by Louise Fein
“It must be very grand inside.” Tomas presses his face right up against the iron railings. “Bet it’s got two staircases. And a cellar. Maybe it’s even got a dungeon with prisoners’ bones in it!”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Can I come in?” asks Tomas.
I steal a sideways look at him. Even though it’s only been a few weeks, it feels like a different lifetime when he and I played in the street behind the flat we used to live in. It was the old me who kicked a ball around and slid down the muddy embankment to watch the trains puffing in and out of the station.
“Not today,” I hear myself say. “Sorry. Maybe another time,” and I push my way through the sturdy iron gate. It opens with a creak and when I let go, it shuts Tomas out with a loud and satisfying clunk.
In the echoey, wooden-floored hall I put down my satchel and remember the day we moved here in June.
“I’ll need a cook, and full-time maid,” Mutti had said, standing in this very spot, looking around in wonder. I can almost still smell her flowery wafts of Vol de Nuit. “I can’t possibly manage this house without help,” she’d said, her hand on her chest.
Vati, cool and relaxed, dressed casually in slacks and an open-necked shirt, had tousled my hair and said, “The most desirable residence in the whole of Leipzig. Or at least one of them.”
“I love it,” I remember saying, smiling into his baggy face.
“Who would have thought it, eh, Schnuffel? Who would ever have dreamed it?” he’d said, as he picked up a box, kicking open a door off the hallway with his foot. “My study,” he’d said in a satisfied voice and disappeared inside.
“Can I pick a bedroom?” Karl had asked, eyes gleaming at the thought of a room all to himself.
“Why not?” Mutti replied, and I’d followed her as she’d carried out an inventory of the furniture and artwork the previous people had left in the house.
It’d be hard to forget the first time I saw the red-gold dining room; the bright afternoon sitting room with big patches of sunlight on the carpet and the grand piano; the pale-blue morning room with a gramophone in one corner; and the glass-domed garden room filled with wicker furniture and jungle plants. Our old flat would have fitted neatly into the hallway alone, with room to spare around the edges.
A surge of happiness now fills my chest like a swelling balloon and I run across the hall, my footsteps reverberating, through the stone-floored passageway, past the big kitchen and washroom, and out into the glorious sunshine of our triangular-shaped garden with its grass in the middle, flowers around the edge, and huge oak tree at the bottom. There’s no railway line here like there was behind the flat. I won’t miss the trains that shook my bed as they rattled and screeched their way to who-knows-where in the middle of the night.
I walk to the end of the garden and stare up through the dappled leaves and branches of the giant, old oak tree. Even though we no longer go to church—Vati says it detracts from our greater cause, and besides, Herr Himmler wouldn’t like it—I know that God has smiled on me. He has given me this, because I’m special: a treehouse. Real. Solid. With a proper roof and walls. A narrow rope ladder dangles down from a hole in the middle of the wooden floor.
Just wait until Tomas sees this. He’ll be mad with envy. I picture his face and laugh out loud.
Two
September 17, 1933
From my window seat, sitting in a nest of comfortable cushions, I keep watch on Fritzschestrasse. With luck, Walter might appear, hands shoved in his short-trouser pockets, scuffing his shoes, looking for Karl. But the road stays resolutely empty. Through the branches of the cherry tree, I see an old couple emerge from one of the elegant white town houses across the street. They have a shaggy-haired black dog with them. His tongue lolls from his mouth, giving the impression he’s smiling. In the flat, we had no room for a dog, but Mutti can’t say that anymore. I go in search of her.
Bertha is in the kitchen, wiping floury hands on her apron. “Your mother has a headache,” she explains. “She went to lie down.”
“How can anyone want to go to bed in the middle of the day?”
“I certainly wouldn’t mind.” Bertha sniffs, kneading a mound of dough. “Anything I can help you with?”
“We should get a dog. A big house like this needs one.”
“I see. Well, that can wait until your mother gets up. Besides, she might not want a dog.” She stops kneading and pounds the dough on the board. The muscles of her forearms flex beneath her mottled skin.
“Shall I wake her, do you think?”
“No, Fräulein Herta. I don’t think.”
I sigh and wander out onto the street. The old couple are shuffling across the road in the distance. I catch up with them.
“Good morning. May I stroke your dog? My name is Hetty. I live in the big house across the street from you.”
The old man is dressed in a brown day suit and tie with a Homburg hat perched neatly on his head. The woman, tiny and frail, in a thin coat despite the warmth of the day, flickers her eyes at her husband.
He clears his throat and says quietly to her, “She’s just a child, Ruth.” He turns to me. “Of course. His name is Flocke, and I am Herr Goldschmidt.”
Flocke wags his tail so hard that his body snakes and twists.
“Aren’t you friendly?” Crouching down, I giggle as he jumps his two front paws on my knees and tries to lick my ears.
“Perhaps I could take him to the park for you?” I look up at the Goldschmidts. They really are very old and Flocke can’t ever have a proper run. “I’m good with dogs. I shan’t lose him or anything.” I stand and look responsible.
Frau Goldschmidt answers this time. “You can’t take the dog.” Her tone is hard and sour, as though she has just swallowed lemon pips. “I won’t allow it, after what happened.”
I take a step backward. Perhaps she doesn’t like children.
“Come on now, Ruth. There’s no need for that. Let’s go.” Herr Goldschmidt tugs on his wife’s arm, but she doesn’t move and her dark eyes narrow into snake-slits.
“Your father”—she sounds like she’s hissing the words—“forced them out. Those trumped-up charges. The campaign in that paper of his. It was criminal . . . all lies and falsehoods . . .”
“Ruth! Please!” Herr Goldschmidt shakes her arm, but she is unstoppable, trembling and spitting her words at me.
“The Druckers were good people. Successful. But that creates jealousy, doesn’t it? Envy from lesser folk. And now there he sits, like a lord, in his stolen house . . .”
“Ruth!” Herr Goldschmidt’s voice is high and sharp. He turns back to me. “I’m sorry for my wife’s words, she’s not herself today . . .”
But by now I’m certain the old woman is a witch and I’m running hard and fast away from them, before she can spray me with poisonous spit. I don’t stop until I’m safely inside my iron gate, my heart thudding like racehorse hooves in my chest.
A car is parked outside in the street, and I find a young woman standing in the hallway wrapped like a fat bockwurst in a tight brown suit. She has chubby cheeks, a snub nose, and the thickest lips I’ve ever seen. Her hair is the color of a paper bag, plaited and so fiercely wrapped around the top of her head that the skin above her ears is taut and red. She gives me a surprised look.
“Hello,” she says in a kind voice. “I’m Fräulein Müller. And you must be Herta?”
Vati, big as a bear and smart in his stiff Schutzstaffel uniform, appears from the study. He hands a couple of thin document folders to Fräulein Müller.
“Hello, Schnuffel. I’m afraid I must leave you for a couple of days. I have to go to Berlin, on SS business.” He hugs me, pressing my head into his chest. The hard buckle on his leather chest strap digs into my cheek. “Where’s your mother? Hélène, Hélène!” His voice reverberates in his chest.
“Franz?” Mutti, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a floaty dress, evidently recovered from her headache, glides in from the back garden,
a bunch of flowers in one hand, scissors in the other. Karl trails in behind her. “What are you doing home so early?” Mutti asks in surprise.
“Ah, there you are. Hélène, this is Hilda Müller, my new secretary.” The young woman smiles and nods at Mutti. “Listen, I have to travel to Berlin. It’s urgent—more trouble with the Communists.” He sighs. “But I must also finish my weekly editorial for the Leipziger this afternoon so the copy is ready for tonight’s deadline. Fräulein Müller will accompany me to organize that.” He stops suddenly and rubs his hands over his face, kneading his eyes with the tips of his fingers. Poor Vati is exhausted with his two jobs.
“Will you stay with Oma Annamaria?” Karl asks.
“Not if I can help it,” Vati replies swiftly. “What I meant to say,” he adds, “was I shall visit my mother if I have the time, but I’m likely to be far too busy.” He turns to Mutti. “I’ll telephone this evening,” he says, taking her hands and kissing her on the cheek. “Good-bye, Schnuffel,” he says to me. “Be good for your mother.”
“Yes, Vati.” I look up to his face, framed by slicked-back, fair hair. I search his pale eyes for affection and hope he sees only goodness in mine. But he is already looking at his watch.
“We must go.” He turns to Karl. “I’m leaving you in charge, young man. Take care of your sister and mother.”
We stand at the front door and watch Vati and Fräulein Müller climb into the waiting sleek black car. The woman’s skirt is so tight it scrunches up around her thighs as she gets in. Her behind is large and round and she waddles like a goose.
“Mutti,” I say, once they have gone, “the Goldschmidts, who live across the road, told me Vati stole this house. But how can you steal a house?”
Mutti whirls around and stares at me. “They said what? Why were you talking to them?”
“They’ve got a little dog. I just wanted to stroke it. Can I have a dog now we live here?”
“You mustn’t talk to such people.”
“I only wanted to pet the dog.”
“But they are Jews, Hetty.”
The word sends a shiver down my back. How was I to know? Karl wrinkles his nose and says, “Dirty pigs, Jews.”
“They have nothing better to do than spread evil lies,” Mutti says, her voice firm. I watch her put the flowers in a vase and fill it with water. “That is what these people do. It’s very important you don’t speak with them again. These are difficult times. That’s why Vati does all this work for the SS as well as running the newspaper. They must protect Hitler and ban all the parties who seek to oppose him. Pick your friends carefully, Hetty. Stick only with good Germans, like us. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mutti.”
I follow her back outside, not wanting to be on my own. I look around the bushes and flowers at the edge of the garden. Everything looks calm and friendly, but I can feel the evil hovering outside the safety of our iron railings, and I shudder. I imagine a great big guard dog, patrolling the garden. Just the idea of it makes me feel safer.
Three
October 8, 1933
There’s a knock at the front door.
“Who can that be, at this time on a Sunday morning?” Mutti frowns. Tall and willowy, dressed in peach chiffon, she bobs down the stairs. A strand of hair works its way loose from the dark sweep of her chignon and she threads it behind her ear.
I pull open the heavy front door. Walter stands on the doorstep, hands in his pockets. I throw the door open wider and breathe in, willing myself taller.
When Walter was a small boy, he would have looked like one of those chubby, blond cherubs that float about among the clouds in paintings of Mary and baby Jesus. Now he’s fourteen, he still has blond curly hair and blue eyes, but he isn’t chubby anymore; he’s long and lean like a half-grown horse. A boy-man.
“Karl!” Mutti calls. She stands, holding the smooth knob of wood at the end of the banister as if she is afraid to let go.
“Good morning, Frau Heinrich,” Walter says politely, stepping through the open door. “I wonder if Karl might be free?”
“Come up,” Karl calls, his grinning face appearing at the top of the stairs. “We can chat in my room.”
“Hi, Walter,” I say.
He bends down to untie his shoelaces and doesn’t seem to notice me at all.
“Do you want to come out to the treehouse?” I try. But he runs up the stairs after Karl.
Vati appears from his study, his hands on his hips. He scowls at Walter’s back. “That boy again,” he mutters, glaring at Mutti. “You’ve not told him, have you?”
“Come on, Franz.” Mutti sighs, her hands dropping to her sides, shoulders sagging. “Please, not this again.”
“Just because he once rescued . . .” Vati throws me a look and I know he means the Almost Drowning. “I don’t like it . . .” He turns and the study door bangs shut, abrupt and loud.
Mutti and I stand staring at each other, alone in the hallway. Invisible fingers crawl up my back.
“What doesn’t Vati like?” I whisper.
Mutti sighs again. “Go and wash your face and hands. We’re going to visit the soldiers’ home today.”
“But—”
“Just for a couple of hours. It will be good for you.”
“Do I have to?”
“You do,” she says firmly. “Community work is . . . holy. It brings us closer to the Führer. It’s very important that we look after each other.”
“I’d rather play with Karl and Walter.”
“Young ladies,” Mutti says crisply, “need to learn the meaning of obedience.”
A little knot forms inside as I stomp upstairs.
THE SOLDIERS’ HOME is on Hallische Strasse, set well back from the street. The building is hundreds of years old, once a hospital, now given over to care for the brave soldiers who were badly injured fighting for our nation. A Home for Heroes. It has a pleasant garden and a wide terrace on one side, with a few wheelchairs lined up in a row. The men sit so still, staring wordlessly out across the lawn and the flower beds, that I wonder if they might have dropped dead already.
Mutti marches us up the front steps and rings the doorbell. We’re greeted by a neat nurse who ushers us into a hall smelling of wood polish and bleach. She introduces herself as Lisel. Blond hair peeks from the front of her white cap.
“Heil Hitler. How lovely to see you again, Frau Heinrich,” says the nurse.
“Heil Hitler. This is my daughter, Herta.”
“So good of you both to come. Our residents very much look forward to your visits, Frau Heinrich.”
We follow Lisel along a dark passageway, past a ward, and I glance in. Eight iron beds all neatly made and empty of occupants, who, Lisel tells us, are in the dayroom. I try not to breathe too deeply as beneath the smell of bleach is a pervasive odor of urine and something else unpleasant.
“. . . Some of our inmates are war heroes, Herta, who have no family. They deserve a fitting place to live out their days in comfortable surroundings.”
“Yes, they deserve that.” I nod.
“They certainly do. But we need more funds . . . It’s very difficult . . .” Lisel says with a frown.
“I’m arranging a fund-raising lunch,” Mutti offers with enthusiasm. “And my husband could draw attention to your plight in the Leipziger.”
Lisel smiles. “We are very lucky to have a patron like your mother,” she tells me. “Working tirelessly for the good of others.”
I glance at Mutti in surprise. To me, she is just Mutti. But now I see she is something else besides.
In the sitting room, three old soldiers are parked in a semicircle in their wood and wicker wheelchairs. I know I shouldn’t stare, but I can’t help it. The sight of one makes me sweat. Half his face is missing; the rest of it, a twisted mess of flesh. A small hole is approximately where his mouth should be, but a great chunk is gone from the cheek area. One eye is missing altogether, and the other stands proud from the shrunken flesh, white
and cloudy. His face reminds me of the mangled parts of a half-eaten chicken.
My stomach curdles and I fear I’m going to be sick. Mutti grabs my arm and jerks it, hard.
I take a deep breath. If I’m to be a doctor, I cannot be squeamish.
In comparison, the other two, one with missing legs from the hip down, the other with half a leg and a missing arm, are easier to look at.
I watch Mutti, standing in the center of the dreary room, surrounded by this human horror show, and suddenly she looks like the most beautiful creature in all the world. Her sparkling eyes and charming smile flicker only momentarily as, radiant in her peach dress, she splashes color into the room and works her charm on the patients.
Lemon tea and cakes are brought in. Lisel administers tea to the mangled man through a straw poked into the hole where his mouth should be. It slurps back out when she removes the straw and dribbles down from the mottled flesh, once his chin, onto his shirt. She wipes up the spillage and comes to sit next to me.
“What happened to them?” I whisper.
“Injured by shelling. There are some even worse off than these.” Lisel pauses. “It’s a terrible thing, war.”
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
“And why on earth would you? You’re only a child. Perhaps another time you might stay and read to the men? Your mother tells us how clever you are. They would love that. A pretty young thing to brighten up the place from time to time.”
I look at Mutti with surprise and she smiles indulgently at me. A flush of warm pleasure at Mutti’s words of praise washes over me.
“Of course,” I say, meaning it with all my heart. “I would love to.”
The nurse pats my knee and gets up to wipe the badly injured man’s face again and to offer water.
Later, we wave good-bye to Lisel on the doorstep. I take deep gulps of delicious fresh air and curb the urge to run away at top speed.
“Those men are shockingly injured, Mutti.”
“These are the lucky ones, receiving such good care.”
We walk slowly, savoring the late afternoon sun. Everything around me is in sharper focus, and more dear than ever before. I’ve not appreciated enough the beauty in the spreading branches of a tree; pure, sweet birdsong; or the perfection of my own limbs. I realize more clearly than ever before that I want to become a surgeon. To make them better. I vow to work harder at school.