The Orphanage

by Hubert Fichte

  — Who’s coming now?

  Detlev continued to feel his way. He bumped against the flower stand once again. Detlev found the passageway. Detlev found the door frame of the dormitory door. Detlev heard Odel breathing, Xaver breathing, Alfred breathing. Detlev found his bed. The blanket was warmer than his skin.

  — I don’t want to go to pee alone at night.

  Erwin jumped at him from behind the stair and shouted:

  — Not on me. Not on me.

  — How could the beam of light terrify King Herod so much?

  The Christ Child grew a beard in four months. A few months after he had lain in the crib he was turning green and blue on the cross and frightening everyone who saw him, as Erwin again and again frightened Detlev.

  There was the Christ Child. There was the angry Christ Child. The angry Christ Child was the cross-shaped beam of light from the young English womens projector. The angry Christ Child was the Easter Lamb with the ribbon.

  — Why is the Christ Child so angry and why doesn’t he catch the bombs in a big steel net over Munich?

  Why does he allow people to become bad like Alfred and Joachim-Devil?

  The beam of light over King Herod’s bed was like the snow. One could sledge on the snow.

  Detlev didn’t dare think the rest. He sees himself going to the lavatory in the dark once more. Every second he expected that he would knock his toe against something, that he would cut his foot, that something would strike him down from behind.

  He has already thought it, as he thinks:

  — I mustn’t think that.

  If the orphanage children were to shape the Christ Child from snow, then it would melt away in the spring like all snowmen with a carrot for a nose, coals for buttons and eyes, with a crooked top hat on their heads.

  — Detlev, open your eyes. Detlev, don’t stand there like a wooden post. Your mother has crossed the church square below. Quickly wash your hands.

  Quickly:

  They were eating ice cream. Detlev was finished before his mother. She gave him the rest of hers.

  — I want to leave.

  — Now don’t start that again.

  — I want to leave.

  — Don’t go on.

  — If we don’t go away, I want to die.

  — What kind of nonsense is that? We’ll certainly die, if we go away from here.

  — But perhaps no bomb will fall on our heads.

  — Not just because of a bomb.

  — The orphanage children asked me if I’m a Jew.

  — When did they ask you that?

  — What is a Jew?

  — Don’t say that word out loud. When did they ask you that? Who asked you that?

  — I don’t know any more. It was a long time ago.

  — Why didn’t you tell me?

  — I don’t know. They said, you’ll be happy if I die.

  — Perhaps mummy will start to cry now. Perhaps she’ll say: No. Perhaps she’ll hit me.

  His mother looked at him. All that remained of her eyes was two black hoops with two round grey discs.

  She got up. She crossed the street. She went as far as the edge of the town. She unlocked the front door. She unlocked the door to the room under the roof tiles of rabbit flesh. She reached out for Detlev, pulled him into her room. She locked the door.

  — Detlev, don’t interrupt me. I’m going to talk to you for a long time now — as if I’m reading you a fairy tale. But it isn’t a fairy tale and if you love me you must tell no one else. — Your father is Jude — a Jew.

  Detlev saw a great golden J. Birds sat on the cross-beam of the letter and sang. The apples ripened, the plums and the greengages. The U was the Elbe in the sunshine. The U was full of water. Golden steamers sailed across the U. Seagulls flew over it, and smoke rose from the locomotives on the Elbe Bridge. Uncle Bruno’s car stopped in front of the Elbe tunnel.

  The hydrangeas in the front garden at six in the morning, wet and golden, were the D and the E.

  — Your father is a Jew. He lived nearby. He had to flee, before we got married.

  Detlev didn’t ask:

  — Why did he have to flee? How did he flee? What does flee mean? Detlev saw Kriegel running down the crooked path. In the distance, fled a little man.

  Detlev took Kriegel away again. Lots of dogs ran down the crooked path: Detlev took the dogs away again. Lots of people ran down the crooked path: Mrs Schwartz, Mrs Kwasniak, Mr Juskowiak, Mrs Selge, Mr Selge, Paul Selge, Mr and Mrs Wiesnagrotzki.

  Detlev took the crooked path away again.

  — I don’t know if he got to Sweden safely. Thank God, I don’t have his name and you don’t have his name.

  — What’s he called?

  — Something ending in Schritzki. Didn’t I tell you that once before? You don’t need to know it. It’s lucky that no one knows it.

  — What is a Jew?

  Detlev saw large, broad, fat men with white baggy breeches and white fur-trimmed jackets drawing nearer. They swung long swords through the air. They had shining blue eyes long brown beards. They sang in deep voices.

  — A Jew is someone who doesn’t like to wash himself, who is untidy and shuffles along as he walks, who doesn’t stand up straight, Detlev, and who turns his feet inwards when he sits down — they say. You’re a half Jew.

  — Yes.

  — What does yes mean? Never say yes. No one knows. If someone asks you a question, to set a trap for you, never say yes. So you’re a half Jew. Come closer. In Hamburg no one really knows, because they can’t tell from our names. It can’t be in any documents, I wasn’t married to him. When we were evacuated, no inquiries had begun about us yet. They wouldn’t have let us escape otherwise. Only, someone at the office made an insinuation. There was time enough to go to Bavaria. It takes a long time for an alteration to be entered in the documents and for the documents to be sent here from department to department.

  — What will we do, when they arrive here?

  — They’re not here yet. At any rate no decision has been taken against us. Only Gemsheim dropped a remark once and Mrs Karl too. It also became more and more difficult to get a room.

  — Then the documents are already here.

  — No. Don’t say that!

  — Let’s go to Hamburg. You said yourself it takes a long time for the documents to be sent on. In Hamburg we’ll be safe for a long time. And when the documents come back to Hamburg, perhaps a bomb will fall on them and no one will be able to read them any more.

  If there had been no doll’s eye, there would be no orphanage, there would be no box of building bricks, which looks like the orphanage. There wouldn’t be the other box full of cubes, with which one can put together landscapes. Hamburg existed. How long would Hamburg exist?

  Detlev would never have come to the orphanage. Erwin wouldn’t exist, Erwin who on Easter Monday still shouted:

  — Not on me.

  Erwin, who imitated the wounded soldier, who wouldn’t exist, who played Herod, who would never have existed, who feared the beam of light, which was nothing, which stood for the angry Christ Child, who could melt away like a snowman. Not even the tin Christ Child in the fish tank would exist, not a single pole for a scaffolding, no bell, no building block for a stairway. Siegfried wouldn’t exist twice over. The red ribbon of the Easter Lamb in the churchyard wouldn’t exist. Everything would be black. The snow would not look white. There would be nothing. There would be nothing at all.

  Detlev looks down at himself. His feet disappear, his knees, his stomach, one button after another, his hands, the bird dropping on them, the nose in the middle in front of his eyes. Detlev lets his eyelids shut. Between closing and re-opening his head disintegrates ; a last small chamber is all that is left of Detlev, smaller than his eye-sockets or than his auricles. The one sentence grows longer. Detlev slowly squeezes it through the last small chamber, which remains of himself, just as his grandmother squeezed raspberries through the linen cloth. He sees himsel
f playing the recorder. He names the notes.

  — C,C,A,C,C,A,B,G,B,A,C,C.

  Very slowly, with swollen fingers, he takes one letter after another out of the letter case.

  The words ‘there’ and ‘would’ and ‘be’ blur. He clearly hears the word ‘nothing’ and the word ‘at’ and the word ‘all’ in the last corner that is left of his body. He hears the lips of a gigantic mouth parting. He hears saliva splashing against the teeth, as the N, the O, the T, the H, the I, the N, the G, the A, the T, the A, the L, the L are pronounced.

  The voices become confused :

  — Nothing would exist.

  — Hamburg exists.

  — Scheyern wouldn’t exist.

  — Quickly.

  Before his mother comes, before he has to go to the wash basin.

  He hears himself saying:

  — Look, your mother’s coming.

  He hears:

  —…would exist.

  — Sister Silissa will say:

  Look your mother’s coming.

  — Detlev, there’s your mother.

  — They think mummy will give everyone sweets.

  As Detlev sees the words ‘nothing would’ quite clearly in front of him made up of the letters from the school letter case, he sees above them, coloured red, a big H, a small B, a small G.

  — That’s how grandad writes Hamburg.

  At the word ‘nothing’ he thinks:

  — Not even the smallest lump of my head, over which my eyes at least could still close. In that tiny lump I can hear everything, and I can see myself running back and forward between Scheyern and Hamburg. I can see my father in it and the Jews.

  Nothing would be left of my head. There would be nothing at all. I wouldn’t exist.

  Simultaneously:

  — Mummy’s coming, you’re a dummy.

  He sees once more a small E, and a small X, and a small I, and a small S, and a small T, as well as half a bicycle from the town moat, the toys, the instruments of martyrdom of the three hovering women.

  When he hears ‘Exist’ and ‘Your mother’s coming’ and ‘Sister Silissa will say: Your mother’s coming,’ he sees Karl Street in Lokstedt, a Christmas tree like the ones the Anglo-Americans dropped and a fir tree of Meccano parts and the entrance to Hagenbeck’s Zoo.

  When the words ‘would exist’ appear and the red Hbg, hair falls down over a candle. He sees a second bicycle and two boxes of building bricks in the middle of Karl Street.

  — There would be nothing at all.

  Cellophane pictures with the Virgin Mary, cellophane pictures with the house and the Führer are blown away over the church tower by the sound of the siren. The backdrops for the Christmas play are reflected on a silver bauble and, on the side facing Detlev, the distorted rocks with the Risen Christ, cardboard rocks with penguins and a pink sugar lamb and seagulls and wounded soldiers.

  — I wouldn’t exist.

  Detlev opens his eyes again.

  The Christmas bauble shatters.

  The group of orphanage children emerges behind the thin shards.

  — Don’t fall over, Detlev.

  — Don’t rub the bird shit on your suit.

  — Detlev, your eyes are shining. Your cheeks are unnaturally red.

  — Have you got a temperature, Detlev?

  — Say something.

  — Go and wash your hands, so that you don’t have to greet your mother with dirty hands.

  The singing dropped down from the very top, out of the stone rhubarb leaves. The singing was made up of several voices: one squeaking, one sour, one high, one red.

  Below, the bearded Christ figure arose among the cardboard rocks. Above, the voices drew circles, lilies, chalices among the grey filaments.

  Detlev grew cool from the singing. The singing turned deep red. It ran down Detlev. Detlev wished he had wings, to be able to fly up, towards the beginning of the singing.

  His mother has stepped through the dining room door, has passed the soup pots, the tables covered with plates, forks, spoons.

  She has put up her hair for the journey.

  Detlev runs towards her. He touches his face. His face is smeared. He’s frightened. He doesn’t dare say what he’s done. His mother doesn’t notice it.

  Sister Appia and Sister Silissa don’t know what to do. Now that his mother has arrived, they don’t want to intervene any more. They won’t say anything more about washing. Detlev sees them deliberately press their lips together, as he turns towards them away from his mother.

  His mother exists.

  Sister Silissa and Sister Appia and Alfred and Frieda and Shaky exist.

  They exist for the last time. Their eyes won’t look at him for much longer. He won’t see their eyes for much longer.

  Only his mother and grandad and grandma and Hamburg will be left.

  He hears his mother say :

  — Shake everyone’s hand before you leave.

  He doesn’t see the hands clearly. Higher. Lower. Alfred’s hand, which only half takes his because of the bird dropping. Detlev doesn’t want to lose any time. He’s glad that no one reminds him of washing downstairs, where the cloths hang over the tub. He’s glad that his mother hasn’t noticed his dirty hands. He’s pleased that the orphanage children only offer half a reluctant hand as he leaves. That makes it quicker. Erwin’s hand. Odel’s cold, damp, fat hand. Only the pinkie of Joachim-Devil’s hand. Frieda’s hand — without the little roll of paper from which he could have read the prayers of conversion. He’s afraid that she might bend down to whisper the long difficult prayer to him, and then force him to repeat it once again, before he can go away. She would correct him, go back to the beginning again, until he had remembered it.

  He doesn’t look up at Frieda.

  Little Xaver’s hand jerks away.

  Still more hands, that he no longer wants to distinguish. Hands that could be missing. Thirty-five or thirty-seven hands. Hands that quickly reach out to him and fall back again.

  Sister Silissa’s hand with the ring. Sister Silissa kisses him on the forehead. The little drop of spittle grows cold on the skin.

  Detlev stands on the orphanage balcony. He looks over towards the church yard. The Easter Lamb’s red ribbon still lies on the plot of grass beside the apse. It had been left lying there when the sacristan’s son broke off the sugar lamb’s head to eat it up. Detlev is waiting for his mother. Before she comes to fetch him, he is to eat supper with all the orphanage children for the last time. But his mother comes too early. She crosses the church square below as the nuns stir two eggs into the two big soup pots. Detlev discovers a doll’s eye on a buttress. He wants to pinch it between his fingers and lift it up. It’s not a doll’s eye, but a bird dropping, which is smeared over Detlev’s fingertips. The orphanage children notice the bird dropping on Detlev’s hands. Sister Appia and Sister Silissa step out onto the balcony. They tell Detlev to wash his hands. Detlev is ashamed. He wishes the bird dropping away. He wishes everything away. He wishes himself away. He opens and shuts his eyes. Quickly. He blinks. He begins to sweat. The pictures blur into his surroundings on the balcony. He breathes more slowly and more quickly. He believes he’s flying. He raises his hands. He begins to wipe them clean.

  In his memory he muddles up the different parts of the year. He smells what has already passed. He stretches his thumb away from his hand. The threads of bird dropping between his Angers break.

  Each twitch of his eyelashes lasts a whole day, a whole week, a whole month.

  He thinks of his grandfather’s garden.

  He’s afraid his mother has forgotten their departure.

  Detlev’s perceptions quicken. He remembers parts of movements, individual sounds. His lips twitch, as if he wanted once more to pronounce the words that have passed. Detlev looks down from the balcony again. But his mother has already passed through the main door below. Detlev’s thoughts skip past more quickly. They jump back and forward between Scheyern, Aichach, Steingriff, L
okstedt. His mother stands in front of him. Before he has remembered everything, before he has wished away everything — all but the tiny brain chamber, out of which his thoughts come. It too disappears in the end.

  His mother exists.

  Hamburg exists.

  Detlev wants to build a solid house for his mother in Lokstedt, which no one can knock down like a house of building blocks.

  Frieda doesn’t give him the prayer of conversion.

  Sister Silissa kisses him on the forehead. The little drop of spittle grows cold on the skin.

  — My father is as tall as the clouds, thinks Detlev as he goes out.

  Detlev’s mother takes his suitcase. They walk past Saint Joseph’s Fountain in the direction of the station. Detlev draws away from the God in the orphanage.

  Glossary

  Feldhermhalle: A neo-classical building in Munich housing statues of famous Bavarian generals

  Fieseler-Storch: A German reconnaissance plane

  Gauleiter: In Nazi Germany, the Nazi Party official in charge of a province

  Giant Mountains (Riesengebirge): Range between Bohemia and Silesia

  Lenbach Museum: Lenbach Street etc: Places in Munich

  Lokstedt and Eimsbüttel: Districts of Hamburg

  Odel: Familiar form of Otto in Bavaria

  Reich Field Marshal: i.e. Hermann Goering, commander of the German air force

  Richtkranz: A garland placed to mark the erection of the roof timbers of a house

  Sepp: Familiar form of Joseph

  Stuka (Abbr. for Sturzkampfflugzeug) : A German dive bomber

  Winter Relief Fund (Winterhilfswerk) : A Nazi welfare charity organization

  Rübezahl: A sprite