The Karnau Tapes (4 page)

Now we're standing in the hall with our coats and scarves — on. The nursemaid tells Herr Karnau a few things to look out for, like we're not allowed to play on the floor or sit in a draught because we catch cold so easily — if one of us gets it the others do too, she says. Herr Karnau looks at us all in turn, then picks up Hedda and walks on ahead, out into the street. Papa's chauffeur has already loaded the suitcases. It isn't anything like as cold as the nursemaid thought, but it's drizzling, the rain is almost like mist, it glistens in the beam of the masked headlights. Papa hasn't come to say goodbye, and I'd have liked to ask him about Herr Karnau. A few cars are already driving along Hermann Goring Strasse. The air smells funny, like autumn leaves rotting, like porridge when the milk catches.

Papa's chauffeur opens the door for us. We fit in the back, all five of us. Hedda and Holde share the fold-down seat, they lie there and go on sleeping under a big woollen rug. Holde's head is propped against the cold window-pane; her hair quivers whenever the car goes over a bump. Herr Karnau looks back at us from the passenger seat and talks to Hilde and me in a low voice. We're sitting on the back seat with Helmut between us, he's resting his head on my lap and dozing with his eyes open. The rain is pattering on the roof, the windscreen wipers are squeaking. The chauffeur doesn't speak, he's staring straight ahead through the windscreen, which keeps steaming up. Herr Karnau has a dog at home, he says it's looking forward to seeing us. How did Herr Karnau know that Hilde loves animals more than anything in the world? Did he ask Mama and Papa about us? Quietly, so as not to wake the two little ones, he says: 'Coco has black fur, it's specially soft on his neck, that's where he loves being tickled.'

Hilde's wide awake in a flash. 'Coco?' She giggles. 'That's not a dog's name. Have
you
ever heard of a dog called Coco, Helga? We've had a red setter since the summer, but he's out at Schwanenwerder, not in town. His name is Treff, that's a proper dog's name.'

But Hilde says she's sure Coco is a darling in spite of his funny name. The car comes to a stop and the chauffeur toots his horn twice. We wait until a woman comes out of the house where Herr Karnau lives. She pulls on a raincoat, then opens an umbrella. She's his housekeeper, Herr Karnau says, and she'll be helping to look after us while we're here. He doesn't have a wife, I suppose. Papa's chauffeur comes inside just long enough to deposit the suitcases in the hall, then he has to drive home. Now we're all alone in a strange apartment.

Coco really does have black fur, he romps around and wags his tail, sniffing at everything: our shoes, our coats and my hands, which tickles. Herr Karnau shows us our bedroom. We're all going back to bed to finish our sleep.

I lie beside Hedda on the sofa bed. Herr Karnau can't have thought of getting a cot for her, I suppose. Are the others asleep already? The bedclothes smell different from the ones at home. The pillow crackles when I rest my head on it and the blanket we have to share is too small. Hedda grumbles and clamps one end of it under her arm. The light goes out. Was that Herr Karnau? I hear him whispering to his housekeeper outside, the door's ajar and a strip of light falls across our bed.

Footsteps are going down the stairs. Someone says goodnight in a low voice — Herr Karnau's voice. He locks the front door and goes into his bedroom. It's pitch dark now the strip of light has disappeared.

*

Breathing regularly, almost silently, in the darkness, that's how they're sleeping in the room across the passage, and each child has a respiratory rhythm of its own, five different rhythms in concert. They weren't really awake on the way here, their slumbers were scarcely interrupted by our drive through the night, and they all went back to sleep at once. Now the apartment is filled with a faint, nocturnal sound that won't subside before morning, not until the five of them wake up. I've never before heard children breathing in their sleep; the only breathing I know is my own, before I drop off. A patter of paws on the floorboards. The door to the living-room, the children's makeshift dormitory, is ajar. Unable to sleep for curiosity, Coco gently nudges it open with his nose. He'll now be sniffing my guests, I suspect, and carefully sampling their unfamiliar scent.

How those children stared at me earlier on. The girls had their hair so neatly parted that strips of scalp showed through it like scars, and they all wore plaits. Who's going to braid their hair when they wake up late tomorrow morning, tousled and homesick?

Coco reappears, but he pauses at the head of the bed and plants his forepaws in front of my face, sniffing the covers as if his master, too, is a stranger now there are strangers in the house. His moist, warm breath fans my nose. At last he jumps up, gingerly picks his way across my body and curls up between my legs. He heaves a noisy sigh. Nothing more for a long time, just the five children next door, clearly audible again. One of them, probably Helmut, gives a sudden, nervous cough. The others, their deep sleep disturbed, change position in turn: bedclothes rustle, someone sighs in the throes of a dream. Then the dog's breathing predominates again.

I'm the first to wake up. Nothing stirring anywhere. A moment's curious silence prevails every morning, just before the noise of the day erupts. I glance into the darkened living-room. The children are still in the depths of their nocturnal world. Dry, stale air. Peering through the gloom, I see that all the beds are rumpled. The blanket has slipped off the sofa bed on to the floor, one corner of it tightly clutched in Helga's arms. Little Hedda is lying alongside with her nightie rucked up, and a bare leg is dangling from Helmut's camp bed near the window. I quietly close the door, go to the kitchen and draw the curtains: a grey day after yet another night of blackout.

The war has lasted a year already. It's Wednesday, 30 October. Seven-thirty, and not really light yet. The pigeons across the street are just waking up. They poke their heads out and do a little preening. Then they fluff themselves up again and thrust their beaks back into their plumage. Their sleeping quarters, the ledge between the tailor's shop on the ground floor and the first-floor windows, are white with glutinous droppings. I put the kettle on for my first coffee of the day. Do the children like malt coffee too?

I try to imagine how it would have tasted to me as a child, on my child's tongue. What flavour first filled my mouth, even before I cleaned my teeth? What was it, every morning, that ended the drought besetting my gums overnight? I run my tongue round my mouth. It was a drink made with water, not milk, as far as I recall. Camomile tea? No, children don't like camomile tea, it's something you're made to drink when you're ill. Sleepily, I put an imaginary cup to my lips. It's filled with .. . Rose-hip tea, that was it, with plenty of sugar. So hot, the first sip used to burn my tongue.

I light my first cigarette. Unnoticed on their ledge, the pigeons are watching some passers-by on the pavement below them. They crane their necks to follow the progress of two dawdling schoolchildren. A woman, probably late for work, overtakes them in a hurry. So the children will have some hot, diluted fruit juice. But what about Hedda, the youngest? Perhaps she's used to hot milk? The five of them will be waking up in a stranger's home, so the least I can do is offer them their usual breakfast drink without having to ask them first. They may easily take fright unless I do, because the vague sense of menace inspired by my unfamiliar apartment — and, no doubt, by my unfamiliar person — will haunt them until they leave. I wonder if they like bread as early in the day as this?

My own favourite breakfast as a child was apple flan with a sugary glaze on top, straight from the baking tin, before daybreak, in a dimly lit kitchen, the teaspoon cold in my hand as I huddled there in my nightshirt. How long I always took to eat a slice of flan. So little of it would be gone by the time my parents were washed and dressed and standing there, ready to leave, that I had to take big bites and wolf them down. Either that, or it was wrapped up and put in the bread bin, and the rest would be waiting for me at supper that evening. And then, instead of a teaspoon, I'd find myself holding my father's hand, or my mother's, as I was towed along the dark street to kindergarten.

The way those children got up in the dark last night, at this time of year. Not a murmur from any of them. Are they already so inured to discipline? Helga and Hilde are hardly out of the nest and Helmut must be far too young for the Hitler Youth. Or are they irresistibly attracted, as I was at their age, to the early hours of the morning?

Eight o'clock will soon have come and gone, but I can still detect, in this dim light, a little of the sensation I used to have of being part of a night in whose clear air every footstep, every whispered word, re-echoed before vanishing without trace into the darkness. Every sound held some special significance: a bird chirping once or twice in its sleep; a sudden rustle of leaves as mice or hedgehogs foraged by the roadside, unaware that they would soon be overtaken by daylight and humankind. It was as if noises were created anew each morning; as if voices had first to be born in travail and refashioned at daybreak; as if night were entirely devoid of harsh cries, loud voices hailing each other across the street, and the peremptory tone of which so many people are capable — all acoustic impressions calculated to strike terror into a child; as if shouting had died away and even idle chatter could originate only in the light of the sun, after that brief respite during which my breath evaporated like warm mist in the chill of the night. That's how it was while the street was deserted except for the few muffled figures I saw every morning, known to me only as sleepy silhouettes and not as the noisy, wide-awake people they doubtless became as the day wore on.

It wasn't within my power to prolong the darkness and make those strangers' voices sleep on while a parental hand continued to tow me through the residue of the night that would inevitably, menacingly, transmute itself into the world of imperious voices, of clamour and commotion. On I went, so firmly yanked along by that grown-up hand that I almost had to run to keep up with the adult beside me. It was as if I had to traverse that region as quickly as possible, as if passive surrender to light and noise — to the diurnal transformation of all those ghostly morning figures into figures with voices — were the only course open to me. Only the flying foxes in my album were exempt from this. They never flew in sunlight, only in the darkness that lent still further intensity to those black bodies, as if their wings had swallowed the last of the light. They alone could have preserved me from the day, enshrouding me in their soft wings and immersing me in lightlessness. Such was my morning world, so far divorced from the world of daylight that I could never have finished off my half-eaten slice of apple flan during the day. That could only be done in the evening, long after the return of darkness.

The row of pigeons comes to life at last. Another bird, which probably spent the night on this side of the street, lands on their ledge. Startled, they proceed to strut to and fro. One nearly tumbles off. It spreads its wings as it falls, flutters in my direction, and disappears from view overhead. Will it have occurred to my housekeeper to bring the children some pastries? I'm sure I gave her plenty of coupons. Children get special allocations, full cream milk for Hedda, genuine honey, butter too. Rationing has now been in force for over a year, but I still haven't grasped the various categories and entitlements. Where have my tobacco coupons gone again? Did she take them with her by mistake?

I pour boiling water on the coffee. Will we fit round the table, all six of us? Can Hedda feed herself yet, or will the housekeeper need a place too? One thing's for sure: she's so little she'll have to have a cushion on her chair or she won't be able to see across the table. The first of the pigeons glides down to the pavement. There goes another. They peck around in the gutter and waddle out into the roadway, undisturbed. Still no traffic at this hour.

I sit down at the table with my coffee and light another cigarette. Coco emerges from the bedroom. The invariable morning routine: first he briefly rests his head on my lap and asks to be fondled, as if to reassure himself that we still belong together after the intervening night. Then he trots round the kitchen and sniffs every corner: yes, it's still the same room as it was last night. Finally he watches the pigeons outside. They're now perched everywhere, on window-sills, roofs, gutters. Everywhere except the ledge across the street, which is now deserted. Coco whimpers in frustration as the first flock circles above the rooftops before flying off. I can hear the children talking quietly in the room next door. Eight-thirty already. I must get dressed, Coco wants his morning walk. It'll never get really light today, I can tell.

*

Hilde and Holde must have woken me up, they're whispering together in bed. Why are we all sleeping in the same room? Hedda's tossing and turning beside me, Hilde and Holde are giggling. I remember now: we're in a strange house — we're staying with that friend of Mama and Papa, Herr Karnau, and all because we've got a new sister. We didn't have to go away the other times, the nursemaid looked after us while Mama was in the hospital. Now there are six of us. Mama did have another baby, but that one doesn't count, nobody ever saw it. The little ones don't even know that Mama had another brother in her tummy. Once, when I was little, she had to go to the hospital in a hurry, but she didn't bring our other brother with her when she came home. She was very sad and ill for ages. Papa took me on one side and told me it would be a long time before we got another brother or sister.

Otherwise there'd now be seven of us — no, eight counting Harald. Harald is Mama's son too, but he's much older than the rest of us and he doesn't live at home, he just comes to see us sometimes. Harald's a soldier. Is that why he's not allowed to live with us, because Papa isn't his father? Papa likes him all the same, he even gave him a motorbike once. Mama used to be married to someone else, but that was long ago, we weren't born then. We don't know Harald's father, but I'm sure Papa does.