by Ursula Hegi
“Spain, maybe. With that olive skin.” Her husband drops his arm around her.
“Why local?” I ask.
“Because it happened in a local church,” says Luzia The Clown.
* * *
Luzia’s dainty wrists make Kalle yearn for Lotte’s strong wrists. He and Lotte started loving each other as children. In fourth grade they promised to marry. Such clarity of knowing had to be a sign they were destined to be together. At sixteen, he was ready to court her but too embarrassed by warts on his fingers. He visited the beekeeper, known for a wart potion he blended in his workroom. After he rubbed it into Kalle’s hands, he wrapped them with gauze, told him to leave it on for thirty-seven hours. That’s how long it took for gauze to absorb the warts. But to keep the warts from finding him again, Kalle had to bury the gauze behind the St. Margaret Home. That’s what he did, though he was up to his shins in cold muck that smelled of something dead. Fish, he assured himself. Not bodies of battle-dead from the German-Danish War a few years before.
He snuck back on the path between the church and the St. Margaret Home where candles flickered behind a stained peacock window. When his warts didn’t reappear, he proposed to Lotte on the tidal flats at sunset—as was tradition—when the tide was out. They married the following October when Lotte turned sixteen. Eventually, they had children and lost children and he left her. Not right away, though. He did try to stay. For days he tried to find his way back to Lotte in their grieving while Wilhelm shrieked.
* * *
“The father could be from Italy,” Silvio says.
Herr Ludwig nods vigorously. “Venice. Where your mother grew up, Silvio.” Memories like fireflies alighting briefly … here and here again finding … not just impermanence … but richness, an everlasting glow that exhilarates him. “Our marriage was bliss and harmony.”
The Twenty-Four-Hour Man rolls his eyes, and I elbow him.
“… more than I ever dared dream. Silvio remembers…”
But Silvio pretends not to hear.
“Quite a few dark-haired people live in Holland,” Kalle says. “Like my great-grandparents.”
“Venice,” Herr Ludwig insists. “I knew five dwarfs in Venice.”
“Is she a dwarf?” Heike asks me.
“A beautiful little dwarf.”
The baby flails her short arms and legs.
* * *
“Let me,” Kalle says, and when Luzia hands him the baby, it’s like holding a bundle of bubbles—
—a bundle of bubbles—
—his Bärbel all over again—
—belly down on his knees—
—and he lays the foundling across his knees, gently, with her belly down and kneads her back with his thumbs till the gas bubbles pass and he, too, is crying and plummeting into the sorrow he’s fled since the day of the freak wave. He used to remember everything. So why can’t he remember who was next to Lotte when the wave came at them? She has told him. Or has she? What if he imagined she told him? Imagined that the day of the wave he knew but didn’t want to know? The not knowing has blotted the knowing—and all he has left is this uncertainty. Herr Ludwig has told him it was like that for him after his wife Pia fell to her death, and that he thought it would be like that from then on; but his memory came back after a year, sharp as always.
As Kalle lifts the dwarf girl against his chest, the longing for his own children wells up a hundredfold, makes his jaw ache. He hums to her, strokes her wide face. From now on I am part of your story … and you of mine.
Too dim in The Last Supper for others to see his tears, but he hears them say how good he is with babies. And he’s grateful they can recognize that.
* * *
The giant Nowack and Luzia line a basket with a blanket. Just for one day, they promise Silvio Ludwig. And keep the dwarf child from one day to the next until it becomes forever. But Luzia’s bliss erases her beauty so that she looks too wholesome, content. Tragedy has abandoned her and she has to paint it—the downturn of lips and eyes—for each performance.
Kalle transforms God’s burning bush on their wagon into Aladdin’s magic lamp. They love his plan to whittle down God, then overlay a harem and carve a little Red Sea between the harem and Moses who is about to part the waters.
“God,” says the giant Nowack, “must be whittled down once in a while.”
“You—” Kalle starts laughing. “And here I thought you were serious.”
“No, you didn’t.” The giant Nowack nudges him with his elbow.
Silvio pretends to be startled whenever he notices the foundling. “You’re still here?”
He carries her to see the dancing dogs. Teaches her to applaud.
“Are they giving you enough to eat?” He shakes his head till a Zwieback falls from it.
Though the child lives with Luzia and the giant Nowack, they all raise her. It’s only natural that they name her after Pia Ludwig, the dazzling high-wire artist.
It so pleases Herr Ludwig. Animates him. “Pia…” he murmurs to the baby and kisses her toes, her fingers. “Fireflies…”
Hans-Jürgen Nowack bends toward him. An ease in that, a generosity. “Tell me about the fireflies, Herr Ludwig.”
* * *
The Whirling Nowack Twins arrived at the Ludwig Zirkus just days after me. One Twin is a giant; the other a runt. They audition with the runt on his back, knees bent, and when he raises his bare feet, the giant comes from a running leap to stand on the soles of the runt, who propels him into a headstand, then a dozen somersaults. Graceful and strong, they fly apart and—in less than a heartbeat—land on their knees, side by side, arms spread.
“Excellent,” Herr Ludwig says.
I applaud.
“Usually we start with me juggling him,” the giant explains, “and work up to the more difficult acts. Like this.”
“Our audiences won’t believe Twins,” says Herr Ludwig.
“We’ve never had a problem with that,” declares the runt.
“Once they find a reason to doubt you, they’ll doubt everything our Zirkus does.”
“Not with us,” says the runt.
“Not with the Ludwig Zirkus.” Silvio takes a step toward him.
The two glare at each other like roosters about to strike.
“But—” the runt starts.
Silvio slices one hand through the air. “You’ll find another Zirkus.”
“Cousins, then?” The giant’s voice, mellow. A shelf of eyebrows as if chiseled from wood and not yet finished.
“And are you?” asks Herr Ludwig. “Cousins?”
“Yes,” the runt says without blinking.
“We can do cousins,” says the giant.
“And we can juggle anything.”
“Dogs and torches.”
“Furniture.”
“I’m Oliver,” says the giant.
“I’m Hans-Jürgen.”
Silvio chews on his lip. Glances at his father. Both nod.
“Cousins, then,” says Herr Ludwig. “The Whirling Nowack Cousins.”
16
Going Maternal
Usually Girls leave the St. Margaret Home within months or even weeks of giving birth; most return to their families, but Tilli invents reasons to stay, readies herself for the Sisters’ requests before they can voice them. She welcomes frightened new Girls who’ve heard about this far-away mansion where they can learn to play the harp, to paint and embroider. But first they must learn how to take care of the children already there. In the Big Nursery on the second floor she introduces them to the older children, shows them how to coax them out of sadness before it can close around them. How, the Girls ask, and Tilli says by just loving them, by singing to them and making shadow animals against the wall with their hands and hers. In the Little Nursery she shows them how to bathe infants so that even the fussiest ones stop crying. She warns them about people who want to adopt babies. “They’ll be all nice to you, but once they have your baby, they don’t want you. So
me lie about where they live so you can’t find your baby again.”
She coaches the Girls in fainting—collapse gracefully or lurch toward the ground. “Fainting gets you out of church, you and at least two Girls who get to carry you out.”
“I don’t want to get out of church,” says the newest Girl, Marlene.
But the others practice fainting. A game who can faint the fastest, lie still the longest without moving her eyelids.
Marlene has prayed to give birth in church, proof of immaculate conception. Since she doesn’t know how this baby got inside her—just as it happened to the Jungfrau Maria—she vows to raise it just like the Jungfrau Maria raised her Baby Jesus. And if that means lamenting at the foot of his cross when he’s a man, Marlene will make that sacrifice, too. Soused by religion, she is a bad influence on other Girls, especially Hedda who sleeps on the narrow bed across from her and becomes Marlene’s best friend because both are determined to keep their babies. The Sisters worry they’ll sway other Girls who have signed adoption papers. Keeping a baby can be romanticized by Girls if they don’t get separated right away.
One Sunday the wife of the blacksmith stays after Mass and surprises Hedda and Marlene with a generous offer: they and their babies can live in the room above the smithy in return for housework and letting the wife of the blacksmith help with their babies. She has the sad and hidden gaze of barren women who forever yearn for babies. Her husband doesn’t believe in adoption, she says, but has agreed to her plan.
* * *
Whenever Tilli takes Wilhelm out in the Kinderwagen—baby buggy—she wants to keep walking, take him to a place far away. As her outings with him get longer, the Sisters suspect she’s going maternal on them. They’ve seen this happen with other Girls and it devastates them.
“Not good for Tilli.”
“Or for Wilhelm.”
“Trying to replace her own baby.”
“It prolongs her heartache.”
“Poor girl.”
“Wilhelm also gives her joy.”
“I’ve written to the parents. Twice,” Sister Hildegunde says. “They won’t take her back.”
“Tilli won’t understand.”
“They say Tilli is immoral.”
“Oh, please!”
“That she seduced her younger brother.”
“Younger? She only has one brother and he’s her twin.”
“They say she’ll do it again.”
“The only ones immoral are those parents. They chose the boy over her.”
“And she’s such a considerate girl.”
“Warm-hearted.”
“A good worker.”
“What if we sent her upstairs to work with the older children?”
“Older than her own child. Older than Wilhelm.”
“She has been Wilhelm’s wet nurse. Think of the bonding.”
“It could have been any other Girl.”
“But it wasn’t. I tried to get Wilhelm used to other Girls, but he refused to nurse.”
“But to separate her altogether from Wilhelm … it’s not right.”
“Not altogether. She’ll still see him.”
“Whatever we do, we must preserve Tilli’s dignity.”
“Her dignity, ja.”
“Just less time with Wilhelm.”
* * *
Concerned about Tilli’s attachment to the boy, Sister Franziska carries him upstairs for more frequent visits with Lotte.
“I need your help in the nursery,” she tells Lotte one afternoon.
“I can’t.”
“At least your presence.” She situates Wilhelm in his mother’s arms.
“Tilli likes taking care of him.”
“Tilli is too devoted to him.”
“She loves him.”
“Some Sisters worry she’s gone maternal!”
Sisters can be so naive, Lotte thinks. It has to do with being virgins. Soul this and soul that—and what of the body?
“She’s still a child…”
“Who gave birth to a child.”
“I don’t know how to be near children.”
“I have seen you with your children and—”
“—and they died.”
Sister Franziska holds her gaze, fearless of Lotte’s pain, though a pain like that can blind you, lay bare your own pains raw and sudden. “I’ve known you all your life—as a child, a woman, a mother—and you were always loving and patient.”
She coaxes Lotte into helping her.
“Just one hour tomorrow. This once.”
And then again.
“Two hours.”
Soon, half days.
“We can pay you.”
“You’re giving me so much already.”
* * *
As Lotte assists Sister Franziska and tends to newborns in the Little Nursery, she feels a generation older than the pregnant Girls, though she’s just twenty-five. Sister teaches her all she knows about keeping their Girls alive during and after birth: bleedings; cold compresses; enemas mixed from linseed tea and new milk and laudanum.
“Each child we help into the world,” Sister Franziska tells her, “makes our losses more bearable.”
Your losses too? But Lotte doesn’t know how to ask.
Easier to talk with Sister Franziska about what needs to be done. Like how to bind their breasts after delivery. “Above all we must be merciful,” Sister says. “We must not do it too soon. We must not wrap the bandages too tightly.”
As Lotte digs herself into training, Wilhelm stays in the Little Nursery where Tilli watches over him. Other Girls want to play with him too, but they have to ask Tilli first. She allows them to play house with Wilhelm and her, but she gets to say how. The Girls take turns being Wilhelm’s Mutti and Vati; they laugh when they get him to crawl after a ball they roll from one wall of the nursery to another; they like to dress him up with clothing from the bin that’s stocked with knitting and sewing projects the Old Women do for the St. Margaret children.
* * *
When Sister Franziska decides it’s time for Wilhelm to stay with his mother every night, Lotte doesn’t object. Doesn’t object when he leans against her, little breath warm. Guilt is no longer her only lens. Joy manages to claim a few minutes of her days. Wilhelm sleeping next to her lifts her hours from limbo. Soon she looks for him during the day, ventures to the nursery; it surprises her how content Wilhelm is with the other children: he reaches for them, laughs. Instant siblings—don’t think that don’t—
One afternoon she finds him with Tilli on their hands and knees, imitating the Sisters’ black dog, Verrückter Hund. Crazy Dog.
Tilli stands up. “I’m just visiting for a few minutes.”
Wilhelm coos when Verrückter Hund rolls over, folds those absurdly long legs against his belly, makes himself a small bundle.
Lotte crouches, pats the white fur on the dog’s sturdy neck. “When did you learn to crawl so fast, Wilhelm?”
Everyone wants a bit of Wilhelm, Tilli thinks. Other children, Pregnant Girls, the old Sisters. And now his mother. Who rubs the dog’s pink belly. Pink. Wilhelm crawls around the dog. Hits his head against a chair and screams. His mother scoops him up, kisses his head, whispers to him, but he’s inconsolable, stretches his arms toward Tilli, only stops crying when Tilli bends toward him.
At first Lotte is relieved. But why then do I feel resentful?
And from Tilli a small triumph. Lotte needs me.
17
Marlene and Hedda
One Sunday morning Marlene’s prayers are validated. As the contractions rip through her, rip her open, she curses the baby, curses God, curses her best friend, Hedda, who is on the floor cradling Marlene’s head to protect it from crashing against the bottoms of the pews. Marlene’s blasphemy paralyzes the priest in his pulpit who suddenly can no longer distinguish between St. Margaret Girls four decades ago and all St. Margaret Girls since, including Girls in the pews below him. New faces young faces and yet th
e same. But the Sisters are distinctive, young when he was young, old now that he is old. One of them he has loved. Loves still. He has given Sister Hildegunde no indication; but she understands he’s devoted to her and that he’ll hear her confession any time, night or day. Not that he has occasion to be alone with her at night. Sister Hildegunde only comes to his confessional in the mornings after Mass, arrives with two Sisters who genuflect and file into a pew to wait for each other while one whispers sins to him.
* * *
“Let’s get you down from the pulpit.” A hand around the priest’s wrist.
Instinctively he covers it with his hand—finally oh—covers Sister Hildegunde’s slender hand and the black hem of her sleeve worn at the edge, the vow of poverty, of austerity. Sister Hildegunde tugs him from the pulpit, one step two steps down to the next plank before descending to the lower plank.
“Careful now,” Sister Hildegunde whispers.
“Thank you,” he whispers back.
“One step two steps down.”
Sister Hildegunde is old. He is old. Except she looks young because the wimple conceals her neck. Nuns have that advantage. While his neck betrays his aging. Creases and folds. But that’s changing because he’s discovered how to intermix youthfulness and penance. At home, after morning prayers, he remains on his knees, tilts his head back as far as he can, and opens his mouth wide to stretch the skin on his throat; he holds that pose until it’s torture and then enhances his suffering by stretching his lower lip across his upper lip in the direction of his nostrils.
“Now we are both old, Sister Hildegunde.”
“I’m Sister Elinor.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
Dizzy, he is dizzy. Oh— “You are not Sister Hildegunde?”
“I’m not.” Sister Elinor steadies him. “It’s too late to move Marlene to the infirmary. She waited too long.”