Made Men (7 page)

Pressing
his face to each window on the first floor, Rickard noticed that the raindrops
had slowed. People popped out of hiding like insects. At each windowpane he
understood more about his countrymen. He took a moment to stash the woman’s
coat, and his clothes, in the tunnel. The stolen garment smelled of lavender
and green wheat and sweat and rain and turmeric.

The
cheese lured him back. He approached with a throat click.

It paid to communicate correctly around
food
.

The
wheel of cheese was the size of a dinner plate. The twins gorged, but The One
Who Was Different supped with economy, preoccupied with a list. When the voices
and jangling keys announced morning, they marched—orderly and
prepared—to the tunnel lined with maps and newspapers and books on
philosophy and religion and chemistry. “Study the maps first,” said their boy,
“then the newspapers.”

He’d memorized them already
.

Finally
warm, full of cheese and cough drops, their pale, thin scholar carried an
armful of books to his cot to huddle under their blankets to read. For several
minutes, the twins returned to squat on the metal grate of the top stair behind
the panel to try to catch a glimpse of their
not-mother
.

F
räulein Gitte
smoothed her skirt. She started each day by sharpening pencils. She had been
trained to sharpen them at night before leaving, but they seemed somehow even
sharper if they were …
freshly
sharp.
The task was deliciously simple and early on she decided it was a
morning-appropriate chore.

There was little skill involved

Gitte
placed a hand on top the sharpener to stabilize it. Although she’d asked for
over two years to have the tool replaced, her boss was determined to repair it.
Hunched, angry, the building’s workman had come often to tighten and whack at
the device.

Still, it wobbled
.

Pulling
the sharpener to one side, leaning a hip to stabilize it, Gitte looked around
the large, quiet space as she turned the worn-out crank.

Her
throat felt better. Yesterday the familiar prickle, usually prophetic of a
longer illness, had set in early. Sucking lozenges, she had wiped her dripping
nose throughout the day, and had turned in early. There were books she would
like to read on her little bedside table, but instead she had mixed a cup of
hot tea and floated a crushed up lemon in it, added a touch of honey, then
drifted off to sleep before taking a single sip.

The
sharpener shaved smaller and smaller pieces from the pencil, and Gitte felt the
smoothness of the sweet spot, the diminished return that more cranking would
yield. She pulled the implement out of the heavy, old grinder, studied the
graphite tip, and pushed in the next dull implement. Tired, the sharpener
complained anew as she cranked away.

When the handle fell off, it wouldn’t
surprise her a bit.

Her
nose wasn’t dripping today—that was good. Gitte thought of other things
she was thankful for as each pencil became shorter and sharper. She culled the
ones with too many bite marks.

One or two were OK, but the really
chewed-up ones were disgusting
.

With
the tiny sticks arranged in short jars spaced along the counter, she next
tapped the stacks of age-yellowed index cards for people to write on. Soon,
their edges square, each neat stack was put near an orderly jar.

The idea of ghosts was fascinating.

Aside
from last night, she had stayed up too late reading about ghosts—for a
week.
The previous evening, after locking the
historic building up, (a cathartic if not lackluster operation,) Gitte had
walked the aisles, checking each bathroom with a lozenge in her cheek. As she
went along, the lonely woman felt the prickle from her throat move. It traveled
up the backs of each arm and leg as if unfamiliar fingernails tried to scrape
her awake. Involuntarily, she had arched her back, eyes wide and heart racing,
certain that someone was there in the echo-prone building with her. She had
even spoken aloud, the commitment of her eerie belief reinforced by the fearful
timbre of her own, hesitant voice.

Let me see you. I won’t tell. I’m not
going to scream or act like a girl.

Fräulein
Gitte smiled at the neat stacks of paper. She would have, though.

Screamed, that is.

She
had been bluffing to strengthen her courage. She
was barely
not a girl. Twenty-two was a girl to many.

Although
nothing crept out to declare itself, she had finished up quickly.

The
crowded walk outside was the same as always. Gitte had waved to her uncle for a
while, blowing him kisses across the wall, watching him smoke,
then
blowing a billowy kiss back. Lovely, modest Gitte had
smiled though she felt ill, trying to look strong for him, until he’d tipped
his hat. Then she had walked toward the café until the storm kicked up. Then
running,
worried about her thin coat and shirt and what her
already prominent nipples would do in the restaurant if her clothes were
drenched. She ate slowly to dry off, hunching forward to keep the fabric on her
chest from clinging to her, attempting to affect a nonchalance she absolutely
did not feel. The kind hostess had seated her next to a heater better than the
one in Gitte’s apartment. When no one was looking, she’d checked her wallet
quietly to see if she had the money for another coffee. The glow of people
sharing food (strangers, but non-threatening ones) was worth the few extra,
precious coins.

The
sky had cleared by the time she left. Only her shoes remained wet.

And the wall.

The
wall was wet, too, but not from the storm. The foolish structure cut through
the city carelessly—a wound that would never heal, but seemed only to
bleed wetly up, an elongated, irregular, makeshift scar. She glowered at the
eyesore on her way home. As she waited for the teapot to boil, she had looked
out the window for a while; others waved too, just like she did, to relatives
stranded on the worst side. Some even waved at sullen strangers who needed
encouragement. Women like her, boiling water for tea, looking out of their
windows at their worse view—at her.
At free people.

Why ghosts? Why now?

She
was on the west side, the FREE side. She had a renaissance of freedoms: to be,
act, say, do, buy what she wanted—and the reasons to do all of the
preceding—waved sullen hands at her, threw parched-lip kisses across the
scabby concrete barrier just hundreds of feet away. Why not live more fully in
the here and now? Should she ignore her silly, immature inklings? The
disembodied company, Gitte felt
certain, that
crept
about just out of sight?

No. Certainly the library was haunted.

One
ghost had taken some bites of her hand soap right from her drawer then
rewrapped it neatly. A chocolate bar she’d placed there went missing too.

The same night.

Even
if she was imagining things, they were welcome fantasies.

G
itte remembered
things from the camps.

The
first thing she remembered was her mother holding her. Train-weary, her parents
had whispered as they shuffled in a line. “They are splitting up families.” Her
mother had said. Her father took several steps back, shoving people in front of
him. Gitte had reached her hand out to him, but he shook his head.

“Pretend
you don’t know me. Chin up. Chest out. Look strong.” Her mother had
straightened and jutted out her chin and held her breath.

“Don’t
talk,” she’d commanded when they were next, then a man looked in her mother’s
mouth and pinched Gitte’s braid between his fingers and felt her knees and her
arms and handed them each a bowl.

“That
way.” He’d pointed to the left, a line so long Gitte couldn’t see where it led.
Everyone in the new line had bowls.

She
watched her father, weeping, trying not to drop her bowl. Her mother took the
thing and nested it tightly inside of her own. When they looked inside her
father’s mouth, he didn’t get a bowl. He got in a line to board a different
train.

She’d
never seen him again.

To
live, she’d focused on one thing at a time. When she did that things were
easier.

If she looked to the future she died
faster.

“No
one is your friend,” her mother had spat. “Don’t do favors. Take all that you
can.” A girl had dropped a piece of a potato, and Gitte had sweetly given it
back. Just a small chunk, the size of a thimble, but it was life.

“She
needs it,” Gitte had said, too weak to cry.

“No
one is your friend.” Her mother repeated. “Live NOW. However you can. Make
friends when the war is over.” It had been hard to. A ghost was easier to
believe in than a friend.

Like most others she’d known, they were
already dead
.

H
er library desk was
the only place she could keep things that felt truly secure.

Gitte
suspected that the superintendent of her building (a greasy, hunched,
shifty-eyed foot-slider) used his keys to lurk about in her apartment when she
was at work. Nothing had gone missing, though some of her personal things had
been moved.

Her underwear in need
of laundering, for example
.

Exasperated,
imagining the creeper crushing her unguarded items to his pitted nose, she had
taken to carrying
all
of her panties
with her in her purse. The clean ones she’d rolled like fabric eggs, in a small
box; others were kept, temporarily, in a small paper bag. She didn’t have many
clothes, to be honest, but she craved privacy.

It felt ridiculous to carry her intimate
apparel with her.

Slowly,
she had placed more of her things in locked drawers at the library. It felt
more like home should feel.

If she could sleep here she would, but
she would probably get caught
.

It
was a steady job. She was lucky to have work.

Maybe someday she would have her own
place.

The
sight of her top desk drawer gave her a thrill. That was where her ghost looked.
Somehow, she felt the ghost was benevolent. It would forgive her mortal
shortcomings and oddities. She tingled with excitement. There were books to
re-shelve …

Then she would look.

Purposefully,
the young woman started toward the cart of loose books, but the drawer was too
magnetic and her trajectory changed. Gitte arced in a giddy fishhook that
terminated at her desk.

Did the ghost like lozenges?

Inside
the
drawer—where the medicine had been—sat a wedge of milbenkäse. Crust
like a sea sponge, the cheese was neatly arranged on an index card.

A quarter of a wheel!

Her
arms and legs sprouted bumps. She flared her nostrils to pull the flavor of the
gifted cheese from the air. Nervous laughter escaped. Exalted, the young lady
attempted to savor the thrill by clapping her hands over her mouth, leaving
just enough room between her fingers to breathe.

Take, take, take,
give
.

Stunned
and giddy, Gitte eased herself into a nearby chair to consider the
implications.

April 2.
1962, 5:31
PM
.

T
heir
not-mother
. The one who smelled right, with the red bow lips
and the bouncy
steps.

It was her desk.

Her
feet clicked past the thin wooden panel. The librarian paused to slide a book
into its spot on a nearby shelf.

Ryker
studied the pocket watch they had found in the box containing lost things.
Earlier, his diminutive, vaguely reptilian brother had dismantled, cleaned, and
wound it. Lastly he’d tucked it into his left front pants pocket after risking
a journey (while the library was open) to check the time on the large clock on
one wall, so he knew where to start the rotating hands.

The where of the when
.

Though
their
not-mother
had stayed late, Ryker hoped she
might stay even longer … Scents lingered pleasantly wherever she had just been.
Gingerbread, gumdrops, horehound.
The
smell of warm water on copper.

The food smells were the best
.

Whipped
egg whites. Fresh, warm cream.

She
worked slowly. Seeming hesitant to leave, she sang something soft. The words
were redundant gibberish, but her tone was warm and comforting. The twins slid
the panel fully open, pulling the familiar books into the tunnel to make room
for their chins to rest on the shelf. Slowly, their chests and legs imprinted
the jagged diamond shapes from the metal-grate stairs; their bat-like ears
warmed from the air beyond the panel, tracked the lilting sounds their lady
pushed gently from her lungs. If they could, they would curl up at her throat,
feel the librarian’s larynx buzz gently with their fingertips and smell her
breath.

“I
want to look at her more closely.” Rickard nodded.

He did too
.

He
pulled the watch from his brother’s pocket.

5:32
PM
.

They
were becoming more human already. Without trying, each twin had mastered
impatience.

W
hile two aisles away,
Ryker glimpsed the binding of the book Fräulein Gitte swung cheerfully at the
end of her arm.
A thin volume, a guide to the proper chopping
of culinary herbs and what to do with them once chopped.
Her cart sat at
the end of their aisle, in the corner. Ryker had seen the cookbook before, and
for a moment longer he tracked their
not-mother
with
his ears. She would be gone for a while. The place for the book was upstairs.

Second floor, second aisle, second
shelf,
408
^th
book on the right.

With
a low tone, he slid the panel aside. Rickard followed. Thirty-two books
remained on the cart.

Sixteen each.

They
veritably flew.

G
itte returned to her
cart. There remained only a single book to reshelve. She trembled.

It had been half-full just minutes ago!

The
last book looked old. She wasn’t sure but felt it hadn’t been on the cart
earlier. Usually she pre-arranged the volumes on the long desk for more
productive re-shelving, but she hadn’t tonight. In no hurry to get home, and
with no money left to dine out until the following Monday, she had left the
publications jumbled. Since Gitte’s uncle worked late on Mondays, it would be
too dark to see him once he was off. Her uncharacteristic inefficiency gave
Gitte a reason to wander the aisles, to take her mind off of things. She’d let
her thoughts meander, wondering about her ghost. The prickles on the backs of
Gitte’s arms returned with each journey along the rear wall, so she had left
the cart there. Each time she retrieved another book from the cart, her
certainty increased.

Someone was watching her.

Gitte
felt certain that it was a good ghost.
A friendly one.

That was the type of spirit that would
leave her cheese.

She
was hesitant to touch the remaining book, though not for fearful reasons. She
was fain to extend the feeling, the fear-tinged excitement. “Thanks to you,
whoever you are … wherever you lurk—”

She
shook her head, face flushed, embarrassed.

“Not
that you MUST lurk … lurk was just … the first word that came to mind since I
can’t see you.” Doubt settled in.

Was she going mad?
Absurdity
or her lonely imagination fueling this?
Talking to
herself
?
If so,
did it matter?
Probably not.

“I
imagine what it must be like for you …” She rubbed her tingling arms, looking
about. “Can you float? You must turn solid when you need to … since you’re able
to move things around—I know that—but the mechanics of it all! I
have so many questions.”

She had to pee, she was so nervous.

“I’m
quite nervous, obviously, because all I’ve read about ghosts runs contrary to
what I’ve observed here …” Her hands weakened, shook, felt damp. “Gruesome,
most of the references … and arcane.”

Gitte
let the thought ebb.

What if she had insulted the being?

She
would force her very best manners, though she felt rather like clicking her
heels in celebration.

She couldn’t put the book back, of
course.

Planning
to take the well-worn book home, the young beauty paused.

Perhaps it held a clue?

But
what if she was expected to put it back … it was from this very aisle. At the least
she should look at its space on the shelf.

Pressing
the book to her bosom with bloodless, tight fingertips, quaking, she crept
;
scanning the backs of the books, glancing at the writing
on each spine as she went. Her suspicions—those of being gently examined
from some unknown spot—grew tumid. Expectant
.

First
shelf on the right, halfway down, Gitte squatted with her knees together and
leaned gracefully to one side to peer at the bindings. Two faded old books
leaned,
their backs swayed against each other, for support,
a gap between them.

The spot.

Trembling,
Gitte eased her hand into the hollow, caressing the tired books straight again,
then sucked in her breath; in the space between volumes sat the lens of an old
pair of glasses. A plate fit for a mouse, it cradled a bit of the cake … the
gingerbread she’d baked for the ghost … the treat she’d placed in the drawer
for the beneficent spook.

Her offering had already been shared!

A
gumdrop sat, lewd and proud, atop a tiny dollop of whipped cream.

Some otherworldly hands had served her
.

Breathless,
white-faced, Gitte freed her last doubts and began to laugh. Overcome, she
rolled, kicking on her back like a happy dog sunbeam-bathing on a summertime
rug, welcoming the waves of mirth and wonder that crashed over her.

Oh, she’d needed this
.

Wildly,
laughing into cupped hands as though trying to preserve some of her gleeful
exuberance, the librarian—a survivor of the camps—wiped the
laughter on the back of her tense, nervous neck to soothe it.

“Oh
please?” She sat up, tugging her skirt, combing her hair with her fingers. “I’m
Gitte … please come out where I can SEE you!” Eyes wet but dancing, Gitte
peered about, her bottom lip between her teeth and eyebrows
aloft—hopeful, high arcs. She knelt to peek across the hedgerows of
books, watching for an apparition … a glow, a light, a floating book …
anything. Minutes passed. Nothing.
Though the feeling that
she was being observed, even scrutinized, persisted.

“I
am happy to have a friend in you.” She announced with loyal conviction. Her
self-consciousness was gone. She wasn’t talking to herself, she now knew, but
to a kindred spirit.

Perhaps ghosts were like dogs? If she
seemed self-assured it might show.

She
retrieved the odd morsel, cupping the bifocal plate in her hand as though the
gumdrop were a lit candle. Hugging the book to her chest fiercely, she stopped
to collect her purse at her desk. Then, juggling the items, Gitte left, locking
the building behind her.

As
she sat on the foot-worn steps outside, with her long and shapely legs held
together, Gitte took a small bite of the treat with her fingertips. Ignoring
the stares from passersby, she licked her fingers. It was still light and with
nothing else pressing, she decided to visit the place her uncle knew to watch
for her.

Perhaps he would get off of work early.

The
world smelled different—
was
different—somehow now.
More full of promise.

He had! There he stood.

Gitte
wanted so badly to tell him about her ghost. She swung her purse, heavy with
the book, across her back, and held up the remainder of the strange little
treat for him to see. He couldn’t, of course, see it.

He was too far away.

Yet
he waved, and she waved back.

“I
love you!” yelled the girl, her tattooed number faded by her growth. He looked
side to side
, face in the shadows. Gitte imagined that he
smiled. The police on his side of the wall—no, that was wrong—on
the
oppressed
side of the wall were
cracking down on waving. One could stand to be seen, but one could not wave to
augment or validate the interaction. People were arrested for less. A tiny
cherry-colored glow flared as he lit a cigarette. Her uncle hadn’t smoked a
month ago. Were cigarettes calming?

She wouldn’t take it up. It seemed dirty
.

Just
seeing him calmed her enough. She had never smoked, but much of her family used
to.
Before the war.
So many of them were gone. He was
the last and lucky, she guessed, to be able to take up the habit at all.

R
yker and Rickard
pulled books into the tunnel and emerged from their burrow. After heating
themselves for a few minutes by a radiator, they made for the side door, easing
shut the latch on the folded card. Padding, now warm, down the alleyway in
their new-testament shoes.

They
followed her scent.

She
had paused at a place along the wall. Calves bunched, toe-tipped for elevation,
the librarian waved at a man in a hat over, what they knew from the newspapers,
the controversial structure. Their
not-mother
tilted
her head, blew a kiss, and craned her long, warm neck to see over the gathering
crowd. Workmen on the east side of the wall smeared mortar, placing blocks in
rows. Their
not-mother
wiped at her face. In two days,
if the men continued to place blocks at that rate, she’d no longer be able to
see him.

How would she know where to look?

The
newspapers were full of stories of families divided by the wall. Homes were
lost. Manmade landscapes changed each day. The man of interest to their
not-mother
, Gitte, held up binoculars. A scarf to her nose,
the librarian’s emotional composure had changed yet again. Though upset, she
seemed determined to hide her expressions from the man’s augmented eyes. Waving
in a more final way, she dashed to where the wall married a building, out of
the hatted man’s sight, then leaned against a newspaper machine, tin bearer of
consistent bad news, to collect
herself
—wiping
at her dripping face. She appeared isolated despite the ever-increasing throng
of bipeds and the odd quadruped.

“Closer.”
Rickard clicked.

OK.

Now
just feet away, Ryker hissed at a stray canid that paused to sniff one of their
librarian not-mother’s gingerbread-scented legs. Rickard stooped to read the
front page inside her unlikely perch. Ryker joined him to peep through the
glass. On the newspaper, an image showcased a less comely woman as she jumped
from a second floor window. He deduced that gravity had promptly pulled her
toward a large, circular bit of canvas held by a dozen men, but the outcome was
not provided; the picture served as human bait—coins—pushed into
the tin can were needed in order to turn the page.

The
building before them was the structure from whence the woman had jumped. Ryker
scanned the pavement below the window for blood. Blood contained iron, which
stained things.

No blood. She’d made it. He liked to
save money.

Workmen
inside the building set bricks into window frames to avoid more people leaking
to freedom. Oppression required people to oppress; these men had been tasked to
plug the holes.

A
crew with expensive-looking equipment pushed through to photograph the workers
from the street, though the images they collected seemed unworthy of paper and
ink, let alone coins. The lower floors were barricaded already; the windows
being sealed were higher—six stories up. Ryker wondered why building
levels were stories, in American English, which he and his brother practiced
when they could.