Wunderland

by Jennifer Cody Epstein

  Very slowly, he turns back a half rotation. Renate watches with her lungs gripped in some inner iron vise as he takes two very long, very quick steps back. Kneeling on his knobby knee, he picks the cardboard square up and swivels his face toward her like an owl.

  “Was,” he says, “ist das.”

  Renate’s brain works furiously. This will be far, far worse than the last curt note to her father. It could result in a telephone call, and suspension, or even (her mouth goes dry) full expulsion. Surely Schuldirektor Heintz has ejected students for less. She tries to picture her family receiving this news—her Doktor mother and Professor father, who both earned nothing but top marks in their many, many years of combined study. Her brother, Franz, who soared through both Mittelschule and Gymnasium like an academic meteor, with nothing sent home but breathless praise and commendation.

  “I’m waiting,” says the librarian, tapping his foot. “I expect someone to take responsibility for this. Otherwise—” He clears his throat again. “Otherwise the punishment will have to be far more severe.”

  Punishment, Renate thinks, the word lodging in her brain with the grainy stubbornness of a half-swallowed pill. Is there a punishment beyond expulsion—beyond, of course, the humiliation of having everyone in the school think she’s some sort of a sex addict?

  Beside her, her best friend, Ilse, chooses the moment to elbow Renate in the ribs.

  “Autsch,” Renate hisses. “Stop.”

  And with that one, suppressed protest, that faintest hint of a sway, the librarian is over them like Death over two maidens.

  “Fräulein Bauer!” he cries. “I hear you speaking up. Is that because you wish to explain this to me?”

  He dangles the picture before her, the Book Lady and her kneeling lover inches from Renate’s eyes. She averts her gaze.

  “It’s—it appears to be a postcard.” Her voice sounds strange to her: nasal and distant. Someone somewhere near the back windows titters.

  “Yes, but what kind of postcard?”

  “A blank one?”

  Another ripple of laughter. “Well,” he says, “yes. But what I really want to know is to whom it belongs. And how it got here. Perhaps you can give me the answer.”

  Renate swallows again, miserably. Because of course, of course she can.

  She can give him the answer, and then her life will be over.

  * * *

  It had started the prior Friday: an afternoon that Renate, as on most afternoons, spent almost entirely with Ilse. Renate and Ilse: study partners during class, huddle-whisperers in hallways; giggle-riders on the U-Bahn together. At three they’d set out for Renate’s house on Bismarckstraße as usual, elbows linked and gaits matched, ambling past Unter den Linden’s budding lime and chestnut trees, making their usual stops along the way: the perfume store, where they eyed gem-toned glass bottles and gleaming diffusers but didn’t enter (the French perfumer openly dislikes children). Then Gerstel’s Hat Store, with its felted berets and smart fedoras and the draped purple turban that Herr Gerstel (who does like children) let them try on. They lingered by the window of the travel office, arguing which country they will visit together first. Ilse wants to go somewhere hot and exotic: the Sahara, the Nile. Or maybe Indochine. Renate wants to go to New York or Hollywood, though lately, based on her reading, she’s become increasingly intrigued by the Orient as well—which is why on Friday they also paused in the open doorway of the Chinese tea shop to breathe in the dry, mossy scent. Ilse disliked it, but Renate found it transporting. Standing there with closed eyes, breathing in deeply, she could have been on a Peking or Shanghai street, instead of in the middle of Berlin’s unexotic-but-bustling Tiergarten district. She’d tried to picture it: the scurrying Chinamen, their docile wives tripping behind them on tiny little feet, until Ilse—who has no time for dream-induced delays—cried “Mach schon!” and pulled her away.

  When they reached Schloss-Konditorei they pooled their change for a buttery piece of poppyseed cake, which Herr Schloss—a red-cheeked man who, once a year, transforms into a fairly convincing Sankt Nikolaus—dispensed with his usual distracted grin. Their remaining two Pfennige got dropped in the Winter Relief collection can of a pimpled youth in a khaki shirt and white knee socks. He wasn’t bad-looking, but his danke schön came out in a two-toned bleat that made him sound like a pubescent billy goat. The girls barely made it another block before falling on each other, shrieking with laughter and prompting looks of startled censure from adult pedestrians.

  “It was your fault,” Ilse managed finally, when she’d regained her composure. “He was so beguiled by your beauty that his poor voice just dried up in his throat!”

  “Me?” Renate wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. “He was staring at you! And thank goodness. I hate it when boys stare.”

  “You wouldn’t hate it if you-know-who stared.”

  “No,” Renate agreed. “I would not. But he won’t.”

  “You never know.”

  “Maybe not. But he won’t.”

  Mirth exhausted, the two resumed their walk, at Potsdamer Platz passing another rattling can. This one was held by Fritz the war veteran, in his yellow badge with the three black dots that signal blindness. Sometimes Renate buys one of his wares; not because she actually needs pencils, but because she likes the seamed smile that appears on his face as her coins clink into his cup. It makes her feel benevolent. Also, comradely, since her father fought in the war too, as a Frontkämpfer. And while he wasn’t blinded like Fritz, he came close enough to death that (in his own deep-toned, rumbling words) he spürte seinen Atem an meinem Nacken: felt its hot breath right on his neck.

  On this particular Friday, however, they were all out of money, and so they passed by the old soldier without pausing, Ilse meticulously licking the last cake crumbs from her sticky fingers and Renate lost in thought about you-know-who. For a moment his face seemed to hang in the air before her, so close that she might have touched a high, perfect cheekbone. The mirage melted just in time for a snatched glimpse of a blond head, bobbing several meters before them.

  “Guck mal da!” she gasped, gripping her friend’s elbow. “Look.”

  “At what?”

  “Up ahead. To the right.”

  Ilse shaded her eyes with her hand. “Who am I looking for?”

  “Who do you think?”

  Ilse squinted, rising briefly onto tiptoe before shaking her head and falling back. “I don’t see him.”

  “There,” said Renate. “He’s just passing the U-Bahn.” But her voice was more tentative now, her pointing finger less assured as she scanned the crowd, left to right, right to left. “He was just there. I swear.”

  Ilse grinned. “Now you’re starting to see things. You should have your mother examine you.”

  “Ach! Stop.” Her heart pounding, Renate cast one last glance down the broad greening avenue with its churning currents of late-day pedestrians. But the only face she recognized was the chiseled visage of Frederick the Great outside the Brandenburg Gate, bestowing his steely gaze on his fleshly descendants while riding his stone steed to nowhere.

  * * *

  Later they lay sprawled on the worn carpet in Renate’s room, their bodies at loosely intersecting angles, socked feet tapping in time to Ethel Waters, bewailing her loss of diamonds and dough.

  “Can you keep a secret?” Renate stage-whispered.

  “Can you really be asking that?” countered Ilse. In the three years of their friendship they’d shared hundreds of secrets. Secrets about boys and girls, parents and teachers. Secrets about school struggles and bodily secretions; about budding breasts and bad grades, and how to hide one or both from one’s parents in order to escape commentary on them. Secrets about what, exactly, comprises that time of the month, and when that time comes or does not come. And secrets about other secrets they’ve overheard from the grown-ups
, who always seem to assume that they’re not listening.

  “I found something,” Renate murmured. “Underneath Franz’s bed.”

  Ilse looked up, immediately interested. “A love letter? His diary?”

  “Worse. Postcards.”

  Ilse snorted. “How’s that worse?”

  Renate took a deep breath. “Not the usual postcards. Think. Remember the dirty ones we saw in Nolli?”

  “Oooooh!” Ilse’s pale blue-gray eyes widened. “He bought those things? When? How?”

  Renate shrugged: “No idea. But he’s got them. A full dozen. In a cigar box.”

  Ilse giggled, a little shrilly. From the Victrola came the sound of clippity-clop-clippity-clop, which they’d both initially thought was the sound of trotting horses until Franz explained tap dancing to them. “That’s probably what he and his group do during their secret meetings,” she said. “Ogle nude ladies. They only call it a ‘Socialist discussion group’ for cover.”

  “They actually call it a ‘Schiller discussion group’ now. So as not to attract attention.” In fact, given recent laws about leftist parties and rumors of midnight Sicherheitsdienst visits, Renate isn’t supposed to discuss her brother’s politics, or any politics, really, with anyone outside the family. But of course, she considers Ilse family. “But this card…this woman, Ilsi,” she said, shaking her head.

  “What about her? What’s she doing?”

  “She’s…reading.”

  “Reading?” Ilse looked nonplussed. “Reading what? Chatterley? De Sade?”

  “It’s not what she’s reading.” Renate tucked a dark curl behind her ear. “It’s what’s happening while she’s doing it.”

  “And that is…”

  Renate opened her mouth, then snapped it shut and covered it with both hands. “I can’t.”

  “Reni!” Pushing herself up to hands and knees, Ilse crawled toward her and peeled her friend’s hands from her face. “What is it? What’s happening?”

  Renate shook her head, pulling back, laughing breathlessly. Finally blurting: “There’s a man.” Eyes sparkling, she pointed toward her navel.

  “A man at her belly?”

  Another head shake. “Further down.”

  “Is he reading too?”

  “No. He’s…he’s…you know.” Renate hugged her thin calves, buried her face in her knees. “E’s fiffingfer.”

  “What?” Ilse pried her friend’s knobby knees apart and leaned between them, her pale face just inches from her best friend’s flushed one.

  “He’s kissing her,” Renate said breathlessly. “Down there.”

  “In her…in her Scheide?” Ilse’s milk-pale face turned faintly pink. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. I swear. I swear on my dead Großvater’s grave.” Renate had actually never seen her dead grandfather’s grave, and in fact never met the man herself, both of her father’s parents having died before her birth. But it was the only oath that came to mind at the moment. And apparently it was enough: in a heartbeat the blond girl was on her feet, sprinting toward the door.

  “Wait,” said Renate, leaping to her own feet as Ilse’s hand hit the doorknob. “Where are you going?”

  “Where do you think, bist du bekloppt? To his room!”

  “But he’s studying!”

  “We’ll distract him.”

  “But I’m not supposed to even knock on exam nights!”

  “You’re not,” said Ilse. “He never said anything about me, though, did he?” Without waiting for an answer she yanked open the door, nearly tripping over the wiry-haired Schnauzer who had been lying in wait just outside. Ecstatic at his sudden access (Ilse is his favorite non-Bauer), he hurled himself against her shins, whining his adoration.

  “Not now, Sigmund,” Ilse said, pushing past to resume her short march down the hallway. “Well, did he?” she demanded, over her shoulder.

  “No,” admitted Renate, hurrying breathlessly after her friend. “Still, you can’t just walk in there. You must at least have a plan.”

  “I have a plan,” Ilse snapped back. “You’ll see.”

  Reaching Franz’s room, she rapped three times sharply, just above the scrawled Nicht stören sign (helpfully embellished with a scrawled skull and crossbones) tacked to the door. When there was no audible response she knocked a second time, louder. She was about to commence a third time when the door swung abruptly open.

  “For God’s sake.” Her best friend’s brother stood in the door frame, his dark hair rumpled, his expression aggrieved. “Can’t you read?”

  “Oh—sorry.” Ilse took a step back, her bravado briefly flagging. Sigi took the opportunity to dart between them and launch himself onto the bed.

  “Sorry,” she said again, collecting herself slightly. “We just need your help for a moment.”

  “Help? With what? Sigi, raus.” Franz threw an exasperated look back at the pet. “These aren’t visiting hours,” he added pointedly.

  “An insect,” said Ilse, improvising quickly. “There’s a big insect on the wall in Reni’s room. We need someone to kill it.”

  “An insect.” Leaning against the door frame, her best friend’s brother looked down at her in bemusement. “Fräulein von Fischer—who famously beat a would-be purse-snatcher off the U-Bahn—is now asking a cripple to kill her an insect.”

  “You know I didn’t beat him.” Ilse’s cheeks were flushed again, though whether at the mention of the word cripple or the anecdote (which she loathes) it was hard to tell. “I lost my balance and fell into him and he…he simply ran off. And—” She darted a gaze past him to the book-strewn desk, against which Franz’s silver-handled cane leaned in its usual spot. “And we actually need you because of your cane. The thing is high up enough that neither of us can reach it.”

  Franz just gazed at her a moment, then back at his sister standing mutely behind Ilse’s left shoulder. Sigi, still lying defiantly on the bed (and in theory just above the titillating material that had sparked the interruption), began chewing noisily on his left hind leg.

  “Sehr gut,” Franz sighed finally.

  Turning on his good heel, he limped back to the desk and picked up his cane, while Ilse flashed a victorious grin back at Renate. When Franz returned, however, he did not continue past to Renate’s room. Stopping short of the threshold, he extended the glossy walking stick. “Your weapon,” he announced, pointing at the raven-shaped handle, a tribute to his passion for Poe. “Use that big end. Just clean the guts off after. You can leave it in the hallway when you’re done. Sigi, raus!”

  And waiting only long enough for Sigi to thump off the bed and trot dutifully back into the hallway, he shut the door.

  * * *

  “I told you,” Renate said, once they were safely back in her room, Ilse sulking, Renate disappointed if vindicated. “Just come tomorrow. He’s gone until dinner.”

  “Can’t. We’re driving to Oma’s.” Ilse’s paternal grandparents have a house in Wiesbaden; the maternal set’s in Spandau. That she has four living grandparents is one of the few things Renate envies her. Her own, lone surviving grandparent (her mother’s powder-pale, fussy mother) lives in a stuffy apartment just outside the Hirschgarten. After visiting, the smell of the place—like lavender oil gone rancid—stays with Renate for days.

  “Come Monday, then,” she said.

  “Piano.”

  “Tuesday?”

  “Seeing Dr. Stein for my checkup.”

  Renate groaned: Wednesday seemed years and years away. Then Ilse brightened. “Bring it to school.”

  Renate stared at her. “Are you crazy?”

  “Why not? If you’re caught you can just say you found it somewhere.” Ilse smiled craftily. “Or tell the truth. It’s about time Franz caught grief for something.”

  Renate still wasn’t convin
ced. “You’ll back me up if I do get caught?”

  “Of course.”

  “I mean, really back me up?”

  “Natürlich,” Ilse sniffed, and held up her right hand. On its middle finger twinkled the ring Renate had given her eighteen months earlier, in exchange for one Ilse gave to her: simple silvery bands both, with small outstretched hands in the place where stones usually were. Each had a single letter etched on the inside: an I on Renate’s, an R on Ilse’s. When lined up, the little hands fit together like a shining knot.

  * * *

  And now here they are three days later, at two in the afternoon, in the low-ceilinged library of Bismarck Gymnasium, where Renate’s short, unkissed life is about to end.

  “I’m waiting,” booms Herr Steinberg.

  He leans closer; close enough that Renate inhales the dank smell of old cigarettes and stale coffee. Renate squeezes her eyes shut in a last-ditch effort to faint so that he’ll at least feel a little sorry for her. When her body won’t comply (it never does, certainly not at useful moments like this one) she swallows, hard.

  “I…”

  “Herr Steinberg?”

  The teacher spins on his heel toward the interruption. “Yes, Gerhardt?”

  (Gerhardt? Renate’s eyes fly open.)

  “The card is mine.”

  It takes Renate a moment to confirm it, and when she does she really does almost faint.

  For it’s true. It’s him—Rudolph Gerhardt. The boy with the perfect mole and the perfect cleft chin and the perfect eyes of shifting sea glass. She has no idea at all how he got here without her knowing; her awareness of his presence is so hyper-attuned she can practically pick out his tread from one floor down. And yet here he is, a table back, with all eyes on him as though he were Gary Cooper in A Farewell to Arms.

  Rudi, as always, wears the attention like a becoming accessory: a fedora. A fancy wristwatch. Wiry and blond in his neatly pressed khaki uniform, he looks like he’s just in from a brisk hike. He’s one of those students for whom the shuffling sea of pubescent bodies parts unthinkingly, and upon whom even the grumpiest teachers seem to dote. Even Herr Steinberg, whose face might as well have been carved from granite, has been known to crack a smile in his presence.