Wunderland

by Jennifer Cody Epstein

  “What’s going on with them, do you think?”

  He shrugged. “Either they were trying to smuggle something in, or the guard was in the mood for some extra cash. Or maybe both.”

  “And all that, for the honor of being here.” Glancing out the window, Ava shook out another B&H. They were barely out of the FRG, and yet already the landscape seemed to belong to a completely different universe. The road itself—before the border black and smooth—looked bleached with age and populated mostly by more toylike Trabants. The fields flanking the highway flickered by in dried-out tones of brown and beige, broken by the occasional dirty-looking buildings. Even the air felt heavier, more stifling. She pulled her knees up to her chest, arranging her woolen circle skirt around them.

  “And this is the good part,” he said. “Once you get farther in, there are places where it looks like the war’s still on.” He looked at her again curiously. “Why’d you tell him we were just friends?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I thought that if I got myself into trouble it’d be better that way for you.”

  He nodded, his expression unreadable. For a moment neither of them spoke. “I can’t believe you’ve never made the crossing before,” he said at last.

  “I know.” The change of topic came as a relief. “Ilse sometimes goes to Berlin for work. But she’s never taken me. She’s always had the old witch next door spend the night.”

  “The one with the wart on her nose?”

  Ava nodded, smiling slightly. “When I was little, I’d lie awake waiting for her to try to shove me into her cooking pot. Or turn me into a log and burn me. Like Mother Trudy.”

  “Interesting,” he said in English, in his Sherlock Holmes voice. “Do you think our prim and proper Ilse was hiding a Berlin lover?”

  Ava grimaced. “God, I hope not.”

  “Why not? She’s a good-looking woman.”

  Ava looked at him flatly. “You’re going to make me vomit. Seriously.” She took another drag on her cigarette, then coughed. Her eyes stung from lack of sleep and surplus smoke. “Any man who touches her,” she went on glumly, “probably gets frostbite. That’s probably what we’ll find out happened to my father. Poor Nikolaus. Frozen to death before he even saw his firstborn child.”

  “Lucky we don’t have that problem.” He flashed a sly smile in her direction. “If anything, touching you makes me too hot.”

  It was true: the first few times they’d consummated their new status he’d been so ardent that it was over before they’d technically started. Secretly, Ava found she hadn’t minded; while not unpleasant, their lovemaking left her feeling strangely distanced, as though he were an embattled athlete and she a spectator, watching from the stands. She’d struggled to understand why this should be. After all, she hadn’t felt this sort of remove with either of her prior boyfriends—both of whom had been immeasurably less devoted and considerate. Then again (she wondered), could that itself be the issue: that Ulrich’s love was so certain, so densely unconditional that it actually pushed her away? The thought struck her as both absurd and unaccountably unsettling.

  “Sorry,” she said, and turned back to the window. As she started rolling it up, a building outside caught her attention: bone white and surrounded with rubble, it was little more than a bombed-out shell. It was like passing an enormous open grave.

  * * *

  The crossing into West Berlin took longer than out of West Germany, though only because of the backed-up traffic: once their turn came the harried guards barely glanced at either of them before waving them on their way. As they left the East behind, the scenery shifted with the same through-the-looking-glass instantaneousness: the roads once more freshly tarred, the cars shiny and large, the buildings taller and seemingly freshly minted. Even the pedestrians seemed cleaner and better fed, their clothes newer, their strides longer and more energetic. As Ulrich squeezed between a bright red bus and a Gevalia delivery truck sporting a coffeepot-style handle and spout, Ava took it all in with widened eyes and a pounding heart. To the left she spotted a palacelike movie theater with enormous posters advertising Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments.

  “Seem familiar?” he asked.

  “We saw it together last week.”

  “I mean the city.”

  She shook her head. “But I haven’t been here since I was five.”

  “You really don’t remember anything at all?”

  What she remembered were less memories than age-blurred flashes of image: the blue muslin coverlet on her old bed in her grandparents’ house. The green kitchen table where she’d made her first drawing and spent hours every day, drawing more. The suffocating blackness of the collapsing cellar as the Allied bombs rained upon them; the chalky rubble she woke up to after they’d pulled her out.

  The white sheets covering the battered bodies of Oma and Opa.

  Her Oma’s slipper-shod foot, poking out.

  She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Not a thing.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later they were at their destination: an imposing redbrick structure on Eichborndamm Avenue in Reinickendorf. A blue-framed sign by the door somewhat pompously identified it as the Archives for the Notification of the Next of Kin of the Fallen Members of the Former German Wehrmacht. Reading it twice, Ava felt her chest contract. This was the organization the Census Department had suggested she contact to find out more about the man who was her father. “If he’s a soldier,” the woman had said, “they should have the basics, at least. It may take a few weeks for them to find the file, but as long as you can prove you’re family they’ll show it to you.”

  Family, she thought now. As a word, it had always felt foreign to her: it didn’t fit her and Ilse’s small, tense unit of two. Which was strange, since it seemed to fit Ulrich and his father, who were just as alone and (thanks to Doktor Bergen’s schedule) together even less frequently.

  She felt Ulrich’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Not to push the point,” he said. “But it’s still not too late to turn around and go home. I won’t say a word about it.”

  She looked up at him; the amiable, ironic face. The close-cropped dark hair that he refused to grow out and wear slicked back like most boys did, because he said it looked absurd on anyone who wasn’t American. I love you, Ava thought, but this time too it felt less like a declaration than a quiet reminder.

  “No,” she said. “If I don’t do this, I’ll hate myself for it.” She straightened her coat. “I hate myself enough as it is.”

  * * *

  Inside the building a burly attendant at the enormous Auskunft desk directed them up the stairs to the records room, a windowless space that smelled of dust and old paper and was lit by buzzing yellow fluorescent lights. Behind an even larger desk, a mannish woman with hair shorter than Ava’s (but better cut) was typing furiously on an antique-looking Adler typewriter. Ava retrieved the two forms from her notebook. Smoothing them out, she slid them across the worn wooden surface.

  “Tag,” she said.

  “Yes?” The woman looked up, waiting.

  Ava cleared her throat. “I’m Ava von Fischer. We had an appointment for some research.”

  The woman scanned the forms, then glanced at her watch. “You are half an hour late.”

  “The crossing took longer than we’d expected.”

  “It always does,” the woman informed them. “I’ll have to see whether the results of your search are still available.”

  Ava suppressed a pulse of panic. “If not, we can wait.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not an option. If they’ve been returned to the archives you’ll need to file a new request, resend payment, and return another time.”

  Picking up the forms, the woman hurried back between the file-filled shelves as Ulrich gave Ava a sidelong glance. “Six-hour drive b
ack,” he murmured. “We can’t wait very long.”

  “I’ll take the bus back,” she snapped, knowing full well that she wouldn’t need to, that he’d stay with her for as long as she needed him to stay.

  Fighting back a faint wave of claustrophobia, Ava returned her gaze to the records area. The boxes, she now saw, didn’t only contain forms and files. Some were filled with objects: old, tarnished pocket watches. Brass buttons and pins. One contained a tangle of what at first looked like jewelry but which she quickly saw were old, rusted dog tags. She tried to guess how many soldiers they’d been stripped from, how many bodies they’d done their grim job of identifying. In her mind’s eye, she saw a shuffling crowd of grimy-faced men in helmets, staring balefully back from the other side of their shared, blackened history. What were their final thoughts as they lay bleeding in the snow or mud? Had they died proud of their sacrifice? Or had they realized by then that it was all nothing more than a vicious trick; a foolish fable concocted by a madman whose only legacy would be the rest of the world’s loathing and revulsion?

  “Fräulein von Fischer?”

  Looking up, Ava saw the mannish woman walking briskly back toward them, a thin file in her hand. “You’re in luck,” she said. “He still had the material out on his desk. Another ten minutes or so and it would have gone back to the stacks.”

  Ava felt her breath lodge in her throat. “You mean…you mean you found him?”

  “Your father?” Setting the files down before them, the administrator nodded. “Which is itself remarkable, given that you didn’t give a birth date for him.”

  “I didn’t know one,” Ava mumbled.

  “And your mother?”

  “She didn’t either,” Ava lied.

  The woman studied her for a moment, her gaze lingering on the ridiculous haircut, the overcompensating red lips. “Nevertheless,” she pronounced coldly. “Against the odds, he was able to narrow it down based on name and city of birth.”

  Reaching out, Ava touched the cardboard with the tip of her finger. Her mouth suddenly felt as though she’d swallowed ash. “It doesn’t look like there’s very much there.” It came out sounding like a question.

  “In general, all we have access to here at the notification service are the basics: drafting dates, dog tag numbers, training units, and war units. And of course, whether he was taken captive or injured. If you want more information, you might find it at the Bundesarchiv in Potsdam. They keep records on SA, SS, and Waffen-SS officers.”

  Ava looked up quickly. “Was he in one of those?”

  “I don’t know,” said the woman curtly. “I haven’t read the file.”

  She waved her free hand in the direction of one of the small wooden tables by the door. “You are welcome to take notes of this if you like. We also offer mimeograph services and a limited research facility downstairs.”

  And without another word, she reseated herself in her work chair and turned back to whatever it was that she’d been typing, the keys striking the canister with the force and impact of rapid gunshots.

  Swallowing, Ava picked up the file. It was smooth and cool against her fingers. Across the top tab, someone had written in purple block letters the three words that had composed her constant inner mantra these past weeks: Hellewege, Nikolaus Gunther.

  Clutching it to her chest with both hands, Ava made her way to one of the desks, Ulrich in tow. As they sat down together she felt his hand rest on her knee.

  “Whatever it is,” he told her quietly, “it will be fine. You know that, right?”

  “I don’t know anything,” she said. “Nothing at all.” Yet even as she said it, there came the slightly dizzying sense that some undefined stage of her life was ending. And with that came a strange grief, a kind of mourning for a self she somehow already knew would cease to exist, once she’d seen what lay between these two smooth, stiff covers.

  Part of her wanted to stop then: to leave the file unopened and return it to the mannish, disapproving woman. To save that simple, naïve Ava before it was too late. Then she thought about all the years of silence that had led to this moment: silence on Ava’s part, when asked about her father. Silence on Ilse’s part when Ava asked the same. She thought about the empty ache of their two-person household: the sense that no matter how placid and content Ilse seemed within it, there was always that sense of something missing, something hidden. Something wrong. She heard it again: her mother’s calm, cool voice: We will discuss it when you are ready. When you’re older.

  Nein, Ava thought. No. We will discuss it tonight.

  She lifted the cover.

  * * *

  It was after midnight, but lights blazed in every window of the little house: Ilse lying in wait.

  As quietly as she could, Ava shut the car door and gave Ulrich a grim wave. Then she hooked her purse over her forearm and started making her way down the darkened street.

  Behind her, she heard the Opel’s window rolling creakily down.

  “Ava,” Ulrich called out softly.

  Glancing back, she saw him leaning out, one elbow on the driver’s-side door, the streetlight glinting off his glasses.

  “I meant what I said in the car,” he said. “He may have been your father. That doesn’t make it your fault.”

  It was, in fact, essentially the only thing he’d said in the car, on the strained and interminable drive back to Bremen. Climbing back into the passenger seat, Ava had felt both numb and searingly hollow, as though the truth they’d uncovered were a bomb ripping through her, destroying everything she’d ever known of herself. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she’d replied curtly. “I don’t want to talk at all.” And so he’d sat stiffly at the wheel while Ava curled herself toward the window, alternately smoking and weeping in silence.

  Now she nodded, not in agreement but to show that she’d heard him.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he added. Again she nodded, though for the first time in her life she found she didn’t want to see him. Or rather, didn’t want him to see her as she was now: shamed and shattered, indelibly tainted by the toxic secret they both suddenly shared.

  When she reached the front doorstep she opened her purse for her usual tobacco-masking spritz, before remembering that her remaining stock of Guerlain L’Heure Bleue had long since evaporated along the East German border. Pushing past the empty bottle, she fumbled instead for her keys. The movement was all but noiseless (another habit formed by her frequent late-night escapes), but before she even had them in her hand the door was swinging almost violently open.

  Flinching slightly, Ava blinked.

  Ilse stood in the door frame, her silhouette briefly featureless and black against the bright spill of electric light. As Ava’s eyes adjusted she saw her mother still had on her office clothes: the gray wool skirt and matching jacket she wore on days when she met with the magazine’s chief editor. The sensible midheeled pumps. The only clue that she hadn’t just walked in from work was the fact that her leather gloves were neatly folded on the front-hall bureau and her felt hat hung from the coatrack. As Ava set her own gloves and purse on the bureau, she felt Ilse’s icy gaze raking her back. Her motions unhurried and careful, Ava began undoing her jacket.

  “Well?”

  Loosening the last button, Ava shrugged free from her sleeves and hung the coat on the rack before turning to face her mother. “Well, what?”

  “Your headmaster called me today. At work. He wanted to make sure that everything was all right, since it’s the third time in two months that I’ve excused you for doctor’s appointments.”

  Ava allowed herself a small smile. “It’s very nice that he cares.”

  Ilse’s face seemed to go a shade paler. “How dare you,” she hissed. “First you forge my signature. Then you come in at this hour—on a school night—reeking of cigarettes. After a day of God-only-knows-wha
t. Have you no decency? None at all?”

  Decency, Ava thought. But still, she didn’t speak. Pressing her lips together tightly, she picked up her purse and made her way toward the kitchen.

  “Were you with Ulrich again?” Ilse was hot on her heels, her outrage fanned by Ava’s feigned ignorance of it. “You were, weren’t you,” Ilse continued. “I knew it. I told that man this would happen. How far have you gone with him, then? Dear God. Please tell me you haven’t gotten yourself pregnant.”

  They had reached the kitchen now. Purse clutched beneath her arm, Ava took a mug from the cupboard, allowing herself a quick, longing glance at the little bottle of herbal digestif and the bigger one of sherry, the only alcohol Ilse kept in the house. Then she turned back to the sink, where she filled the mug with water and carried it to the kitchen table.

  Placing the purse in front of her, she sank heavily into one of the kitchen chairs and folded her arms across her chest. Then, and only then, did she lift her eyes.

  Ilse stood in the doorway, her gray eyes glassy in the stark kitchen light. Her arms were folded across her chest so tightly Ava could make out the rising muscles of her forearms beneath the fabric of her blouse.

  “Well?” she prompted. “Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Pregnant. Are you pregnant?”

  Beneath the audible anger Ava sensed a new note: not just uncertainty, but actual fear. The realization made her shiver slightly, not from fear of her own, but from an unfamiliar and almost dizzying sense of power. Apart from one fleeting moment on the day Ilse fetched her from the orphanage, she couldn’t recall a single time when her mother had seemed afraid of anything. It was almost enough to make her want to simply say it. To say: Yes, I’m pregnant. Just to coax that tiny seed of trepidation into a full-fledged bloom of horror.