Lore (23 page)

He waits until Mina is downstairs in the laundry room. She has taken a book. A man answers after five rings. He sounds out of breath. Micha says he has called about the database.

—Survivors?

—
No, criminals
.

—Aha.

He asks Micha to hang on. At the other end of the line, Micha hears his breathing and the click and bleep of a computer starting up. Micha feels suddenly rude. He introduces himself, apologizes, and the man laughs, but it is not unfriendly. He says his name, too, and good evening. He has caught his breath now.

—Name? Name you are looking for, I mean.

—
Askan Boell
. B-O-E-L-L.

—Boell. Askan.

He types as he talks. The fan in the computer whirrs.

—It’s searching. It will take a few moments.

Micha breaks the silence.

—
He was my grandfather
.

—Aha.

The man doesn’t sound surprised. They are silent again, and Micha waits. He wanted the man to be surprised, perhaps even to think he was brave. Micha starts to wonder whether he is being brave.

—No. No entry under that name. Any middle names?

—
No
.

—Aha.

Micha wasn’t expecting this. So quick, so few questions; just a name and then nothing.

—
He was in the Waffen-SS. On the eastern front
.

—Aha.

The man on the phone doesn’t need this information. Micha just wants him to know. To know that he knows.

—
The Russians had him. They kept him prisoner after the war, for nine years
.

—Yes.

—
So there must be a file on him somewhere?

—The Russians. They still hold on to their stuff. We know very little about who they held and why.

—
Oh
.

—You know, it was quite normal, too. Quite normal for the Russians to keep German soldiers for many years. Some only came back in the late fifties.

—
Yes
.

—They were slave labor.

—
Yes. Not criminals?

—No. Very unlikely, anyway. No judgments against them that we know of. That they knew of, even.

He is kind, this man. Micha wants to stay on the phone with him and his slow voice. He feels reassured. Micha wants to tell him he’s made him feel better. The computer is switched off. The whirring fan stops, abruptly.

—Well. Sorry I couldn’t help.

—
Thank you
.

—You’re welcome.

And he’s gone. Micha goes downstairs to help Mina fold the clothes. He tells her about the man on the phone and what he said.

—It was normal?

—
Yes
.

—That’s good, then, isn’t it?

—
Yes
.

Micha doesn’t feel so good anymore, though. He feels like he’s come to a dead end.

—So what now?

—
I don’t know. Find another man with another list
.

Micha laughs, and Mina looks at him.

—
A bigger list
.

—How big was this one?

—
Twenty thousand, I think
.

—My God, and there are bigger lists?

—
Yes, I read about a man with seventy thousand names
.

Mina whistles.

—So many?

—
Yes, of course. You know how many people were killed, don’t you?

—Okay, Michael.

He has been raising his voice. The cellar feels very quiet now, small. Too small for loud noises.

—
It takes a lot of criminals to kill that many people
.

Mina folds the clothes.

—I said okay.

She feels told off, and Micha feels ashamed.
When did I get so righteous?
He carries the clothes upstairs and tells Mina he’ll take her out for dinner.

Usually, he goes on a Sunday. Today is Wednesday, Micha’s classes finish early, and he wants to see Oma, to ask her some questions. She will be surprised to see him, claim she has nothing to feed him. Micha buys cake on his way to the bird’s nest.

The nurse at reception phones up to Oma as he gets into the elevator. She has to repeat herself a couple of times. Oma is already halfway down the corridor when Micha gets up to her floor, her face creased with worry.

—What’s happened, schatz? Micha? What’s wrong?

—
Nothing, Oma. I’ve just come to see you
.

—Really?

She holds on to his arm, can’t believe it.

—
My classes finished early. I brought cake, look
.

—And Mina is fine?

—
Yes, Oma, yes. Everyone is fine. Come on, I’ll make the coffee
.

Micha feels like an intruder in his Oma’s little kitchen. She stands in the doorway, watching him put the cakes out onto plates. He has thrown her routine; he knows it; it is painful to see.
My Oma is an old woman now
.

—You don’t work on a Wednesday?

—
I finished early
.

—Oh, yes. You said that.

Micha carries the plates into the other room. His Oma follows.

—I have my physiotherapy on Wednesday mornings.

—
Yes. Did she come this morning, your therapist?

—Yes. That’s right.

Oma settles into her chair, happier, fixed back into her week again.

—Do you have cuttings for me?

—
Of course
.

Micha lays out the articles for his grandmother, and eats while she reads. She asks him questions about them, and he answers. It’s almost like a normal visit, but not quite. To Micha, it feels like they are sitting at her table with its red wax cloth, both acting out a normal visit.

He watches Oma. She is looking at the newspaper cuttings but not reading anymore. Her fingers wander over them, wrists shaking gently, as though her hands are too heavy to hold. She doesn’t see him watching. He holds his breath.

—
Oma, where did Opa serve in the war?

—In the east, schatz.

No hint of surprise at the question, no hesitation. Just geography. Micha decides to go on.

—
Where in the east?

—He was fighting for three years, a little more. The Ukraine. Russia. Belarus. It was all the Soviet Union then.

Oma smiles, sighs briefly, nods.

—Yes. Belarus. White Russia. His last year. He was there at the end.

She cuts a cake in half, and divides it between them.

—Too much for me, you’ll have to help.

Micha searches Oma’s expression, but she doesn’t seem worried at all. He allows himself one more question.

—
Do you know where in Belarus?

Oma swallows her mouthful of cake. One hand held in midair, hanging loose on her brittle wrist.

—In the south, I think. There is an atlas. Wait, I’ll get it. Hold on.

She pushes Micha down in his seat as she passes, makes her way to the bookshelf. Oma peers at the index and then opens the atlas on the table, stares a long time at the map.

—Wait, I’ll find it. All the borders are different now. All changed. Yes.

Micha waits. The cake pulls all the moisture out of his mouth. He drinks scalding coffee to help himself swallow.

—I got letters from him. Sometimes every week. The address was always at the top. There!

She points and her finger shakes. She presses it down on the page to hold it steady. Micha sees the small town on the map. Scattered pink on green and gray. Oma pulls at his arm.

—The one beginning with
S
, not far from the river. He wrote about the river, and the marshes, I remember that. Do you see it?

—
Yes
.

—That’s right. 1943. It must have been. After the Russians were moving west again.

—
Do you remember when?

—Summer, autumn. He was there for a while then. And late in
’43 he was fighting near there again. They moved around, went to where the fighting was, of course. But a lot of his letters came from there in that last year.

Micha looks away from the atlas, up at his Oma’s face. She is excited.

—Yes. He sent his last leter there in May, and not long after that they captured him.

She stares at the map a while longer, absorbed in thought, fingers pressed into her soft cheeks.
Thinking about her husband
. Micha drinks more coffee, gives her a little time before his next question. He promises himself it will be his last.

—
Do you still have Opa’s letters?

—No, schatz, no. He burnt them all when he came back.

Oma’s face gives nothing away. Micha makes himself sit quietly at the table while she puts the atlas back on the shelf, and then he excuses himself and goes to the bathroom. His hands shake like Oma’s, so he has to leave the door unlocked. He sits on the edge of the bath and wipes the sweat from his palms onto his trouser legs. He tries to imagine his Opa burning his letters.
Where did Oma keep them? Was he angry when he found them? Did he stuff them in the stove? A fire in the garden? Did he read them again before he destroyed them?

What did he write that he wanted to burn?

Micha can’t ask Oma. He is too afraid.

Mutti and Vati come for dinner on Friday. Micha hears them laughing on their way up the stairs. They kiss Mina at the door, tell jokes in the hallway while she takes their coats. They come into the kitchen, where he is cooking, peer into all the pots on the stove. They bring smiles and noise with them and Micha is glad they are here.

—Luise will come when her shift finishes. She said we shouldn’t wait.

Mutti has brought flowers and wine, and fruit salad.

—We said we’d make dinner.

Mina scolds her, searches the cupboards for a vase.

—I know. I got bored this afternoon.

—Bored? I am exhausted and my wife is bored. Something doesn’t make sense here.

Vati has come straight from work. He sits down heavily at the table, pulls off his tie and sighs. Micha knows he is exaggerating for effect, but he does look tired. Mina stands behind Vati’s chair and kneads his shoulders.

—You should stand up and walk around once an hour. Do neck exercises. Like this.

She steps in front of him, demonstrates, rolling her head forward, then to one side. Vati copies her, then laughs at himself. Micha stands with Mutti by the stove.

—It’s nice of you to visit Oma so regularly, Micha.

—
I like seeing her
.

—I know, I know.

—
This is preamble, yes? You’re leading up to something?

—Yes, I’m leading up to something.

Micha was teasing but Mutti blushes. He wonders if Oma told her about his questions. He wonders if Oma was worried by them. He stops teasing and stirs the sauce, which doesn’t need stirring. His palms are sweating again.

—I think she was a bit confused, though.

—
Yes?

—I think we should stick to a routine with her. Regular visiting times.

—
Oh, right
.

—She forgot about her doctor’s appointment on Thursday. When the nurse came, she got quite angry. Kept insisting it was Monday, because her grandson had been there the day before. She’s quite embarrassed about it now.

—You didn’t tell me you went to see your Oma.

Mina has been listening at the table; Vati, too. Micha turns around and finds them both staring at him.

—
There was nothing to tell
.

He turns back to the stove.
Liar
.

—Oma is an old woman now.

—
I know, Mutti. I know that
.

—I think we forget sometimes.

—
I didn’t forget. I finished early on Wednesday, that’s all. I’m sorry
.

—It’s okay. It’s fine.

Micha serves and Mutti carries the plates over to the table. He feels like he’s been discovered. He sees broken dishes, food on the floor and walls. Braces himself for the bomb.
Opa, murder, family, me
. Mutti is still talking.

—It was quite nice, actually. I haven’t talked to her about Papa, about your Opa Askan. Not for years. And today we talked about him all morning.

—
Oh?

—You talked about him, too, didn’t you?

—
A bit
.

—What did she say?

Mina is asking Mutti, not Micha, and he is grateful. She is diverting Mutti. For him. He knows it. He takes a mouthful of wine.

—We talked about when Bernd was little. Family times. Lovely times I had forgotten. In the Steinweg house; when we moved in, Opa painted pictures on our bedroom walls. Wonderful. An ocean for me, and a forest for Bernd. Next to our beds. I had forgotten that. Oma told me she found him crying in Bernd’s room when they moved.

Micha sits down at the table, and when Mutti smiles at him, he smiles back.

—I think she enjoyed remembering. She enjoyed talking to you, too, Michael. She said so.

He pours the wine. He doesn’t want to say anything to prolong the conversation. He knows he is being rude, but he doesn’t want to think about his Opa and about the letters he burnt, not this evening. There is a silence, and then Mina changes the subject for him.

There is some archive footage of Hitler which upsets Micha more than most images of those times.

A Christmas party, probably early in the war. At Hitler’s mountain home, and everyone is there: Göring, Speer, Bormann, all their wives and children. The footage is black-and-white, shot inside, but speckled with dust that looks like snow. Adolf Hitler sits among the children, and they look around at the camera and smile. Four- and five- and six-year-olds, shy and uncertain, in lederhosen and dirndl skirts. But they also smile at him, at Hitler, and talk. It is silent, so Micha doesn’t know what the children say, but he can see that they aren’t afraid.
They like him
. One girl comes running into frame to tell him something, and he raises his eyebrows, open-faced and all ears while she speaks. Godfather and favorite uncle, with soft eyes and smiles. Who doesn’t look at the camera, only at the child.

—Oh no.

Mina shudders when Micha shows her.

Hours later, when it is just getting light, she finds him in the kitchen.