The Orphanage

by Hubert Fichte

  Detlev feels this whole year in his head like a dry soup cube, like a twinkling Christmas bauble, like the hazel nut, whose stalk poked out of the earth after it had been planted and which Alfred dug up and ate — this whole year in three, four, five, six seconds

  — twenty-one, twenty-two,

  in the moments between the squashing of the bird dropping and his mother entering.

  The other recorder lesson. The same smell. There was no case for the notes as there was for the letters of the alphabet at school.

  Detlev could read the individual notes of the songs like the individual letters of the story about the Führer’s youth. There was the Latin script of his Protestant grandfather. There was the Gothic script of his Protestant grandmother. There was the Latin speech of the Catholic parish priest. There was the Bavarian speech of the Protestant pastor in the small church outside the town wall. There was the Danish accent of Pastor Roagers in Hamburg. There was musical notation.

  Detlev played the song ‘Star of the sea I greet thee’.

  Mother Cecilia said :

  — It’s in F-major.

  After the treble clef a lime tree leaf hung among the staves.

  — A lime tree leaf fell on Siegfried’s back.

  —It means that B-flat must be changed to B.

  Detlev liked to finger the B :

  The thumb of the left hand under the recorder — as support. Index finger, third finger on the first and third stop of the recorder. The middle finger up in the air. The right hand: only the index finger on the fourth stop.

  The deep C sounded wrong. The lip of Detlev’s recorder was worn.

  — Mother Cecilia’s recorder sounds gentle.

  In his grandfather’s garden Detlev had bent over a barrel which had dried out during the hot summer. Detlev had called into the barrel and the sound was like the sound of Mother Cecilia’s recorder.

  — The lip is the most important part of a recorder. But it’s wartime. The wood that had been stored has been burned or it’s being used for essential war production. There are no new recorders to be bought. Be glad that you’ve got a plastic recorder. Even if the lip is worn. Blow carefully. Cover nicely with your finger.

  He played ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, über ailes, über ailes in der Welt’.

  — I can’t bear to hear it any more. But you must be able to play it. — Forget what I said.

  It was in G-major. The F-sharp sounded wrong on the plastic recorder too. Mother Cecilia had got used to it, but Detlev started each time he had to play the F-sharp in ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, über ailes’, or in ‘Rose tree, sweet, bloom when I see my maiden’. He was not allowed to play ‘The brittle bones tremble’. Mother Cecilia quickly turned over the pages in the recorder book.

  They walked towards the hall door under the cross-vaulting. There were empty chairs in the hall. A nun sat in the middle of the room. She was reading a small notebook. At the raised end of the hall stood two nuns and three of the lightly wounded. The three wounded men were wearing field grey coats and pyjama trousers. Detlev should go up, ordered the nun with the notebook. She was wearing glasses and took them off when she looked at Detlev. One of the nuns on the platform rocked a baby back and forward. She sang quietly. She looked at the doll as if it was a living baby.

  — Sing more loudly, called the nun with the notebook and the glasses from below.

  The nun with the baby — with the doll baby — coughed and sang the song once more just as quietly.

  — It’s fine like that. — So you’re called Detlev?

  — Yes.

  — Do you have some music with you?

  — Yes.

  — What can you play?

  —‘Listen, people, and hear the tidings’, ‘Silent night, holy night’, ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, übes ailes’, ‘In March the farmer’. I could even play ‘The brittle bones tremble’.

  — You’re a bright boy, but down here I can hardly understand what you’re saying. Can you play, ‘O little children come’?

  — He’ll have a go at it.

  Mother Cecilia had climbed up and pulled out the music for Detlev.

  — You must come down now, Mother Cecilia. You’re spoiling the whole effect. Someone in the cast hold the music book. Franz, kneel down in front of Mary. Detlev, sit down further to the left. Franz, hold the music book.

  The wounded soldier, who looked down when the nun with the glasses shouted Franz, had an arm that looked like a seagull’s wing. Around his neck was a tyre made of plaster.

  — Detlev, sit down on the bench.

  Detlev sat down on the bench

  — Begin playing.

  Detlev made a lot of mistakes. The page trembled in the wounded soldier’s hands. Detlev saw the thick brown hairs on Franz’s hand beside the notes.

  Detlev saw the pillars and bridges over the river Elbe. Seagulls flying under them.

  — He still has to practise it.

  — He mustn’t make mistakes during the performance.

  — No.

  — While the shepherd plays the flute, Mary rocks her child. Gently back and forward. Quite naturally. Saint Joseph gives a kind smile. And the woman carrying water passes by at the back.

  A nun walked past at the back.

  — From the wings at the right — Go on. Go on. — come the three wise kings.

  Three lightly wounded soldiers came through a door.

  One had a bandaged finger. The second wore one thin and one clumpy shoe. Two of the kings took the third by the hand, pushed him till he knelt down and made the shapes of the letters with their fingers in front of his eyes.

  The third king had bandaged ears.

  Detlev imagined the nuns in the hospital painting the all-purpose glue, which crazy Marie and her mother had packed into boxes, on the wounds — on the soles of feet, on ears, on elbows — before Marie herself was driven away in the lorry, before she died, before her mother put the black urn in the display cabinet — beside the black edged identity card photo of her father who had bled to death in a military hospital.

  In winter, people went sledging on Calvary Hill. When the nuns and the orphanage children walked between the snow walls which the snow plough had thrown to the side of the street, the veils and the habits looked blacker than in the orphanage, in the church, in the convent. People went sledging on the path that led past the stations of the cross. The nuns and the orphanage children walked past the back of the plaques on which the via dolorosa of the Lord Jesus Christ was pictured in coloured enamel.

  When no snow was lying, one could see from the path the Last Supper, the Judas Kiss, Pontius Pilate, Golgotha. Bright. Pink, violet, orange, green, blue, yellow.

  — The colours are greasy. The colours are mixed with snot.

  — You mustn’t blaspheme. It’s enamel.

  The sledges came down very fast. No one tried to walk up the path. The runners of the sledges polished the snow smooth. The path had a cover of glass. The long sledges manned by four, five people were the fastest. They descended straight from the top to the bottom of Calvary Hill without skidding to the right or left. They raced on over the level ground. They stopped far away from Calvary Hill -behind the hospital entrance. The nuns and the orphanage children had reached the top.

  One boy lay down on a sledge on his stomach, holding on to the runners. Three others sat on his back. Three drivers with four heads, eight legs raced downhill. Two sledges were loaded up one behind the other. A boy on the rear sledge held on to the one in front. Both sledges — linked by his arms — slithered down.

  — That’s too dangerous. Don’t even try to do it once. If you’re thrown from the slide, if you fall, arms and legs will get broken. Your head could be torn off by the impact.

  One boy lay on his stomach on a short, light sledge. He steered with his feet. The sledge spun round, swung from side to side, jumped.

  Thick roots grew across the path, out of the wood. The sledges grazed them. They veered off the path, r
olled over, tumbled across the slope. The runners struck the pedestals of the plaques of the Passion.

  — The enemy aircraft tumble out of the clouds when they’re shot down.

  At the top, at the starting point, the nuns jumped in the way, if too many orphanage children wanted to get on one sledge. They braced themselves against the runners. They pulled the children back by their clothes. They pushed the sledges to the start.

  Something cracked under Detlev. The battens pressed against his legs. The wind forced the water out of his eyes. The wind caught his face, smacked against his ears.

  Detlev held on tightly to the bars of the sledge as he thundered over the tree roots.

  He recognized nothing on the plaques, no yellow haloes, no brown beard, no pink mantle. A boy slid off. The sledge overturned, slid upside down into a tree — the white wood under the bark flashed out. The others steered round the boy who had fallen off. Sledges turned at right angles. Boys struck their heads against wood, against ice, against iron. One limped, one bled, one hopped from one foot to the other, two were crying. At the top the other sledges were stopped. Some children slid down on foot. When they stood up thick patches of snow were sticking to their clothes. As they moved, the white patches fell apart into little flecks. The sledges were pulled to the side. The slide was free again.

  — If something had happened.

  If the iron runners had gone straight over a leg, over a wrist, had rattled over his neck, had struck the head of an orphanage child who didn’t get out of the way in time. Bones would have been broken in pieces. Blood would have trickled onto the snow. The torn-off limbs would have been taken away. Only a red spot would have been left on the slide. It was Detlev’s turn to pull the sledge up the hill.

  Two skiers came skimming along the crest of the line of hills.

  — ‘The heritage of Björndal’ — ‘And forever sing the forests.’ That’s not for you.

  In Steingriff the boys made their own skis. They sawed off planks. The tips were cut from plywood and bent into shape over steam. Towards evening, steam enveloped Calvary Hill.

  — This is the last time. Whoever starts now, should just stay at the bottom.

  Someone took the sledge away from Detlev. Detlev watched the two skiers.

  Detlev remembered Sepp’s father, who came home from the munitions factory in the middle of the night in winter. Sepp’s father’s jacket was cold to the touch. Detlev had imagined that black air would waft out of the jacket if one shook it. Sometimes Sepp’s father brought crumbled chocolate home with him, Brown chocolate. Not white.

  — There’s something special in it. To keep you awake. Our brave pilots are given it to revive them when they’re in action against the enemy.

  The two skiers left four even tracks in the snow. They didn’t race downhill like the orphanage children. They skied along the highest ridge of the line of hills. They pushed the rods with the little wheels into the snow on either side, drew them out again, pierced the snow with them once more. Had there been a fifth track in the snow, Detlev would have been able to mark out a treble clef across the five lines in the snow with his feet.

  — A man with one leg doesn’t ski.

  The dots made by the rods would have looked like notes and a giant man with a recorder like a tree trunk would play a song behind the two skiers and blow them before him.

  The two skiers grew smaller and blacker. Without visible movements they pushed themselves towards the next copse. Detlev stood at the top of the hill. Below him the orphanage children were shouting at one another, as they went down. The nuns fluttered down between the pictures of the Passion. The other boys from the town, the boys from the villages had gone home.

  Detlev hopped, slipped over the smooth polished tree roots. He bumped into the trees and the plaques with outstretched arms.

  The nuns hadn’t noticed his absence. They were astonished when he came.

  —There would be no snow. Now there’s no snow anyway. Even in winter there would be no snow any more. There would be no winter at all. What is snow? What would there not be? The ashes of mummy’s friend in the urn would not be among the ashes of the burned house. In winter ashes are needed for gritting. Snow is nothing. Snow is white. When it warms up, it melts. Only transparent water is left. Nothing remains of the white colours, no chalk, no flour, no light grey ashes. Snow doesn’t smell of anything. Snow smells of something that nothing else smells of. Snow smells of glass or of the air in the jacket of Sepp’s father or of the air in grandad’s jacket, when he comes back into the cellar.

  — It’s burning in the east.

  — Everything’s calm now.

  — It won’t be bad this time.

  — I can hear the sound of aircraft to the northwest.

  — Snow is nothing. There would be no snow.

  By the next lesson he could play the song perfectly. Mother Cecilia had taken him down to the big hall too early.

  — They’re still rehearsing the third scene of the second act. On the platform, dust was whirling up into the air. A man with a white elephant’s foot was bending over another man whose face was bandaged.

  — I am King Herod, what I say, shall be done. You lie, master astrologer. I shall have you thrown to the rats in the tower forthwith.

  The tower had trembled from the howling of the sirens. The nun with the glasses called out :

  — I can’t hear the un of ‘shall be done’. When you say ‘tower’ we must be able to hear the E and the R at the end. Otherwise it was good. Go and get your food. Now Detlev can play his song.

  Detlev stood on the platform with his legs apart. King Herod and the astrologer went away. He wasn’t King Herod. He was no astrologer. They were wearing pyjama trousers with field grey coats over them. They had spoken like the astrologer and the king. Alfred and Odel and Joachim-Devil had screamed as if they really were three devils. The orphanage children had played at mass, while Detlev had been with his mother in the veterinary surgeon’s house. The orphanage children had spoken hoarsely like the short parish priest. They had sung and spoken in Latin. They made the sign of the cross like the bishop, who tripped as he walked. They shouted like the tall pale priest. They couldn’t understand the strange language. They pattered off the litany by heart. At first Detlev could not speak Bavarian. Now he can’t speak anything else any more. Grandfather, grandmother, Aunt Hilde and Uncle Emil will not understand him. They already couldn’t understand him the last time, when he was on holiday in Hamburg with his mother. The two wounded soldiers spoke like King Herod and like the astrologer. They weren’t even wearing astrologers’ clothes and kings’ clothes. Detlev didn’t make any mistakes. Detlev, alone, on the middle of the platform.

  — Go onto the stage.

  — That’s the stage.

  — During rehearsals no one is allowed on the stage.

  — Come down from the stage again now.

  Planks across beer barrels — like at the ‘Romantic Evenings’ at the Post Inn. Right and left, above, below, electric light bulbs burned in oblong boxes. It was dark in the hall.

  He played ‘O little children come’ without mistakes.

  Detlev didn’t looked around. Perhaps they were all sitting behind him, were looking at him from behind : The wounded soldiers with elephant feet and big wings and bridges of wire and plaster. They were sitting on rails, crouching in cages, without ears, deaf, on artificial rocks of concrete or papier mâché — the three devils, the three kings, King Herod, Franz, Mrs Weindeln, all the orphanage children in little priests’ and bishops’ vestments.

  — No bomb will ever fall on Hagenbeck’s Zoo.

  — After Klasel has been, we’ll all move down to the dormitory. Then the dining room upstairs will be made ready for the distribution of presents and for our own Christmas play. Ours is much nicer than the one with the wounded. Only the real orphans are allowed to take part in our Christmas play. In Hamburg there was no Klasel. At first Detlev didn’t even understand the word. Now when
he thinks back to the white tulle cloth, he doesn’t know how to spell the name. He would be unable to put it together on the lid of the letter case.

  The first time in Steingriff :

  — Klasel is coming soon.

  — Klasel is coming tomorrow.

  — Klasel is coming today.

  In the mornings the sky was dark blue with a red spot over the forest. The lorries were leaving the saw mill. Behind the wheels of the trailer sat a man wearing motor cycle goggles and overalls.

  — Klasel looks something like that. But that’s not Klasel.

  — What does the man behind the wheels do?

  — He brakes when the trees are loaded.

  The chains for the tree trunks jangled across the snow encrusted asphalt.

  — That’s how Klasel jangles his chains.

  Sledges with ringing bells drove out of the farmyard gates.

  — That could be Klasel, making his enquiries.

  — Perhaps it’s Klasel’s wife. That would be a bad sign.

  The word ‘Klas’ is only an abbreviation for Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas, it’s one and the same thing. Klasel brings children apples and nuts and toys in his sack. Or should do. I wonder what he can bring now there’s a war on. — For the bad boys there’ll be a couple of strokes of the rod. His mother stopped talking because of an unspoken word.

  — There’s still something on the tip of your tongue.

  — You’re a nosey parker.

  His mother was silent again.

  — She’ll say something straightaway so that I don’t think she’s keeping something secret.

  — Klasel has already been to ask me whether you’ve been good too. He asks everyone in the village. So he had to ask me too.

  — Was I good?

  — You were good. You have to be good. You have to be far too good. You see how many wounded there are. So many things can happen to one and much worse things than being shot dead.