The Inventory: A Novel

by Gila Lustiger

  My neighbor hugged her tight. “My dear little girl,” he said. “Daddy will look after you.”

  Now my mother had tears in her eyes, too. Those crybabies, I thought, referring to womankind in general.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine.”

  Father patted Herr Rößner reassuringly on the shoulder, and said he had nothing to worry about. He had better leave, for any minute now that interfering Dr. Heillein from the first floor would return, and it was necessary that he not see Mr. Rößner leaving our apartment.

  The neighbor nodded, and took my father’s hand.

  “I will never forget what you have done.”

  “It’s fine.”

  My father swung his pipe in a circle through the air. It had gone out in the meantime. Some ash and strands of tobacco landed on the hall floor. This would have made Mother furious if she had not at that moment made for the kitchen. She opened the oven door, which emitted a wail of despair: Father had forgotten to oil it again. When the door had closed behind the neighbor, Mother entered the living room holding a tray, and on the tray were plates, forks, and napkins, and next to them on a round metal base was the apple tart. Our attention was drawn to its sweet aroma.

  “Oh well, at least something good has come of the visit,” I said, and took my place next to Anna as Mother shot me an angry look.

  We made up the bed together. Mother had gotten out a fresh sheet that smelled of lavender. Conceding that we could not spend the whole evening looking at the bedcover, I did up the buttons. Then I showed Anna my books, but she did not seem that interested. She fell back on the bed, squashing the pillow, and stared sadly at my fleecy bedside rug made of wool. I told her she would see her father again in the morning and I knew how she was feeling. Two years before I had had my appendix removed. You could still see the five-centimeter-long scar.

  “Here,” I said, pulling my underwear down a little. “A whole week all alone, and the pain on top of that.”

  Anna was impressed.

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore at all.” I took my finger down the length of the scar. It gleamed, a translucent pink.

  “You can even pinch me there. I don’t feel a thing. The skin is thinner, but not sensitive.”

  She touched the scar, but pulled her hand quickly back. Instead of protruding knuckles she had five little hollows.

  My father came into the room.

  “I see you are getting to know one another,” he said, making me feel embarrassed.

  I pulled my underwear back up, and fastened my trousers, resplendent with the large round fat stain on the right leg.

  Now my mother came in too.

  “Well, Anna,” she asked, “do you like it here with us?”

  Anna looked at me. I nodded. My mother yawned, and scratched her arm with rapid circling movements. A content domestic cat, I thought.

  “I am going to lie down then,” she said, and after wishing us all good night, she padded down to the bathroom. Soon we heard the rushing of water in the pipes. The insulation being so bad, it always sounded like Niagara Falls. A few seconds later my mother’s own gurgling merged with it.

  “How about hot chocolate?” asked Father with a conspiratorial wink to reassure us. I leaped up joyously, and my obvious glee was infectious. Anna trampled her feet on the wool rug. We softly made our way to the kitchen. Mother switched on her bedside lamp. I heard her picking up the newspaper from the table.

  “She’s reading,” I said to Father. He nodded and got out a pan.

  I brought over the milk. Father poured the whole contents of the bottle into the pan. Mother would have diluted it with water, I thought, and handed Anna the cocoa. She passed it to my Father. I fetched the lighter from the shelf and flicked on the flame. In the darkness of the kitchen it glowed like a comet.

  “No,” I said. “That is not for you.”

  Anna jostled me and reached for the lighter again.

  “Go on, give it to her,” said my father.

  “But she jabbed me in the ribs.”

  It really did hurt. Grudgingly, I passed her the lighter.

  The neighbor’s daughter lighted the stove. The three of us waited until the milk boiled up and reached the edge of the pan. We warmed our hands over the stove.

  My father had gotten candles out of the cupboard in the living room. They were now burning on a wooden board on the kitchen table. He had also put the cookie jar on the table. The contents were steadily going down.

  “Tell us about your bullet,” I said, meaning the shot that had grazed my father’s leg during the war.

  “Another time,” he replied.

  I shook the last crumbs from the jar into my hand, and sucked them up.

  “Or the story of the theft.”

  Father took out his tobacco pouch and filled his pipe. “It’s late already,” he said, “it’s time for bed. Take Anna to her room.”

  I took her hand and went into my room. She wanted to see my scar again, and tore at my waistband.

  “Go to sleep,” I said, “slee-ep.” When she appeared not to understand what I was talking about, or pretended not to, I put my head on the fresh pillowcase and snored a couple of times.

  Anna laughed.

  “No,” I said, “do not laugh.” I looked at her breasts that were swinging back and forth in time. They struck me as being a real hindrance. How unpleasant it must be to have two swings attached to your rib cage.

  “Do not laugh, sleep.”

  I left the room and lay down on the living-room sofa. Your teeth, I thought, you can brush them in the morning. I kicked myself free of the woolen blanket, which my father and I referred to as Bernhard, for the sheep that had been shorn to make the blanket must have had bristles rather than hair, just like my aunt’s boyfriend, Bernhard. He was a real estate broker and wore a toupee that looked like a colored cow pattie that had sprouted bristles overnight. It was scratching even through the sheet. I discarded the blanket and thought about my new model airplane. Then I dozed off.

  I must have been asleep for about half an hour, when a hand stroked my face.

  “Five more minutes.”

  At first I had thought it was already time to get up. Then I saw that I was not in my room, that it was dark, and I was scared. Anna sat down next to me on the sofa. I picked up the alarm clock, which I had set and put on the table. The clock face glowed back at me. Half past eleven.

  “You stupid cow,” I said, “do you have any idea what time it is?”

  Anna tore the alarm clock out of my grip and threw it to the ground. It landed on the carpet and the alarm went off.

  “Show,” said Anna, tapping my tummy.

  “You stupid ass.” I bent down to shut off the alarm clock, which was spinning around the table leg. Its two thin steel legs pointed tremblingly upward. It looked like a helpless beetle.

  “Shh,” I said, “if you wake up the cat, we’ll be in real trouble.”

  I went over to the window and pulled the blind up a good ten centimeters.

  “But just once, and then it’s back to bed.”

  Anna nodded. She was wearing a striped nightgown. The top buttons were undone. I told her to move, lay down flat on my back, and pulled the elastic waist of my pajama bottoms down a little. Anna had cold hands. I let the elastic slip back up.

  “That’s enough.” I turned onto my side, pulled the blanket up over my ears, and waited.

  “What’s wrong now?” I asked after a while. She had not budged and I could feel her backside, taking up space so that I had to press myself against the back of the sofa and almost suffocated in the stuffiness.

  “What do you want?” I sat up and looked at her. She was crying.

  Just what I needed. I peered at the big hand of the clock, which was mercilessly moving round. There was no chance with Mother. I would have to get to work on my father before he came to the breakfast table, to talk him into giving me a note for school, to explain why I was late.

  I got up and went into the k
itchen. I could not stand the sound of her horrible sniffling.

  “Here.” I passed her a napkin.

  She blew her nose several times, then handed it back to me. Disgusting, I thought, taking the snot-filled napkin with two fingers and dropping it on the table.

  “So,” I said, “now you are going back to bed.”

  I led her back to my room, pulled back the cover, and patted the mattress twice invitingly. She lay down, pulled up the cover, and stared at me with her big sad dog eyes.

  “All right, then, but only for a short time.”

  I sat down next to her, held her hand, and looked at my fifteen model airplanes, which I would soon push together to make room for a business and tourist plane.

  At dawn, I woke up. My body was aching. I stood up and stamped my left foot on the woolly rug. It had gone to sleep because Anna had lain on top of it. It felt like a pincushion. Anna was snoring. I went to the bathroom. Sleep was out of the question now.

  When I came out, all washed, my father came shuffling toward me. He asked me if I had slept well. I laughed derisively and went into the kitchen. Mother was bent over the oven. I passed her my cup and spread a biscuit with butter, dripped some honey on it, and swallowed it in two bites.

  Father cleared his throat and sat down next to me on the bench. I told him I had not slept a wink because I had had to spend the night with Anna, who was suffering from homesickness. That I could have understood, had it not deprived me of my sleep, which would have been less than excellent anyway in the strange bed. Another conditional sentence of the highest order I thought proudly, happy to have used a perfect form, though quite which one I was not sure. I reached into the breadbasket, and took out the last biscuit. It had been nibbled at in the corner. Disgusting, I thought, but bit into it anyway.

  She was standing in the doorway, verb of place. Or she had planted herself in the doorway, verb of movement, for now the doorway did not signify a position but a movement. I was slowly picking it up.

  My mother saw her, who or what, accusative, first and called her over. Anna stood there as though rooted to the spot. I stood up, fetched her, and sat her down next to me, which made two accusatives, sitting side by side. I gave her my biscuit, which she crumbled immediately. My mother refilled the breadbasket. As we were on our fourth biscuit and my angry stomach was beginning to settle down, the doorbell rang.

  “Who can that be ringing so early?” asked my mother, and cast a worried glance at the oven.

  “Take her into the bedroom, and not a word,” said Father, making his way slowly to the apartment door.

  I took Anna’s hand and hurried her into my room. I rapidly looked around me. Suddenly it all seemed too small.

  “Under there,” I whispered, holding up the cover a little and pointing under the bed.

  She got down on her knees.

  “Come on, do it,” I hissed, giving a helpful prod with my foot. Laboriously she pushed herself under the bed. I lay down on the mattress and pulled the cover up to my chin so that no one would see I was already dressed.

  The door opened, and my father came in. I could not tell from his face what was going on. Behind him, I could hear a man’s voice. Whatever will be, will be, I thought, and swallowed. My heart was beating wildly. Father stepped to the side. I could feel the biscuit rising in my throat, shut my eyes, but then opened them wide again immediately. In the frame of the door a man’s hand appeared. You fool, I thought, you have chosen the silliest hiding place imaginable. Under the bed is the first place anyone would look. I gave my father a sign. And then I saw the neighbor and started to cry.

  After we had extracted Anna from under the bed in a combined effort, we went back to the kitchen. Father stroked my head and said he was proud of me. I was ashamed for crying.

  The neighbor turned down my mother’s coffee for a second time; there was no time to lose, he said, and asked my mother to help Anna get dressed. They went to the bathroom together and came back ten minutes later. Mother had dressed her in a clean dress with a white, starched collar and combed her hair back into a ponytail.

  “Since her death,” said the neighbor, talking about his wife, who had died the previous year, “no one has done her hair like that.”

  He thanked my mother and father and then came to me. “That was very decent of you.” He got out his wallet and pulled out a banknote. Four model-airplanes, I thought, first rate, and shook my head.

  “I would rather buy you something,” said the neighbor, “but there is no time.”

  I took the banknote, looked at the watermark, folded the note in the middle, and thanked him. Herr Rößner smiled.

  “Good,” he said.

  He picked up his bag and slipped the strap over his shoulder. “We had better go.”

  Anna was still standing next to the oven, and would not move.

  “She wants to have the lighter,” I pointed to the shelf. “Because we had hot chocolate last night.”

  I looked at my father; he nodded. I went to the shelf, took the lighter, which I had cleaned and filled only the day before yesterday because my father always forgets things like that, and passed it to Anna. She smiled at me, lit it a few times, and then popped it into her jacket pocket.

  2.

  My parents had made an exception and said I could stay home from school. So I had taken over the clearing up of the breakfast things, which was fine by me. Particularly as I planned to swipe the biscuit that the neighbor’s daughter had left half eaten as a kind of souvenir. Hard times necessitate hard measures.

  I was daydreaming a bit, but tidied up quickly when I saw how late it already was. I did the dishes and left them to dry on the dishcloth — even though my mother did not like that because it left stains on the dishes, she thought — and took off before my mother came back from shopping and could give me other household chores. I had the banknote in my pocket and set off for the model shop.

  They were standing at the traffic lights. I recognized Anna’s dress, its white collar dazzling in the morning sun. Ah-huh, I thought, and they were in such a rush at our house. I went toward the small group made up of Herr Rößner, his daughter, two men, and a woman.

  I was almost next to them before I noticed that Herr Rößner’s lip was bleeding. He was weeping and trying to break loose from the grip of one of the men. Anna was holding the lighter I had given her, looking at it indifferently.

  I went past them. When I had reached the street corner, I turned around. The lady, wearing a blue suit that hung loosely from her body, had one arm around Anna’s shoulder and was leading her to a car that was parked at the edge of the street, speaking soft words of encouragement. Don’t go with her, I wanted to scream, don’t go, and I stumbled over a bag full of apples that someone had left in the middle of the pavement. Please, please, please, I thought, don’t go, every idiot knows, every silly ass knows, that they do away with people like you there, because they are stupid like you, that they lay the idiots out cold, everyone knows that, my father told me, and he had learned it from yours, you silly pig, you stupid ass, don’t go with them, I thought. And as I was picking up the apples that had rolled over the street, Anna reached the woman whose arms were circling excitedly in the air like the propeller of an airplane, and got into the car.

  Three Penknives

  ALLOW ME TO BRIEFLY INTRODUCE MYSELF. I am a housewife and mother of four strapping lads who, for the sake of the Führer, the People, and the Fatherland, I am trying to bring up following good principles: by that I mean, strictly German. I am devoting myself to this task with body and soul.

  Both my husband, an employee of middle income with the Altona Insurance Company, and I joined the Party in 1933: we have been active members for seven years now. Aside from my housewife duties, made difficult by the daily hurdles that lie in the path of a mother of three growing boys and one grown-up son, I work four times a week as a volunteer at the Service of German Mothers section of the Women’s Organization of the National Socialist Party. The
re I give courses to unmarried women on the noble duty of childbearing, or as Strammerle, our local propaganda leader, so nicely put it at the monthly Mothers’ meeting, “on the necessity of an abundance of children for the future security of the great works of the Führer.”

  For this, as well as of course for our being blessed with children, I was last year awarded the bronze cross for Motherhood.

  I have learned from my neighbor, Herr Krause, that soldiers or those that have been drafted can apply for confiscated goods at reduced prices. Herr Krause asked the Ghetto Administration for a watch for his son about two weeks ago, and received it eight days later by insured package.

  My oldest boy will be drafted next week. He is joining the air force. He has already gotten through the entrance exams in Munich, Frankfurt, and Wiesbaden, rather successfully I have been told by some trustworthy sources.

  However, he already has a watch. My husband and I gave him one for Christmas. It being an example of German quality, I do not imagine it will stop working in the foreseeable future.

  Would it be possible to make an exception and instead of the watch to send three penknives? Under the condition, of course, that the responsible authorities have seen fit to confiscate these objects.

  I trouble you with what must seem a minor request, as it is not possible at the moment to acquire reasonably priced items of quality in the Reich. I can assure you that I have looked for several weeks. In order to do this, I had to sacrifice some afternoons that could have been put to better use, at the Service for German Mothers, for example.

  I would be very grateful if you could help me. You would be fulfilling the dreams of a mother and her three boys.

  I would be much obliged for your swift response, and send my best wishes.

  Heil Hitler!

  Helga Pfeifer

  The Golden Necklace

  1.

  “Later, later,” he said. “Always later.”