The Dark Room (7 page)

BERLIN, APRIL 1945

Helmut assembles his brigade on the rubble they have been piling up all afternoon. Their heroic barricade, backbone of the Reich. The sun is lower now, and the light just right. He takes one photo of them, and then one of the others takes a turn behind the camera so Helmut can be part of the group in the next exposure. With the fat boys and the boys with bad teeth, the old men and amputees. Helmut has a shovel in his left hand, and his right arm hangs loose and twisted, crowding his chest, which has narrowed again with the hunger of late wartime. All of the group look tired, most of them look serious. But the three or four who are looking at Helmut—their photographer having his picture taken—they are all smiling.

Helmut stands between them, relaxed, shoulders crooked, his
face upturned and proud. The city behind him is destroyed and soon to be divided. In a matter of days, a suicide will speed the Soviet invasion; the small mound of broken building beneath his feet will mark the line between what is British, what is French, and Helmut will not recognize his childhood home in the Berlin which is to come. But in this photo, Helmut is doing something which he never did in any of the many pictures lovingly printed by Gladigau over the course of his childhood. Helmut is standing high on his rubble mountain, over which Soviet tanks will roll with ease, and he is smiling.

Part Two

LORE

BAVARIA, EARLY 1945

Lore lies on the edge of sleep in the dark bedroom. She heard a noise a while ago, fell asleep, then woke again. Lying still, with the night wrapped quiet around her, frost-flowers blooming across the windowpane. Lore’s limbs are warm and heavy. She’s not sure now if she only imagined it, watching the walls and window and ceiling unfolding, and beyond them, the room of dreams.

A door slams, and the walls are back again, solid along the edge of her bed. Keeping her eyes closed, Lore listens. Hears her little sister breathing. Whispers.

—Liesel? Anne-Liese?

No reply: just the long sighs of sleep. Lore drifts. One minute, two minutes, ten. She doesn’t know how long before she hears the noise again.

Doors and voices. Lore is sure now, eyes open, waiting for the crack of light from the hall. The house stays dark; the whispers come from downstairs; she slips out of bed to listen.

—What is happening?

—It will be fine. Over soon. You will see.

Vati is here.
In uniform at the foot of the stairs. Mutti has her arms around him, a soldier stands to attention in the open doorway, and behind him Lore sees a truck parked in the road. The cold night slips over the threshold and through the banisters, settling around Lore’s bare feet. Her father fills the hallway. Her mother’s hands grip
at his sleeves and he calls her my Asta, strokes her hair, and she cries without tears. Mouth opening, lips twisting against the small, strained noise.

—Vati!

—Lore. My Hannelore. She’s grown again.

Lore’s forehead pressed against his shoulder, Vati laughs and Mutti runs a nervous hand across her face.

They work quickly: Vati emptying drawers, Mutti filling bags, the soldier loading the truck. Lore stands at the front door with Liesel. Sleepy and bulky, dress buttoned over her nightshirt, and a coat on top of that. It is dark, difficult to see, but her parents don’t turn on the lights. The baby wakes. Vati picks him up and sings to him, Mutti watches for a moment and then goes upstairs to wake the twins.

Lore’s sister holds her hand, stares at her father, her baby brother.

—We called him Peter, like you, Vati.

—I know, Lieschen.

Her father smiles. Lore watches him, too. Still Vati, but somehow different. From the photos. From the last time.
Not this Christmas, the one before.
He meets Lore’s eyes.

—Come on. I’ll get some blankets. We’ll make it cozy for you in the truck.

They drive for what feels like hours. Out of the village and into the valley. Mutti wordless with Vati in the front, Peter asleep in her lap. No lights. They drive in the darkness and the engine noise.

Lore sits in the back with her sister and brothers, on top of all their bags. Liesel sleeps, mouth open, the twins stare at the back of their father’s head. They are silent, sitting shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg. Heads swaying with the motion of the road, eyes glassy with sleep and surprise. Lore whispers.

—It’s Vati.

And they nod.

They stop in a yard that glitters with frost. There are people with
lanterns, and two beds in a strange room that smells of mud and straw. When Mutti blows out the lanterns it is no longer dark. There is a long window on the far wall, and Lore can see her father; his shoulders; a hunched, black outline against the gray dawn. She is cold in the bed with Liesel. He finds her an extra blanket, tucks it around her, and when he kisses her good night she smells his sweat, feels the stubble on his chin.

—Where are we?

—A farm. A safe place.

He whispers, Lore drifts.

—A good place to sit out these last weeks.

When she wakes again it is light in the strange room and he is gone.

It is a nothing-time between war and peace. Like treading water. Or holding your breath until a bird flies away. Weeks pass, spring arrives, windy and blue, and Lore’s days are long and shapeless.

The farm sits on the banks of a slow stream, tucked into the foot of a hill. Deep in the green of the valley. Lore knows there are armies on the march. Russians from one side, Americans from the other. In Hamburg they had the apartment, with the long garden and a maid. Even in the village, after evacuation, they had a whole house. Now they are here, and they are six in one room. Pushing the beds against the wall in the mornings, pulling them out again at night.

Lore watches the cloud shadows drift across the mountainside, remembers her father’s midnight visit in snatches, like a dream.
Over soon. You will see.
Months fall by and nothing changes. She does her chores, adjusts herself to the waiting, the war will be won soon.
Only a matter of time.

The weather is glorious. Liesel and the twins spend their days outside; in the yard at first, but that soon gets boring, and they venture out into the fields beyond. Mutti worries when she can’t see
them; paces the room and then shouts when they finally come home.

Most days, the farmer’s wife brings food. Bread, dumplings, sauerkraut, eggs, and milk. Sometimes there is bacon, or small, shriveled apples from last autumn. She stands broad in the doorway and saves her smiles for the baby and the twins.

In the afternoons, Peter sleeps, Mutti and Liesel darn the holes in their stockings, and the twins play under the table. Unable to contain themselves, they fill the room with their whispering games.

On clear days Lore can make out a small town in the far crease of the hills: the pencil-lines of smoke from the chimneys, the darker smudge of a spire. Lore listens for gunfire from the other end of the valley. Sometimes she opens the window a little, in case the battle noise is too faint to make it through the glass. Eyes searching the cloudless sky for the Luftwaffe, she imagines bombs in the valley, fire and death. Hears only birdsong.

At night, after Mutti blows out the lamps, Lore pulls an edge of curtain back from the window. In the morning, she opens her eyes to the chink of blue sky above her head. The last and first thought each day is of Vati, strong and clean-shaven, and of the end of the war. In the quiet dark of the curtained dawn, Lore imagines the valley transformed by victory. From high on the mountain she sees the parade through the villages, the fields thick with flowers, the slopes awash with people, sunshine in her eyes, hands holding her hands, voices raised in song.

Dusk, and Lore helps Mutti put the children to bed. Through the window she sees the farmer coming, and behind him, his son. Mutti pulls on her coat and Lore goes to the door but Mutti shakes her head.

—Stay in here. I’ll be back in a minute.

She goes out and Lore pulls the door over behind her, leaving a gap just big enough to watch the three figures standing in the yard.
The farmer has brought bacon, a small sack of oats, but he also wants to talk. Lore can’t hear what he says, but she can see his mouth set in the same blunt line as his wife’s. He points down the valley, and Mutti’s fingers fly to her face. The farmer’s son shifts his hard, flat gaze away from Mutti and spits on the ground. When he looks up, Lore feels his eyes on her and she ducks away from the door.

—Where’s Mutti gone?

Liesel is up and standing at the door. She leans her bed-warm body into Lore’s, shifting her to one side. Reaches for the handle, but Lore catches her arm.

—She said we should stay inside.

—Why?

Liesel twists against Lore’s grip, so she digs her nails into her sister’s skin.

—Ow!

—If you stay still I won’t have to hurt you, stupid.

Liesel starts to cry. The twins sit up in bed and watch their sisters tussle at the door.

—Now you’ll get it, Lore.

—No I won’t. Be quiet, Liesel, I didn’t pinch you that hard.

—Mutti will shout.

—Shut up, Jochen. Go back to sleep.

—We’re not tired anymore.

Lore tries to comfort Liesel, but she won’t look at her, keeps crying and pulling her arm away. Lore knows the twins are right: that Mutti will shout, and that it will be an unbearable night in the tiny room after that.

—Lieschen, please. Anne-Liese. If you stop crying, I’ve got something for you.

Lore climbs up onto the chair, takes the sugar pot off the top shelf in the corner, where Mutti keeps it out of sight. Liesel stops crying immediately, licks her finger and dips it inside. She sucks, dips, sucks, and lets Lore dry her cheeks, wipe away the evidence of their fight. The twins have been quiet, watching, but now Jochen gets up
and slips across the room to where his sisters stand. Jürgen follows, trailing the blankets behind him off the bed. They both lick their fingers, hold them out ready to dip.

—No. Not you two as well.

—Why not, Lore?

—Just go back to bed, Jochen. You too, Jüri. Please.

—We’ll tell Mutti you pinched Liesel.

—We’ll tell her you gave her the sugar.

Lore sighs and holds out the pot to them, but Liesel pushes it away from the twins’ reaching hands.

—No, Lore. It’s just for me.

Jochen shoves her angrily, and Jürgen drops his blankets, steps forward to stand next to his brother.

—Shut up, Liesel.

—No, you’re not allowed, Jüri.

—You can’t tell us what to do.

—I’m older than you.

—Lore said we could, and
she’s
older than
you.

Mutti stands behind them in the open door.

Lore’s stomach turns to water.

Mutti puts down the food from the farmer, picks up a cup from the table and hurls it to the floor.

They are all quiet now, except for Peter, who cries. Mutti picks him up and carries him to the chair by the far wall. She sits down with her back to them all.

—Go to bed. You too, Lore. Sleep.

Mutti leaves the lamp on, stays in the chair long after Peter has stopped crying. Lore lies next to Liesel and pretends to sleep. Watching through her eyelashes: her mother’s mouth smiling, murmuring to the baby, her mother’s eyes darting nervously around the room.

Lore remembers how Mutti cried, dry-eyed, standing with Vati in the hall. Thinks,
It is coming.
The end of the waiting.

•  •  •  

Morning, and the sun falls over the windowsill into the room. Mutti sits in shadow at the table, sorting through their things, deciding what to keep and what to burn.

—Why? Is Vati coming? Are we moving again?

Lore doesn’t get an answer. She washes the breakfast dishes, standing the bucket in the shaft of sun by the window, turning her back to her mother. She can see the twins playing by the pump in the yard, but she can’t hear them through the glass. Liesel is sitting outside by the window, knitting socks and rocking Peter in his pram. The glass is old and thicker at the bottom than the top. Her sister’s hands ripple as they work the wool. Behind her, Mutti’s fingers fly through pockets and schoolbags. Books and badges and uniforms piled on the table. Green wood cracks in the stove. Outside it is windy and the children play without coats. Inside it is hot.

Lore stocks the stove from the piles on the table and watches Mutti sorting through the photo album. She pulls out the pictures too precious to lose, slipping them gently out of their white corner fastenings, lining them up on the quilt next to her. These are then tied in a clean rag and laid in a drawer, while the album is added to the pile on the table. Lore works through the morning, watching their clothes and papers burn, balancing logs around the chimney to dry for later.

The photo album burns badly at first, too thick and full for the flames to catch hold. The blue linen cover browns and curls and Lore’s eyes dry in the heat from the open stove door. Liesel will cry when she finds her uniform gone, the twins will ask for their books. Mutti stares at the now empty tabletop, mouth slack, cigarette burning between her fingers. Lore closes the stove door and opens the vents; the pages catch and the job is done.