Silence

by Mechtild Borrmann

  The woman, probably the owner, interrupted him. “Heuer, gosh yes, he’s been gone at least twenty years.”

  The man leaned over the picture and nodded in agreement. “At least,” he confirmed. He turned on his stool and pointed in no particular direction. “Used to be on the corner over there, where Linnen has his insurance office now.”

  “That’s right.” The woman was no longer paying any attention to her mail. “But before Linnen, it was Wiebke Steiner in there, with her children’s clothes.” She folded her arms and looked at Lubisch suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”

  He hesitated. For a moment he felt it would not be right simply to show them the woman in the picture. That was silly. He knew it. He turned the photo over. “Do you know who this woman is?”

  The woman picked up the photo and examined it thoroughly. “Is she supposed to be from Kranenburg?”

  Lubisch shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is that this photograph was taken at Photo Studio Heuer.”

  She handed the photo to the elderly man, who took it in his nicotine-stained fingers and scrutinized it at arm’s length, frowning. He shrugged. “I’m not from around here. Didn’t move here till 1962, and this picture is definitely older than that. But old man Heuer, he’s still alive. Must be about ninety by now.”

  The woman was now openly curious. “What is it about this woman? I mean, why are you looking for her?”

  Robert Lubisch lied, without really knowing why. A kind of unease was spreading through him. “My mother died recently, and this woman was her best friend when she was young. I happened to be in the area, and I thought maybe I could track her down,” he said, a little too hastily.

  The coffee machine let out a concluding hiss and gurgle. The woman placed his espresso in front of him.

  “What’s her name?” she asked after a lengthy pause during which she appeared to be considering whether she should believe this stranger.

  “That I don’t know, unfortunately.”

  She folded her arms beneath her ample bosom. “Hmm. Well, I’m not so sure either . . .” She scrutinized Robert Lubisch without embarrassment and then reached a decision. “But Heuer, he lives with his son in Nütterden.” She reached back, opened a small door in the cabinet behind the bar, and took out a phone book. Licking her fingers repeatedly, she flicked rapidly through the thin pages.

  “Here. Norbert Heuer. That’s his son.” She wrote the address and phone number on a waiter’s pad, tore out the page, and handed it to Robert.

  He gulped down his espresso, thanked her, and left a generous tip.

  When he came out, the sun had brightened. He took off his jacket, laid it on the backseat of his car, and rolled up his sleeves. It was a long shot but, spurred on by his success at the first attempt, he decided to drive to Nütterden.

  The single-family home, with its carefully tended front garden, was in a residential area that had probably been developed in the 1960s. As he got out of the car in front of number twenty-three, that same unease came over him again—the feeling that he was getting involved in things that did not concern him. He shook his head. What did Maren always call him? “My personal worrywart.”

  He rang the bell, and a woman of about sixty opened the white plastic door with the gold knocker, purely ornamental, in its center. He explained the purpose of his visit, and suddenly the whole thing felt unpleasant. What was he doing bothering people with photos that were at least fifty years old?

  For a moment he hoped she would simply send him away. Then he would get into his car and take the most direct route to Nimwegen.

  She said, “Well, you’ll be lucky. If it’s all so long ago . . . but come in and ask him yourself.”

  In the living room, a slight man was hunched over the newspaper with a magnifying glass. The furniture was brown and too heavy for the small room. The old man looked like a child in the big armchair.

  He stood up with effort, and they shook hands. Robert towered over him by almost a foot and a half, and he sat down hurriedly. The old man’s daughter-in-law offered coffee and then left the room.

  Heuer looked up with large, watery eyes and waited. Robert thought about Heuer’s profession as he looked through the viewfinder, waiting for the right moment, for that fraction of a second that was worth capturing. He leaned forward and pushed the photograph across the table.

  “Perhaps you took this picture?” he asked quietly. “At any rate, it comes from your studio.” He did not know why he was almost whispering.

  Heuer picked up the magnifying glass and examined the front and back of the photo carefully. For a moment, Robert Lubisch glimpsed his watery eyes enlarged by the magnifying glass and was reminded of a lake over which mist gathers and never disperses.

  “Yes, that’s mine,” the old man said, putting down the picture and magnifying glass. Robert had expected pride in his work, but his “Yes, that’s mine” sounded resigned.

  Frau Heuer came in with a tray, passed around coffee cups patterned with pink flowers, and poured coffee from a round-bellied pot with a matching pattern. Nobody spoke. Then she left the room again, and the soft emphasis with which she closed the door behind her gave this encounter an air of mystery.

  The old man stirred his coffee, apparently listening to the bright and regular tone of the spoon striking the thin sides of the cup.

  Robert waited.

  “That’s Therese,” said Heuer, and he too spoke softly. His voice blended with the clinking of the porcelain, and to Robert it sounded as if he had sung the name. Heuer put his spoon to one side and looked up. “Therese Pohl. Later Therese Peters.”

  Robert shuffled forward a little in his chair. “Wife of Wilhelm Peters?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Wilhelm Peters.”

  Robert felt disappointment.

  “Wilhelm went missing,” said Heuer, taking a sip of coffee. “He’s been missing ever since.”

  Robert frowned. “Wilhelm Peters has never been found?” he asked skeptically.

  The old man shook his head slowly. “No. Never.”

  “Do you know, perhaps, whether Frau Peters is still alive and where I might find her? Or did they have children?”

  He did not know why he was asking the question. In truth, his search ended here. He had not found some secret lover of his father’s. But now the woman had a name, and it was as if she had come a little closer, stepping out of that sepia-hued distance.

  Heuer picked up the photograph, and he seemed to be talking to the picture. “She went away too. Not long after . . . She was never heard from again. And . . . no, they had no children.”

  “Where did the Peterses live at the time?” asked Robert, trying to curb his increasing disappointment.

  “The last place they lived was out of town.” He gestured weakly with his arm. “In the Höver cottage.”

  He looked directly at Robert. “But tell me, how did you come to have the picture?”

  Robert hesitated briefly, then decided on a half-truth. “It was among my father’s papers.”

  For the first time, a smile appeared on the old man’s face. “Yes, yes. Therese. That was one pretty girl. She wouldn’t have stayed alone for long. Perhaps she found happiness after all.”

  As Robert was leaving, he stopped for a moment. He simply had to ask. “Herr Heuer, do you remember the photo session? Do you know whether Therese came alone, or with someone?”

  The watery eyes shifted, and he stared ahead for several seconds. Then he shook his head. “No. I think she came alone, but it was a long time ago. I can’t remember exactly.”

  Robert was standing at the garden fence with Heuer’s daughter-in-law when he asked her the way to the Höver cottage. She told him. “But it was unoccupied until a few years ago,” she said pensively. “It stood empty for nearly forty years. So I should think, if it’s about such an old story, you’d
be better off going directly to the Höver farm. Paul and Hanna Höver. They grew up here. They’ll have a better idea, I’m sure.”

  Robert Lubisch thanked her.

  The Höver farm lay beyond Kranenburg and looked well tended. A narrow asphalt drive led off the main road, past a tall hedge, and to the house. Behind it lay some whitewashed stable blocks. In the open barn stood an old tractor and two trailers. At the house itself, four wide steps led up to a heavy oak door. Terra-cotta pots overflowing with geraniums flanked the entrance.

  Before he had even pressed the doorbell, a dog started barking inside the house. He rang twice, and the animal seemed to become more agitated at each ring; it was now yapping immediately behind the door. Robert took a step back.

  There was no other sound to be heard. He looked around. There was a large empty space in the barn, beside the tractor, and he could see spots of grease on the floor. It seemed likely that a car was normally parked there.

  He looked at his watch. He did not have much more time. There were horses grazing in a field next to the house, and there was a show-jumping area beside it; to the west, beyond the fields, a small house lurked alone in front of a copse of trees.

  That had to be the Höver cottage. He could still try there.

  Chapter 4

  April 20, 1998

  Rita Albers was transferring an oleander and two small orange trees into bigger pots on the terrace; the plants had spent the winter indoors.

  Nine years before, immediately after her divorce, she had turned her back on Cologne and moved here. She had taken this cottage—in the middle of nowhere, as her friends said—on a lifetime lease. Her friends had also gloomily predicted that she would be lonely and would soon return. Instead, she had resigned from her job at a women’s magazine and now worked as a freelance journalist. She liked coming back here after extended research trips to work on her articles in peace. She had never regretted her decision.

  She was scrubbing the teak garden furniture with soap and water when the doorbell rang. She assumed it was the mail carrier and called out, “On the terrace.”

  When she looked up, she saw a stranger coming up the path into the garden. She put the bucket of soapy water on the table. “Can I help you?” she said in a slightly irritated tone, resting her gloved hands on the low balustrade of the terrace. She had put up a conspicuous sign bearing the words “Private Property” at the entrance. Cyclists and hikers were constantly taking a wrong turn here, mistaking her nature garden, with its large orchard at the back, for a tourist attraction and wandering in without so much as a by-your-leave. When she came home one day and found a group of cyclists having a picnic on the lawn, it was the last straw, and she put up the sign.

  The man now approaching the terrace did not quite fit that picture. He was wearing neither hiking boots nor those body condoms plastered with advertising that cyclists wore.

  “Forgive me for disturbing you. My name is Robert Lubisch.” He stood at the entrance to the terrace, somewhat embarrassed. He cleared his throat. “Is this the Höver cottage?”

  “Yes,” she replied, a little less abruptly. She pulled off her rubber gloves and ran a hand through her short dark hair.

  “I went to the Höver house, but there was nobody at home.” He cleared his throat again. “In fact, I don’t even know whether you can help me.” He held up a small photograph. “It’s about this woman. She used to live here.”

  Rita Albers’s professional curiosity was aroused. “Come on up,” she said impulsively. “It’s time for a break anyway.”

  She slipped off her gardening shoes, held out her hand, and introduced herself. Then she led him into a bright, spacious kitchen. She maneuvered her slim body confidently around the heavy wooden table that stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by eight beige plastic chairs. She told him to sit down and placed glasses, a jug of orange juice, and a bottle of mineral water on the table. Once she had sat down too, she looked at him expectantly.

  He laid the photograph on the table.

  “This is Therese Peters,” he explained, “and she probably lived here, with her husband, until the end of the war.”

  Rita Albers frowned critically and examined the picture. She looked at Robert. “That may be, but I didn’t take this house until nine years ago. I mean, I don’t quite understand what you want. Is she a relative of yours or something?”

  Robert Lubisch shook his head. “She isn’t a relative. I don’t even know whether she’s still alive.” He thought for a moment: What am I doing here? Therese Peters wasn’t my father’s lover. It’s over and done with.

  He shook his head and stood up. “I’m sorry. Please excuse the intrusion.”

  Rita Albers looked at him, then stood up too.

  “Now wait a minute. That’s not right. First you make me curious, and then you just leave?” She smiled broadly. “I mean . . . I’m a journalist. Maybe I can help you.”

  Robert stopped by the kitchen door, undecided, and ran through her argument in his mind. A journalist probably did know how to proceed and would get information more quickly. Besides, she lived here; she knew the people. And if she didn’t, that was all right too. In truth, the matter was resolved, as far as he was concerned, but now that the woman in the photograph had a name, it did interest him to know what had become of this Therese Peters.

  He sat down and relayed what he had found out so far. Albers questioned him skillfully, and soon he was telling her about Heuer, Wilhelm Peters’s papers, and the role they had played in his father’s escape.

  Rita Albers, sniffing a story she might be able to sell, offered to ask around a little.

  “Do you have the papers with you?”

  “In the car.”

  They sat without saying anything for a moment. In the garden, blue tits twittered in the silence.

  “Look,” said Rita, taking up where they had left off. “Now I’m interested too. After all, they lived here.” She patted the table gently with the palm of her hand. “It must at least be possible to find out what has become of this woman.”

  She fell silent.

  When he still seemed hesitant, she said, “You know, this house had been standing empty since 1951 or 1952—the Hövers didn’t know exactly when. It was a real wreck. Smashed windows, holes in the roof, ruined furniture, garbage everywhere.” She gave the table another gentle pat. “All I could salvage was this little treasure.”

  Robert examined the rough, sturdy table. Perhaps the Peterses had sat at this table, just as he was sitting with this woman now. The photo was taken in the early 1940s at the latest, so Therese Peters had to be about eighty by now. Perhaps it would mean something to her to hold this picture in her hands again.

  He stood up and fetched the papers from the car.

  He followed Rita Albers through a wide archway into a large room with sliding doors that opened onto the terrace. Twin sheets of glass on metal stands in the right-hand corner formed a kind of modern desk. The wall-mounted bookshelves reached all the way to the ceiling. The pale wooden floor, stripped and unfinished, gleamed almost golden in the fading sunlight.

  Rita Albers scanned the photograph, the identity card, and the safe-conduct pass. The machine took several minutes. She printed out the photograph and gave the original back. A blurry black-and-white image gradually pushed its way out of the printer.

  Robert looked at his watch. He had stayed more than an hour. They hurriedly exchanged business cards, and he drove off toward Nimwegen.

  Rita forgot about the bucket of soapy water and the garden furniture. She powered up her laptop and launched an Internet search for Therese Peters. The German phone book had twenty-one entries.

  The evening news was on by the time she hung up the telephone for the last time. She had contacted all but two Therese Peterses. None had ever lived in the Höver cottage, or even in Kranenburg, and she did not hold out
much hope for the two she had not yet reached. The woman had not even been thirty when she left. She was bound to have remarried.

  When Rita Albers went to bed, she decided to try the Hövers first, Hanna and her brother, Paul. They had probably still been children during the war, but they must have known the Peterses. The Hövers were hardly talkative people, and she did not maintain regular contact with either of them, but she had a good pretext. She was planning to dig a well, because piped water was so expensive. Paul Höver enjoyed talking about such things. He liked her garden too, and he was pleased when she asked his advice.

  Chapter 5

  April 21, 1998

  She walked along the narrow track that linked the Höver cottage with the Höver farm. It was early, and the air was cool. A fine mist lay on the fields and pastures. The sun would suck it up bit by bit in the coming hours.

  She could see Paul and Hanna in the horse pasture from a distance. He was busy with a bridle, and she was leading a white horse to the practice area. The Hövers ran a boarding stable. People came from far and wide to house their valuable horses here, and the local vets recommended the Höver farm whenever a horse needed to build up its strength gradually after an injury.

  Paul’s wife, Sofia had died of cancer. While she was ill, he had completely given up farming, from which they could make only a meager living anyway, and devoted himself entirely to her care. The farm had deteriorated significantly, and Rita was sure that Paul had signed the lease with her only because he was in financial difficulties. After Sofia’s death, his sister, Hanna, who had been working as a nurse in Kleve, moved in. They refurbished and converted the stables, laid down the practice ground, and made good the barns and the house. Rumor had it that the money for all this had come from Sofia’s life insurance.

  Hanna had never married, and it was obvious at first sight that she and Paul were brother and sister. They were two big, strong figures, and Hanna, who, like her brother, wore rough overalls and checked shirts, was plump without looking fat.