by Unknown
One evening, when Peter’s mother was at work in the hospital, he had looked under her pillow. He wanted to make sure. The letter had disappeared. Peter had opened his mother’s desk with a sharp knife, but he found only paper and envelopes and a few Reichsmarks that she kept in a small box. He had searched his mother’s wardrobe, he had lifted her ironed, neatly folded aprons and her underwear. There were two letters from her sister Elsa there, sent from Bautzen. Elsa’s handwriting was such a scrawl that Peter could read only the opening words: Dear little Alice. He hadn’t found any more of his father’s letters, not a single one.
This morning, when Peter entered the dairy, Herr Fuchs the teacher and his sister were not there. The children waited for them in vain and looked at the other people who came into the shop, first diffidently, then boldly, and opened all the cupboards, crates, tubs and cans. The people cursed and swore, there wasn’t a drop of sour cream left, not a bit of butter. An elderly lady kicked a cupboard and the door fell off.
As soon as the last of the grown-ups had left the shop the oldest boy knelt down on the floor, expertly lifted one of the tiles, and underneath it there was a cool storage space. One of the boys whistled and the girls nodded appreciatively. But the space was empty. Whatever had been inside it, butter or money, wasn’t there any more. When the boy looked up and his disapproving glance happened to fall on Peter, he asked why he was all dressed up like that. Peter looked down at himself in his best shirt and only now did he remember that he had to be home in good time. That was the last thing his mother had told him.
Even in the stairwell, he could hear the pots and pans clattering. His mother had been on night shift for the last week and spent her days cleaning up the apartment, as if it had ever been dirty; she polished the floors, dusted the chairs and cupboards, cleaned the windows. The door of the apartment wasn’t locked and Peter opened it. He saw three men round the kitchen table, and his mother half sitting, half lying on it. The bare behind of one of the men was moving back and forth level with Peter’s eyes, and his fleshy buttocks wobbled so much that Peter wanted to laugh. But the soldiers were holding his mother firmly. Her skirt was torn, her eyes were wide open, Peter didn’t know if she could see him or was looking straight through him. Her mouth was wide open too, but no sound came out. One of the soldiers noticed Peter, held the waistband of his trousers closed and tried to push him out of the door. Peter called for his mother. Mother, he cried, Mother. The soldier kicked his legs, hard, so that Peter collapsed outside the door. One foot kicked his backside and then the door was closed.
Peter sat on the stairs and waited. He heard Frau Kozinska singing: A bird on a green bough sat singing its song, on a cold wintry night, yet it sang loud and long. But this was summer and Peter was thirsty, and the trains would soon be going. He wanted to leave with his mother. Peter pressed his lips firmly together. He looked at the door and the gap where the lock had once been. There were still splinters of wood on the floor. Peter’s teeth nibbled scraps of thin skin off his lips. Soldiers had visited his mother once before, only a few days ago; they’d had to kick the door down, knocking the lock out. They had stayed all day, drinking and bawling. Peter had kept on hammering at the door. Someone must have pushed something up against it on the inside, perhaps there was a chair wedged under the handle. Peter had peered through the hole left by the missing lock, but there was such thick smoke inside that he couldn’t make out anything. So Peter had sat on the stairs, waiting, as he was sitting now. You couldn’t sharpen your teeth. Peter carefully chewed a scrap of skin that he had nibbled off. As he bit his lips he rubbed both forefingers over his gums. Although his mother kept his nails as short as possible, he always managed to loosen the skin over his gums with his forefinger, using the place where the nail lay embedded.
When the door finally opened last time the soldiers had stumbled out into the stairwell one by one. They went downstairs and knocked at Frau Kozinska’s door. The last of them had turned and called something up to Peter in German: I have a lad like you at home, keep an eye on your mother. And the soldier, smiling, had wagged one forefinger. When Peter went into the smoke-filled kitchen he had seen his mother bending over in a corner of the kitchen, smoothing out a sheet. You’re a big boy now, she had said without looking at Peter, you can’t sleep in my bed any more.
She hadn’t looked at him, unlike today. He had never seen such an expression in his mother’s eyes before. They were icy.
It was hard for Peter to wait outside the door. He stood there, he sat down on the stairs and stood up again. Peter tried to see something through the gap left by the lock when it was broken out. He stood on tiptoe on the last step and leaned forward. That way he could easily lose his balance. Peter felt impatient, his stomach was grumbling. Whenever his mother was on night shift she came home in the morning, woke him to get ready for school and had a meal waiting when he came home at midday. She made soup with water, salt and fish-heads. Later she took the fish-heads out and put some sorrel in the soup. She said it was healthy and nourishing. Very occasionally, when she had got hold of a little flour, she made it into small dumplings and simmered them in the soup. There’d been no potatoes since last winter. There was no meat, no lentils, no cabbage. Even in the hospital they had nothing but fish to feed to the children. Peter’s eyes were fixed, as they had been before, on the closed door and the hole left by the lock. He sat down on the top step. He remembered that after last time his mother had asked him to go and find a new lock. There were locks everywhere, in every building, in every godforsaken apartment. But Peter had forgotten.
Now Peter was chewing at the ragged skin round his thumbnail, where you could pull it off in long, thin strips. If he hadn’t forgotten about the lock, his mother could have locked the door. Peter’s eyes wandered over the charred door frame in the abandoned apartment next door. You could see the marks left by the fire everywhere; the walls, ceilings and floors were black. He and his mother had been lucky, only the apartment above them and their old neighbour’s apartment next door had burned out.
Suddenly the door opened and two soldiers came out. They were clapping each other on the back, in high good humour. Peter wondered if he could go into the apartment. He had counted three men before, so one of them must still be inside. Peter quietly got to his feet, went to the apartment door and opened it a crack. He heard sobbing. The kitchen seemed to be empty. This time none of the soldiers had been smoking; it all looked as clean and comfortable as it had in the morning. His mother’s cleaning rag lay on the kitchen dresser. Turning, Peter saw the naked soldier behind the door. Legs drawn up, head in his hands, the man sat on the floor sobbing. Peter thought it a strange sight, because the soldier was wearing a helmet, although otherwise he was entirely naked, and the war had been over for weeks.
Peter left the soldier sitting behind the door and went into the next room, where his mother was just closing the wardrobe. She was wearing her outdoor coat, she took the small case off the bed. Peter wanted to say he was sorry he’d forgotten the lock, sorry he hadn’t been able to help her, but he got out only a single word and that was: Mother. He reached for her hand. She shook his off and went ahead of him.
They passed the sobbing soldier sitting on the kitchen floor behind the front door of the apartment, they went downstairs, they walked straight along the street to the fish quay. Peter’s mother, with her long legs, walked so fast that he had trouble keeping up with her. He hopped and skipped along, and as he scurried after her, almost running, a great feeling of happiness came over him. He was filled by the certainty that they would be catching the train today, they would be setting out on their great journey, the journey west. Peter guessed that they wouldn’t be going to Frankfurt, perhaps they’d go to Bautzen and his mother’s sister, but first they would travel in the direction of Berlin. Once upon a time his mother used to tell him, as he dropped off to sleep, about the river, the beautiful market place in Bautzen, the wonderful smell in her parents’ printing works. Peter clapped his
hands and began to whistle, until his mother suddenly stood still and told him to stop it. Once again Peter tried to take her hand, but his mother asked if he couldn’t see that she had the case and her handbag to carry.
I can carry the case, Peter offered, but his mother wouldn’t let him.
Peter had often been to the fish market with his mother. One of the few fishwives still working there knew her well. She was a very young woman, her face still burned from last August, so that you could hardly see her youth. While the burns appeared a blemish at first, that blemish might have protected the young woman these last few weeks. She was the only one who still put up a big red sun umbrella early every morning, just like back in the old days, people said. In the old days – and by that they meant not so very long ago – the whole fish market had been full of big red sun umbrellas. They had disappeared over the last few years and months. It was from this fishwife that Peter’s mother often fetched the fish for the children, eels, zander, bream, tench, pike, sometimes a fish from the sea that had found its way in from the lagoon, they were glad of any kind of fish at the hospital, and in spring Peter’s mother had brought home a shad. By the time they reached the quay the fishwife had long ago set up her crate on her little wooden cart, with the sun umbrella right above it. There was a smell of tar and fish in the heat of the summer day. Cats lived among the ruins of the fish quay. Peter watched a thin tomcat run along the bank, rolling slightly from side to side, and jump down on to the little wooden landing stage. There wasn’t a single boat left now where the broad, solid, flat-bottomed boats used to rock side by side with the fishing smacks. The cat dipped one paw into the water, its head jerking back again and again as if something had alarmed it. Was there a fish there or not? Peter’s mother opened her handbag and took out some banknotes. This was what she owed the fishwife, she said. The fishwife wiped down her hands on her apron, where thousands of scales glittered, making it look like a robe, a mermaid’s robe, as she took the notes and said thank you. Her eye fell on the case, and when his mother shook hands with her she said: Have a good journey. The fishwife’s lips had almost escaped injury; they looked plump, full and young. Her voice rippled as if she were about to start chuckling. She had no eyebrows left and her eyelashes hadn’t grown back very far yet. Peter liked it when she turned aside and cast her eyes down, sounding embarrassed as she said something like: Well, good luck, then. He felt that she was looking at him and it was him she meant. He stood very close to his mother and laid his head against her arm, rubbed his nose over her elbow as if by chance, until she moved aside and changed her case to the other hand.
They walked briskly to the station. But even as they were going down the steps, a uniformed nurse with a big belly came towards them, obviously a colleague of his mother’s, saying that the special trains weren’t coming into Stettin, they’d have to walk to the next station in Scheune. The trains were leaving from there.
They went along between the tracks. The nurse was soon breathless. She kept close to Peter’s mother and he walked behind them, trying to understand what they were talking about. The nurse said she hadn’t been able to sleep a wink for thinking about the corpses they’d found by night in the hospital yard. Peter’s mother did not reply. She said nothing about the soldiers and their visit. Her colleague was sobbing; she said she really admired Peter’s mother for taking action, although everyone knew that there was something, well, not quite right about her background. The nurse laid a hand on her big belly, puffing and panting, but she wouldn’t dwell on that now, she said. Who’d have the courage, after all? She herself could never have taken one of those stakes to thrust it into a woman’s body and pull it out again, impaled like animals they’d been, with their female parts shredded. The nurse stopped, leaning heavily on Peter’s mother’s shoulder for support, she breathed deeply, the survivor kept on calling for her daughter, she said, but the daughter had bled to death long before, lying there beside her. Peter’s mother stopped and told the nurse brusquely to keep quiet. For God’s sake shut up.
The narrow platform at Scheune was crammed with people waiting. They sat on the ground in groups, suspiciously watching the new arrivals.
Nurse Alice! The cry came from a group sitting on the ground, two women were waving their arms in the air. Peter’s mother followed the voice of the woman who had obviously recognized her. She crouched down among the seated group. Peter sat down beside his mother, and the pregnant nurse followed them but stood there looking undecided, shifting from foot to foot. The women whispered together, and two women and a man went off with the pregnant nurse. When a woman needed to pee, she took several other people with her for company, if possible. Ivan was said to lurk behind the bushes waiting to attack women.
Several more hours were to pass before a train came in. The people crowded round it even before it stopped, trying to grab handles and rails. It almost looked as if the crowd itself were stopping the train, bringing it to a halt. The train didn’t seem to have enough doors. Arms flailed, feet kicked, people struck out and brought sharp elbows into play. There was swearing and whistling. Those who were too weak were pushed aside, left behind. Peter felt his mother’s hand on his back as she propelled him through the crowd, he had fabric against his face, coats, a case struck him in the ribs, and finally his mother picked him up from behind and raised him above the shoulders of the crowd. The conductor blew his whistle. At the last moment, Peter’s mother fought her way the crucial final metre forward, pushing Peter, shoving him, forcing him into the train with all her might. Peter turned, holding her hand tightly, clutching it, the train jolted and began to move, the wheels were going round, Peter held on to the door, held on to his mother too, he’d show her how strong he was. Jump! he cried. At that moment their hands lost touch. The people left on the platform were running along beside the train. Someone must have pulled the emergency brake, or perhaps the engine was labouring, because the wheels squealed on the rails. A fat lady in a hat at the back of the crowd called out: Sausages, there’s sausages over there! Sure enough, many people turned to look at her, stopped, stood on tiptoe, craned their heads to see who had uttered that cry and where the sausages were. The fat lady took her chance to fight her way several metres forward. The crowd pressed Peter’s mother and the case into the train. Peter put both arms round his mother. He was never going to let go of her again.
Once on board, they stood in the corridor, people were pushing and shoving, children had to stand on suitcases. Peter was happy to stand on theirs; it made him almost as tall as his mother. When she turned, as she kept doing, her hair tickled him. It was pinned up but a lock had fallen loose. She smelled of lilac. Beside her, the door to the compartment with seats in it was open, and two young girls stood there on their cases in short-sleeved dresses, holding on to the overloaded baggage rack. The first sparse little hairs were growing in their armpits and Peter craned over his mother’s shoulder to get a better look at their dresses, which curved out here and there. Peter felt the pleasant friction of his mother’s coat rubbing under his chin. She must be sweating, but she hadn’t wanted to leave her coat behind. The train jerked and slowly began to move. Outside the window, those who hadn’t managed to board it moved by. One of the two girls was waving and crying, and Peter saw that little hairs were sprouting under her other arm too.
Hold tight, his mother told him, nodding her head towards the door frame of the compartment. Her little nurse’s cap was still perched on her blonde, pinned-up hair, although they weren’t in the hospital. Are you dreaming? Hold on tight, she snapped. But Peter put his hands on his mother’s shoulders, thinking of the soldier who had been sitting sobbing behind the door. He was glad they were getting out of that place at last, and he wanted to fling his arms round his mother. Then someone’s elbow struck him in the back, pushing him against his mother so hard that she almost overbalanced, the case under Peter’s feet gave way, tipped over, and Peter fell on top of his mother. She staggered back into the compartment. She would never hav
e cried out, she just uttered a sound of annoyance. Peter put his hand on her hip so as not to lose touch with her. He tried to help her up. Her eyes were sparkling angrily, Peter said he was sorry, but his mother didn’t seem to be listening; her mouth stayed closed, her lips were narrowed, she pushed his hand away. Peter wanted her attention at any price.
Mother, he said, but she didn’t hear him. Mother, he repeated, taking her hand again. It was cold and strong, and he loved it. Next moment the train jerked, people tumbled against each other, and his mother held tight with one hand to the baggage rack and with the other to the door frame for the rest of the journey, while Peter clung to her coat without her noticing or being able to prevent him.
Just before Pasewalk the train stopped on an open stretch of line. The doors were opened, and the passengers pushed and shoved each other out of the train. Peter and his mother let the mass of humanity sweep them along until they reached the platform. A woman was shouting that her baggage had been stolen. Only now did Peter notice that they had lost sight of the pregnant nurse. Perhaps she hadn’t gone back to Scheune at all after answering the call of nature? Peter’s mother was walking fast now, people came towards them and stood in their way, Peter was jostled repeatedly and held his mother’s coat all the more tightly.
You wait here, his mother said when they came to a bench. An old man had just that moment got up from it. Trains leave for Anklam and Angermünde from here, perhaps there’ll be tickets. I’ll be right back. She took Peter by the shoulders and pressed him down on the bench.
I’m hungry, said Peter. Laughing, he clung to her arms.