I am a house gutted by fire where
only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds
them out into the open.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
Forgotten Fingerprints
Karl hadn’t left the house in a month.
And as for getting dressed, what was the point? Nobody came to visit. Anyway,
he savoured the smell of his own unwashed body. At least he had control over
something. He allowed the smell to get so bad that even he couldn’t stand it,
so he had to force himself into the tin bath for a half-hearted lather. What
remained of his grey wispy hair he tied into a thin bun to stop the strands
tickling his greasy face when he was baking. It was Frida who had to fetch the
rations. Not as though they needed them. He had a good stock of flour and salt
in the cellar. Always have flour in the house, his baker father used to say.
Add a little water and that’s all you need to survive.
Karl wiped his hands on his encrusted apron and looked out of the
kitchen window towards a man walking his dog across the field. The man stopped,
turned around and appeared to look directly at Karl, so he backed away from the
window. His heart pumped faster. He was reminded of his recurring nightmare.
The one where he hid in an abandoned barn. A group of officials were looking
for him. They were so close that he could hear their different footsteps. One
clipped. One hurried. One lazy. They halted. He could hear one noisily inhaling
his cigarette. Then it stopped. He’d been having the same nightmare ever since
the letter arrived. Why, oh, why did he burn the letter? He just couldn’t stop
himself. It was as if…there was a faint whistle. The man stood in the next
field but the dog refused to jump over the stile. So he climbed back over, stumbled
a little, scooped it up and cradled it like a baby. The man was talking. Karl
wondered what he said. Bad dog. Papa says
no biscuit for you, today. You got to
learn to obey. Obey.
They were out of sight, so he whacked
the dough on the wooden chopping board and a cloud of flour rose in front of
his face. His nose hair sensed an invasion and he stood there like a waxwork,
anticipating a sneeze…Hack, hack of the heavy knife and the dough had
multiplied into three, which he rolled into balls. One fell on the floor, so he
dusted it off, slat it onto the floured board, and using all ten fingers, made
a wurst. And repeat. And a sip of schnapps. And repeat. Then he squeezed the
strips together at one end and plaited. If you looked closely enough, you could
see his fingerprints...He limped from the table and slammed the glazed challah
into the black stove.
The key turned in the front door. Frida threw her satchel and almost
knocked over the hat stand. She took off her klettejacke and hung it on the banister,
noticing for the first time that one of the bakelite buttons was loose. Taking
two steps at a time up the stairs, she stopped halfway.
‘Frida, how… how was your Wednesday?’
‘We travelled to Mount Brocken
‘And?’
‘Well, we did the same thing as last week. There were baskets to fill.
With gladioli. Fields of them. Dark orange, light orange, pale lilac and the
brightest yellow. The flowers were thrown away, though. They only wanted the leaves. Full of
vitamins. Helena said that they
grind them up and mix spices and beef fat to make supplements for the soldiers.
Oh, and there were the pretty primrose fields. Only, I didn’t get to work
there...Later on in the day, we moved to the mushrooms. We had to be careful to
choose the right ones. They all look the same after a while. If we picked the
wrong ones, they were thrown away by the checkers. Lola said some can kill you.
Fly agath...’
‘Fly agarics. The red spotty ones. So, does that mean you enjoyed it,
then?’
‘Enjoyed it?...’
‘I’m sorry, Frida, please come and sit with Papa in the kitchen. The
bread will be ready soon.’
‘I’m not so hungry…’
*
Karl thought back to when the letter arrived. He was alone. Normally he
wouldn’t open her mail. Well, it was rare that she did have mail, she was so
young. But he knew what was inside. He recognised the official stamp. There had
been a similar one a couple of years ago that they opened together. Who were
your grandparents? Your great grandparents? What religion were they? What did
it matter? Apart from their fingerprints, their blood, bodies and brains were
no different to the rest of humanity. She was only a Mischling second degree. A
quarter Jewish. No, no, not good enough, they replied. Thank the dear Lord. But
this time they wanted her. He threw the letter inside the oven.
*
Karl hobbled down to the cellar with the lamp. He felt the musty cold
seep through his apron, his dressing gown, through his home-made pyjamas, his
ripped vest, where wiry chest hair poked through, past the cracks in his rib cage, into his lungs, his liver, his heart, into veins that carried his blood. Halfway down, he paused to look at the wall. She was still there, framed in flaky gold. Her eyes sparkled with the warm glow of the lamp. He reached up to kiss her glassy lips. Forgive me, liebling?
He clasped the last dusty schnapps bottle from the rack and spotted a
battered book tucked into the brick wall, so he grabbed the pencil in his apron
to tease it out. It was Frida’s notebook, wrapped in a dirty yellow ribbon. He
looked up the stairs. The ribbon dropped onto the floor. He couldn’t read some
of it, so some words were lost forever. Perhaps she wrote it in the dark when
there was a power cut? He thought back to the last air raid. Nobody spoke.
In-between the bombs you could hear the faint scribble of her pencil. There was
a drawing. Of a tiny flower. And a knife. A knife?...
The early morning is the time when the wind blows in the mountains. The
earth creates what is new. The earth takes away what is old. Holy earth under
your heath. That’s what they tell us. But I’m not interested in that. I love to
dance. To feel the music pulsing in my blood. I feel alive just thinking about
it. I want to listen to Nat Gonella. I want to jump up and wrap my legs around
him and dance . Dance to the Tiger Rag. Let my hair fall all over my face. I
want to leave the H.J. and join the Swing Jungend. But I can’t dance. I have to
learn to be a good mother. To be religious, to be a good cook and provide for
my family. To produce the best for the sake of the country. Kinde, kirche,
kuche. Wilhelm told me of the Edelweiss Pirates. When I’m older, maybe I can
join. I can use the penknife that I cut the gladioli with to protect myself…
*
Frida ran down the stairs and opened the oven. She swiped the smoke away
with both arms and took the edge of her jumper to lift out the remains.
‘Papa? Papa? Where are you?’
He dropped the notebook and stumbled up the stairs.
‘Burned. What will we have for
supper, now?’
‘I thought you weren’t hungry, anyway…’
‘Why are you crying? It’s only bread.’
‘Frida, I knew that they would come for you…’
‘Knew who were coming?’
‘You know, last month…’
‘What do you mean you knew?’
‘You had a letter telling you to report to headquarters. But I burned
it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘About receiving the letter or that I burned it?
‘Well, both. This is not going to go away, Papa. We have to do as they
tell us.’
‘But I could have made it better for you. They dragged you away…’
‘I understand, Papa. You were trying to protect me.’
*
Karl thought back to the day that the officials broke down the door. One
went in the living room, one straight upstairs and one in the kitchen, where
she was eating her soft boiled egg. As the chair tipped backwards, a thin line
of glossy yellow trickled down her neck and her notebook fell out of her jacket
pocket.
*
He thought about having a little wash and perhaps getting dressed, but
where were his brown breeches? No doubt creased underneath a pile of other
clothes stuffed into the wardrobe. He rolled up his dressing gown sleeve and
stuck his hairy arm into a mountain of mottled threads. Then it dawned on him.
The notebook. It was still on the floor. He hurried down to the cellar. She was
already there, sitting cross legged on the floor, caressing the ribbon.
‘I can forgive you for the letter, but not for reading my diary. It is
supposed to be private, Papa.’
‘I didn’t mean to. It’s the drink. I’ll stop. I promise.’
He reached out to embrace her, but she gathered the ribbon and went
upstairs. He followed her, but stopped at the picture and smiled. Its fine, liebling. No need to worry. She has forgiven me… But do you still forgive me?
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