by Unknown
At the moment Helene was working in the maternity ward, where it was hard to look after all the women properly. Sanitary towels were constantly being changed, bedpans brought, compresses had to be changed every hour, cold compresses to ward off childbed fever and curd compresses at any hint of mastitis. There were genital tears to be tended, navels to be powdered. Helene brought the women their babies from the nursery and put them to their breasts. Pink healthy babies sucked sweet milk from their mothers’ full breasts while their fathers were fighting on the front far away, in east and west, on land, at sea and in the air, waiting for Leningrad to be starved out. Helene preferred not to think, there were directions, procedures to be carried out, calls for her, she had to act, she had to hurry, she put the babies to their mothers’ breasts, she changed their nappies, weighed and inoculated them, and wrote one last letter to the old address she had for Leontine. She would not send any more; she had not received a single reply to any of her letters. The long-distance telephone exchange informed her that there was no number for that address any more and no lady doctor of that name was known. Helene went home only to sleep.
On Sunday, after coming back from Velten, Peter said they had been to see a foundry and stayed the night at a boarding house. His uncle hadn’t been able to come; he probably couldn’t get leave. They ate herring salad with onions, apples and beetroot, it was only capers that Helene hadn’t been able to get. Peter licked his plate clean; his mouth was pink from the beetroot. Wilhelm had to go back to Frankfurt.
I have more of this than I can spend, said Wilhelm, giving Peter a ten-mark note at the door when he said goodbye and telling him to buy chocolates with it. Helene was glad that Wilhelm had gone away again.
When she was lying in bed with Peter that evening, he was still awake. He turned to his mother.
Father says we’re going to win the war.
Helene said nothing. Presumably Wilhelm had been telling the boy about the bombs. Wilhelm was firmly convinced that only military service made a boy into a man. Helene stroked her son’s forehead. What a beautiful child he was.
Father says I’m to grow big and strong.
Helene smiled. Wasn’t he big and strong already? She knew he was often afraid, but who could be brave if he didn’t know what fear was? While Wilhelm and Peter were away she had bought Peter a clasp knife. She was going to give it to him in November for his sixth birthday. She knew he wanted a clasp knife more than anything. He wanted to use it to make himself a fishing rod and to cut his bread.
Father says you’re so silent because you’re a cold woman.
Helene looked her Peter in the eye. People said his eyes were like hers, clear as glass and blue; it was difficult to shake her head lying down. She caressed his shoulders now and Peter buried his head in her breast.
But I don’t believe it, Peter said to her breast. I love you, Mother. Helene stroked her son’s back. It was hard to move her arm. Perhaps she had lifted too many patients today. She felt weak. What could she be to her Peter? And how could he be her Peter if she couldn’t do anything for him, if she couldn’t speak or tell stories or say anything to him? Another woman, Helene suspected, would weep at this idea. Perhaps what Wilhelm said was right, perhaps her heart was a stone. Cold, icy, hard as iron. She didn’t cry because she had nothing to cry about; her feet hurt, her back hurt, she had been running around all day, she knew she had only five hours of sleep before she got up, did the ironing, mopped the kitchen, made breakfast for Peter, woke him and sent him to school, before she herself went to work in the hospital. The arm with which she had caressed Peter ached, the arm now lying over him, her sleeping child. She could do without an inflammation of the sinews. Nurses did not fall ill. Wilhelm had told her on Sunday, when he left: Alice, you are tough as iron. You don’t need me. It was impossible for her to know just what he meant. Was he proud, were his feelings injured, was he pleased because her self-sufficiency to some extent justified his turning away from her? Perhaps he felt hurt because she didn’t need him. Men wanted to be needed, no doubt about that. An iron fist would not miss its target, would not fail to strike it, iron on iron, and certainly would not be robbed of its justification for existing. Was it different with a woman? Didn’t she strain every nerve to get to the hospital on time every day? Was iron a criterion, a quality, a peculiarity? Iron discipline. She so often worked overtime. No nurse left when she saw the bedpans stacking up on the trolley, when a patient had vomited on her nightdress, or another lay dying. An iron sense of pity. She had made sure that Peter was used to not falling ill too. Iron reason. When he was little, he had caught chickenpox and measles; she’d had to ask Frau Kozinska to look after him so that she herself could get to work on time. Frau Kozinska hadn’t even managed to wash her Peter during the day, she had forgotten to make a cold compress for him and he hadn’t had enough water to drink that evening. Presumably she’d been too busy singing.
Peter woke Helene in the morning when it was already light. He pressed close to his mother, put his arms round her, whispered: I love you so much, Mother. Suddenly he was lying on top of her, burying his face in her throat. His silky hair tickled her. He ought not to lie on top of her, didn’t he know that? And as she pushed him away, he said: Your skin is so soft, Mother, you smell so nice, I want to stay with you for ever and ever. And he tried not to let her push him away, he held on tight, his hand touched her breast and she felt something small and hard against her thigh. It could only be an erection; his erection. Helene pushed him away and got up.
Mother?
Hurry up, Peter, you must get washed and go to school, she said with her back to him. She said no more, she didn’t want to turn to him and see his face.
Many people were now sending their children out into the country because of the war, but if she did that they’d send her to Obrawalde, or to Ravensbrück or a field hospital. Helene didn’t want to be sent anywhere, so she couldn’t send Peter away into the country.
The sun was sinking to its low autumnal angle over the earth. The wind was blowing, it whined, it whistled. One day Helene was hanging out washing in the yard when she heard the children playing and calling. They were chasing each other, getting cross. Helene clearly heard Peter’s voice rising above the voices of the other children.
Ikey, Ikey Solomon
Has been shitting marzipan.
Marzipan is bad for you,
Ikey is a dirty Jew.
The sheet was in her way, the wind blew it into her face, it was a cool wind and she couldn’t see the children, only a girl from the building next door standing hesitantly in the entrance. Helene got the final clothes peg over the sheet and turned. Where was the wretched boy? She was often glad when he was out and about on his own, so that she could work in peace; he had friends, he was becoming independent, one day he wouldn’t need her any more, but now she wanted to know where he was. How on earth had he learned that rhyme? Marzipan is bad for you. Because of the bitter almond flavour? Like cyanide? There had been no Jews in Stettin for almost three years, none at all, they’d all been taken away.
Have you seen my Peter? Helene asked the girl in the doorway. She shook her head: no, she didn’t know where he was.
Helene waited for him, with his supper ready. Food was rationed, the grocer’s wife had let her have an egg, quarter of a litre of milk and a lettuce; she had bought a mackerel from the old fishwife’s daughter down on the quay; she had stuffed it with her last little bit of butter and a dried sage leaf, and baked it in the stove. Peter liked baked fish. When he came in, both his knees were grazed and a scab on his elbow was coming off. His hands were black and he had a streak of coal dust on his nose. His eyes were shining; he’d obviously been having fun.
Go and wash your hands, please, said Helene. It hardly even occurred to Peter not to do as his mother said. He washed his hands, scrubbed his nails with the nailbrush and sat down at the table.
And wash that coal dust off your face, please, said Helene.
I’m B
lack Peter, said Peter, laughing at the mention of the card game. He liked playing games and if the others laughed at him he laughed with them.
I heard you saying a rude rhyme just now, said Helene. She put the top half of the mackerel on Peter’s plate and cut the piece of bread in half.
Me?
Do you know what Jews are?
Peter shrugged uncertainly. He didn’t want to annoy his mother; nothing was further from his mind. People?
So why say a rude rhyme about them?
Peter shrugged again.
I don’t like it. Helene spoke soberly and sternly. I never want to hear it again, is that clear?
Peter looked out from under his fringe and had to smile. He looked mischievous, smiling like that. He couldn’t believe she was so upset just over a silly rhyme.
What sort of people are Jews? Peter was still smiling. He really wanted to know, but he would have to accept the fact that Helene wasn’t going to answer him. She felt inadequate, painfully inadequate. Was she being cowardly? How could she explain what kind of people Jews were to her son, who she was herself, why she couldn’t talk about it? No one knew where a child of Peter’s age might take what he knew; he could come out with it tomorrow at school, telling the teacher or the other children. Helene didn’t want that. She didn’t want to think of him in danger. He understood her, Helene was sure of that, Peter was a clever child. Jews were just people, surely that was enough by way of explanation? Helene did not respond to his smile; they ate their fish in silence.
Mother, he said when he had cleaned his plate, thank you for the mackerel, that was a fabulous mackerel. Peter could tell most fish apart, he liked the differences, their different names and flavours. Helene didn’t like the word fabulous. Everyone was using it, yet it was a very vague word, totally misleading. When she gave him the clasp knife in November it would be too late for fishing near the city, most of the river banks would be frozen, the fish would be swimming too far down, he probably wouldn’t be able to catch anything edible. Helene sketched a smile. Where did these sudden polite thanks come from? Had she ever told him he ought to thank her for a meal? The cat down in the yard would get the fish bones. No one knew whose cat it was; it was a beautiful animal that looked like a Siamese, white with brown paws and bright, clear eyes. Peter was going to wash the dishes, and Helene thanked him in advance. He liked doing it, he helped his mother whenever he could. Helene took her ironed overall and said goodnight. She was on night duty.
Dense mist lay over the water, the ships’ sirens were sounding in unison. Up in the city, the golden sun shone, casting long shadows as day dawned.
Let’s go picking mushrooms, said Helene on her day off. After repeated requests, she had been given a Sunday off because of the child. She packed her basket. Conditions couldn’t be better; it had rained yesterday and last night the moon had been full. Half the city might be out and about in the woods on a Sunday, but Helene knew her way around and would find the really remote clearings. A tea towel, two knives, some newspaper, because she didn’t want the mushrooms rubbing against each other and bruising when they were lying in her basket.
They took the train to Messenthin and soon left its thatched, half-timbered houses behind. Helene knew her way through the forest. The spruce trees stood close together, then beech and oak trees were foremost. The air was cool, with the scents of early autumn, of mushrooms and earth. Smooth beech leaves, many of them already turning bronze, shrivelled oak saplings. Helene went first, walking fast. She was familiar with these woods and the clearings in them. She felt hungry, which was not ideal when you wanted to find mushrooms. Her eyes searched the thickets, the undergrowth, it was too dark here, too dry there, they’d have to go further into the forest, to places where bees still settled on the tree trunks and basked on the wood, moving sluggishly now as the coming cold weather numbed them.
Mother, wait, you’re going so fast. Peter must be twenty or thirty paces behind her. Helene turned to look at him. He was young, he had nimble legs; don’t dawdle, she told him. She went on, climbing over fallen branches, twigs cracked underfoot. She didn’t like the agarics that grow on trees, let them stay on their mouldering stumps; she kept going, she was looking for ceps and chestnut mushrooms. Light broke through the trees, further on she saw green, the tender dry green of a small clearing, perhaps it was there, yes, it must be there that she’d find one or two, or a whole fairy ring of mushrooms to be plundered. Helene strode on, hardly hearing Peter as he stumbled along after her, calling. Ah, there was one. It had an old, brown cap, not what she might have expected to find on a morning like this. Hadn’t it rained last night and hadn’t there been a full moon? Late dew still hung on many grasses. There was only one explanation, someone had been here before her, poaching mushrooms in her wood, on the outskirts of her clearing. Helene stopped, out of breath, and looked around her. Had that branch over there only recently broken?
Wait for me, called Peter, who hadn’t yet reached the clearing, as she turned to go further on into the thickets. She didn’t wait, she just went more slowly. She heard a dog barking in the distance, then a whistle and another. Surely no foresters went hunting on Sunday? Rabbit with chanterelles. Helene thought of the tender rabbit she had once braised for Wilhelm, a long time ago. She wished she had a gun. Chanterelles, or even better ceps. Helene’s eyes wandered over the ground, almost straining from their sockets. A fly agaric with a big cap, young and plump, straight out of a picture book. Helene went on, with Peter still behind her. They crossed the railway line. A breathtaking stench blew towards them. A stench of carrion, of urine and excrement. Some way off a cattle train stood on the tracks. The sides of the rusty trucks were closed. Helene went along the tracks with Peter after her. From a distance she saw a policeman. Perhaps the locomotive had broken down and the cattle in the trucks were in distress on a long train journey. A dog barked and Helene just said: Come on.
She went back towards the woods. They had to skirt round the cattle train, giving it a wide berth to escape the stink and avoid the dogs.
Why are you running, Mother?
Couldn’t Peter smell the stench? She retched, she had to breathe through her mouth, better not to breathe at all. Helene went on, twigs snapped, whipped into her face, she shielded her eyes with her arms, rotten wood broke beneath her feet, there was something slippery under her feet, she nearly stumbled and fell on it, there was a mushroom, probably just a bitter boletus, she didn’t want to stop, she wasn’t going to spend time hanging around, she must go on towards the smell for now. Once they were to the north-west of the train it would be better, the stink was drifting south-east with the wind off the sea. Helene heard the whistle again. Perhaps some of the cattle had escaped? Perhaps they were hunting cows in the woods this Sunday, or little piglets. Helene felt hungry and thought of potato dumplings with mushrooms. Beechnuts crunched under her feet. She mustn’t bend down, pretty as they were, those bristly husks with their three chambers, the smooth threefold nuts inside, they had a nice nutty flavour if you roasted them; she wanted to show Peter the beechnuts, but she mustn’t stop for that now.
They had done it; obviously they had rounded the train and the stink was gone. The silence of the forest, the humming of insects, a woodpecker.
Mother, I can see a squirrel.
Helene wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.
The thick trunk of a tall beech tree lay in her path, its bark still shimmering silver grey. Flat-shelled beetles with red and black spots were swarming between the knotholes, hooked together in pairs, little Pushmi-Pullyous. She could at least have read Dr Dolittle to Peter, if not Hauff’s fairy tale The Cold Heart, which she thought too scary. So it would have to be Dr Dolittle, if she ever got round to reading it to him he’d enjoy it, but there was plenty of time for that, she’d just have to get home from the hospital early for once and go to the library – the book must be there for her to borrow. A big fallen tree trunk was in their way, they’d have to climb over
that. Helene put down her basket and braced her hands on the trunk, she didn’t want to crush any of the beetles, the trunk seemed quite steady.
Mother, wait for me!
Helene felt for a suitably smooth surface, leaned both hands on the trunk and swung one leg over it. The trunk was so broad, and although it had been uprooted it still stood so high, that she had to sit on it to get over. But how would she get down on the other side? There was a crack. It could hardly be the tree trunk breaking. The cracking sound came from quite close. The stench was back again. Helene’s throat tightened, she retched, swallowed and tried not to breathe, not another breath. It was a terrible stench, not carrion, more like liquid manure. How could that be? They’d got away from the cattle trucks, the train was behind them, she was sure of it. Someone sneezed. Helene turned round. Someone was cowering below the trunk, in the hollow pit left by the roots that now pointed to the sky. Helene opened her mouth, but she couldn’t scream. Her fear was so deep inside her that not a sound came out of her throat. Whoever it was had ducked, there were branches above his back, his head was out of sight, he was almost forcing it into the earth, probably trying to hide and hoping he wouldn’t be noticed. He was shaking so much that the withered leaves on the branches he had piled over him were shaking too. A crack came again. Obviously the man found it difficult to keep so still that nothing touched him and he touched nothing.
Mother? Peter was less than ten metres away now. His mischievous smile flashed over his face. Were you trying to hide? He spoke in a normal tone, he didn’t have to shout now, he was so close. Helene slipped off the tree, she slid and ran towards him, seized his hand and drew him away.