— I had to cry. I couldn’t bear to hear boots marching in step or see any flags, without crying — with sadness. Do you still remember Mrs Karl’s remarks — when we were sleeping in the room above the fire engine. And how proudly Mrs Weindeln looked at her Sepp. He’s going to be a real boy. How pityingly she looked down at you. The cold room in Steingriff. The dark road into town in the morning in the cold winter. The water froze in the wash basin. The lavatory was across the yard. There was no electric light. Mrs Schneider said : the others who were evacuated left long ago. — She also said: I’m in the women’s organization. — At the Haas’s, they claimed you had eaten the quarter pound of butter. I didn’t move with you eight times without cause. In Hamburg it’s not just the bombs we have to be afraid of. We should keep quiet here too. See nothing. Say nothing. People don’t want a mother with a fatherless boy — or with such a father.
— God the Father in heaven.
Detlev looks away from Frieda to Sister Silissa’s habit. He avoids the nuns’ eyes. He imagines they are angry and fixed on him because of his dirty hand.
— Sister Silissa knows what our dear Lord in heaven looks like. Frieda knows which prayer turns a Protestant into a Catholic. Her brother pretended to be the devil. Pious Anna will have to go to hell four times. Her gossip brought the devil up out of hell. At their consecration in the enclosure Sister Silissa and Sister Appia had their hair cut off. The archbishop rubbed their shaven heads with holy oil.
— Don’t think about it. Your father is dead. Be a good boy. Bow when you say good morning to the nuns, or I don’t mind if you say God be with you. Don’t forget to say thank you and please. Don’t be forward. Hold your tongue. There are people who want to set traps for us. I’m on my guard all day long. If we make a mistake then they’ll put us before a court and who knows what terrible things they’ll invent. You’re safest in the orphanage.
His mother stood still on the cobbled square between the parish church and the orphanage. She took off her glasses. She rubbed a finger along the shiny circles under her eyes made by the pressure of the frames.
— The first time we came this way, you couldn’t even read. You asked me what the golden letters meant. I replied Catholic Orphanage. Then I had to explain to you what the word Catholic means.
— Now I can read it myself.
— You’re bigger and more grown up now. They’ll let you see the whole orphanage from top to bottom. You’ll get to know all the Catholic customs.
— You’ll come for me every Sunday. Then we’ll go to the café at the market and eat ice cream and cakes. You’ve promised me, that you’ll come every Sunday.
— I’ll show you my new room, and you can play me something on the recorder, and I’ll read you something from the big book of fairy tales. Or do you always want me to be afraid of being given notice — I mean, constantly having to move? Always going from one room to another?
— No.
— The nuns in the orphanage are good to you. You’ll sit right at the front in the parish church. You’ll be very close to the priest when he sings and to the altar boys when they swing the censers. The boys in the orphanage will all be your friends.
— Why don’t we go to Hamburg?
His mother held her coat together at the collar with one hand. She hadn’t put her glasses back on. Her face, without the glasses, seemed fatter to him than her face with the brown tinted pieces of glass in front of her eyes, bent over the account books and the registers in the municipal finance office. The mayor and the head clerk came in and stretched out their right hands with palm upturned. His mother didn’t stand up.
— A lady may remain seated when a gentleman greets her. But she interrupted her work and stretched out her right arm. She returned the greeting so quickly, that she didn’t put down her fountain pen. His mother’s face — when she looked up over the books — was as white as Detlev’s face and thinner. The two celluloid rings held the lenses in place. They held the glass so close to her eyes, that Detlev watched to see if his mother’s eyelashes brushed against her glasses.
— It’s more dangerous in Hamburg than here. Even in the finance department, Gemsheim said: I don’t know if I’m allowed to employ you at all.
— You were in a home once before when you were a very small boy.
Detlev and his mother staying in a house where the woman boiled cockerels’ feet. His mother had a small box full of greasy, scented eye pencils. In the morning his mother took him to ‘The Crib’. He had almond pudding with raspberry sauce. He couldn’t eat any more. The pudding and the sauce were stuffed into his mouth with a chipped zinc spoon. The dessert dribbled over his lips, ran down the corners of his mouth and dripped onto his smock.
— You’ll never get almond pudding with raspberry sauce in the orphanage. Sister Appia said: We don’t have that kind of thing at all. It’s war time. There aren’t even any almonds for cakes. People are happy if they’ve got a roof over their heads and a stomach full of potatoes and smoked meat.
— You needn’t be afraid.
— Why is orphanage spelt with a ph?
— An orphanage is spelt with a ph, because it’s a house in which really only orphans live. Orphans are children without parents or children who have only a father or only a mother. But that’s not why I’m putting you there.
His mother put on her glasses again. She stopped holding the collar of her coat. The coat parted. She took Detlev’s hand. She pulled him along. She went up to the orphanage door. A girl opened the door, and ran away.
Detlev no longer knows, who it was, what she looked like. A nun glided down the stairs, her long habit sweeping behind her.
— I am Sister Silissa.
A golden cross hung over her stomach. She had a round, pink face, with thick, drooping eyelids. Detlev and his mother and Sister Silissa stood in the entrance hall for a long time. In the semi-darkness Detlev discovered doors, floor tiles, a cast-iron flower stand, a thick-leaved plant. Large, framed photographs hung on the walls. Detlev saw nuns on them and a man in a white smock with a white cap on his head. Children came down the stairs. They wore grey smocks.
— These are orphans. Are orphans ill? Are orphans bad? Do they have to be locked up? Is it all right to shake hands with them? When mummy goes away, I’ll be an orphan too. I’m not an orphan. My mummy will take me away again. Grandfather had shown him the picture of the farmhouses, that hung above the stove in the living room.
— Are farmers bad? Is it all right to shake hands with them?
— Farmers aren’t bad. Farmers live in the country. In fact, you must shake hands with them. My father was a farmer too, says grandfather.
Detlev noticed Odel. Odel the fattest of them all. He had red hair. His clothes had grey and white stripes.
— That is Odel. Come here, Odel, shake hands with Detlev. Odel had a damp, fat, cold hand.
— Do orphans have cold, damp hands because they are locked up together in an orphanage?
— That is Joachim-Devil. He’s bad. You must be on your guard against him.
Joachim-Devil came without being called and held out his hand to Detlev. The hand was very thin and felt warmer than Odel’s hand.
— Why does Sister Silissa say that Joachim-Devil is bad? What kind of name is Joachim-Devil? Is it all right to shake his hand, although Sister Silissa says he’s bad?
— Shaky, Frieda, Alfred. They’re brothers and sister.
— Orphans can have brothers and sisters.
Shaky ran away. Frieda curtsied. Alfred with the sheep’s face wanted to shake his mother’s hand first, but she didn’t hold out her hand for him. Alfred quickly seized Detlev’s hand. Alfred’s hand was cold, not wet.
— This is Erwin, our good boy.
Erwin was wearing a green, white and red Bavarian jacket.
— Off you go, set the tables! As quick as you can.
Sister Silissa crouched down. The folds in her habit swayed back and forward. She slapped her knees to shoo the bo
ys and girls away.
Another nun glided down the stairs. She turned round. Detlev got a fright. Without saying a word, she opened and shut her mouth several times. All her teeth were missing. When she opened her mouth, a large hole appeared. When her mouth was shut, Detlev could no longer see anything of her lips. The nun had squashed them right into her mouth. She sucked her lips. The bells of Our Lady’s Church, of the parish church, of San Salvator’s Church rang outside. A smell of burnt vegetables and of lavatory.
— This is Mother Superior.
A third nun glided down from above.
— Here comes our brown Sister Appia.
Sister Silissa blinked her heavy eyelids slowly at his mother.
— She is completely brown. She has brown eyelashes, brown eyes, brown skin.
— Such a beautiful young girl to have already taken the veil, said his mother and took Sister Appia by the arm.
— Each serves our people as best they can.
Detlev had never seen three nuns together and so close. They were protected from the smell in the entrance hall of the orphanage, from dust and rain by their gleaming white head bands and robes and by their black veils.
Sister Silissa, Detlev and his mother went up the stairs. The stairs were wide and twisted higher and higher.
In one year they grew, day by day, narrower, darker, lower. Detlev knocks them down with one hand.
The steps and uprights of the stairs match the other wood, with the cellophane in the box for the building blocks. Upstairs, Detlev saw a passageway, doors, a sign with the word ‘Enclosure’.
The dining room:
Two long tables with shiny linoleum tiles. Four narrow benches. Windows on three sides — to Saint Joseph’s Fountain, to the parish church, to the balcony.
— On which I’m standing.
Detlev didn’t notice the crockery cupboard. The cupboard with Frieda’s sewing things stood in the shadows. Detlev saw the bloody Christ with the blue discoloured face. Christ hung on a black cross. He was made of wood. He was as large as a man. His skin was white. The rose stems on his head were like the wild rose twigs by the road in the garden in Hamburg.
In the Protestant Church near the town wall there was a painted Christ. The colours were pale. The paintwork showed up every irregularity of the plaster. The Christ there had no ribs under his skin. His toes weren’t spread apart like here. The blood there wasn’t black at the edge of the wounds. His mother looked at Christ too. She turned Detlev away from the wooden figure. Sister Silissa drew a sweet out of one of the many folds in her habit, held it in front of Detlev’s face by a corner of the red wrapping paper. Detlev looked up at the cross again. He felt a pain across his shoulders. His ribs pressed against his skin. He thought he would have to stretch out his arms, like the white-coated traffic police on Stephan’s Square — his grandfather had been a traffic policeman before the First World War.
Detlev shut his eyes tightly. He was afraid that the whole rose hedge would be pressed down on him. Detlev didn’t see his mother looking at Sister Silissa, Sister Silissa nodding slowly once, his mother quickly handing the brightly coloured Bavarian jacket to Sister Silissa, Sister Silissa quietly opening the dining room door for his mother.
When Detlev turned away from the green face again, his head came up against the black cloth of Sister Silissa’s habit. His mother had disappeared. Sister Silissa smiled at him, squatted down in front of him, clapped her hands.
Detlev ran to the door. Nuns and children came with plates, cutlery, tumblers. Detlev pulled himself up by the handle. Sister Appia pushed the door shut. Detlev hung on to the handle with outstretched arms. The lipless Mother Superior brought him a picture of a saint. She waved the sheet of paper up and down in front of his face. Detlev’s tears mingled with snot and saliva. Sister Appia’s arm grew tired. She leant her back against the door. When she turned round, Detlev managed to pull the door open. Sister Appia pushed the door shut again. Detlev let himself fall to the ground. He curled up, struck out at the people around him with his feet, struck his head against the wall. Mother Superior and Sister Appia set him on his feet.
Sister Silissa had stepped underneath the wooden Christ. The tables were not covered in plates and cutlery and tumblers. All the orphans stood beside the benches and held their hands tight together. Sister Silissa shut her eyes and spoke in a foreign language. The orphans spoke quietly along with her.
Detlev remembers that the wall behind the green, blue, black-red, white Christ became transparent and he saw his mother down in the square in front of the church. She stumbled over the uneven stones. She was crying. The rims of her eyelids were red, swollen from crying. Her face became wet and shiny. The tears dropped onto her coat. His mother said out loud — Detlev, Detlev.
The nuns crowded towards her and wanted to hold her mouth shut. She was covered by their black habits. She freed herself. She wanted to get through the door. The door was locked. Detlev didn’t try to run away a second time.
He knew he wouldn’t succeed. They would all stop speaking the ununderstandable language.
— They would stand in front of the door. If I get through the door, Kriegel will catch me. If Kriegel doesn’t catch me, the policeman in Hamburg will catch me. If the policeman doesn’t find me, the Führer will get me.
— If there was no Kriegel, if there was no policeman, if there was no Führer, then I would have run away.
Behind Sister Silissa, behind the wooden Christ he saw his mother beating against the main door. Behind his mother he saw his grandmother and grandfather, surrounded by burning quinces, gooseberries, redcurrants.
The soup was the colour of rusty water. It tasted of polish and soot. There were small pale green pellets in the bread.
— It’s mould. Mould is good for you.
After the meal the nuns laid cellophane pictures on the linoleum table top in front of Detlev, as well as sweets and picture books with brown finger marks on the edges. The boys wanted to play ludo with him.
— Come over here. We’re playing ‘German regions and provinces’.
He was to play draughts.
— Do you want to play nine men’s morris with us?
He sat down beside the big boys who were doing school exercises. In front of him sat a girl with a round wooden frame that had white cloth stretched across it. She pushed the needle through the fabric from above and pulled the violet thread down.
— That will be the magnificent mantle of the Virgin Mary. The nuns walked through the dining room, tugged at ears, crossed out figures, laughed, undid a knot in the thread. The nuns shooed the girls and boys out of the dining room. Sister Silissa enveloped Detlev in her black habit, gave him a sweet, went with him to the dormitory, grasped the cold iron posts, said :
— This is your bed.
Detlev folded his jacket and laid it over the bed frame, then his shirt, his undershirt, his vest. He slipped on the nightshirt.
Sister Silissa nodded to him.
— Let nothing impure be seen.
Then he unbuttoned his boots, put them under the strange bed, pulled off his long stockings, the trousers with the straps, his underpants. He lay down on his side. The feather bed squashed him. He pulled his knees up to his chin. Sister Silissa rattled her rosary. She clasped her hands, raised her right hand, drew the hand down through the air, and from right to left.
Darkness.
Breathing. Detlev’s breathing. The breathing of the others. Detlev pushed his shoulders upwards. The others breathed evenly.
Detlev tried to hear whether they were sleeping. His mouth filled with saliva. He had to stop breathing and swallow the saliva.
Detlev’s bed was being shaken. Detlev opened his eyes. The dormitory was white. The moonlight picked out the whitewashed walls and the feather beds. No one was standing in front of Detlev’s bed, no one behind the bed, no one on the right, no one on the left. An arm reached out of the next bed to the metal bars behind Detlev’s head and shook them.
&n
bsp; — Are you asleep yet?
— Yes.
— Give me the sweet.
— I don’t have a sweet.
— Sister Silissa gave you one.
— I don’t know where it is.
— Give it to me. I’ll protect you too.
— I’ve lost it.
— Look for it. I’m Alfred.
The blanket on the next bed was thrown aside. There was a smell of feet, of sour milk and of hair. Alfred looked under Detlev’s pillow. He put his hand in the pocket of Detlev’s night shirt.
— That’s where you’ve got the sweet.
— Let the new boy keep the sweet.
— The new boy is my friend. I’m protecting him.
— How are you going to protect him. You’re even afraid of us, Alfred.
— The nuns will beat you black and blue, Alfred.
Alfred covered up his feet again, the smell of sour milk and of hair.
— The new boy is my best friend. He’ll see that it’s better if I protect him. He gave me the sweet as a present.
— I know a joke. The Reich Field Marshall …
— The enemy is listening.
— Detlev isn’t an enemy.
— You don’t know that.
— The three of them are walking past a farm.
— Which three?
— Let’s say Xaver, Franz, Joseph.
— Joseph goes into the farmhouse to get something to eat. And he doesn’t come back. Then Franz and Xaver see Joseph being carried out on a stretcher.
Detlev doesn’t remember how the joke ended. Detlev remembers that the orphanage boys laughed under their blankets.
Alfred asked :
— What’s your name?
— Detlev.
— Nothing else? How old?
— Seven.
— Where are you from?
— Hamburg.
— Do you belong to the Holy Catholic Church?
— I’m sure I would like to.
— Is your mother in the Party?
— Sure.
— Are you a Protestant?
— I don’t know.
— Why don’t you stay in Hamburg?
The Orphanage Page 2