Silence (15 page)

Chapter 29

1943

The winter of 1942/43 was icy. Old Höver brought Yuri and Fedir into the house in the evening and let them sleep on the kitchen bench. Wilhelm continued his checks on the Höver farm. He did not notice this breach of the rules on the accommodation of prisoners of war, but one day, at lunchtime, he found Yuri and Fedir eating with the Hövers. Wilhelm was beside himself. “You promised me you would abide by the rules. Eating with the enemy is forbidden.” He roared at Yuri and Fedir, “Out into the barn! Or you’ll be leaving here before you know what’s what.” Höver, unimpressed, said, “Stay where you are. We work together, so we can eat together.” He turned to Wilhelm. “If you think I’m going to turn communist because I eat with one, I can set your mind at ease. I’m not a Nazi either, even though I’ve had dealings with you for years.”

Yuri told her about it during one of their secret rendezvous. They met once or twice a week, stood clinging to each other tightly for half an hour, then parted, frozen through. That evening, at the end, he had fallen silent and then whispered, “Therese, I’m worried. We’re a danger to the Hövers, to Fedir, and to your parents.” When she considered their fear-filled secrecy, his phrasing seemed absurd to her. They were standing in the freezing cold, concealed and shivering, and yet they were a danger to others. He talked about not meeting anymore, and her heart raced. “Less often,” she suggested, but after two weeks of seeing each other only once a week, they resumed their old routine.

These half hours with him kept her going; the days without him seemed lifeless; they were time she had to put behind her, like an obstacle between them.

He said, once, “When we haven’t seen each other for several days, I’m afraid you don’t exist, that I’ve only dreamed you.”

She went to Heuer, the photographer, and smiled into the camera for Yuri and no one else. On the day after Christmas, in the evening, on the frozen lake, she gave him the picture. He lifted her up and whirled her through the air. They kept slipping on the ice, stumbling and catching each other. The night-black sky filled the gaps between the snow-covered trees. The twigs and branches glowed like a white spiderweb, shielding their high spirits. The only sound was the crunching of their shoes on the ice and, from time to time, a suppressed gurgle of joy.

They were like children with a secret zest for life, dancing to unheard music. Once a squadron of bombers rumbled overhead, pushing onward to where the war was. It was not here; it was far away. It could not be where they were.

Therese Mende sat in her armchair and felt weak. It was nearly noon already, and the sun was taking over the sky. Luisa had opened the sliding doors onto the terrace, and a light breeze filled one of the soft, cream-colored blinds. She called her housekeeper and asked for an espresso. She had missed her morning walk and wanted to make up for it.

Sometimes she did not think about the war for days at a time, but simply forgot it. And in that peace that belonged to them alone, they would stand wrapped up in each other, one body, one breath. Hands whispering, searching, insisting, under their coats. When they released each other in the small hours, it was like a tearing apart, and the days that followed, during which they could not see each other, heaped the hours, minutes, and seconds into great towers that seemed insurmountable.

And in the face of all the adversity, she had never in her life been so strong, with an energy that lifted her soul and carried all before it. Yuri told her once, “In my country we say, ‘True love is a circle. It has no end.’ ” She accepted the saying like a pledge. Like an ancient, incontrovertible truth.

She went up to her dressing room.

When one is young, one has no idea that love persists, even when the other person is gone. Like a phantom pain. And then that pain is like a ring. It has no end.

In the factory office she had made friends with Martha and Waltraud, two colleagues of her own age. Waltraud’s fiancé was at the front, and Martha flirted with every man who came into the office wing.

It was a Monday in mid-February. At lunchtime Martha asked her, “Listen, do you know Wilhelm Peters?” Therese was surprised. Martha told her she had met him at a dance that weekend. “He kept asking me to dance, but all he did was ask about you. Talked about you constantly, wanted to know who your lover was, claimed you were with someone from the factory.” She pouted. “I think he’s completely in love with you. So I don’t stand a chance.”

Therese choked back her feeling of sickness and asked cautiously, “What did you tell him?”

Martha laughed. “Well, that he needn’t worry. If she had anyone in the factory, I said, I’d know about it.”

Therese could hardly breathe, and Martha’s voice sounded strange in her ears. “He’s good-looking, that one, makes a good impression. I could go for him,” she heard her say, and then it was just scraps of sentences: “. . . probably jealous . . .” and “. . . won’t give up so easily . . .” and “. . . often standing by the factory gates . . .”

When they went back to the office, the metallic clattering of the twelve typewriters seemed to hammer at her, and she was unable to put together a single clear thought. She worked mechanically until the evening, and as she rode her bicycle home and felt the damp cold cooling her face and head, she slowly regained a sense of inner order. She had not forgotten Wilhelm in the last few weeks. Not Wilhelm. But his interest in her, which now felt like a curse. Her thoughts came thick and fast. Until now, he had thought his rival was to be found in the factory. Martha had seen him at the gates several times. Would he now start watching her at home too?

That evening she went to see Alwine, whom she had neglected in recent months. Her friend welcomed her in a friendly, almost effusive manner, and at first she was uncertain how to go about asking after Wilhelm without reawakening Alwine’s old jealousy. But Alwine raised the subject herself.

She smiled conspiratorially. “So tell me,” she said excitedly, “who is it?” Therese looked at her wide-eyed, not knowing how to answer. “Oh, come on,” cried Alwine happily, “the sparrows are chirping it out from the rooftops. What’s his name?”

The questions caught her unprepared, and when she began to lie, she saw suspicion on her friend’s face. Therese lowered her head in embarrassment and asked, “What do they say?”

Alwine laughed with relief. It was her old, infectious laugh, and it brought back their previous intimacy. “More than anything else, people say you’re making a big secret of it.”

She thought it was important to Alwine that there was someone else, that she, Therese, was no longer within Wilhelm’s grasp. And there was this overwhelming fullness inside her, this urge to share her happiness. She took her friend’s hand. “You must never betray it,” she whispered. “Promise me.” Alwine’s eyes opened wide and round, and Therese called to mind all the secrets they had shared and kept as schoolgirls. She told her about Yuri. When she said his name, Alwine put her hand to her chest. She said, “You mean . . . a Russian?”

Therese Mende remembered every detail of that moment; she felt, even today, how she had been gripped by fear, how her heart did not want to take the next step, and how her knees went weak.

But then Alwine stroked her cheek and said, “Of course, that explains why you’re making a secret of it.” She looked intently into Therese’s eyes. “No one must find out, especially not Wilhelm.”

Her relief was boundless. They sat together for two hours, whispering and laughing just like old times. It was Alwine, in her ingenious way, who suggested a solution. “The best thing is to confirm the rumor and say he’s a soldier.” And she went further: when they saw each other again two weeks later, she had made contact with a friend from her time in Cologne. “He’s an officer in France. He’s engaged, but one of his men has agreed to write to you regularly,” she said, beaming. Therese held her breath, close to tears; she thought her friend, with her high-spirited approach to life, had called attention to her secret. Alwine reassured her. “I wrote that you needed to protect yourself against an admirer’s unwelcome advances, and a lover on the front was the best way.”

From then on, she received regular mail from France, and Alwine made sure Wilhelm found out about it. In one of his first letters, the soldier, a private, asked for a photograph. She could not afford a new one, and it did not feel right to give a stranger a copy of the picture that was intended for Yuri alone. In the New Year, she put it among the pages of the letter she wrote to thank him for his efforts.