Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire

by Hegi, Ursula

  “You’re divorced then?”

  “Not legally. But I will be, if we ever agree enough to sign papers.”

  Her body felt stiff as if her heart had stopped beating.

  “Come here.” He opened his arms to her. “Please, Trudi?”

  She shook her head. One of his hairs lay on her arm, dark and curled. She couldn’t bear to touch it and blew it away.

  “Ask whatever you need to know.”

  “You wouldn’t have told me.…”

  “I promise you the truth.”

  “You wouldn’t have told me.…”

  “I don’t think of her, Trudi. I don’t think of myself as married.”

  “But you are.”

  “People don’t always tell each other everything right away.”

  Her face felt hot. “What do you mean?”

  “Wouldn’t you agree that it’s better to wait to reveal some things until you know the other person is ready to hear them?”

  “I—I’m not sure.”

  “Well, you wanted to know if I had faults.”

  “And you do.”

  “You said I was too perfect.”

  “I would have settled for something less dramatic than a wife.”

  The following day Ingrid Baum traveled to Burgdorf in the back of an open truck that had been used for transporting potatoes. The bed of the truck was covered with potato dirt, thick layers of gray dust that clung to her skin. With her were a shoemaker from Bonn and his large family on their way to an uncle’s wedding in Oberhausen; they sang and laughed and fed her cake and insisted she share the bottle of Schnaps they passed around even to the children. Though Ingrid didn’t like Schnaps, she took one sip, afraid to offend the shoemaker’s wife who’d lean into her, whispering confidences about her husband’s appetites and the thickening of her monthly flow.

  As it began to rain, the family huddled closer, collecting around Ingrid as if she were one of them. The only part of her that was not freezing was her left ear: it burned into her skull, made half of her face sore. She tried to remember when it had started hurting, but she couldn’t even remember packing the suitcase, which was getting soft from the rain. When its handle came off, she turned it between her fingers. The oldest son passed the Schnaps to her again, telling her it would warm her, but she shook her head. The potato dust soaked up the water until they all were sitting in thick mud. When the truck dropped her off in front of the pay-library, her hands and face were smudged, her clothes soggy.

  Trudi, who’d been standing by the window, staring out into the rain while going over every word of last night’s conversation with Max, didn’t recognize the truck or the woman who stayed behind on the sidewalk when the truck drove off, holding a suitcase with both arms as though it were a sleeping child. But then the woman turned and became Ingrid. Trudi ran out, pulled her inside, made her take off her coat and wet shoes. After wrapping her in a blanket, she offered her soup and a bath though Ingrid was too exhausted to wash or eat.

  “What happened to you?” Trudi asked after she’d heated the stove and settled Ingrid next to it in a deep chair, feet raised on a wooden stool.

  Ingrid’s eyes went blank. She reached up, pulled a strand of straight wet hair into her thin face.

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I… don’t know.”

  But gradually Trudi was able to draw from her that she remembered running with her suitcase from the KLV school, where she’d taught for the past year and half. She remembered getting off a train, but she didn’t recall the journey, not even buying a ticket. The truck? She’d been standing somewhere in the cold when the shoemaker had stopped for her.

  “There is a man who wants to marry me,” Ingrid said without enthusiasm.

  “Who is he?”

  “Ulrich.”

  “And…?”

  Ingrid leaned her head against the back of the chair and stared toward the ceiling. “… so well behaved.”

  “The man who wants to marry you?”

  “No, no. One of the students, Suse.” Ingrid’s voice tapered to a murmur as though she were talking to herself. “… a face like an angel—But Fräulein Wiedesprunt kept taking her on drives, bringing her licorice, letting her sleep in her room.… I didn’t know what to say to stop it. The girl—Maybe nothing happened.… Trudi?” She sat up straight. “Trudi.”

  “I’m here.”

  “I thought dirty about them.… The ink keeps running. Notebooks for school, they’re always rationing them and—”

  “Is that why you left there? Because of the girl?”

  “The paper, it’s so bad the ink runs.…” Ingrid’s voice took on an official quality as though she were imitating someone: “We have to verify the necessity of each purchase.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about this man who wants to marry you?”

  “Ulrich Hebel.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s a soldier now.”

  “And before?”

  “The railroad. He used to work for the railroad.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “He says it’s his, too.”

  “What?”

  Ingrid peeled the blanket away and pointed to the slight mound of her belly. “The fruit of my sin,” she said as if reciting from the Bible.

  “Don’t make it sound so ugly.”

  Ingrid covered her eyes.

  “Oh, Ingrid—” Trudi embraced her and, gently, pulled her fingers from her face. “I know it must be difficult, but you’ll get to love the baby. And I’ll help.…” Already she could see herself taking Ingrid’s baby for walks in a wicker carriage, sitting in the sun on the front step with the baby in her arms. She’d sew a gingham pillow cover, a matching—

  “It belongs to the devil.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Marrying doesn’t undo the sin.”

  “It’s not a sin.”

  “The church says.”

  “Forget the church.”

  Ingrid crossed herself and winced.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My ear—it hurts.”

  “I’ll run over to the pharmacy and get some eardrops.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. Do your parents know about the baby?”

  “My father would kill me.”

  “He won’t. Besides—” Trudi hesitated. If Ingrid stayed with her, she wouldn’t be able to offer shelter to Jews. But ever since her arrest, the house had become too risky as a hiding place. Emil Hesping still hadn’t brought any fugitives, but he accepted the food and clothing that Trudi collected for him. Most of the food she got from Frau Weiler, and Hilde Eberhardt was a good source for children’s clothing, willing to part with whatever Trudi asked for without wanting explanations. It was well known in Burgdorf that the midwife often traded her services for shirts and pants and dresses that a family’s last child had outgrown. She’d gathered quite an assortment, which she gave to people who couldn’t afford clothes for their children. Sometimes—so it was told—she even brought clothes and diapers to poor families instead of letting them pay her.

  “You could stay with us,” Trudi told Ingrid. “For a while.… I’m sure my father would say it’s all right.”

  “I have to face my just punishment, the laceration of my soul—”

  Trudi groaned. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

  “—the decline of my spirit—”

  “Have you seen a midwife? A doctor?”

  “—the deterioration of the flesh—”

  “I could get Hilde Eberhardt… bring her here.”

  “No.” Ingrid stopped her litany.

  “How about this man? The one who wants to marry you.”

  “When he gets his leave.”

  “Then you’ll marry him?”

  “To save the child’s name. It’s too late for me. I’m forever damned. I’ll never be a missionary.”

  “You want me to get the priest?�
� Trudi asked without much confidence. Still, maybe even the fat priest was better than no priest at all. “You could confess. Get rid of the sin.”

  “I am the sin.”

  “Ingrid—”

  “I have always known that about myself.”

  “And what is it about you, then, that makes it impossible to get absolution? What makes you so special?”

  But Ingrid shook her head. Her eyes glittered. “I am the sin.”

  While Leo Montag brewed strong Russian tea for Ingrid, Trudi ran to Neumaier’s pharmacy for eardrops. Though it had a new owner, Fräulein Horten, people still called it Neumaier’s pharmacy. In the nine months since he’d been taken away with his daughter and former wife, no one had heard from the pharmacist, and people suspected that he’d not only kept some of the money he’d solicited for the Hitler statue, but also most of the funds he’d collected from people for membership in the Partei. The Stosicks hadn’t been the only ones who’d never received papers in the mail.

  Trudi was about to pay for Ingrid’s medicine when the sirens sounded off. As she glanced toward the door, trying to decide if she should race home, Fräulein Horten took her by the arm.

  “My father—” Trudi said.

  “Better stay here.”

  Fräulein Horten led her down into the huge cellar, where several tenants from the apartment building already sat on apple crates and suitcases, eyes turned toward the ceiling as if it were possible to see the danger beyond. With all the bombings that could strike the major nearby cities any time during the day or night, you had to be prepared for stray bombs and rush to the nearest cellar with a ready-packed bag or suitcase, containing your most important belongings. Mothers would grab small children from their beds and fly down the stairs, while trying to calm their screams. Often the air raids wouldn’t last very long, but you could sit in a cellar for hours, surrounded by others who handled their deadly fears by crying or praying or complaining.

  The butcher and his daughter-in-law, still wearing their stiff aprons, were already in the cellar. The optician arrived soon after with his foreign worker from Greece, then the teacher who lived on the second floor with the Brocker girl, who’d recently started keeping house for her. Next came Jutta Malter and her husband’s mother, the professor, who often stayed with her for a few days.

  The last one to enter was Alexander Sturm, his face pasty, far thinner than it used to be. In the half year since Eva’s arrest, Trudi had only seen him twice, and he hadn’t spoken to her beyond a brief greeting. He no longer attended mass. The seriousness that had marked him during his boyhood had reclaimed him as though his passion and resulting handsomeness had only been inspired by Eva. Those shining years of marriage had fallen from him without a trace, and despite his dashing mustache he looked quite ordinary again, middle-aged already as if the passage from boy to stolid man had happened overnight.

  During those years of his marriage to Eva, Trudi had come to like Alexander, and his house had been a place she’d enjoyed visiting. But ever since Eva’s arrest, she—along with others—had speculated as to why he’d gone free, and since he didn’t attempt to explain himself, he’d lost his reputation for being a decent man.

  He sat on the bare floor, where the briquettes used to be stacked, his back against the wall that was black with coal dust, as if he didn’t care about his clothes. High above him, the small windows had been covered with canvas to keep any light from seeping out. In the corner by the shelves leaned the cumbersome Jesus figure that Herr Neumaier used to carry around the church square, its knees angled and its arms linked above its head as if ready to resume its position on the cross. An immense wooden nail connected its palms, and liver-colored paint dripped from the crown. The new pharmacist had tried to donate the Jesus to the priest, who’d suggested she give it to the nuns, but she’d been afraid to enter the Theresienheim and had finally dragged the statue down to the cellar, where its lonely vigil was interrupted whenever the sirens sounded their warning.

  Trudi thought of her father and Ingrid in the cellar of the pay-library. Every time she was afraid of what she might find after the bombing, and every time she was surprised that her town had been spared once again. It was different in Düsseldorf: there she’d seen children playing in the rubble of destroyed houses, women digging for lost possessions.

  The Brocker girl whimpered and hid her face in her palms. Jutta Malter glanced at her from the side, then at the professor, as if waiting for her to do something. All at once Trudi felt sorry for Klara Brocker—even if she had traded that worthless rosary for Ingrid’s jewelry box. Her father was fighting in the war, and her house had been one of the few crushed by stray bombs. She and her mother had moved into a small apartment on the fourth floor of the house that used to belong to Frau Simon.

  “It won’t be much longer.” The professor reached across to stroke Klara Brocker’s hair. “Not much longer.”

  In the half dark of the cellar, the girl shivered. “I’m fast on my bicycle.…”

  The professor’s eyes were tired as she stroked Klara’s hair from her forehead and behind the small, pretty ears. Ever since her work had been taken from her, the professor had felt tired. She’d wake up tired, go to sleep tired.

  “Real fast.…”

  “I know.”

  From nearby came the sounds of a low-flying plane, then an explosion. The ground trembled.

  “It’s easy to lose your belief in humanity,” the butcher was saying.

  Trudi wheeled toward him. “It took you this long? Only now that you are in danger?”

  “I’m not interested in an argument with you, Fräulein Montag.” The butcher’s breath carried more than half a century of tobacco smoke. “If the world would just leave Germany alone. All we’re trying to do is restore the order in our own country.”

  The teeth of the Brocker girl were clicking against each other. “I bet if I got on my bicycle—I bet if I got on my bicycle and kept pedaling, I’d get away.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” the butcher said.

  “Please, leave her alone,” the professor said.

  They all fell silent, listening through the thick walls. Trudi felt Alexander watching her, but when she looked his way, he turned his eyes from her as if afraid to let her see into his mind. She felt him straining to shield the secret of Eva’s capture from her. How does he bear it? she thought. She wanted to tell him that, ever since she’d been with Max, she’d understood Eva’s longing for him and the risk she’d taken in returning to him for that one night.

  “It wasn’t just your doing,” she whispered to him.

  Alexander leaned his head against the black wall and shut his eyes.

  Trudi wondered if Max had heard the explosion too and hoped he was safe. Last night, when they’d parted, she’d refused to kiss him. If we survive this, she thought, I won’t even mention his wife again. Maybe he, too, was thinking about her right now. It had happened before: he’d tell her he’d been thinking about her, and when they’d compare times, it would turn out to have been at the very same moment.

  “But I couldn’t leave on my bicycle,” the Brocker girl said, “I couldn’t. Not with my mother the way she is.” Her frantic eyes skipped from face to face as she told how, the last time they’d rushed to the nearest shelter, her mother had stumbled and fallen, bloodying her face and hands. “She’s all alone,” Klara cried and leapt up.

  The optician blocked the door.

  “I’m sure your mother feels better knowing that you’re safe,” the professor said.

  “There’s nothing we can do for our parents now,” Trudi told Klara.

  “Here.” Klara’s employer took her by the hands and pulled her down beside her. “It’s always worse for the children.”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “I wasn’t talking about you.” She told Klara how, in school, her students no longer concentrated on her lessons because they lived with the fear that soon the bombs would start falling again. Often
, in the middle of a class, they’d hear the sirens, grab their satchels, and run down into the school cellar. The teachers would try to soften the children’s fear, but it was impossible to calm all of them. And when they came out again and the school stood intact, they were relieved. “The worst part,” the teacher said, “is their worry about their parents.”

  “With good reason.” Herr Immers took out a knife and a wedge of smoked ham and began to slice it. “People get buried under their own houses.” He passed the slices of ham around. “Remember that time when the only damage in town was those blue bricks above the windows of the Rathaus? Knocked out on the sidewalk like bad teeth.… But the following week, they made up for it, right? Demolished the flour mill. We’re lucky it’s so far from the center of town.”

  “My father and I,” Trudi said, “we drove out there. The roof is gone and the arches have caved in.”

  “We’ll rebuild it after the war,” the optician said.

  “I don’t think so,” Trudi said softly.

  “Why not?” Jutta Malter asked.

  “I don’t know. I just have a feeling we won’t.”

  At the signal that it was safe to leave the cellar, Trudi got ready to rush up the stairs to make sure her father and Ingrid were all right.

  “Wait.”

  She turned.

  Alexander still sat by the coal wall, his forearms resting on his bent knees, palms turned upward like chalices.

  She let the others pass her. “What is it?”

  “What—” Alexander took a long breath. “What was it like for her, those last days with you?”

  She stepped close to him and peered down into his face, waiting for him to tell her what had happened that night. And to find that out, she was willing to stay, to answer his questions first. “Eva missed you. That was the hardest part of hiding for her.”

  “What did she say about me?”

  “That people didn’t really know you.… She was afraid you might be sent off to war, and she said if she could have one Goddamn beautiful night with you—that’s what she called it, Alexander, one Goddamn beautiful night—she’d be able to endure the hiding again.”

  He drew his legs closer to his body, rested his forehead on his knees. His shoulders trembled.