Stones From the River (19 page)

Trudi squatted down and stroked the cat’s back. Eva stepped closer, her expression a mix of curiosity and caution.

“You want to hold a kitten?” Hans-Jürgen offered.

Eva nodded.

“Here.” He reached for a striped kitten, but the cat snarled. One rapid paw darted out and scratched his wrist. He cried out and turned his face from the girls. With one foot he pushed the cat aside and snatched something fuzzy from where she’d lain, before she could spread herself across the remaining small shapes again, her eyes like embers.

Trudi wanted to console the cat, but she was afraid of frightening her even more. “Put the kitten back,” she said.

He hid it against the front of his faded shirt. “What kitten?”

“The kitten you took,” Eva said.

“It’s not even a kitten,” he said. “It’s a mole. A blind mole, see?” He held it toward Trudi, snatching it away before she could get it, and it was then that Trudi saw a rage in him that she recognized, a rage
that she, too, had felt at times, the rage to destroy, and she shuddered.

“Put it back,” she ordered though she knew it was too late.

He laughed. “And now—now it’s a bird. See?”

Holding the kitten by its tail, he whirled. Eva wailed, a long keening sound that echoed through the barn, while Trudi tried to hang on his arm. But he kept whirling, faster, the striped kitten flapping at the end of his outstretched arm, faster even, his face oddly illuminated like the faces of saints while they’re performing miracles. His fist opened and, while he kept whirling as though unable to stop himself, the kitten soared in a high arc toward the farthest wall, where its tiny body made an amazingly loud thud before it plummeted to the ground.

Eva stopped screaming and stood very still, both hands clasped across her mouth, but Trudi ran toward the kitten. Despite her horror, she already could feel the words she would use to describe to Sister Elisabeth and to her father how limp and sticky the kitten felt in her hands. She would tell them about the blood that seeped from its mouth, about its eyes that were dull as if covered by a bride’s veil. And she would remember those eyes, just as she would remember the rapid shadow of panic that passed across Hans-Jürgen’s face the following morning when he was called to the front of the class for twenty lashes with Sister Elisabeth’s wooden ruler. His back to her, he stood in the corner for one hour, and she felt certain that, even if she were sent to the other corner, he would not acknowledge her.

That Sunday, Herr Pastor Schüler spoke with Herr Braunmeier after church, and Monday morning Hans-Jürgen arrived in school with new bruises on his face and arms. His eyes were sullen, but once, when Trudi caught him glancing at her, she saw the flicker of revenge in his pupils. Though her hair started hurting, she forced herself to keep her eyes steady on his until he was the one to look away.

“Keep your window open tonight,” she hissed as she passed his desk on her way out of class.

He stood up, his shoulders and face above her, and she could see into the dark cavities of his nostrils. His hands rose along his sides as if to seize her and swing her around like that kitten.

“Hans-Jürgen!” Sister Elisabeth said sternly. Though she wasn’t old, she walked with a cane.

Hans-Jürgen grabbed his satchel and ran from the room.

“What did you tell him?” Eva wanted to know when she appeared at the pay-library with a bone for Seehund.

“To keep his window open. So the mother cat can come into his room and lie on his throat.”

Eva shivered. “And he will die a terrible death.”

“He will fight for each breath.”

“But the mother cat won’t get off him.”

“Not even when he screams.”

Their eyes fused as if in a promise, and they each let out a deep breath.

“Not even then.”

In preparation for first communion, Sister Elisabeth gave each child a rosary and demonstrated how you started the rosary by blessing yourself with the cross at the end of the little tail. Then you said the Apostles’ Creed, one Our Father, three Hail Marys, one Our Father, and—at the very end—Hail Holy Queen.

“Your rosary has five decades with ten Hail Marys and one Our Father,” Sister Elisabeth explained. “On these rosaries, each decade is a separate color so you can pray for the conversion of continents: black, of course, is for Africa; yellow for Asia; red for Russia; green for South America; and blue for Australia.”

“Can blue be for the Arctic?” Hans-Jürgen Braunmeier asked.

“The Arctic doesn’t count. Only penguins live there.”

Hilde Sommer raised her hand. “Why can’t we pray for penguins?” The strong, heavy girl was new in town and had fainted twice, so far, in church from the scent of incense.

The sister squeezed her lips shut, as usual when she got impatient, and when she opened them, she informed Hilde that, although there was nothing wrong with praying occasionally for animals, you only did so after you’d done all your praying for people. “Animals don’t have souls. Except maybe the donkey and ox who were in little Jesus’ manger.”

“The sheep, too,” Paul Weinhart reminded her. His parents had lots of sheep on their farm.

Sister Elisabeth nodded, a pained expression on her face as if already sorry she had ever mentioned animals at all. Her facial hair was colorless but thick above her upper lip.

Trudi raised her hand, and when the sister called on her, she said, “If the red is for a continent, it can’t be for Russia.”

The sister’s expression of discontent deepened.

“My father was there in the war. It’s on the same continent with Germany.”

Sister Elisabeth talked about the apostle Thomas, who had doubted that Jesus had appeared to the other apostles until he could touch his wounds. “The mere act of doubting is sin,” she said, emphasizing her words with a thump of her cane, and went on to tell the class how Thomas had redeemed himself by becoming a martyr in India.

To show the sister that she was sorry about doubting, Trudi stayed inside during recess to water the plants and clean the chalkboard. When Sister Elisabeth gave her a holy card of St. Agnes, the patron saint of girls, Trudi felt that sacred flutter inside that she sometimes got when she watched a procession or thought of Jesus dying for her sins. At home, she added the holy card to her collection of holy cards and practiced first communion in front of her mother’s gold-framed mirror. As she opened her mouth as far as she could, she wished Eva could go to first communion with her. They’d both wear white dresses and wreaths of white satin roses in their hair. Too bad Eva was a Jew. Jews couldn’t have communion. Trudi stuck out her tongue—keeping it flat and straight. If you didn’t keep it flat, the communion wafer could fall off. You were not allowed to touch it with your teeth. And if you spit your communion wafer into your handkerchief, it turned to blood.

While Trudi dreaded confession—the relinquishing of her own secrets—many of her classmates came to crave the rewards of confession. Once they got beyond the fear of kneeling in the somber confessional, they looked forward to the Saturday absolutions that turned their souls white and glowing. Like actors trained to produce tears on stage, they learned to awaken remorse. But their new souls would lose some of the purity by Sunday afternoon, after having shimmered through nine-o’clock mass. Within the next days, those souls would become slightly worn, and by the end of the week they’d be stained. The children imagined their souls to be somewhere below their hearts, cloud-shaped, elongated forms inside the rib cage. The pressure of ribs left imprints on souls, that’s how soft and pliable they were. And sins left long smudges like coal dust.

Sins and secrets—for Trudi they often were the same. Sins made
the best secrets. They swelled and breathed until a priest slaughtered them with words of absolution. The blood of the lamb, blood of the sins, died for your sins.
Your mother’s sins
.

Perhaps the Braunmeiers’ cat never knew how dangerous she could be to Hans-Jürgen, because he kept returning to school every day, long after his bruises had healed and been replaced by signs of new schoolyard fights.

In spring, soon after the French occupied the Rheinland, he arrived in church with his right arm in a sling. His father had caught him with matches in the barn, and this—the danger to the building and livestock—was far worse to his father than what Hans-Jürgen had used the matches for: to burn the fleshy pads on the paws of a tomcat. Perhaps some of the scratches on the boy’s face and neck had been caused by the tomcat, who must have fought him, but the arm had been broken when his father had flung him to the ground and stamped out the flames from the match that had fallen from his son’s hand. Yet, looking at Hans-Jürgen’s rigid face, you’d swear that the fire had not died but had settled in his eyes instead, where it would continue to flare.

Trudi knew that fire only too well, knew it from inside herself. Sometimes she would love fiercely. Sometimes she’d feel a bolt of hate tear through her. She’d feel mean. Kind. Afraid. Like that Wednesday when the second graders were about to play
Völkerball
—nation ball—a game that had become increasingly popular since the French occupation.

Sister Elisabeth chose the team captains: for the French team Eva Rosen, and for the German team Hilde Sommer, whose fainting spells during mass had earned her the compassion of the nuns. The sister never let any of the boys be captains. Boys were unmanageable, she said, a quiver of dread in her voice, and made them sit at their desks with their hands on the wooden surface to keep them from digging in their pants for a slingshot or something even more menacing. Girls, the sister believed, were not nearly as endangered by mysterious urges.

Eva and Hilde stood in front of the other children, and whenever they called a name, a girl or boy would get in line behind them. Trudi willed Eva to pick her for her team, even though the French would start out in the middle of the field, dodging balls that were aimed at
them from the German team until they’d all been hit. Then, the teams would switch positions, and you’d start all over again.

But Eva kept staring right past Trudi while the lines behind the captains were getting longer until everyone had been chosen. Except for Trudi.

“Your turn,” Eva reminded Hilde.

“I don’t want her on my team.”

“But you have to.”

“You take her.”

“It’s your turn to pick.”

When Hilde said something to Georg Weiler behind her, he started to laugh. Georg was a fast runner and usually got picked right away. He was wearing his
Lederhosen
and a regular boy’s shirt.

“We always lose if she’s on our side,” Fritz Hansen shouted.

“Children!” The heavy sister brought her palms together in two sharp raps. “Stop this. Right now.”

“I don’t want to play.” Trudi pretended to tie her shoelaces so that the others couldn’t see she was crying.

“You have to play, Trudi.” The sister’s voice was stern. She took Trudi’s arm and led her to the end of Hilde’s line.

Trudi’s legs felt shorter than ever before, and as she followed the rules of the game—trying to pelt members of the French team, and running from the ball when the French team became the attacker—she felt the other children moving around her in one fluid mass, felt their oneness as though she belonged to a separate species. Inside her bones was a pulling as though her growing were struggling to come through. It often felt like that, especially in her back and legs; still, those aches were nothing compared to the shame she felt.

After school, she hid behind the gym until all the children were gone. From the Theresienheim came the smell of stale water, and a goat bleated from the direction of the bicycle shop. She reached into her pocket and counted the money her father had given her to buy a loaf of bread on the way home—fifteen banknotes, each for one million
Mark
. The bills used to be for one thousand
Mark
each, but the Reichsbank had printed the new amount diagonally across the original. She could still remember when bread used to cost a few
Pfennige
. But every day things were getting more expensive: in just a month, a pound of chicken had gone from six million to ten million
Mark
. To ride the streetcar you had to pay seven million
Mark
.

Herr Abramowitz, who’d become a member of the Communist Party, sometimes talked with Trudi’s father about the poverty that spread with each devaluation of the money. People were afraid. Many had lost their jobs and were scrambling to do work they felt contempt for, like selling sewing machines from door to door or hiring on as day laborers. They felt humiliated when the court claimed their furniture against unpaid bills and the bailiff pasted the evidence of their failure, the
Kuckuck
—cuckoo, on the back of a cupboard or desk. And when they saw food behind the windows of stores and restaurants without being able to buy it, they became only more jealous of Jews like Herr Abramowitz and Fräulein Birnsteig, who were successful and could afford whatever they wanted. Some people had chosen suicide over the disgrace of being poor. Nearly all agreed that the Versailles
Friedensvertrag
was degrading and starving them all. They longed for the life they had known before the war, a life of order which—when they thought of it—seemed etched by sunlight.

Many people had lost their savings and pensions. And Trudi had heard Herr Hesping say that all of them would be giving up even more. As she walked toward Hansen’s bakery, she pondered what she’d be willing to give up if she could be tall. Definitely an arm. Perhaps even a leg, since she would still have one long leg. An arm would be easier to do without. What if she had to give up both—an arm and a leg? It would be impossible to walk with crutches if you didn’t have both arms. Unless—and she tried to picture this—unless the leg and the arm you gave up were on opposite sides.

She raised her right knee and hopped forward on her left leg, imagining herself with a crutch in her right hand. Though it was hard to keep her balance, she managed to propel herself toward the street corner on one leg until she stumbled. Still—as she sat on the ground, she knew she would give up both. If her guardian angel came up to her this moment and guaranteed that she’d be tall in exchange for one arm and one leg, she was ready to let her guardian angel saw both off right here.