should share their very last mouthful of food with their children. We cannot abandon them.”

  The woman would not listen to a word he said, and turned on him furiously, mocking and taunting him.

  “Once you have failed to say ‘No,’” she said, “you can never say ‘No’ again. Because you agreed the first time, you cannot fail to agree with me now.”

  She continued to argue with him, until he was compelled, once again, to agree with her.

  Hansel waited until the adults were asleep, and, as he had done before, he got up, put on his coat, and tiptoed downstairs. He planned to collect the white pebbles again, and use them on the following day to save them, but it was impossible for him to do this. The woman had locked the door, and he was unable to get out.

  He went back upstairs, and explained to Gretel what had happened.

  His little sister began to cry, and Hansel tried to console her.

  “God will never abandon us,” he said to her. “Don’t cry. Sleep peacefully. We will find a way out of the forest somehow.”

  The following morning they were again woken by the woman before the sun had risen, and she pulled them from their beds in the darkness.

  The pieces of bread that were given to them were even tinier than those they had had the first time. As they; began to make their way into the forest, Hansel, as he had done the previous time, stood still, and looked back towards their home, more and more often as they went deeper into the forest.

  “You’re slowing us all down, doing that,” his father said. “Come on, keep up with the rest of us.”

  “Sorry,” Hansel said. “I’m looking back at my little pet pigeon. He’s sitting up on the roof, all by himself, looking for me. I never said goodbye to him.”

  “You’re a fool!” the woman said. “That’s not your little pigeon. All you can see is the morning sun shining on the chimneys.”

  Hansel had not been looking back at his pigeon, or at the sun shining on the chimneys. He had been crumbling his piece of bread in his pocket, and secretly dropping crumbs to leave a track that he would be able to follow back out of the forest. Little by little, he dropped all the crumbs, little white fragments on the dark earth.

  The woman led the children into the very deepest part of the forest, to a place where they had never been before in their lives. Again, a huge fire was made, and again the woman pretended to smile, and said, “Now you stay here, children. When you feel tired, have a little sleep. We are going into the forest to cut wood for the fire at home. When we’ve finished, we’ll come back to you in the evening, and take you back home with us.”

  The adults went away, leaving the two children sitting beside the fire. When the middle of the day came, Gretel shared her little piece of bread with Hansel, because he had scattered all his bread in the forest. Then they fell asleep, and night fell, but no one came for them.

  They awoke, alone, in the deep blackness of the night in the forest.

  Hansel again put his arm around his sister to comfort her, because she was afraid of the darkness.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he said. “Remember what happened last time? Just wait, and when the moon has risen, we will be able to follow the trail of bread, and reach home safely.”

  They waited until the moon had risen above the trees, but there were no crumbs anywhere to guide them through the forest. Thousands of birds flew about the forest during the day, and they had eaten every piece of bread. The whole trail that Hansel had laid so carefully had disappeared.

  Hansel took his little sister by the hand.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll soon be able to find the way out of the forest.”

  But they did not find it. They walked all through the night, and for the whole of the next day, until night fell again, but they were still in the depths of the dark forest, weak and dizzy from hunger, as they had been unable to find anything to eat except two or three berries growing on the ground. Exhausted and cold, unable to walk any further, they huddled together beneath a tree, and fell asleep.

  The sun had already risen when they awoke the next morning, and it was now three mornin
gs since they had left their father’s house. They began their journeyings again, but seemed to find themselves travelling deeper and deeper into the darkness, across the black earth on which no grass grew. Hansel began to realise that they would soon die of hunger and exhaustion, and he was wondering what he could say to his little sister.

  At midday, when the pale sun was visible in the sky above the trees, a lovely snow-white bird, bright against the dark trees, sat on a branch just above them, and sang so beautifully that they stood still and rapt, drinking in its song, as if to fill the hunger that was inside them. When it had finished singing, it spread its wings, and flew a short distance away from them, alighting on another tree. They walked towards it, hand in hand, stumbling and faint, Hansel helping Gretel, longing to hear that sweet music once again, and, as they drew near, the bird spread its wings again, flying just ahead of them, staying just in sight. All that afternoon, the two children followed the white bird through the forest, until, as night fell, they reached a little clearing, and the bird flew on to the roof of a little house in the centre of the clearing, and stayed there.

  It was a lovely little steep-roofed house, standing amidst the trees in the quiet forest, in the cold clear air, surrounded by lawns and flower-beds, with soft warm light glowing out of its windows to guide them towards it in the rapidly falling darkness. As they came closer up to the house, they saw that it was built entirely of gingerbread, covered with little decorated biscuits, and that the windows were made of clear sugar, shining with a soft translucent glow. It was a dream come true.