The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie (41 page)

I don't answer. She adds, "If you knew how much I love you."

I say, "You shouldn't. You aren't my mother. It's my mother who should love me, but she loves only Lucas. And it's your fault."

The front line approaches. The town is bombed night and day. We spend a lot of time in the basement. We've brought down mattresses and bed covers. At first our neighbors come too, but one day they disappear.
Antonia
says they've been deported.

Antonia
is out of work. The nightclub where she sang doesn't exist anymore. The school is closed. It's very hard to find food, even with ration cards. Luckily
Antonia
has a friend who sometimes comes and brings us bread, condensed milk, biscuits, and chocolate. At night the friend stays with us since he can't go home because of the curfew. On those nights
Antonia
sleeps with me in the kitchen. I hold her and speak to her about Lucas, who we will find again soon, and we fall asleep looking at the stars.

One morning
Antonia
wakes us early. She tells us to dress warmly, to put on several shirts and sweaters, our coats, and several pairs of socks since we're going on a long trip. She fills two suitcases with the rest of our clothes.

Antonia's friend comes for us in a car. We put the suitcases in the trunk.
Antonia
sits up front, Sarah and I in the back.

The car stops at the entrance to a cemetery almost across from our old house. The friend stays in the car;
Antonia
walks quickly, pulling Sarah and me by the hand.

We stop in front of a grave with a wooden cross upon which my father's name is written—a double name made up of mine and my brother's: Klaus-Lucas T.

Among several faded bouquets on the grave, one, of white carnations, is almost fresh.

I say to
Antonia,
"My mother used to plant carnations all over the garden. They were my father's favorite flower."

Antonia
says, "I know. Say good-bye to your father, children."

Sarah says sweetly, "Good-bye, Father."

I say, "He wasn't Sarah's father. He was only our father, Lucas and me."

Antonia
says, "I've already explained it to you. Didn't you understand? Too bad. Come, we have no time to waste."

We return to the car, which drives us to South Station.
Antonia
says thank you and good-bye to her friend.

We line up in front of the ticket booth. It's only then that I dare to ask
Antonia,
"Where are we going?"

She says, 'To my parents'. But first we're going to stop in the town of S. to take your brother Lucas with us."

I hold her hand and kiss her. 'Thank you,
Antonia."

She withdraws her hand. "Don't thank me. I only know the name of the town; I can't remember what the rehabilitation center was called."

When
Antonia
pays for the tickets I realize that with the grocery money I couldn't have afforded my trip to the town of S.

The trip is uncomfortable. There are too many people; everyone is fleeing from the front. We have only one seat for the three of us; the one who sits takes Sarah on his knees while the other remains standing. We exchange places several times during the trip, which should have taken five hours but lasts more than twelve because of air raids. The train stops in the open countryside; the travelers get out and lie down in the fields. Whenever it happens I stretch my coat out on the ground, lay Sarah down on it, and crouch over her to protect her from bullets, bombs, and shrapnel.

We arrive at the town of S. late at night. We take a hotel room. Sarah and I immediately get into the big bed;
Antonia
goes back down to the bar to ask for information and does not return until morning.

Now she has the address of the center where Lucas should be. We go the following day.

It's a building in the middle of a park. Half of it has collapsed. It is empty We see the bare walls blackened by smoke.

The center was bombed three weeks ago.

Antonia
makes inquiries. She questions the local authorities and tries to find survivors from the center. She finds the director's address. We go see her.

She says, "I remember little Lucas very well. He was the worst resident in the house. Always making trouble, always getting on people's nerves. A truly unbearable child, and incorrigible. No one ever came to see him, no one was interested in him. If I remember rightly, there was some sort of family tragedy. There is no more I can tell you."

Antonia
insists: "Did you see him again after the bombing?"

The director says, "I myself was wounded in the bombing, but no one cares about me. A lot of people come to talk to me, asking questions about their children. But no one cares about me. And I spent two weeks in the hospital after the bombing. The shock, you understand. I was responsible for all those children."

Antonia
asks again: "Think back. What can you tell us about Lucas? Did you see him again after the bombing? What happened to the surviving children?"

The director says, "I didn't see him again. I tell you, I was hurt too. The children who were still alive were sent back home. The
d
ead were buried in the town cemetery. Those who weren't dead and whose addresses were unknown were sent away. To villages, to farms, to small towns. Those people are meant to return the children after the war."

Antonia
consults the list of the town's dead.

She says to me, "Lucas isn't dead. We'll find him."

We get back on the train. We come to a little station; we walk to the center of town.
Antonia
carries the sleeping Sarah in her arms. I carry the suitcases.

We stop at Central Square.
Antonia
rings a doorbell and an old woman answers the door. I already know the old woman. It's Antonia's mother. She says, "God be praised! You're safe and sound. I was terribly scared. I prayed for you constantly."

She takes my face in her hands.

"And you came with them?"

I say, "I had no choice. I have to look after Sarah."

"Of course you have to look after Sarah."

She squeezes me, kisses me, then takes Sarah in her arms.

"How pretty you are, how big you are!"

Sarah says, 'I'm sleepy. I want to sleep with Klaus."

We're put to bed in the same room, the room
Antonia
slept in when she was a child.

Sarah calls Antonia's parents Grandmother and Grandfather; I call them Aunt Mathilda and Uncle Andreas. Uncle Andreas is a priest, and he wasn't called up because he is ill. His head shakes all the time as though he's constantly saying "no."

Uncle Andreas takes me for walks through the streets in the little town, sometimes until dusk. He says, 'I'd always wished for
a
son. A boy would have understood my love for this town. He would have understood the beauty of these streets, these houses, that sky. Yes, the beauty of this sky that is to be found nowhere else. Look. There are no names for the colors of that sky."

I say, "It's like a dream."

"A dream, yes. I had only one daughter. She left early, very young. She came back with a little girl and with you. You're not her son, nor my grandson, but you're the boy I've been waiting for."

I say, "But I have to go back to my mother when she's better, and I also have to find my brother, Lucas."

"Yes, of course. I hope you find them. But if you don't, you can stay with us forever. You can study and then choose the occupation that pleases you. What would you like to do when you grow up?"

"I'd like to marry Sarah."

Uncle Andreas laughs. "You can't marry Sarah. You're brother and sister. Marriage between you is impossible. It's against the law."

I say, "So I'll just live with her. No one can forbid me from keeping on living with her."

"You'll meet many other young girls you'll want to marry."

I say, "I don't think so."

Soon it becomes dangerous to walk in the streets, and at night it's forbidden to go out. What to do during the air-raid warning and bombings? During the day I give lessons to Sarah. I teach her to read and write and I make her do math exercises. There are a lot of books in the house. In the attic there are even children's books and Antonia's schoolbooks.

Uncle Andreas teaches me to play chess. When the women go to bed we begin a game and play late into the night.

At first Uncle Andreas always wins. When he begins to lose, he also loses his taste for the game.

He says to me, "You're too good for me, my boy. I don't want to play anymore. I don't want anything; all my desires have left me. I don't even have interesting dreams anymore, only boring ones."

I try to teach Sarah to play chess, but she doesn't like it. She gets tired and annoyed; she prefers simpler parlor games, and above all that I read her stories, it doesn't matter which ones, even a story I've read twenty times already.

When the war moves off into the other country,
Antonia
says, "We can go home to the capital."

Her mother says, "You'll starve to death. Leave Sarah here for a while. At least until you find work and a decent place to live."

Uncle Andreas says, "Leave the boy here too. There are good schools in our town. When we find his brother, we'll take him in too."

I say, "I have to return to the capital to find out what happened to my mother."

Sarah says, "If Klaus goes back to the capital, I'm going too."

Antonia
says, "I'm going alone. As soon as I've found an apartment I'll come get you."

She kisses Sarah and then me. She says in my ear: "I know that you'll look after her. I trust you."

Antonia
leaves and we stay with Aunt Mathilda and Uncle Andreas. We're clean and well fed, but we can't go out of the house because of the foreign soldiers and the general disorder. Aunt Mathilda is afraid something will happen to us.

We each have our own room now. Sarah sleeps in the room that had been her mother's; I sleep in the guest room.

At night I draw a chair up to the window and watch the square. It's almost empty. Only a few drunks and soldiers wander through it. Sometimes a limping child, younger than me, it seems, crosses it. He plays a tune on his harmonica; he goes into one bar, leaves, and goes into another. Around midnight, when all the bars close, the child heads westward through the town, still playing his harmonica.

One-night I point out the child with the harmonica to Uncle Andreas.

"Why isn't he forbidden from going out late at night?"

"I've been watching him for the past year. He lives with his grandmother on the other end of town. She's a very poor woman. The child is probably an orphan. He plays in bars to earn a bit of money. People are used to seeing him around. No one will harm him. He's under the protection of the whole town, and under the protection of God."

I say, "He must be happy."

Uncle says, "Definitely."

Three months later
Antonia
comes for us. Aunt Mathilda and Uncle Andreas don't want us to go.

Aunt Mathilda says, "Let the little girl stay. She's happy here and has everything she needs."

Uncle Andreas says, "At least leave the boy. Now that things are settling down we could start making inquiries about his brother."

Antonia
says, "You can start making inquiries without him, Father. I'm taking them both. Their place is with me."

In the capital we now have a big four-bedroom apartment. In addition to these rooms there is a living room and a bathroom.

On the evening of our arrival I tell Sarah a story and stroke her hair until she falls asleep. I hear
Antonia
and her friend talking in the living room.

I put on my gym shoes, go down the stairs, and run through the familiar streets. The streets, side streets, and alleys are lit now; there is no more war, no more blackout, no more curfew.

I stop in front of my house; the light is on in the kitchen. At first I think that strangers have moved in. The light in the living room also goes on. It's summer and the windows are open. I go nearer. Someone is speaking, a man's voice. Stealthily I look in through the window. My mother, sitting in an armchair, is listening to the radio.

For a week I come to observe my mother, sometimes several times a day. She goes about her business, wandering from room to room, spending most of her time in the kitchen. She also tends the
g
arden, planting and watering the flowers. At night she spends a long time reading in the parents' bedroom, whose window looks out onto the courtyard. Every other day a nurse arrives on a bicycle; she stays for around twenty minutes, chatting with Mother, taking her blood pressure, sometimes giving her an injection.