Dissonance (39 page)

She had it explained and sat shivering, thinking. Then she reached up and took the gun from Gnade, and shot herself in the temple, falling onto the soft, green grass in a crumple of tissue and work clothes.

‘See, men?' Gnade called. ‘See how easily these Poles will turn on you? That's why you have to be firm, and do as you're asked.'

He looked down at the body.

‘The mean, and the stupid,' Herbert whispered into Erwin's ear. ‘I don't know which is worse.'

Gnade left the body in the grass, and they continued on. Erwin walked alone. He took out Luise's letter and continued reading it. His eyes stopped and dwelt on the words
mean
and
stingy
and
spiteful
.

And in this translation of his mother's behaviour he heard the words
diseased
and
damaged
and
hurt
. He could hear Luise saying what he'd always thought, and he wanted to thank her, for explaining the one thing he'd never understood.

That night Erwin returned to the church. He left the door open and a warm, pine-scented breeze blew in, carrying paper-dry summer leaves and dust, the torn page from a book and a bottle top. He found a pair of candles, placed them on the bare altar and lit them. He didn't know who they were for: Madge, Luise, the woman with the plaited hair. They were just there, for any sort of spirit or ghost or memory that blew in the door.

Then he sat down on the front pew, taking out a tobacco-scented letter (written on the back of some old Mendelssohn) from Schaedel. He unfolded it and started reading. There was news of his teacher's wife, and kids, and life around the conservatorium.

He looked up at the harmonium, sitting open, inviting. Someone had placed a jam jar full of daisies on top, and next to this, a matchbox full of cotton wool, holding a small baby tooth. He sat on the stool and looked at the tooth, and then picked up the matchbox and took it out. He rubbed it between his fingers and it was cold and smooth. ‘Carol,' he whispered. Then he switched on the harmonium, put the Mendelssohn on the stand and cracked his fingers.

‘No,' he could hear Schaedel saying. ‘You'll ruin your bones. They're only small,' and his mother, ‘Do that and your fingers will stop working.'

‘Why?'

‘It leads to arthritis. You'll be twenty years old and your hands will be frozen.'

‘Mum …'

‘You don't believe me?'

Erwin could still hear her – whenever he sat at a keyboard, whenever he studied a score or played a chord.

He started to play. The notes were blurred and muddy, electronic instead of percussive, humming and farting like cattle with bloat. After eight lines the music ran out. Instead of stopping he found himself improvising, repeating the chord progression as the melody shifted and changed, stopped, restarted and palsied on top of it.

Then, he fancied he heard the notes forming a pattern, laying down a trail of sound that perfectly fit the words in his head.

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,

Dominus Deus Sabaoth …

He took the envelope from Schaedel's letter and flattened it out. Then he drew staves across it, added a clef and time signature and started to write out a melody and verse.

Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua …

Suddenly he could hear it all: the ‘Sanctus' of his requiem, ringing out through the low, dusty rafters of his country church, shaking windows and pictures on the wall, drifting out of the door, into the night.

Hosanna in excelsis …

‘Can I sing it for you?' a voice asked.

He stopped and turned around. ‘Carol?'

Carol squinted as he looked at the notes on the envelope. ‘I think, perhaps, I can.'

‘Shall we try?'

And then he started again, cueing Carol with a nod, playing softly at first, until the boy had the melody in his head, and then prompting him with subtle movements of his body.

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini,

Hosanna in excelsis …

When he'd run out of song, he stopped. He turned and smiled, and said, ‘Note perfect.'

Carol shrugged. ‘Passable.'

Erwin extended his hand to the boy. Carol took it, and Erwin almost crushed his slight hand. ‘It's an Australian greeting,' Erwin explained. Then he remembered the tooth. He picked it up. ‘Is this yours?'

‘Yes,' Carol replied. ‘A gift.'

Erwin glowed. ‘Well … this is the best present anyone's ever given me.'

‘It's all I have to give,' Carol explained.

‘Thank you,' Erwin said, taking the boy around the shoulder. ‘I'll keep it here, in my pocket.' He dropped it in his tunic pocket. ‘The problem is, I have nothing to give you.'

For Carol the gift had already been given, in every note Erwin played, and every time he reached over to touch his arm.

They played and sang together, quietly, full of purpose, a musty harmony that filled the church and fields and gravel roads of Bilgoraj belt; that rose in the warm evening air, receding into the purple sky like a lost balloon, becoming smaller and smaller until there was nothing.

When they were finished, Erwin turned to him and said, ‘Perfect.'

Carol smiled. ‘I remembered it. I've been singing it at home. My mother asked what it was and I told her the soldier in the church taught me.' He sat on the stool beside Erwin. ‘I wrote to David.'

Erwin didn't know what to say.

‘I asked him why he'd left so suddenly.'

Erwin looked down at the keys. ‘I don't think they had any choice,' he explained. And then looked puzzled. ‘Where did you send the letter?'

Carol looked ahead, at a picture of Jesus struggling with his cross. ‘I gave it to a soldier,' he replied. ‘He said he'd put it with the others.'

Erwin was silent.

‘Do you know what they said at school?' the boy continued.

‘What?'

‘They said they'd all been shot. Everyone, even David.'

Erwin looked away. ‘No, I don't think they would've done that.'

‘Someone said they saw them being marched towards the forest.'

Erwin started playing the Mendelssohn, softly, almost fidgeting with the keys. ‘They were headed for the train.'

‘That's the other side of town.'

Erwin stopped. ‘Or trucks … or something.'

Carol was staring at him. ‘You'd tell me, wouldn't you?' he asked.

‘Of course.' Erwin started playing loud block chords with both hands. ‘So, are you going to help me with this?' he asked.

Carol stood up. ‘It's low. Could you put it up a few keys?'

It had already begun when the truck arrived in the Bilgoraj market square the next morning. Nine ropes had been dropped from the long, iron balcony of the town hall. They moved in a warm breeze that smelt of fresh bread and tar from nearby road menders.

‘What's this?' Erwin asked Herbert, as they climbed down from the back of the truck. Herbert shrugged, but then they saw a painted sign, stuck up in a window below the balcony: ‘We died because of a friend. She killed a German soldier, who was here to bring peace to Bilgoraj. As his family suffers, so will ours.'

‘I didn't think he'd do it,' Erwin said.

‘He has no choice,' Herbert replied. ‘Otherwise …'

Soldiers from the Second Company had herded the shopkeepers and basket weavers, the clerks and cabbage growers, of Bilgoraj from their shops and homes. They were made to stand behind a cordon, waiting, watching. The mayor had moved to the front, and he was trying to reassure people. A few women were crying, and one was screaming hysterically, falling to her knees and grasping a soldier's leg before he pushed her away.

Eventually Wohlauf arrived, got out and leaned against the side of his car, talking and laughing with his driver.

Some children had returned to their parents, and some were still in class groups from where they'd been summoned from school. Three teachers were moving around them, saying, ‘When we tell you, bow your heads and pray to the Virgin. Father Litvinoff will lead us.'

As the priest stood staring at the ground, wondering.

‘This will turn them against us,' Erwin whispered.

‘They already hate us,' Herbert replied.

When the truck came there were more raised voices, and crying, and screaming. Small groups surged forward, but the soldiers linked arms to hold them back. The men of First Company watched quietly.

All of the hostages had their hands tied. There were a pair of middle-aged men, unshaven, in vests; a young woman; a grandmother wearing an apron; a young man, no more than sixteen years old; Carol.

Erwin could feel his hands shaking. He managed to place his rifle against the truck before he felt his legs weaken, and give way. He sat on the ground, and after a few moments Herbert helped him up. ‘What is it?' he asked.

‘The boy,' Erwin replied. ‘I've been teaching him, in the church.'

Herbert shrugged. ‘Unusual … someone so young.'

‘Christ,' Erwin muttered, sweating, studying the boy's face as the truck was backed up to the ropes, as a small group of soldiers climbed up, each selecting a hostage and placing a noose around his or her neck.

Most of the nine were silent, stony-faced, resigned. Some bowed their head to help the soldiers, to get it done. But the young man, and Carol, were crying, looking about for help, for a solution, an explanation, for someone to say, Yes, come on then, it was only a joke.

Carol's face was white, and drawn – terrified. As the noose was put around his neck he looked at it, and then at the soldier. He asked a question, and then the soldier explained something. His legs collapsed and the soldier supported him under his arm.

By now the people of Bilgoraj were frantic. Cousins, uncles, aunts, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, were screaming. Wohlauf was still leaning on his car, his arms crossed, his face set hard. His driver offered him a cigarette but he refused.

Erwin saw Gnade standing by himself in front of a bakery. He ran over to him, and stood fighting to get his breath.

‘Lieutenant?'

‘Hergert?'

‘Please, sir, the boy …?'

Gnade looked at Carol and smiled. ‘We found him on his way to school.'

‘I've been teaching him, in the church on the main road.'

Gnade stared at him. ‘You're a musician, aren't you?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Well …' He stopped to think. ‘Perhaps …' And then nodded his head. ‘No, how would it look?'

‘I could – '

‘Let it go. They're a musical people, they'll find someone else.'

Erwin heard the truck start behind him.

Gnade's face had hardened. ‘Go back to your squad, Hergert.'

Carol had stopped crying. He closed his eyes. ‘Where are my parents?' he asked, although he knew, could see them standing in the middle of a field of beans.

Erwin heard a dozen thin voices, praying, and the crunch of an old gearbox. He turned and ran, as fast as he could, away from the town square. He didn't stop until he found an alleyway, and then he hid between two bins, crying onto his arm, growling in pain.

Chapter Four

This was a book about German cinema. Madge was sticking in a photo of Zarah Leander; the film star was smiling, holding her hands to her chest and gazing longingly towards a distant mountain peak. Madge rolled her hand across the photo and glue seeped under the edges. Another woman looked at the glue, and then at Madge, and Madge said, ‘What?'

‘Do you want a rag?' the woman asked.

But Madge didn't answer, eventually using her sleeve to wipe the excess glue.

Another woman, at an adjacent table, started crunching a piece of peanut brittle. Madge looked at her, frowning, watching a brown bolus of toffee churn in her mouth like fresh concrete in a mixer; she noticed her square jaw, straining to crush the nuts, and heard the squelch of saliva and toffee. ‘Close your mouth,' she said.

‘Pardon?'

‘You sound like a cow.'

The woman shook her head. ‘Whatever it is, Madge, don't take it out on me.'

‘I shouldn't have to listen to that.'

‘Goodness, some days, Madge. You can be a miserable old cow.'

Madge stood up and her chair fell back. ‘Me?'

‘Sit down.'

Madge walked over to the woman. ‘Miserable? Is that what you think?'

‘Yes.'

Then, before she realised she was doing it, Madge pushed the woman back in her chair and she fell to the ground. Madge knelt beside her and placed her hands over her face. ‘I've been perfectly civil, haven't I?'

Several of the other women stood, and tried to pull her off.

‘You're a piece of work, my girl,' Madge continued, pushing her down. She could feel her hands shaking and her limbs turning marble hard; she could feel heat in her face and her hair falling in wet clumps. She could feel a spirit in her head, and chest, and it wasn't her. It had taken over.

She fell back on her arse and sat staring at them; she could feel her heart racing.

The woman sat up and spat out her peanut brittle. ‘You're mad,' she said.

Madge was alone. No one stepped forward to help her, or defend her. She looked at them all, one by one. Then, in English, she said, ‘Rotten filthy Krauts.' She stood up, found her bag and walked from the room. She climbed the stairs and struggled, dragging her feet, through the foyer of the publishing house.

‘Mrs Hergert,' someone said, but she was already through the front door, shuffling along the grey-brown cobblestones, every gap and crack filled with mud and mortar dust, brick crumbs and splinters of wood. She weaved in and out of couples and businessmen, around fruit carts and behind the public lav on Hermann Goering Strasse.

The world was a blur of frock coats and overalls, the peaked cap of a Red Cross sister and an earring that refracted a spark of red, orange and yellow light; the voices were the sounds of gramophone music, as the turntable slowed and the needle scratched out the last few shards of dying sound; it was cold, and yet warm; it was sunny, and yet overcast with the shadow of everything she'd lost, and was losing.

She stopped and stepped into an alleyway. She looked at her hands, and they were still trembling.

Just like the doctor said, she thought. Slowly … slowly.

She could see his face with his little sculpted mo and Dumbo ears.

‘This will be the hardest part, Madge,' he was saying. ‘When it starts … affecting your personality.'

She'd stared at him and taken a deep breath. ‘Nonsense,' she'd whispered. ‘What would you know? You're an old, old man.'

She heard a tram and turned towards the road. She took a few steps out onto the footpath, into the sun, and saw the big electric box sparking towards her.

It's time, she thought.

She stepped onto the gutter, and then onto the road. It was only twenty feet away, and coming fast. Fast enough, she guessed.

But then it was gone, and she was left standing in the gap between two parked cars.

‘Erwin,' she whispered, and she realised why her legs hadn't moved. She heard a Bach fugue and knew. ‘Silly woman,' she whispered to herself, straightening her blouse and wiping her forehead with her sleeve.

Ten minutes later she was climbing the stairs to her apartment. As she stood searching for her keys she heard the phone start ringing inside. ‘Damn,' she said, sorting through butter menthols, lipstick, an almost empty purse and three snot-clogged handkerchiefs.

‘Damn it,' she repeated, and then she tipped out her handbag, watching the mess settle at her feet, finding the keys and then fumbling with the lock as she waited for the phone to stop. ‘Coming,' she said. ‘Hold on to your horses.'

She jammed the key and twisted it but it only bent. ‘Christ, is that you, Erwin? Wait, wait, I'm coming.'

She tried the key again and this time the door slipped open. ‘Coming.' She ran to the phone and scooped it off the cradle with a single, swift action. ‘Hello?'

‘Mum?'

‘Darling, why haven't you called? No, no,' she apologised, ‘you can't, I know. How are you, you're not hurt?'

‘No, Mum, I'm fine.'

‘There's been no fighting?'

‘No, Mum, nothing. Just police work, you know … police work.'

‘Of course. No sprains or strains or chills?'

‘No, Mum, nothing. Just boredom. I'm guarding a reservoir all day.'

‘Is it full?' Madge asked, and immediately wondered why she had.

‘Is it full?'

‘It doesn't matter. As long as you're safe and healthy.'

‘Of course. And how are you?'

‘I'm fine, we're fine, don't worry about us. There's not so much meat around, and everyone's tired and crabby. With all the air raids … but apart from that …'

‘Is Luise there?' he asked.

‘No, she's out … somewhere.'

‘Is she due soon?'

‘Soon, perhaps, I don't know.'

Erwin stopped to think. ‘So, you're feeling
well
?' he asked.

‘Of course. Why wouldn't I be?'

There was a long pause.

‘Nothing?' he asked.

‘No … you know me, as fit as an old mallee bull.'

Erwin wanted to say it, but couldn't. ‘You know, just because I'm here doesn't mean …'

‘Nothing,' she insisted, pausing, still struggling to get her breath. Finally she said, ‘It's good you can telephone.'

‘I asked,' Erwin explained.

‘Well, that was nice of you.'

‘Because of this letter I got, from Luise.'

‘What letter?'

‘Mum, are you two getting along?'

‘Of course.'

‘It doesn't sound that way.'

Madge's voice hardened. ‘Why, what has she said?' she asked.

And then Erwin explained, reading her excerpts from the letter. When he'd finished Madge said, ‘That's just a lot of drama, isn't it? She has that tendency, doesn't she?'

‘Mum?'

‘What?'

‘You've gotta help her.'

Madge's voice shot up an octave. ‘I help her. Shall I tell you what I do? Shall I tell you about the nights I get up?'

‘Mum.'

Madge stopped. Her voice softened and she said, ‘Come on, darling, we don't want to talk like this, do we? We don't want to argue, we don't need to.'

‘Mum, all I'm saying is give her some room. It's hard for her.'

‘It's hard for all of us.'

‘Mum!'

‘Fine, I won't say a word.'

‘Promise?'

They spent another few minutes discussing Erwin's war, and Madge's numerous friendships at the publishing house. And then she said, ‘Son, I think it's time we went home.'

Erwin was surprised. ‘What about my … That'd be good,' he replied.

‘What's this country done for us?' she asked. ‘Stinking war.' She stopped, realising she wasn't on the phone at Killalah.

‘Maybe when you're discharged,' she whispered. ‘I miss the smell of wet stubble, don't you?'

‘I miss the smell of mowed lawn,' he said. ‘That's the best smell of all.'

‘Maybe you can teach,' she suggested.

‘Yes. There's always plenty of work.'

‘Or maybe we could get those vines in order, and make wine.'

There was another long pause.

‘Well, my time's up, Mum.'

‘Good-o. Look after yourself, darling.'

‘What can happen? I could fall in?'

She laughed. ‘People drown, you know.'

‘Just my luck,' he said.

‘Goodbye, son.'

‘Love to you, Mum,' he fumbled.

‘Of course,' she replied. ‘And you … love to you.'

She put down the receiver, although not properly. He listened as she walked across the room and gathered the ­contents of her bag. He smiled as he heard her keys, a cough, cracking knees; then he heard a door open, muffled words, a greeting perhaps, a sharp cry from Frans and Madge saying, ‘Thank you very much.'

‘What?' he heard Luise asking.

‘If you have a problem, come and tell me. Don't go writing letters to Erwin. In Australia, that's what we call gutless.'

‘What choice did I have?' Luise replied, and he heard her voice getting louder as she walked into the apartment.

‘You're trying to turn him against me, aren't you?' Madge asked, following her.

‘Don't be so dramatic.'

‘You want him to leave me, don't you?'

‘Madge.'

‘And then you'd make sure he never sees me.'

‘If you're going to start, I'll leave.'

‘Go then.'

Silence.

‘Mum,' Erwin shouted into the phone.

But the argument just continued, and he kept listening, until the man beside him started tapping his watch and frowning.

Later that night Madge took a pen and paper and started writing:

My dearest Son,

It was good to hear your voice today …

She restated the details of life in Hamburg: sawdust in their bread, gas masks that couldn't even keep the smell of tallow out, a Rembrandt exhibition, a free concert by Strauss, Mrs Hauptmann in 3G, with her husband and three sons all missing in Russia. And then …

I have the right of reply, don't I? I didn't want to say anything on the phone. I didn't want to upset you, but Luise has only given you a version of the story. Last week I came home to find her asleep in bed, and Frans crawling around. He'd gotten into the cupboard and found rat baits. I couldn't be sure if he'd eaten any, but then I smelt his breath, and it was acrid. So, I took him to the hospital. The nurse gave him cod liver oil and he vomited and guess what, there they were, three of them, and the doctor said if they hadn't been removed they would've killed him.

I went home, and she screamed at me for taking him out, and I said, Well, you just about killed the boy, and then it was on for young and old.

Then, on Saturday morning, she went out to the shops and left me with him. Well, to cut a long story short, there I was, at four in the afternoon, parading up and down the street looking for her. I found her in a coffee shop, asleep with her head on the table, smelling of alcohol.

Fuck off, you miserable old cow, she said to me.

She dragged herself in at two in the morning – arguing, bitter, angry – which describes her most of the time now.

Let me tell you, Erwin, without a word of a lie, I've often had to take Frans away from her, for an afternoon, or day, just to ensure he's safe.

When she was finished she took the letter, folded it, sealed it in an envelope and wrote her son's name in black ink: ‘Erwin Hergert, Police Battalion 101, Poland.'

Then she settled down to sleep, hearing the tram's bell in her head, seeing its grille and cursing herself for having such weak thoughts.

Cloudy, with a cool breeze, but warm, so that Erwin sweated in his tunic, and his sleeves and collar were damp with sweat. His cheeks were red, flushed, like the afternoon of his recital at Elder Hall.

How many years ago was that, he wondered. Two, three, five, ten, a hundred? I was a kid … a kid.

Where his face wasn't red it was bone white. He felt his heart racing and wondered, as he did most days, if this would be the morning or afternoon when his luck ran out.

He thought about his son. How his forehead was creased in one spot, and how he had dimples that collapsed into deep cavities – wrinkles and secrets full of everything he might never learn or love about Frans Hergert. Deep-blue eyes with a hint of aquamarine, the pupils bordered with a thin, black line; and honey-coloured skin that would burn dark brown in the depths of a long Barossa summer.

He could still hear the boy, in the background on the telephone, crying because of Madge. He wondered if he could survive the old girl. Could anyone? As she grew wilder and more miserable, descending into an old age of venom and spite, failed dreams and the endless capacity to blame someone else for everything that went wrong.

Could Luise survive? How long? Weeks, months? Certainly not years.

Frans would never know his grandmother – as she died a slow, painful death, alone, sweating and screaming, clutching chair handles as the bacteria brought her to her knees.

‘Maybe,' he whispered, and he stopped. He felt Luise's letter in his pocket and looked ahead, at Gnade, leading his company through the forest.

It's worth a try, he thought, and he was off, jogging, hitching his rifle across his shoulder as his feet sank into the carpet of pine needles on the forest floor.

He slowed, and quickened, and felt his uniform growing wet and cold. Light fell in lines, squares and difficult trapeziums on the ground, and then there'd be a cloud, and nothing. He passed the other soldiers, holding their rifles, looking at him strangely and wondering what was wrong.

‘Frans,' he whispered. ‘Frans …' But no one heard him.

After a few moments he was beside Gnade.