Motherland (43 page)

Liesl watched Frank and Herr Geiss from her kitchen window. The men were sitting on the second floor in the Geiss house, in the room with the long pane that overlooked the Kappus villa. They sat with their legs crossed, on either side of a green bottle of liquor, talking and sipping as if neither of them were in the slightest danger. Frank had dismissed her fears that Herr Geiss would betray him for desertion, and clearly he was right. The old man looked as delighted as a father welcoming home a prodigal son. He leaned toward Frank, and Frank was lapping up the attention, helping himself to pour after pour and roaring with laughter at Herr Geiss’s jokes.

She had a thousand household chores to do but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the window. The existence of Frank—across the yard, the dinner table, in her bed—still astonished her. Her insides swirled with so many new or bygone emotions that she didn’t think she would be able to eat for days. She would simply feast on relief (he was home), shame (he still blamed her for Ani’s illness), lust (she wanted him), fear (he would let himself be arrested), and hope (he would hide).

Stay with us
, she’d whispered when they’d first woken up that morning. Frank had put his finger to her lips, then kissed her hard.

She heard footsteps behind her and saw Ani balancing a handful of
brown speckled eggs against his chest, advancing to the counter beside her. “Be careful!” she sang out, rushing forward.

“I can do it,” he insisted, twisting away. “Let me do it.”

To Liesl’s surprise, he tiptoed all the way to the counter and set the first egg down.

“One,” he said proudly. “Two. Three. Four.” The fourth egg rolled, but he stopped it ably with the heel of his palm. The brown orbs balanced, fragile and unbroken, on the hard surface. Ani’s recovered dexterity thrilled her, and how long had it been since they’d tasted fresh eggs? Here they were, smallish but miraculous, Frank’s gift to the house. She glanced gratefully, fearfully across the yard, up to the window where her husband still paced. She wished he would come back to her. She was envious of any happy moment he spent with someone else.

“One from each hen,” Ani said. “Can I go see if the Americans are coming?”

His nonchalance shocked her—as if he were watching a game of marbles! “No one is leaving this house,” Liesl said.

“Upstairs,” Ani said impatiently. “They can see the western road from upstairs.”

“Did the Dillmans invite you?” They hadn’t reconciled with the Dillmans. They hadn’t said anything to the Dillmans or the Winters about Frank’s arrival. Both would have to be done, but she didn’t know how.

“Grete did. She said I could come. Just me.”

Liesl wondered if the Dillman girls were up to some sort of trick. She still hadn’t forgiven them for the loony business, and she didn’t understand how Ani could, either. She was about to refuse Ani’s request when footsteps thundered down the stairs. She followed the boy to the threshold to see Frau Dillman descending rapidly, wearing her house robe and slippers.

“He needs to hide,” she said, nodding, when she saw them. “They’re here. I saw the tanks with my own eyes. They’re at the city border now.”

Without waiting for an answer, Frau Dillman flung open the door and ran down the walk, her slippers floundering in the spring mud.

It took Liesl a moment to realize that Frau Dillman was talking about Herr Geiss and not Frank.

They all need to hide
, said Uta’s voice.
But you can’t ask a man to do that. Ask him to fight, to die
—
anything but hide
.

Exhaustion spread through Liesl’s limbs, sore from a night with Frank and from hefting a shovel yesterday. She had the sudden urge to run upstairs and crawl under the eiderdown and pull it tight over her head. Instead she watched the woman’s progress, and the men at the window above, noting Frau Dillman’s advance.

Frau Dillman stopped and waved at them, a taut, anxious gesture, like someone trying to hail a departing ship.

Herr Geiss did not return the wave. Instead he scowled and bolted from his chair, pulling Frank away from the window. Frau Dillman paused, gave a cloudy huff of breath, and kept walking straight up to the front door. Her robe flapped, revealing her bare ankles. The cold spring wind didn’t make her wince at all. She appeared to have entirely forgotten herself.

“Mutti, can I go see? Please?” Ani asked.

Liesl watched, spellbound.

“Pleeaaase?” Ani shouted.

“All right!” she said, exasperated. “But you are to stay inside this house, do you hear me?”

She held her own elbows as Frau Dillman pounded on Herr Geiss’s door, as the voices of the men echoed up from the cellar, Frank pointing out his hens, the rabbits. They sounded as if they were two vacationers touring a farm, not an army doctor and a Party man on the day their city was surrendering to the Americans. Liesl marveled at their arrogance, their bravado, as her upstairs neighbor kept up her knocking.

Finally the Geiss door opened, and Berte peeked out, blinking. She said something to Frau Dillman, and the other woman pushed her aside and went in.

Liesl heard Herr Geiss down below, urging Frank to take something he’d offered.

“No,” said Frank. “No. I’m staying.”

The words chilled Liesl. The men wouldn’t let the war go. Her hands balled to fists.
What about us?
she wanted to scream.

Frau Dillman’s voice broke shrilly through the men’s conversation. “You need to hide!” she shouted. “You told me you were leaving.”

Herr Geiss spoke in a voice too low for Liesl to hear. Liesl stared into the white, blossoming branches of the cherry tree, hardening her resolve. She wasn’t going to let him get arrested for the sake of honor or duty. Frau Dillman might be helpless, but Liesl had a claim. She was Frank’s wife.

In all his life, Hans had never heard a silence like this. It reminded him of a candle just after it has blown out and the darkness closes in.

Yet the silence was on only one side, the German side, on the side of his brothers and stepmother, and the neighbors’ wives and the neighbors’ children, the ones who just four weeks ago had been playing the game of Kidnap. He still couldn’t look at Frieda Dillman, though she always seemed to be crowding the edge of his vision with her tightly clothed body and sad eyes.

From the Americans emerged three distinct noises: the gravelly grind of the tank wheels pressing the road, the slippery whisper of a soldier reaching into a bag and tossing, and the flap-flap of sticks of gum hitting the pavement in front of the children. Occasionally the Amis would talk to each other from the sides of their mouths, and their voices sounded like radio voices, tinny and distant.

The column was long and slow; it seemed to stretch through Hannesburg all the way to some other city, maybe across the ocean, maybe even to some other century. The Americans rode in armored trucks. Some men stared out; others looked down at the guns on their laps. Helmets crushed their hair onto their foreheads. A lot of them were moving their mouths, though they didn’t seem to have any food, and Hans realized they must have been chewing the same candy they’d thrown.

He stepped away from his brothers and stepmother so he wasn’t touching anything at all, and slowly slid his shoe over two foil-wrapped pieces of gum. He stood on top of the gums, crushing them, until the whole column passed and the people started turning away. The whole time he thought about the gums, sweet and thin, waiting for him and Ani.

It was midafternoon when he bent and pretended to tie his shoe and slid the silver sticks in, feeling a stab of betrayal as he did so. He saw other mothers kicking the gum away from their children.

“Poison,” he heard one mother say. He also noticed that many of the pieces had mysteriously vanished, though no one was chewing.

“Hurry, Hans,” his stepmother said. She looked different this morning, as if she’d finally stepped in out of a storm, and he realized with a start that she was happy that his father was home, that she was
in love with
his father. It had never occurred to him before. His country had lost. The air raids were over. His town was full of Americans now. His father had filled the cellar with little bags of seeds. Things would start growing soon. She was in love with Vati. Hans followed her, trying to float on the slim pieces of gum instead of step on them. His mouth watered. He couldn’t wait to get home.

“The rabbits need more greens,” Ani announced, tugging at their stepmother’s hand when they reached the corner to their street. “I told Vati—”

“Shh,” she said.

“I told him I would stop and get them,” he whispered. “At the Kurpark.”

“Absolutely not!” She grabbed Ani by the wrist.

“Just to the park? Vati said I could go,” said Ani, pulling loose. “The Amis are gonna stay forever anyway.”

Their stepmother seemed startled by this comment and took a long time to respond. Jürgen yawned and fell against her neck. She ran her
hands over her front, ribs to waist, a gesture Hans remembered his own mother doing before she entered a crowded room.

“Not forever,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction. “Come on. Everyone home.”

Liesl stared at the rabbit hutch on the balcony. Frank had finished it. The rabbits hid in the corner, out of sight, as if all along they’d been waiting to disappear. The living room was empty except for the coop, and it smelled like sawdust and fur. The walls of the coop were also done, but it still needed a roof and ledges for nests. Jürgen reached for an edge of the wall, gripping it with his fat fingers.

Frank appeared from the Icebox, drying his hands.

“Where are the boys?” he said.

“They’re picking grass in the yard,” said Liesl. “They’re in love with those rabbits.”

“So are those little Dillmans,” said Frank, and told her about introducing himself to both families upstairs and downstairs, giving them fresh eggs.

“You shouldn’t trust them,” Liesl said.

“We don’t have a choice. Besides, they seem relieved to have a man here.” Frank picked up his son and kissed him. Jürgen squirmed and cried. “What’s the matter?” he said.

“He’s just getting tired,” she said.

Frank continued to hold the baby, and the baby’s cries escalated.

“Ready for his nap,” Liesl said, holding out her arms. Yet as soon as Frank handed the baby over, Jürgen quieted and grabbed at her hair.

Frank began to pace.