Lore (9 page)

—When will the Americans go away?

—I don’t know, Jüri. Soon.

She starts a new song and Jüri turns round, faces forward, his legs stamping the tune into the long rivergrass. Lore watches their reflection in the dark water. She looks like a giant with a lumpy head.
Peter has gone to sleep on her shoulders and has slumped forward so that his cheek rests against her ear.

The farmer’s son stands at the bottom gate, waiting for them. Lore can’t make out his features in the half-light. She sends Jüri ahead with Peter, tells him to wait at the top gate for her. The farmer’s son kicks at the fence with the toe of his boot until the boys are out of earshot. Then he leans in close to Lore.

—The Americans are going to put your mother in prison.

—No they’re not. They’ve already come. They didn’t even come in the house.

—She’s been all through the town, asking people to take you in, but no one wants you.

—Liar. You’re just a farm boy. You don’t know anything.

—Nobody wants you here anymore. We’ll have our place back, you’ll see. As soon as your Nazi whore mother is locked up.

Lore pushes him, but he doesn’t move. He pushes her back, much harder, and she falls onto her side. Two of the eggs crack under her hips. They are both still for a few moments and then the farmer’s son steps forward with his hand out to help her up. There is a hard smack and he swears and pulls abruptly away. Something falls into the grass next to Lore. Another something flies past her head and thumps against the boy’s leg and he swears again. She looks into the pasture and sees Jochen in the half-light, taking aim with a third stone, Jüri standing next to him.

—Leave our sister alone!

The farmer’s son wipes at his bloodied ear with his sleeve. Lore gets up and runs through the gate to the twins. Jochen throws his stone and then they all run up the pasture to Peter, who is sitting by the top gate, whining and sucking on a bread crust which Jüri has torn off the loaf for him. Lore picks him up and tucks a loaf under her free arm. Jüri has the rest of the bread and Jochen carries the cabbage.

—Why did he push you, Lore?

—How should I know, Jüri, he’s just a stupid boy.

They stumble over the rough ground in the dark. The broken eggs have soaked through Lore’s dress and are cold against her leg.

—I broke some eggs when I fell over. We’ll just tell Mutti I tripped in the dark, all right?

—Why can’t we tell her about the farmer’s son?

—Because I say so, Jochen.

They are almost at the house now and hiss their argument under their breath. Jüri pulls his brother away and they run ahead of Lore across the yard. She sits Peter down by the water pump and cleans off the worst of the egg mess before she goes inside.

—I have to go, Lore.

Mutti has sent the children outside, and now she is buttoning her coat. She gets the small bag out from under the bed, already packed.

—You must take the children to Hamburg. Here is Oma’s address. Rosenstrasse. You will remember it when you see it, I’m sure.

She has drawn a map.

—Line twenty-eight up Mittleweg to the bridge. You know the stop? Left as you get out and then first on the right. The big white house with the tiles in the stairwell? It was only two years ago. You can ask the tram driver if you’re not sure.

She marks a cross on the paper where Oma lives.

—Here is some money, and also some jewelry. Use it to get a train. As soon as you can. Yes?

She is taking off her wedding ring.

—Use the money first. You can’t write to me, not now. But I will write to you in Hamburg. As soon as I can.

Lore nods, though they make no sense to her, the words her mother says.

—We should all be brave now.

They stand with the scrap of paper on the wide table between them.

—Are you going to prison?

—You mustn’t worry.

—I won’t.

—It’s a camp.

—Yes.

—Not a prison. Prisons are for criminals.

—Yes.

—Everything is changing now.

Mutti kisses Peter, who is lying asleep on the big bed; she kisses Lore and her skin smells of soap; she opens the door and the sun smell of outside comes in as she goes out.

Lore is alone for an hour or so while Peter sleeps. She counts the money and looks at the bits of paper on the table in front of her. She thinks,
Everything is changing
, and works out how many eggs the money will buy, how many loaves of bread. She tries to calculate how long it will take to get to Hamburg. Twenty minutes to get to school from the village and that was about four kilometers. And forty minutes to the market in the next town.
Nine kilometers
. But Lore knows the big trains are faster. She thinks back to the journey south from Hamburg. She was younger then, can’t remember.
A day, two days. Probably three
. Peter wakes up and she gives him a bread crust and a drink of water. It is time to make dinner for the children: it will be getting dark soon, and they will be home and hungry. When Peter cries, she dips his fingers in the sugar pot and puts them in his mouth.

Lore pulls the beds together so they can all be close in the dark. The twins don’t remember their grandmother. Lore lights candles, shows them some of the photos which Mutti didn’t burn: Oma holding a coffee cup on the veranda; and long ago, a young woman with Opa, who died in another war. Lore describes the house, all the separate rooms leading off the long, cool hallways with their wide, dark wood floors. She whispers to them late into the night.

They don’t ask about the camp, don’t seem worried at all, and only Peter cries. Lore cradles him in the dark, thinks that perhaps it does make sense.
The war is lost. The Americans have camps, not prisons. For people like Mutti who haven’t committed crimes
.

She thinks of her father, wonders what he is doing now the fighting is over. Peter dozes against her chest, and Lore looks through the photos again, wants to see a picture of Vati before she sleeps. But the pictures she finds are more confusing than comforting. All taken long ago, long before the war. They don’t look like her father; more like an older brother; an anonymous young man in civilian clothes. Lore is tired, hungry again, her eyelids heavy.

The children sleep and Lore dreams that the Americans come and search through the bushes by the stream, the ashes in the stove. They take Peter away from her, throw him into the back of the jeep and drive off over the fields.

The farmer comes early, and with his wife this time. The children stand behind Lore at the door. The wife speaks first.

—Do you have somewhere to go?

—They can’t stay here.

—We are going to Hamburg.

—To Hamburg?

—To our Oma. Mutti told her we are coming.

—They can’t stay here.

—She knows you’re coming?

—Mutti wrote to her.

—But there’s no post, child.

—She is expecting us.

—How will you get there?

—By train.

—They want to go to Hamburg, let them go.

—But there are no trains, Sepp. No post and no trains, child.

—Do you want them to stay here?

—I’ve started packing already.

Lore leaves the children to look after Peter. She walks to the road, picks up a lift from a farmer into the town. He takes her to the railway station, but tells her: there are no trains.

—How do we get to Hamburg?

The man in the office says she will have to get permission from the Americans; that the last official transport went over two weeks ago. Lore pushes through the turnstile onto the platform. The station is deserted. She crouches down next to the tracks and looks along the line, past the long curve of the station, northward, away from the town. Lore doesn’t know what lies beyond. Another valley, perhaps a city. The weeds have already grown tall between the railroad ties.

Through the station window she can see a tank parked down the street. There are soldiers who carry their guns slung over their backs; they stand and smoke and talk in the sun. Lore’s scalp prickles. She doesn’t want to ask permission. Mutti said they should go to Hamburg. She didn’t say anything about asking Americans.

On the wall is a map of Germany, and Lore traces a line north with her finger from
Ingolstadt
, to
Nuremberg
, and all the way up to
Kassel, Göttingen
, then
Hannover
, and after that,
Hamburg
. She memorizes the place names, and some towns in between. Lore steps back from the map, looks up at the ceiling and recites them silently to herself.
Ingolstadt, Nuremberg
, past
Frankfurt
to
Kassel, Göttingen
, then
Hannover
. And then
Hamburg
.

She walks on into the town for food, but the shops are closed: already sold out for the day. She finds her way back to the main road and starts the long walk back to the farm.

Lore goes back to the town in the morning. She leaves early so she can get to the bakery while they still have bread, queues in silence
with the women, and buys all she can. She goes on to the neighboring farms; leaving the village by the path behind the mill to avoid the soldiers; hiding her bags of food in the hedgerows before knocking on the doors. There is no meat and no fat, but she manages two more half-loaves of bread, four eggs and a jar of milk, a small sack of meal, and also a bag each of carrots and apples.

Back at the farm, she packs a bag for each child and puts Peter’s things in the baby carriage. A blanket each, plus socks and stockings, shoes, underwear, a change of clothing, and three handkerchiefs. They will wear their boots and summer coats, and they have the oilskins in case it rains. She divides the twins’ chessmen between their two bags, chooses a doll for Liesel and a book for herself. She also packs the bundle of photos from the drawer in her own bag. The money and map and the jewelry which Mutti gave her are wrapped up in more handkerchiefs and sewn into the underside of her apron.

The children come back hungry around midday, and Lore makes them try their bags for weight. They are excited, skipping in the yard with knapsacks and suitcases, dancing on the beds, impatient to leave. Lore knows the bags are heavy. She takes out the shoes and ties them to the sides of Peter’s carriage. While they eat, Lore realizes that they should take knives and plates and cups with them. She slips crockery and cutlery into a clean pillowcase and knots it to the carriage handle.

—What will we say if the Americans ask us?

—We are going to Hamburg.

—And who is in Hamburg?

—Mutti and Oma!

The children sit on the big bed and Lore tests them. They chorus their answers happily, munching the apples meant for the journey.

—And will we say anything about camps?

—No.

—Why not?

—Because the Americans will put us in prison.

—Good.

Liesel frowns, twists her plaits together under her chin.

—Won’t we be with Mutti then, Lore?

—Mutti is in a camp, silly.

Jochen pokes her and Jüri laughs.

—They have special prisons for children, horrible places.

—I don’t want to go to prison, Lore.

—If you’re good, you won’t have to.

They are all too hot in their coats, and their bags are too heavy. Their shoes dangle crazily from Peter’s carriage and the crockery rattles in the pillowcase over every stone. Lore feels sick, hot, unprepared; her hair sticks to her face. She leads the children across the fields, onto the track over the hill and out of the valley. It is already getting late, and she knows they won’t get far before dark, but she wants to put some distance between themselves and the farm. Get away from the Americans, the stream, and the badges in the bushes.

Peter doesn’t like the noise and the bumping. He glares angrily at Lore, gripping the sides of his carriage with chubby fingers. His face crumples. Lore calls the children to a stop. Peter cries and she takes off their coats, repacks their bags.
Start again
.

Lore and Liesel take turns carrying Peter now, and he chatters with his sisters as they walk. The boys push the baby carriage, piled high with the bags. Lore starts a song and Liesel joins in. The twins march ahead, their voices drifting back through the hot air. They pass another farm, then a series of outbuildings, and a little later a barn, where they rest in the shade for a while. When they walk on, Lore promises the children they will pick up a lift when they get to the road.

Lore watches the twins, giggling and panting their way up the rise in the road. They stop at the top to rest. Lore knows that the slope
down is far steeper and longer than the slope up. When she and Liesel are halfway up the rise, the twins start on their descent. They give the baby carriage a shove and break into a run. The carriage bounces over stones and the crockery clatters. Lore shouts at the twins to slow down but they don’t listen. She hands Peter to Liesel and trots up to the top of the hill.

Lore hears the plates smash against each other. She shouts again. Jüri turns round and waves, carries on running with his brother. One of the dangling shoes gets caught in the wheel and the carriage veers to the left. Jüri loses his footing. His legs give way and he makes a grab for Jochen to steady himself. Jochen still has hold of the carriage. He falls under his brother’s weight, the baby carriage tips over, spilling its contents over the track and down the slope into the field.

Liesel has gotten to the top of the hill now, and she laughs at her brothers sprawled in the road. Peter giggles and grabs at her cheeks. Lore runs down the slope to the twins. The baby carriage lies on its side, wheels spinning. Jüri has twisted his ankle and is crying. Jochen is gathering up their things. The bag of meal has burst, its contents strewn in the stones and dust.

Lore rights the carriage and pulls her shoe out of the spokes. The leather is torn and the wheel is buckled. She throws her shoe at the twins. It falls short. She picks it up and hits the boys on the arms. The sun is hot and she is sweating. Jüri is crying again now, and Lore slaps Jochen’s legs until he screams. She shouts at them to stop crying, and Jüri lies down in the dust and sobs for Mutti. Lore takes off her coat and fights down her tears.