by Annette Hess
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, Eva was driven from bed by sheer hunger. She had starved herself all day in anticipation of an evening spent at a luxury restaurant, and those few appetizers were now long digested. She padded barefoot into the kitchen, spread some butter on a slice of bread, and poured herself a glass of milk. She returned to the window in her room and ate by the glow of the streetlight. Every now and then, she took a sip of milk. On the ceiling behind her, the shadow cast by the streetlight trembled. Don Quixote wielded his lance, as he did every night. Sitting on the shelf, like a new house pet getting used to its surroundings, was the hat. The street was quiet—not a single car drove by, and only two windows in the apartment buildings opposite were lit. Maybe someone was sick. Her mother had always been fanatical in caring for them, even when it was no more than a slight cold they had. Fevers sent Edith into a panic, and Doctor Gorf had been summoned in the middle of the night before, to check whether the death of her children was imminent. Eva had always enjoyed that, seeing as she’d only been dangerously sick once, when she was five. She liked seeing her mother so concerned and distraught. And Edith’s relief, when they felt ready to eat or get up again, was absolute. “Those days are over,” Eva said out loud. She swallowed her final bite and took the last sip of milk. Her feet had gotten cold. She wanted to get back into bed, under the two blankets she’d needed lately to keep warm, and turned away from the window. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another light appear. In the apartment building diagonally across the street—a new, three-story structure—someone had turned on the hallway light. An unfamiliar orange glow appeared behind the frosted glass of the front door. She thought that the light fixture must be new. New and already broken, because the light was flickering, as if it had a loose connection. Eva watched for someone to leave the building. But no one came out. Meanwhile, the light was growing brighter and turning yellow. It was moving. It took Eva a few more seconds to grasp what the flickering meant. Fire. There was a fire in the downstairs entryway of the building across the street. Eva froze for a moment, then stumbled out of her room toward the telephone in the hallway. She screamed, “Daddy!! Fire! Over at number fourteen!” Eva dialed 112, and, gasping, repeated the address twice before the emergency dispatcher on the other end understood her. The doors to her parents’ and Stefan’s bedrooms opened, but Annegret’s remained closed—she must not have returned yet from the night shift. Ludwig, wide awake, barked, “Where?!”
“Across the street, at Penschuks’!”
Ludwig bolted from the apartment as he was. Stefan, shadowed by an anxiously yipping Purzel, tried to follow, but Edith caught her son by the collar of his pajamas. “You stay put!” Eva hung up the receiver. “They’re coming! The fire department is coming!” Edith nodded, threw on her robe, strode toward the door, then had a thought and came back, opened the hall cupboard, pulled out an armful of folded blankets, and followed her husband onto the street. Purzel darted out the door as well. Stefan again tried to go after them. “Mummy, I want to come!” Eva had to restrain him with all her strength. “Let me go!” he bawled. Eva picked him up, and he struggled and kicked her painfully in the thigh. He didn’t calm until Eva carried him to her bedroom window. “There, now you can see everything.”
From the window, Eva and Stefan then watched their father run across the street as fast as he could in his threadbare pajamas and slippers—which he nearly lost—bellowing, “Fire!! Fire!!” They watched him ring all of the doorbells by the front entrance at once, then pound on the door, then ring again. One by one, the lights turned on in the apartments. Edith crossed the street with the blankets in her arms. She said something to Ludwig at the front door. He pointed toward an archway that led to the back courtyard. Edith hurried back through the little front yard and disappeared behind the house. The flickering behind the front door now filled the entire glass pane. Windows opened upstairs. Someone leaned out. Ludwig yelled something that Eva and Stefan couldn’t hear; the person vanished from the window, then reappeared and tossed something down that landed in the yard. Ludwig bent over and looked for it. Then he picked it up and returned to the door. He unlocked it. “What’s Daddy doing?” Stefan cried in terror. Eva didn’t answer and watched in disbelief as her father pushed open the front door. The fire was unmistakable now, blazing, white; black smoke billowed above and streamed toward the door. Eva watched helplessly as her father hesitated for a moment, then charged into the house and was swallowed by smoke. “God, what is he doing?” she whispered. A shapeless form emerged from the darkness on the street below: Annegret. She stopped in her tracks and looked at the open door and black clouds pouring out. Three tenants wrapped in blankets ran through the archway onto the street and joined Annegret. Everyone stared at the open door. Their father was nowhere to be seen.
“The fire department is coming!” Stefan was shaking with fear in Eva’s arms. She listened but couldn’t hear anything. She opened the window and smelled the smoke. Burning fabric. Singed lambskin. Her father remained hidden, somewhere inside the burning hallway. “Daddy!” Stefan shrieked. “Daddy!!”
Half an hour later, the Bruhns family—Annegret holding Stefan on her lap—had gathered in the German House dining room with the tenants from five out of six of the apartments in the building opposite (the elderly Penschuks were fortunately out of town, visiting their daughter in Königstein). Everyone was in pajamas and nightshirts under the blankets Eva’s mother had brought them. A small child was whining, half asleep. “It looks like you were bombed,” Edith concluded. She and Eva, both in their robes, had prepared tea for the grown-ups and cocoa for the children. Ludwig was being celebrated as a hero. Even before the fire trucks arrived, he had “put his life on the line,” as people kept saying, and thrust the blazing baby carriage out of the building and onto the street. He was now sitting at the table; Edith had laid a blanket over his shoulders as well, and he was soaking his hands in a bowl of ice water. But the burns were just superficial. “As a cook, I’m used to much worse temperatures!” Ludwig repeated yet again. Eva could tell, though, based on how white his nose was, that the intervention had not been without danger. The fire department had arrived just moments later, and a fireman jumped from the truck as it was still moving, to extinguish the fire devouring the stroller, which was rolling slowly toward German House. The stroller then stood abandoned in the middle of the street, a bizarrely twisted conveyance whose dangling metal parts were still aglow. It belonged to a young family Eva hadn’t met before; the dark-haired wife had thanked her for the tea in broken German. The baby was now fast asleep in her arms. Her husband, a gentle man, sighed anxiously. He was probably worrying about how he would manage to pay for a new stroller. Edith told Eva that these were the Giordanos, migrant workers from Italy—Naples—who were still new to the city. “Am I pronouncing your name right?” Edith asked, and Frau Giordano smiled. Someone stepped through the felted curtains into the dining room. It was the fire marshal in his dark blue uniform. Stefan sat up in Annegret’s lap and stared at him reverently. Everyone else’s conversations—largely speculation about who might have set the fire—fell silent. Hoodlums? A lunatic? The man in uniform coughed tersely and informed them, with a certain accusatory tone, that the fire had spread to the wall covering in the hallway. Which was a disgrace, by the way, because it flouted every last aspect of the fire code! They all looked at him remorsefully, although not one of them could be held responsible for the decisions the landlord from across the street had made. The fire marshal paused dramatically, then told them that the danger had been contained. It was safe to go back home. The apartments did, however, need to be aired out thoroughly. Frau Giordano translated in a whisper for Herr Giordano. He sighed so deeply that everyone laughed. Then they applauded. Ludwig pulled his hands out of the ice water, threw off the blanket, headed behind the bar in his favorite pajamas, and passed out generous pours of schnapps—cheers to the fright they’d had. The women also joined in the drinking; only the fire marshal declined. Eva thre
w back her schnapps, shuddered, and murmured, “God, am I relieved nothing happened to anyone.” And Eva could see how pleased her father was with this positive outcome for the neighbors from across the street. Although they were free to return to the house, Ludwig poured a second round of schnapps. After refilling the glasses on the table, he made a toast to the rescued folks, positively beaming. Eva stood and gave her father a quick hug, to his surprise. She gave her mother, who’d observed the embrace with a smile, two kisses on the cheek. Annegret sneered. Eva gave her sister a defiant look. She knew her exuberance came from drinking schnapps on a nighttime belly. But it also came from love.
ONLY A FEW DAYS LATER, something happened that shook Eva deeply. It was a Thursday, a day in court. Spring had long since arrived in the city, and the silhouettes of the trees outside the glass panes shimmered green. There was a certain drowsiness in the auditorium that morning. Even the most combative of the defendants seemed unusually withdrawn. The chief judge’s moonish face hung low. David rested his head heavily in his hand and looked half asleep. Even the children in the schoolyard behind the municipal building seemed muted during recess, their voices drawn out like a slowed record. Eva was translating testimony from a Polish Jew, Anna Masur, a dark-haired woman only a few years younger than Eva’s mother, but who looked like an old woman. She had greeted Eva with a friendly smile at the witness stand, and from the first, she nodded in gratitude for every sentence Eva translated. Eva liked this woman with the shrunken face and dull eyes; she seemed modest, intelligent, and polite. The chief judge asked for her name, age, profession. Then he wanted to know her prisoner number, which they had been unable to find in their documents. Eva translated the question. Instead of answering, Anna Masur pulled up the sleeve of her gray suit jacket, which fit her loosely, then her light blouse. She turned her forearm toward Eva so that she could read and translate the number there. As the number appeared, digit by digit, out from under the sleeve, Eva was overcome by a profound feeling that grew from the depths of her belly. I’ve seen this before. I have experienced this exact moment before. Another déjà vu. But this time it didn’t pass. On the contrary, it grew stronger. As Eva read the numbers out in German, she began to shrink like Alice, after biting into the magic mushroom in the children’s book that both she and Stefan had disliked and soon abandoned. Eva turned into a little girl, and standing beside her was a man in a white coat who pulled up his sleeve and showed her a number on his forearm. He spoke amiably to little Eva. She was sitting in a chair that you could spin. It smelled like soap and burned hair. The man in the coat recited the numbers for her: 24981. Eva could see his mouth before her, his brownish teeth, the little mustache, the way his lips formed the words. In Polish. The man stood before her, as clear as day and beyond question, and suddenly a pain above her left ear seared so intensely she could have screamed, and at that moment she knew: this had really happened. “My dear girl, are you all right?” someone asked her in a quiet voice. It was not until Anna Masur lightly placed a hand on Eva’s arm that she came back around. Eva searched Anna’s questioning look, which radiated a sorrowful friendliness. The judge also interjected, “Do you need a break, Fräulein Bruhns?” Eva looked over at David, who had half risen from his seat, at once concerned and impatient, as though he expected her to faint at any moment. But Eva collected herself and spoke into the microphone, “No, thank you. I’m fine.” She began to translate Anna’s statement regarding her work as a clerk in the camp registry office. The main defendant was her boss. She had to write death certificates, sometimes hundreds a day. And that was only for the people who died in the camp. Those sent into the gas—no one recorded their names. She was required to write “heart failure” or “typhus” for the cause of death, although the people had been shot or beaten or tortured to death. “There was just once I refused to enter ‘heart failure’ as one woman’s cause of death. I argued with my boss about it. With him, sitting right there.” “What was it about this one woman?” the chief judge wanted to know. Eva translated the witness’s response. “She was my sister, and another woman, who’d been with her in the women’s hospital block, told me how she died.” Eva listened to Anna’s account of her sister’s martyrdom, then translated it as gently as possible, Anna Masur nodding thankfully after each sentence. “The doctors were looking for cheap ways to sterilize women.”
At the end of the day’s proceedings, Eva stayed in her seat as the room around her slowly emptied. She had a headache, and the small oblong scar above her left ear was burning, which it hadn’t done in years. She sat in her chair and gathered her courage without knowing exactly what for. When everyone had left, save the two hall attendants scanning the rows for forgotten umbrellas or gloves, Eva stood and walked to the front of the room, where the deserted judges’ bench stood. It smelled different here—more serious, like stone—although that may have been the dust in the thick, pale blue curtains that concealed the stage behind the bench. Eva moved closer than she ever had before to the huge map of the camp, which wouldn’t have fit in her hands had she stretched her arms all the way out. She read the familiar script above the gateway. She followed the camp road with her eyes and studied each of the brick-red buildings, one after the other, the blocks, every barracks in the surrounding area, she wandered down every path, past the watchtowers to the gas chambers and crematorium, then back again, as though searching for the answer to a question that had not yet crossed her lips. In the upper left-hand corner, outside the camp’s exterior fence, five houses were drawn in—two-story and box-like, they stood in a tight row. The drawings had a sketchy quality and weren’t colored in like the rest of the map. Eva knew that the main defendant had lived in the largest house there with his wife, the raptor-faced man and his wife in the little hat. Several weeks ago, the court had been interested in mapping his daily route into the camp, which witnesses said he went by bicycle. The blond prosecutor wanted to prove to the main defendant that he would have had to pass the crematorium on his way. Twice a day. That it would have been impossible for him not to know about the gas chambers. The main defendant remained impassive, as usual, and simply stated that the map was inaccurate. Eva stared at the smaller house next door to the main defendant’s home. She was reminded of something—not the building itself, but the style of the drawing, how pointed the roof was, and how crooked the door and disproportionately large the windows appeared. Eva saw a girl of about eight, sitting at a table and drawing a picture like that with a thick pencil. Was it a friend? Her sister? Herself? When children draw houses, don’t they all look alike? Eva did not notice that David Miller had come back. He silently crossed the auditorium, wearing a light-colored coat that was wrinkled, like everything he owned. He glanced at Eva, perplexed, and went to his seat. He picked up the two statute books lying there, flipped through them hastily, then dropped to his knees and checked under the chairs. David hated wallets and carried his cash and identification papers loose in his pockets. He had been headed to Sissi’s and wanted to buy the season’s first strawberries at the little fruit and vegetable shop along the way. When he went to pay, however, the twenty-mark bill he was certain he’d had that morning was gone. The last of his money for the month. David couldn’t find the bill now, either. He got back up and looked over at Eva, who stood motionless before the map, as though she expected to be absorbed into it. He eyed her blond updo and rounded back, the soft shapes under her pale suit. I wouldn’t touch her with a pole. Funny girl. What the hell is she up to, anyhow? David thought. Then he called out, “Any chance you could float me twenty marks, Eva?”
EVA NEEDED TO HELP in the restaurant that evening. Herr Paten went to night classes at the adult education center every Thursday to learn Spanish. He was planning to move to Majorca with his wife when he retired. Ludwig didn’t like either aspect: that Herr Paten was out every Thursday, or that he would need to find a new bartender in three years. In their fifteen years of working together, Ludwig and Herr Paten had scarcely ever shared a personal word. The
remaining exchanges (“Everyone’s been asking for dark pils, Herr Bruhns.” “It’s a fad. I’ll order just four kegs to start.”) could be counted on two hands. They got along wordlessly and trusted each other blindly. Eva wore a dark blue smock that was impervious to splashed beer and alternated between pouring pils and soft drinks behind the heavy counter. She was practiced in pulling the shiny taps, washing the glasses, rinsing, and drying. She smiled at the guests, chatted a bit about the fire in the house across the street, which could have cost fourteen people—including five children—their lives. Could you imagine! If Eva’s father hadn’t so fearlessly, and so on. She was only half listening. She kept looking at the clock, but the minutes till closing were passing as though caught in pine pitch. Eva wanted to be alone to think. About the man in the white coat who had addressed her. About the child’s drawing. She wanted to write down in her blue notebook what Anna Masur had said about her sister, so she could stop thinking about it. Edith came up, face glowing as it always did at this hour and earrings dangling as she swung her round tray onto the bar. Eva removed the dirty glasses and loaded the tray with freshly filled ones. She thought of the abdominal pain she herself experienced every four weeks. And about how, before the operation she’d had last year, her mother would withdraw into her darkened bedroom for a full day every month. How she would curl up in bed with a hot water bottle on her belly and whimper, how she would vomit into a metal bucket. Despite the painkillers, Edith had suffered terribly. And she hadn’t had chemists blend a liquid that doctors then injected into her uterus. A liquid that slowly set inside her till it was hard as concrete. Eva pursed her lips. Edith studied Eva, who did not look at her mother. “Is everything all right between you and Jürgen?” Eva nodded noncommittally. “They invited me to their island over Pentecost. For four days.” “And have you decided on a date for the wedding?” Eva shrugged and saw her father come out of the kitchen, slightly stooped in pain and his face red. He stepped up to one of the tables, where a raucous, larger group was sitting. The Stauch family were regulars. Eva saw her father shake the Stauchs’ daughter’s hand and say something, and everyone laughed. The young woman flushed. The family was probably celebrating her twenty-first birthday. Edith lifted the loaded tray from the counter. “Don’t worry, Evie, he’s not going anywhere. His father likes you.” She carried the tray over to the Stauchs’ table and handed out the glasses. Now she was talking too, likely commenting ironically on whatever her husband was saying. No doubt some joke about how trying it was to have grown daughters in the house. More laughter. A toast. Eva plunged the dirty glasses in the sink. She felt a chilly draft on her cheek. New guests had opened the front door and emerged from behind the burgundy felted curtains. It was the main defendant and his wife. Eva froze, while they stood at the door and scanned the room for an open table. The dining room was not “packed to bursting,” as Eva’s father would say, and as it had been on their last visit, but instead there were tables to choose from. Fräulein Wittkopp, who was cleaning off a table that had just opened up by the window, looked over. She did not remember the pair and walked up to them, dirty plates balanced on her arm. “Two in your party? Please, have a seat over there. I’ll be right back with menus.” Fräulein Wittkopp went into the kitchen. From her spot behind the bar, Eva watched helplessly as the main defendant led his wife to the table. He helped her with her coat, she sat down in the chair he pulled out for her, and he walked over to the coat rack to the left of the bar without noticing Eva. She observed his sharp profile and quiet movements as he reached for a hanger and hung up first his wife’s coat, followed by his own. He looked much older up close—his skin was like crinkled parchment. One of the two drinkers sitting at the bar knocked on the wood countertop and called for a refill, but Eva was paralyzed. The main defendant returned to his table and sat down across from his wife. He sat with his back to the window and had a view of the entire dining room. Eva’s parents were still standing at the Stauchs’ table. Herr Stauch was telling an involved story, and they couldn’t get away. Neither had noticed the new guests. Fräulein Wittkopp came back out of the kitchen and handed them two of the dark green menus. As she dispassionately recited the day’s specials—“We’ve got fresh kidneys today”—the main defendant suddenly lifted his gaze and looked Eva square in the face. The very same way he had caught her eye from across the courtroom. Eva felt nauseous. She wanted to turn away, disappear—but then she realized he didn’t recognize her. She was an unfamiliar face for him in this different setting. Eva exhaled in relief and, her hands shaking, she began to pour fresh beers, holding the glass at an angle and turning it slightly to create the perfect head. She did it the way she always did, the way she had learned as a twelve-year-old, the way she could practically do in her sleep. “Excuse me! Fräulein, do you have a wine menu?” The main defendant was addressing her mother, who had just broken away from the family party after tousling the youngest Stauch child’s hair. Edith approached the table by the window and put on her friendly, yet firm, work face. Eva knew she would now tell them that their guests were always highly satisfied with their selection of five house wines. But then Eva saw her mother falter and stiffen strangely as she neared them. The main defendant and his wife appeared stupefied at the sight of Edith Bruhns. Edith stopped at their table and automatically responded, “We don’t have a wine menu. In the regular menu, you will find—” At that moment, the raptor-faced man stood up so tall and menacingly before her mother that for a split second Eva expected him to leave the ground, spread his wings, and fly off. He did something different instead: he sucked in his cheeks, pursed his lips, and spat at Edith Bruhns’s feet. His wife rose as well and pulled on her gloves, shaking with indignation or rage. Eva heard her hiss, “We are leaving at once. Robert, at once!” Ludwig had also finally managed to pry himself away from the Stauchs and was headed for the kitchen when he noticed the three strangely poised figures. Like dogs on the prowl, the quieter and more concentrated, the crueler the attack. Eva saw the color drain from her father’s face. There was no doubt that he too recognized their guest and his wife.