Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire (81 page)

Her instinctive secrecy when it came to herself made Trudi keep silent about Max to everyone else. They’d only shun him for choosing her, just as they’d shunned Eva after the concert. Besides, loving without marriage was sin. Though enough people did it, you couldn’t admit it because then the town had to reject you.

“Some day,” Max said, “if you feel ready to tell me, will you let me know why you cried? Even if I don’t know the words to ask?”

She held his hand, lifted it to look at it closely. It wasn’t just his hand that was tanned. His entire body was that soft brown shade. It would be so easy to forget all restraint and hurl her love at him the way Seehund used to with his puppy weight, his entire body and heart.

“Will you?” he asked.

“I like seeing your skin against mine.…”

“Why is that?”

“Because I always know where I end and where you begin. Look.”

He reached behind himself for his glasses, and as he raised himself on his elbows, he, too, became intrigued by the contrast in their skin tones. “It’s beautiful, the way your skin glows … as if lit from inside by a thousand candles.”

Already she could see herself alone at home, looking at herself in her mother’s mirrors, finding the glow he was talking about as a thousand candles warmed her from within. She was amazed at the sense of comfort she felt at being within her body—being whole, healthy, beautiful. Like Pia, she thought. Pia must have felt like that.

“My light spirit,” Max murmured against her lips.

“My light spirit,” she would murmur to herself in her bed at home, her smile turned into her pillow.

“D
O YOU HAVE ANY FAULTS
, M
AX?” SHE ASKED HIM ONE
F
EBRUARY
night when she lay next to him in his narrow bed.

“What do you mean?” He ran one hand along the inside of her arm, lightly.

“You are too perfect, too kind.… It scares me. Makes me think I don’t see you right.”

“Well… If you promise not to tell—” He glanced around his room as if to make sure no one else would overhear his confession. Bringing his lips against Trudi’s ear, he whispered, “I’ve stolen.”

“What?”

“A pack of chocolate cigarettes. When I was eight.”

“I’m impressed.”

“You should be.”

“Is that all?”

“Sometimes I get furious, break things.”

“Like what?”

“Oh—toys, when I was a child. Once, I ripped my best friend’s kite apart when he made fun of the one I’d built.… I broke a car window a few years ago.”

“What happened?”

He hesitated.

“Tell me? Please?”

“I was traveling with—with a woman to Bremen. We were taking turns driving, and when I got out to walk around the car, you know, to the passenger side, she locked my door. We’d been joking around, and I guess she thought it was funny. She was sitting in there, laughing, and I warned her, I yelled, Open the door,’ but she dangled the key behind the windshield, and I picked up a rock. At first she laughed, but as I raised the rock, her expression changed, and I could see she was afraid. Afraid to let me in. But I couldn’t stop. Even though I knew something had gone too far and that I’d missed the moment when that had happened.”

“Did you hurt her?”

“No. I broke the window on the passenger side.”

“Did you see her again after that?”

“We—we were married.”

Trudi sat up, pulled her arms close to herself, so that no part of her touched him any longer. On the floor by his wardrobe stood her black shoes, the ones with the highest heels, which she kept in his room so she could reach the table and sink easily.

“Look at me,” he said. “I haven’t seen her in years.”

“You’re divorced then?”

“Not legally. But I will be, if we ever agree enough to sign papers.”

Her body felt stiff as if her heart had stopped beating.

“Come here.” He opened his arms to her. “Please, Trudi?”

She shook her head. One of his hairs lay on her arm, dark and curled. She couldn’t bear to touch it and blew it away.

“Ask whatever you need to know.”

“You wouldn’t have told me.…”

“I promise you the truth.”

“You wouldn’t have told me.…”

“I don’t think of her, Trudi. I don’t think of myself as married.”

“But you are.”

“People don’t always tell each other everything right away.”

Her face felt hot. “What do you mean?”

“Wouldn’t you agree that it’s better to wait to reveal some things until you know the other person is ready to hear them?”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“Well, you wanted to know if I had faults.”

“And you do.”

“You said I was too perfect.”

“I would have settled for something less dramatic than a wife.”

The following day Ingrid Baum traveled to Burgdorf in the back of an open truck that had been used for transporting potatoes. The bed of the truck was covered with potato dirt, thick layers of gray dust that clung to her skin. With her were a shoemaker from Bonn and his large family on their way to an uncle’s wedding in Oberhausen; they sang and laughed and fed her cake and insisted she share the bottle of
Schnaps
they passed around even to the children. Though Ingrid didn’t like
Schnaps
, she took one sip, afraid to offend the shoemaker’s wife who’d lean into her, whispering confidences about her husband’s appetites and the thickening of her monthly flow.

As it began to rain, the family huddled closer, collecting around Ingrid as if she were one of them. The only part of her that was not freezing was her left ear: it burned into her skull, made half of her face sore. She tried to remember when it had started hurting, but she couldn’t even remember packing the suitcase, which was getting soft from the rain. When its handle came off, she turned it between her fingers. The oldest son passed the
Schnaps
to her again, telling her it would warm her, but she shook her head. The potato dust soaked up the water until they all were sitting in thick mud. When the truck dropped her off in front of the pay-library, her hands and face were smudged, her clothes soggy.

Trudi, who’d been standing by the window, staring out into the rain while going over every word of last night’s conversation with Max, didn’t recognize the truck or the woman who stayed behind on the sidewalk when the truck drove off, holding a suitcase with both arms as though it were a sleeping child. But then the woman turned and became Ingrid. Trudi ran out, pulled her inside, made her take off her coat and wet shoes. After wrapping her in a blanket, she offered her soup and a bath though Ingrid was too exhausted to wash or eat.

“What happened to you?” Trudi asked after she’d heated the stove and settled Ingrid next to it in a deep chair, feet raised on a wooden stool.

Ingrid’s eyes went blank. She reached up, pulled a strand of straight wet hair into her thin face.

“Why did you leave?”

“I… don’t know.”

But gradually Trudi was able to draw from her that she remembered running with her suitcase from the KLV school, where she’d taught for the past year and half. She remembered getting off a train, but she didn’t recall the journey, not even buying a ticket. The truck? She’d been standing somewhere in the cold when the shoemaker had stopped for her.

“There is a man who wants to marry me,” Ingrid said without enthusiasm.

“Who is he?”

“Ulrich.”

“And…?”

Ingrid leaned her head against the back of the chair and stared toward the ceiling. “… so well behaved.”

“The man who wants to marry you?”

“No, no. One of the students, Suse.” Ingrid’s voice tapered to a murmur as though she were talking to herself. “… a face like an angel—But Fräulein Wiedesprunt kept taking her on drives, bringing her licorice, letting her sleep in her room.… I didn’t know what to say to stop it. The girl—Maybe nothing happened.… Trudi?” She sat up straight. “Trudi.”

“I’m here.”

“I thought dirty about them.… The ink keeps running. Notebooks for school, they’re always rationing them and—”

“Is that why you left there? Because of the girl?”

“The paper, it’s so bad the ink runs.…” Ingrid’s voice took on an official quality as though she were imitating someone: “We have to verify the necessity of each purchase.”

“Why don’t you tell me about this man who wants to marry you?”

“Ulrich Hebel.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s a soldier now.”

“And before?”

“The railroad. He used to work for the railroad.”

“Do you love him?”

“He says it’s his, too.”

“What?”

Ingrid peeled the blanket away and pointed to the slight mound of her belly. “The fruit of my sin,” she said as if reciting from the Bible.

“Don’t make it sound so ugly.”

Ingrid covered her eyes.

“Oh, Ingrid—” Trudi embraced her and, gently, pulled her fingers from her face. “I know it must be difficult, but you’ll get to love the baby. And I’ll help.…” Already she could see herself taking Ingrid’s baby for walks in a wicker carriage, sitting in the sun on the front step with the baby in her arms. She’d sew a gingham pillow cover, a matching—

“It belongs to the devil.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Marrying doesn’t undo the sin.”

“It’s not a sin.”

“The church says.”

“Forget the church.”

Ingrid crossed herself and winced.

“What’s wrong?”

“My ear—it hurts.”

“I’ll run over to the pharmacy and get some eardrops.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. Do your parents know about the baby?”

“My father would kill me.”

“He won’t. Besides—” Trudi hesitated. If Ingrid stayed with her, she wouldn’t be able to offer shelter to Jews. But ever since her arrest, the house had become too risky as a hiding place. Emil Hesping still hadn’t brought any fugitives, but he accepted the food and clothing that Trudi collected for him. Most of the food she got from Frau Weiler, and Hilde Eberhardt was a good source for children’s clothing, willing to part with whatever Trudi asked for without wanting explanations. It was well known in Burgdorf that the midwife often traded her services for shirts and pants and dresses that a family’s last child had outgrown. She’d gathered quite an assortment, which she gave to people who couldn’t afford clothes for their children. Sometimes—so it was told—she even brought clothes and diapers to poor families instead of letting them pay her.

“You could stay with us,” Trudi told Ingrid. “For a while.… I’m sure my father would say it’s all right.”

“I have to face my just punishment, the laceration of my soul—”

Trudi groaned. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

“—the decline of my spirit—”

“Have you seen a midwife? A doctor?”

“—the deterioration of the flesh—”

“I could get Hilde Eberhardt… bring her here.”

“No.” Ingrid stopped her litany.

“How about this man? The one who wants to marry you.”

“When he gets his leave.”

“Then you’ll marry him?”

“To save the child’s name. It’s too late for me. I’m forever damned. I’ll never be a missionary.”

“You want me to get the priest?” Trudi asked without much confidence. Still, maybe even the fat priest was better than no priest at all. “You could confess. Get rid of the sin.”

“I am the sin.”

“Ingrid—”

“I have always known that about myself.”

“And what is it about you, then, that makes it impossible to get absolution? What makes you so special?”

But Ingrid shook her head. Her eyes glittered. “I am the sin.”

While Leo Montag brewed strong Russian tea for Ingrid, Trudi ran to Neumaier’s pharmacy for eardrops. Though it had a new owner, Fräulein Horten, people still called it Neumaier’s pharmacy. In the nine months since he’d been taken away with his daughter and former wife, no one had heard from the pharmacist, and people suspected that he’d not only kept some of the money he’d solicited for the Hitler statue, but also most of the funds he’d collected from people for membership in the
Partei
. The Stosicks hadn’t been the only ones who’d never received papers in the mail.

Trudi was about to pay for Ingrid’s medicine when the sirens sounded off. As she glanced toward the door, trying to decide if she should race home, Fräulein Horten took her by the arm.

“My father—” Trudi said.

“Better stay here.”

Fräulein Horten led her down into the huge cellar, where several tenants from the apartment building already sat on apple crates and suitcases, eyes turned toward the ceiling as if it were possible to see
the danger beyond. With all the bombings that could strike the major nearby cities any time during the day or night, you had to be prepared for stray bombs and rush to the nearest cellar with a ready-packed bag or suitcase, containing your most important belongings. Mothers would grab small children from their beds and fly down the stairs, while trying to calm their screams. Often the air raids wouldn’t last very long, but you could sit in a cellar for hours, surrounded by others who handled their deadly fears by crying or praying or complaining.