by Uwe Johnson
Employee Cresspahl had, in the last days before the irreversible resumption of work, spent a day on the Atlantic with her child, at Midland Beach on Staten Island, to console the child for all the strange new foreign things, and even on the subway back the child was hobbling a bit, and the next morning she was walking with a limp.
She limped without the slightest impatience; she was not even four years old and she buckled a little as skillfully as an old woman, straightened up, buckled, straightened, considerately trying not to betray too much through the hand with which she was holding mine.
She sat on a bench in Riverside Park, under trees lit up by the summer sun, calm, tired, and she didn’t want to show her foot. She denied feeling any pain.
Today, in a photo from back then she looks mischievous, confident. At the time she was scared. The pudgy little face from 1961, the narrowed eyes, the helpless lips struck passersby as traces of danger. She had short hair then, inexpertly cut. There were plenty of grandmothers in the park who wanted to take a shot at straightening out that pale windswept tangle. Marie had her head behind her mother’s back before her mother could even see such meddlesomeness coming.
But she couldn’t see what was wrong with the child’s foot. Out of the eight million people in the city of New York, Employee Cresspahl knew maybe five. She hardly trusted her English at the bank, much less to interpret between a foreign-language child and a doctor. The friendly camaraderie from one park bench to another, the exotic trees and bushes, even the feel of the summer wind, the consciousness of a nearby river, of vacation, now constituted a hostile environment. That’s when it started: If she let Marie see any uncertainty in her, even for a second, Marie would never even try to make a life here.
Marie’s excuses were meant to protect her from a doctor like the one in Düsseldorf, who thought a gruff manner conveyed trustworthy warmth, and now from a doctor in New York. But at St. Luke’s she ended up with a man who was if anything rather shy with new clients. Once his face brought the words Thuringian and boy scout to mind, you couldn’t get them back out of your head. He didn’t look summa cum laude, more like a farmer’s son—a boy who thought school was hard, who even now stares off into space like he’s repeating a checklist to himself. But nothing whatsoever was hard for Dr. Brewster, and he knew his business by heart too. He took Marie’s right hand and shook it. She let him; she knew that this custom was not one you could avoid. He took her left hand and shook it, gravely, starting over with a totally new formality. She thought it a credit to him that he treated both hands equally. Then he took her healthy foot. She’d already accepted that her limping foot had to be as unclothed as her hand. He had made her curious. Back then I was happy. Back then peace still reigned.
Marie examined the balls of her feet, where this person without glasses or a white coat had found black spots, and Cresspahl the foreigner was afraid of her prejudiced idea of American medicine, which she thought they were now about to be subjected to. But Dr. Brewster came out of the side room with a gauze bandage, not a syringe, and he could wet it himself without summoning the nurse. The advice he gave in such a trustworthy way was grandmotherly: Keep the foot moist. Berta Cresspahl would have said the same thing.
And Dr. Brewster knew more than he’d learned in school. He made sure that the child was busy enough with the Lego set by the window and then asked the mother, who was not especially inclined, neither in her maternal capacity nor personally, to call her child stupid or ugly: She’s a bright child, Mrs. . . .?
The mother didn’t know what to say.
He watched the child for a while longer as she snapped some animal figurines together and apart; he was perfectly unhurried, his hands in his lap, and then he declared as an incontrovertible medical finding, serious and definitely teasing too: I do believe so. A bright child.
That cost ten dollars, and he had us so hooked that we went back. He remembered our names too. After three days the foot was how it should be. He didn’t want to hear it over the phone, he wanted to see for himself. This time Marie held her left hand out first, to test him. He took it with his left hand, and she offered her limping foot first. She couldn’t pronounce his name yet, and didn’t manage to be more than annoyed when he slipped the tetanus shot hidden in his cupped hand out of his pocket and into her thigh. She was about to open her mouth to scream when he’d already said something to her and she preferred to hear what it was. He’d insisted on none of the vaccinations our prejudice had assumed he would; life in New York without a tetanus shot, though, was not something we would advise. Marie said: If that’s what he wants. Then yes.
And he brought his client back through the waiting room and down the stairs to the exit onto 113th Street, here a one-way street running west, and he stayed hidden in the shadowy lobby, watching like a spy to see how the child was walking on her foot. He saw his work out the door and then gave it a final inspection.
We followed him to the practice he later bought on Park Avenue, refusing to let Miss Gibson the reception lady stop us, neither with her high-class manner nor with her doubts about our ability to pay. We had even learned to almost completely understand how he talked, the quiet murmur barely above a whisper, the vowels just breathed out; Marie can talk like him, so that only the aspirates remain audible—from “adhesive” just the “h”—but she doesn’t perform him, she only imitates him, with affection, teasing, when he comes to mind. This is who they’ve now hauled off to Vietnam, and no one knows if he’ll come back alive or be accidentally bombed by his own military. We needed him, in case anyone tried to tell us it was impossible to raise a child in New York. Thank you very much, doctor.
That night, after Marie put the Killainen children to bed in her room, she asked: What would it be like? If someone, not a soldier, got permission to visit the war zone, which I admit is not very likely, then what would it be like. A flight to Saigon, what would that cost?
January 23, 1968 Tuesday
– Is this the lady who called ten minutes ago, asking about the weather in North Germany over Easter 1938? Crassfawn? Do you have a pen handy?
Flensburg
4/17: 8°C, high winds, freezing rain
4/18: Morning: 1.5°; high of 7°; snow showers
Putbus
4/17: 5°C, no overnight frost, no precipitation
4/18: Same
Königsberg
4/17: 5°C, snow cover
4/18: Same
We don’t have anything on Wismar or Stettin. Does this give you a general picture? How nice of you to say so, Mrs. Cressawe. The bill will be sent to 243 Riverside Drive, #204 . . . is that NY 10025? Not at all. You know what, while I was looking this up for you I found out that March 1938 was the warmest March of the century in that region; that’s definitely not something I’m likely to forget. Yes. This is Herbert H. Hayes speaking. The pleasure was all mine, Mrs. Crissauer!
So the daffodils, snowdrops, and forsythias in Hilde Paepcke’s garden would have been killed in the frost, and no leaves in sight, when her younger sister came to visit Podejuch from Jerichow with husband and child. Lisbeth had turned down invitations for Easter ’35, ’36, ’37, like onerous demands; now here she was in the middle of a second such winter, and she’d insisted so strongly on coming that Alexander had to cancel plans with his friends from the department. Was there anything to the rumors that Lisbeth had turned ununderstandable, as they’d heard from one person in Jerichow after another?
The Cresspahls arrived in Gneez on Saturday morning on the postbus, he with a light-colored leather suitcase that stood out among the bags and baskets of the other passengers, the child at his side with a hand on the suitcase handle, not at her mother’s, who stepped down onto the platform after them empty-handed and absolutely unenthusiastic. They took the second-class car, not third-class, on the Hamburg–Stettin express, which went past the Gneez housing development a few minutes after ten. Barely a quarter hour later, they stopped for three minutes above Schwerin Lake and could see the north ti
p of the island of Lieps nearby in the cold water, not completely bare but covered with matted brownish branches. Here they could have transferred to the Rostock line and would have been in Copenhagen by their usual dinnertime. It was the father who explained these connections to the child, and the child stayed next to him, sitting patiently, quiet, under her dark-brown cockscomb hairstyle that looked as if it had been turned down and tucked in by the child herself. The other two passengers in the compartment, an elderly Hamburg couple, occasionally snuck a look at the young woman who let her head lean back as if exhausted from something; who often closed her eyes as if that way she was free from having to listen too, or else looked indifferently out the window to escape from the prying eyes. To strangers it looked like a marital fight, but then again not, when Lisbeth suggested with an encouraging, solicitous smile that the child and Cresspahl take a stroll through the train. A little while later she too left the compartment, after being asked about mutual acquaintances between Hamburg and Schwerin, but she walked in the other direction.
Cresspahl was glad that for once Lisbeth had asked for something it was possible to do—though he could have used the Saturday for work. He told himself Hilde’s questions would surely take her sister’s mind off things; he was almost looking forward to seeing his brother-in-law and getting the chance to drink for pleasure, for once. Cresspahl stood at the left-side window and showed his child the Warnow River, which the train had been running alongside since Warnow: a little river dawdling over stones and broken branches. Then, on the other side, the canal between Bützow and Güstrow, which at one point had been meant to go all the way to Berlin. In Güstrow the station name was painted on the sides of rectangular lamps. The child wanted to know why they had to wait five minutes here. Cresspahl said it was because of the connection to Neustrelitz, then Wendisch Burg, where other relatives lived, the Niebuhrs. He forgot Horst in Güstrow. Then it was already 11:30 and they were passing through the forest east of Güstrow, the Priem Woods, where Army Ordnance Depot, North District, was being built behind a thin wall of pine trees. He knew that Schmidt from Güstrow was doing work for them. Kröpelin from Bützow too. For someone an Englishman could ask, Cresspahl sure knew a lot of state secrets. When they were passing the tall forest near Teterow, the Hamburg couple chatted with a new passenger about the annexation of Austria into the Greater German Reich, grumbling a bit but basically in qualified agreement, and Cresspahl told the child about the pike that the people of Teterow would throw back into their lake because they were sure they could find it again from the notch they’d cut in the side of their boat. At a little past 12:30 the Cresspahls headed over to the meal car, and at Malchin the child caught a glimpse of a little harbor with jacked-up boats and boatbuilding sheds. They were already on their way back by the time the train passed the Leuschentin Forest, because the meal car was too crowded, mostly with soldiers who had clearly been sitting over their beer and wine for a while already. The train stopped at Neubrandenburg for five minutes, and Cresspahl could buy the child a lemonade to go with Lisbeth’s sandwiches. By then it was quarter to one; they passed through Pasewalk on the Uecker and, just before two, crossed the Pommern border between Grambow and Stöwen. At two thirty the train stopped in Stettin, and fifteen minutes after that they had the five miles on the Greifenhagen line to Podejuch behind them, and there Alexander Paepcke was at the station with little Alexandra and Eberhardt, and Alexander said: Well, Hinrich, lets celebrate.
Hilde, who had stayed home with baby Christine, just one year old, hugged her brother-in-law Cresspahl at great length while keeping an eye on her sister; Lisbeth did not seem bothered, if anything her expression was rather encouraging. Hilde thought she looked pretty much the same, aside from her tiredness. The work flashed through her fingers as expertly as before, only now without enthusiasm, without pleasure. Hilde may not have noticed that Lisbeth was watching Alexander’s mouth practically in terror that night when he told them about the Stettin Ordnance Depot. Alexander was a major in the reserves now, who wouldda thought! The house in Podejuch was only rented, and expensive, but still impressive, you gotta admit! Yes indeedy. After Austria it might be Poland’s turn, he said, or maybe Czechoslovakia was next in line to fall in with Germany. Of course that’ll be a real war, Lisbeth! What didja expect? And you couldn’t be too careful about planes, he agreed with Heinrich there. It wasn’t so bad if you lived near an airfield, like in Jerichow, they’d try to land there in one piece, but the things you see in open country! The holes they left in the ground were big enough to fit this whole house in! Complete with cellar and chimney. Explosives that powerful were better transported by train than plane, doncha think? Y’know. Yeah. Cheers Hinrich! Lisbeth had retired upstairs very early, and since Cresspahl wouldn’t accept the Paepckes’ bedroom either, Hilde found nothing unusual about his spending the night in the back room of the widow Heinricius’s house, three doors down, and Lisbeth in an attic room with the children.
In the morning Paepcke shouted for Cresspahl through the backyards, so loudly that all eight surrounding houses now knew that Paepcke was shaving and had visitors. After breakfast, Lisbeth insisted on going to church, so finally Alexander decided, with an irritated laugh, that in that case they’d all go. Over grog in the Forest Lodge in Podejuch he started heaping praise on Lisbeth’s sister for everything he could think of; he was unable to get Cresspahl to talk about Lisbeth. (– We’re both strangers among these Papenbrocks, aren’t we: Alexander said. – Yup: my father said. He still didn’t know that time was running out.) They went for a drive on the heath, Buchheide, and in a damp clearing between pitch-black pines they suddenly came across some cleverly hidden, gaily painted Easter eggs—Alexander Paepcke strikes again, the magician, who knows how to live. The edge of the heath was strangely elevated above the river valley and the new barracks. Another evening over beer, Mosel, and the prospects for the coming war. Hilde banged each new glass onto the table a little forcefully; that wasn’t something a Paepcke would ever notice. Cresspahl had no chance to talk to Lisbeth alone; he would have tried to downplay what Alexander was saying. And then Alexander was standing at the window again, early the next morning, with shaving foam on his chin, shouting for Mrs. Heinricius, the state councilman’s widow, to wake Cresspahl up. A walk along the East Oder. Hair of the dog and lunch in Stettin at the Terrace Hotel, with the stepped tower, at the foot of Haken Terrace; the Hamburg train left at three; at eight thirty that night Cresspahl carried his sleeping child home from the Jerichow station. Cresspahl was pleased with how the trip had turned out, and Lisbeth had gotten what she wanted.
You were seeing if there’d be a place for me there.
And wasn’t there one, Gesine? Alexandra was four months younger than you, so you’d have had an advantage over her. She had the soft blond hair, you the dark, so she would have always been considered the pretty one and wouldn’t have gotten jealous of you. You let loose with her more than you ever did at home—how you chattered away! You could have lived with her. Ganged up with her against that shrimp Eberhardt. You could have won Christine over. There was a place for you there.
Then why didn’t you do it right away? What made you wait so long?
I didn’t want to do it. Taking precautions doesn’t mean you want to. I wanted to stick it out, if I could.
And if your sister hadn’t wanted to take me in?
She would have taken you from Cresspahl, Gesine. You’re your father’s daughter.
Peace does not come easily to those
who once the wrath of Auntie Times incur.
Eartha Kitt has had to defend herself yet again for characterizing the war to Johnson’s wife as the underlying cause of crime in this country, thus bringing tears to Mrs. Johnson’s eyes. Miss Kitt still doesn’t understand the problem. Whether as an actress, a Negro, whoever, she was entitled to her opinion, particularly when it was asked of her, she said. Meanwhile The New York Times remains unyielding and ends by mentioning the telegrams sent to comfort the
president’s wife, not those supporting Miss Kitt.
Well, Miss Kitt?
January 24, 1968 Wednesday
The roving cultural critics who indefatigably bring home news of the death of New York would be delighted to hear that the city’s telephone network had collapsed or, for completeness sake if nothing else, that the postal system was in its death throes. If only this were true at least for unwanted phone calls, and the only letters that came to our door were the ones we could honestly say we were happy to get!
We would have been just fine without the one that came today from Boston. In it, a former football player who has since put on some weight tried his best to present himself as oh so delicate, accompanying what he says with gingerly gestures, and if he does have to seize hold of the problem after all, he means to do it gently, so that no one can blame him for any resulting injuries.
F. F. Fleury, away from whom Annie Killainen has run with three children, has, in full consciousness of his French manners, submitted a clean manuscript to the post office, third draft, no typos, probably with a carbon copy deposited somewhere. So now you see how polite F. F. Fleury can be, Mrs. Cresspahl!
He did not want to open with accusations of lying and malicious deception, the letter said. So much the better, Dr. Fleury. After all, maybe it’s a coincidence that the Cresspahls’ phone in New York was occasionally answered by Fleury Junior, right? Point for you there, Fleury. Thanks a lot, Junior.
He claimed to conclude from this only that Mrs. Cresspahl knew where Annie was staying or, perhaps, was keeping it secret on her request. The chivalry of the man. Right? Nothing was further from his mind than to meddle in such a friendship or try to prevent it. All right, Mr. Fleury, here we go.