The Empire of the Senses (8 page)

After some minutes, the soldiers started getting up, glancing around sheepishly because no one was hurt.

But Lev could still hear the sound of bullets buzzing through his ears, as if a chorus of bees encircled him.

5

Berlin, 1915

In the early morning, when the pale violet light filtered into his bedroom, Franz whispered his prayers. He pressed his forehead against the icy glass windowpane, his lips moving silently. He had requested that Marthe not lower the wooden blinds before bedtime because he wanted a view of the night sky. Possibly, a very small possibility he knew, he would see the Red Baron flying his bright plane across the blanket of night, saving them from the English, saving his father who’d been gone over a year now, and saving his mother, and his sister too. Even though they were safe at home, his mother cried yesterday when the old man who delivered the mail did not have the little brown postcard. She received one every week, and when the little brown postcard was delayed or lost in the mail, she yelled at Franz for dropping his soup spoon or for playing with the brass button on his sailor suit or for losing his mitten in the snow. When they went outside yesterday afternoon to look for the mitten, their eyes scanning the inner courtyard of the house where he’d played with Wolf, a sheen of dazzling white covered the gray stone as if a winter sandstorm had transformed their familiar surroundings into an unrecognizable landscape of blankness. It was clear the mitten was absent from the iron garden chairs arranged in a desolate circle, absent from the lonely oak in the center of the courtyard, a withered version of its former self, and absent from the benevolent statue of St. Peter now shrouded in powdery snow. Josephine drew her black shawl tighter and tighter around her shoulders, turning round and round, as if a full circular view of the courtyard would somehow reveal the missing mitten. Her smooth motion reminded Franz of the
ballerina inside Vicki’s jewel box, the dainty figurine rotating to a melodic nursery rhyme until the lid closed. By the time Josephine faced Franz, her eyes were swollen and streaming tears, and Franz wondered if the tears would freeze on her cheeks, like the long pointed icicles that they broke off and sucked. He wanted to take her inside before the tears could freeze. He had a terror that if she did not warm herself by the fire, the rivers on her face would become permanent icicles affixed there, as sharp and pointed as fangs.

It had begun to snow early this morning, the crystalline flakes sticking to his bedroom window. The snowflakes told a story about the Eastern Front, where his father was fighting, and about the Red Baron, who was flying his red plane to get there, to greet his father, to present him with an award for courage, to ask if he had a son. “Yes, I have a son,” his father would say, and he would show him the photograph of Franz in front of the Christmas tree, wearing his Sunday clothes, the white shirt with the wide lace collar. The baron would hold the photograph up to the sky, and he would pronounce in a clear ringing voice, “He will become a great German soldier and fly planes.”

Franz stood by the window in his flannel nightgown, his bare feet on the wooden floor, knowing Mother would fly into hysterics if she saw him without slippers. She would say he was trying to catch his death after only having just recovered from the grippe. But it was still early; she would not open the door yet. School remained distant until she opened the door and the process of washing and dressing and eating began, all in preparation for the brisk walk there. In class, Herr Bedderhoff might call on Franz to recite the “Cavalier’s Song” from
Wallenstein
. Franz turned away from the window and concentrated on the oil painting of Mitzi, the family dog, a black schnauzer. His father had captured the dog’s true essence: the prominent bushy eyebrows nearly covered his curious eager eyes, and his salt-and-pepper beard was perpetually coated in saliva, as pictured here. Franz always stared at this painting when he could not remember the words exactly. In a harsh whisper, he sang, “To horse then, comrades, to horse and away! And into the field where freedom awaits us, in the field of battle man still has his worth. And the heart is still weighed in the balance.” The last
line always troubled him. Franz paced his bedroom, treading lightly, not wanting to wake Vicki in the next room, who would surely ruin this sacred ritual by barging in and wanting to play. When he refused, she would cry, and then Mother would hurry in, and these magical morning hours would be lost.

Franz plopped down on the floor next to his bed and hugged his pillow into his chest. What of that line about the heart in the balance? Yesterday, after Herr Bedderhoff had made them recite the song three times, and then a fourth for good measure, Wolf’s arm shot up defiantly. Herr Bedderhoff appeared surprised when Wolf asked what the last line meant. Bedderhoff’s neck turned pink, which had only occurred one other time, when his front trouser buttons were undone. After Wolf asked the question in his piercing high voice, Herr Bedderhoff arranged his face into a contemplative gaze and answered that we all must keep up our spirits and dismiss horrid rumors only used to dismantle German pride.

“Is that how we must keep our heart in the balance?” Wolf had persisted.

Herr Bedderhoff said of course that’s what it meant, and then ordered the boys to take out their colored pencils and a piece of paper.

But Franz believed Bedderhoff did not really know the meaning of that last line because his voice had cracked slightly, and his neck had remained red and white for a long time afterward. But his father would know, because his father read many old and important books. Through the glass doors of the bookcase, Franz would catch his reflection in their spines. After dinner, his father always read in the sitting room by the fire, but he did not like the children to disturb him unless they were willing to listen. Only then would he read aloud, reciting the story about Hamlet’s dead father, who became a ghost, or how Viola loved a prince so much she dressed as a boy to win his heart. That particular story was Franz’s favorite. Mother would sit nearby, embroidering, and occasionally his parents would comment on a piece of family gossip or a news item from the paper. Franz thought that it must be very dull to be an adult, and to be married. In the winter evenings, his mother and father grew tired and quiet and they sat as still as statues, listening
to a radio program. They did not laugh unless they were entertaining company, and then they laughed too much, as he could always hear the hearty relentless laughter of his father and the breathless protestations of his mother; their intermingled gaiety funneled down the narrow hallway as he tipped into sleep.

But their voices had been replaced by a deafening quiet since his father left. There were no more lavish dinner parties, and Mother dismissed Marthe early. Mother said of course everything happened earlier because it grew dark at 4:30. In November the clocks were set back, and what did Franz expect? That they not change the clocks just so he could stay up as late as he fancied? “In that case,” she had joked, “you’ll have to write the Kaiser, expressing your complaints and what you propose as an alternative.” But it was not falling back an hour that bothered Franz. The new ghostly silence permeating the halls was crisp and singular, as if they were waiting with held breath for the renewal of salt rations, for the news of English soldiers slain by the thousands, for the recovery of the red mitten, for the brown postcard to arrive in the mail. Franz much preferred the shared silence of his parents when his father was home. Knowing they sat together in the sitting room by the light of the oil lamp, which shed an amber glow, and knowing that in about an hour he would listen for the sound of his mother’s heavy dress brushing the floor past his bedroom as she looked in on him and the cadence of his father’s walk as he passed by Vicki’s room and their conspiratorial whispers as they headed toward their sleeping quarters, arm in arm—well, now he only heard the isolated ticking of the grandfather clock and the skeletal rattling of the pipes attempting to push heat through the radiator grates and his mother’s weightless step as she gravitated toward sleep, hoping it would take her earlier and earlier each evening.

Franz sat cross-legged on the floor, feeling sleepy. The scent of baked apples floated into his room underneath the door. Marthe had possibly opened the inner sanctum of the oven, to check on the shriveling golden skin, and if this was true, then there will be baked apples for breakfast, a rarity since the war. Under his bed, Franz had built a secret shrine to the Red Baron. Using an old shoebox as the foundational
structure for his panorama, Franz placed the baron’s model red plane in the foreground, along with a photograph of the baron’s kind, brave face, a photograph he filched from his mother’s armoire. On the back of the photograph, someone had written in cursive:
Victory is imminent
. Franz did not know what
imminent
meant, but he assumed it had something to do with the Red Baron, a code name the English wouldn’t understand. When Franz slept on the floor, he turned the panorama to face him so that he could fall into sleep with the baron’s handsome face staring back at him. And he dreamed of shiny apple-red fighter planes bombing French villages, and of the baron dodging bullets, his plane dipping and swerving with the wind.

The bedroom door opened. “Franz!” The thick hem of his mother’s dress approached. “What are you doing on the floor like this?”

Franz gazed up, blinking. His mother’s face, framed by her wheat-colored curls, looked drawn and pale. Shadows fell under her eyes.

She knelt down, touching his forehead.

Over her shoulder, he saw Vicki in the hallway, sucking her thumb. Her teddy had been abandoned at her feet, dropped on its ear.

“Why have you been sleeping on the cold floor?”

Franz heard his own voice well up inside his throat, a choking needling sound. He might not get baked apple for breakfast. “I wanted to share their suffering.”

Josephine searched his face. “Whose suffering?”

“The soldiers defending the fatherland.” Franz fingered the edge of her organza skirt. Luckily, the panorama was hidden under the bed. He heard Marthe opening the oven in the kitchen. The smell of baked apples grew stronger. His nostrils flared out to catch more of the buttery golden scent.

Franz could tell his mother was deciding whether or not to get cross with him. He continued, his palm gathering up more organza, “They all have to sleep on the hard cold ground in the middle of the forest. In tents. While I’m here, warm and cozy.” He paused. “It’s not fair.”

“Mutti,” Vicki called from the hallway, in her black wool tights, her belly distended.

Josephine turned around, her teardrop earrings spinning with her. “Vicki, wait a moment please.”

She pulled Franz into her chest, stroking his fine golden hair. “No, it’s not fair. It’s not fair at all.”

He soaked up her clean pine scent, which always reminded him of summer Sundays on the Wannsee, when Papa would take out a rowboat and they would eat mustard sandwiches in the tall high grass. They would find a quiet spot surrounded by firs, and Mutti would sing “Bei Mannern” from act one of
The Magic Flute
. The color bloomed in her cheeks when she sang.

At breakfast, Marthe served the plump golden apples on a plate, with stewed raisins on top. She spooned an extra dollop of raisins onto Franz’s apple, saying that he needed to grow strong for when Father returned. “He’ll expect to see you much taller by then.”

Franz stabbed his apple with his fork and smirked. “We need more nails for the
nagelsaulen
. Today’s collection day.”

“Again?” Marthe asked.

Josephine stood up and rummaged through one of the kitchen drawers. Every school boasted its own
nagelsaulen
, a wooden cross, studded with nails in commemoration of the war effort. Everyone was expected to hammer a nail into the structure every Friday to praise the soldiers.

Josephine parceled out five nails for Franz and then five for Vicki.

Studying the nails in the palm of her hand, Vicki said, “Will this save Papa?” Half of her apple remained on her plate, sunken in at the core.

Josephine sipped her coffee. “Papa is safe and sound.”

Vicki fingered the nails. “Someone said Papa and other soldiers could be locked up in England and never let go. That they would be slaves!” Vicki’s dark eyes widened, startled by her own words.

Franz glared at her, stabbing the last piece of apple with his fork. “That’s stupid.”

“Greta said her mother sent clothing and cigarettes and pictures of Germany because they’re captured.” Vicki stared at Josephine,
who continued to sip her coffee, savoring the last drops of milk and sugar. They’d nearly run out of their sugar ration, and yet ten days still remained until the first of December.

“I’ve told you both to avoid listening to rumors.”

Marthe turned on the radio, rolling the dial to the opera station. Strauss. Josephine always preferred Strauss. His waltz “Roses from the South” floated above the children’s heads, cascading over the milk-splashed glasses and the plump raisins Franz had not eaten, despite Josephine’s efforts. She restrained herself from waltzing around the kitchen table as she sometimes did when no one was home.

Josephine put down her coffee cup. “In fact, today I’m going to the church. We’re sending off love packages to the front. And I’m sure Papa would appreciate your drawings in the package, along with the bottle of strawberry soda, his wrist warmers, and the chocolate bars.”

The children stared at her.

“Well, go get them.”

Franz and Vicki returned with their drawings. All children had been instructed to draw a picture for the front. The schoolmasters encouraged the use of bright colors and cheering images, such as an idyllic farm, a tranquil lake, a family reunited.

Franz proudly unrolled his drawing of the Red Baron’s plane shooting down English soldiers, whose heads lolled off their stick necks. Large teardrops of blood ruptured from their hanging limbs. He had included a ring of fire encircling the picture, and off to the side a large cannonball exploded inside an English family’s farmhouse. Two cows were blown open by bombs, along with the desecration of three pigs, whose spotted pink bodies were blasted into the air, their hoofs nearly touching the wing of the red airplane. “You’ll send it to Papa?”