The Twins (34 page)

The bed, not intended for guests who sit up and talk
emphatically
, protested with strenuous creaking.

‘I have been to Poland by car with a friend last autumn. Warsaw, Kraków, Auschwitz, Zakopane, Poznań. I had an
inspiration
. “Let’s go to the village where I worked during the war.” “But surely that doesn’t exist any more,” my friend spluttered. “Of course it’s still there,” I said, “only it’s called something different.” We went in search, without a map, in an area with Polish place
names that gave you nothing to hold on to. I drove purely from memory: a gnarled tree, an old barn, a three-forked road that struck me as familiar, were my only points of orientation in this empty country. All of a sudden we were driving along a straight road with chestnut trees – ramshackle farms, chickens in the road, tipsy chaps round the door of the post office that was also the village café. I got out and asked about the village, calling it by its old name. They looked at me indifferently without answering. A drizzly rain was falling, which made everything even more impoverished. I walked along the village street a bit, stopped in front of a colossal neglected house of … a landowner, I thought. Grass was growing in the
gutters
, which were hanging loose, the unpainted shutters were coming off their hinges, some windows were boarded up, the porch over the front door was shored-up crookedly, cracked plaster everywhere – geese were scratching about on a stubbly patch of grass, further on a pig was rootling in the mud, a mangy guard dog bared his teeth. I thought of our immaculate farms in Germany. See, I said to myself, this is how the Polish farmers go about their business. They simply haven’t a clue. An old man walked past. I buttonholed him, I used the old name of the village again. He stared at me through thick pebble lenses as though I were an apparition, then he began to nod slowly. “Stockow now …” he said in broken German. I nodded with him, suddenly excited. “Familie von Garlitz?” He said
nothing
. “The castle, where is the castle?” He smiled; he had a broken denture, the poor man. “Das Schloss …?” he repeated in surprise, “but it’s here … right in front of you …” I was standing in front of it and looking at it and did not recognize it. Can you imagine!’

Anna’s face had become flushed. The walls of the Salle de Repos looked as though they were bulging out from the
indignation
that she exuded. She opened her plump arms. ‘There used to be a wall round it, and the grounds with old trees. All gone. There was the castle, threadbare, pitiful, between the mud and the exhausted grass. I can’t tell you what was going on inside me there. It was as though my last remaining trust in humanity – and there is
not much left of it now – was being disposed of. As though
everything
, everything had been for nothing. “Can I see the house from the inside?” I asked, “I used to work there during the war.” He nodded but I don’t know if he understood. Twelve Polish families had been living there since the end of the war, he explained, the farm had become a co-operative.’

She turned up her nose. ‘One of those kolkhozes. We got
permission
to see a part of the castle from inside. My God, what an ordeal. We started in the hall, that same hall of the conspiracy. Washing lines were strung across it, with some yellowed sheets and shirts hanging up. The walls were grey, the tiles cracked. We opened the door to the dining-room. I put a hand over my mouth. “Look at that, my parquet floor!” I cried. There was my pride and joy, my best floor that had endlessly been rubbed with wax – dried out and cracked, whole pieces were missing. A couple of rusty bicycles leaned against the wall, a thin pale ginger cat slunk off with its tail between its paws. I was staggered, as you can imagine. “Let’s go outside, please,” I pleaded. We walked to the back door along an empty, ominous passage – without runner, unpainted walls without hunting scenes – I almost stumbled over a bucket of dirty suds. Outside I took a deep breath. “The cemetery,” I
suggested
, “there must be something there from earlier times.” The old man shook his head. “Alles kaputt,” he mumbled. I walked to the place where we had buried Herr von Garlitz in the earth, or what had had to pass for him. The old paths were still intact but dark holes gaped instead of the graves, overgrown with creepers and ground ivy. Here and there a fragment of marble. The branches of mature shrubs bent overhead as though they wanted to cover up the shame. “They have not even left the dead in peace,” I cried. “Everything ruined,” said my guide resignedly. So it was. They had been so vengeful they could not even leave undisturbed the graves that went back to the seventeenth century.’

‘But that’s easy to understand really,’ said Lotte over the edge of her sheets. ‘They certainly had enough reason to.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Anna impatiently, ‘but as I stood there looking into those gaping holes I didn’t understand any of it.’

It was quiet for a moment. Then she said, in a voice suggesting she was entrusting Lotte with an intimate secret: ‘I picked up a conker. A large shiny conker. I always have it with me, as a
memory
of those days … when I was very happy, without realizing it.’

Vienna. You will be safe in Vienna, Martin wrote. When Anna arrived her father-in-law was just packing his suitcases. ‘I am going to Nuremberg,’ he declared, ‘the SS is inviting the parents to come and have a look.’ He came back content after a few days: ‘You need have no worries about Martin, he is having an excellent time. Order prevails, comradeship prevails, they’ve got brand-new kit. Everyone is friendly and polite.’ ‘You’re telling me stories,’ said Anna suspiciously. ‘I swear to you, he is like a fish in water.’ ‘But he hates them, those Nazis.’ ‘You’ll see for yourself, the wives will be invited soon.’

She received a travel permit; she set off in the last week of August for a fortnight. Bombing had not left much of Nuremberg, but the press hotel taken over by the SS was still standing and undamaged. Luxury suites had been reserved for the married
couples
– in
the mornings the officers had gentle training, the rest of the day they could do what they wanted. The barracks too were an island of peace amid the chaos. Everything shone and glittered – respect prevailed, for people as well as things. Her father-in-law had not exaggerated: Martin, who put so much store by good
manners
, neatness and courtesy, had thoroughly come into his own there. They took advantage of the unexpected reunion, it was just like a honeymoon – the army leadership pampered its youngest scions. A bomb fell now and then, a small aberration that had long since ceased to surprise them. There was a mania for
photographing
each other: Martin, good-humoured, in his uniform – Anna in a cream suit constructed out of what had been a tennis outfit belonging to Frau von Garlitz.

The wives of the Baltic Sea adventure were all there. They enjoyed each day, each night that had been given to them, with fatalistic eagerness – except for one of them who confided to Anna in a desperate fit of crying that her parents had forbidden her to become pregnant by someone who might soon be dead. ‘Every night I have to turn my back on him,’ she sniffed. Anna, still
fervently
on the lookout for signs of pregnancy, gave her heart: ‘If he were to die, it would still be a tremendous comfort if you had a child of his at least … but what are we talking about, the war really is almost over! Then they’ll come home and we’ll live together under one roof and …’ she raised a finger laughingly, ‘then it really will be war, Liebchen.’

Martin’s concern for her welfare sometimes took grotesque forms. One morning the women met in the swimming pool. One of them came rushing over while Anna was floating on her back. ‘Get out, get out, a column of officers is coming.’ They heaved their wet bodies hastily into the dry and fled to the lockers. Anna looked round with astonishment and drifted on, relaxed, without paying attention to the distant singing that was fast getting louder. Only when the officers were on the point of diving in did she sense that perhaps her presence in the water might be unwelcome. She swam to the side with languid strokes. In a decent black swimsuit that definitely covered her ample figure but did not conceal it, she walked between the officers to the lockers. As she passed she saw the pursed lips and furious expression on Martin’s face. That
afternoon
he erupted. How did she happen to be the only woman in a swimsuit on show to all those men. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Simple. I was swimming.’ He shook his head, deeply offended. ‘My wife … among all those chaps.’ ‘But the swimming pool is for everyone,’ she laughed innocently. ‘My wife doesn’t do such a thing.’ ‘Seemingly she does.’ Their ideas about decency were
irreconcilable
. ‘I won’t have them making jokes about you, I know them.’ She was oppressed by it. ‘If you go on like that I’ll leave you,’ she blurted out to shut him up. He was so badly shocked and
in such an endearing way that she flew to his neck, from regret and empathy. It was stupid to squabble about inanities. Time was pressing.

She awoke shaky and teeth chattering on the last night. Martin, who responded to her utterances in his sleep too, opened his eyes and held her. ‘You’re frightened …’ His voice was dark from sleep. She laid her head on his chest. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter.’ He pulled her tightly to him. ‘We must talk about it,’ he said calmly, ‘I think this is the moment. Listen. Millions are dying in this rotten war, up to now I have had a lucky escape. Who can guarantee that will work until the end? Why, so many have died, why not me? For me it will not be bad to die, it happens very quickly, don’t you worry. The only thing that will be bad for me is that then I won’t be able to help you any more. I know what will happen to you, I know exactly. You are as delicate as porcelain, but no one knows it. You always play the strong one and the sturdy one, but in reality you are emotional and vulnerable and you need me. But you must live even if I am not there. Promise me one thing: don’t put an end to it. I won’t look at you any more if you commit suicide! I won’t salute you any more!’

There was silence in the room apart from the beating of his heart in her ear. It was out of the question that the beating could stop from one moment to the next – that a connection could exist between the things he alluded to and the precious beating of this heart and this warm breathing body which belonged not only to the army but to her and him too. The well-being of that body was so closely tied to that of her own that she did not want to hear what he was saying and yet it was engraved on her memory, word by word.

‘Nor do I want you to stay in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of your life. Even if I am dead I want to have a beautiful wife. Will you promise me that? I’ll tell you what you should do. You will only bear it by helping others who are worse off than yourself. Go and work in a military hospital or something like that, only then
will you survive, I know you …’ Instead of seeking comfort and courage from her for the possibility that he would die just before the peace, he was giving her a manual for the rest of her life, with serenity. Defence replaced her anxiety and eventually an immense calm – he had spun a cocoon of safety and invulnerability around her where there was a peaceful, reliable tranquillity – where life and death flowed naturally into each other. They fell asleep entwined; entwined they woke in the morning.

It was brilliant weather. Martin had never looked so well. Tanned, alert, full of good spirits. Anna leaned out of the window of the train that was about to move. He ran alongside the train and waved. ‘Auf Wiedersehen until Vienna, this bloody hell will soon end anyway!’ he cried cheerfully. She stiffened – such a tone of optimism was unforgivable from the mouth of an SS officer. And it resonated along the platform too! Anna narrowed her eyes, anxiously expecting that they would pick him up. But he was still standing there and waving and no one bothered him.

Vienna was not that safe. In order to cut off the German troops’ retreat from the Balkans the Americans were dropping a wide swathe of bombs that ran right through Vienna. Because they did not dare fly over the Alps at night, they only flew during the day. The windows of the new apartment were shattered. Anna fixed them with cardboard. The alarm sounded. She ran to the nearest shelter. On the way she saw an old woman hiding in a porch. ‘What are you doing here?’ Anna yelled, dragging her along with one arm. ‘Come, hurry into the shelter.’ It was a crush inside. ‘Get up,’ she said to a boy, ‘I’ve got an old lady here.’ The warden of the block, responsible for citizen’s safety during attacks, rushed over to her, ‘What possessed you?’ ‘How do you mean?’ asked Anna, ‘what have I done?’ ‘Do you know who you’ve got with you?’ She looked at the woman who was sitting huddled up, like a bird in winter. ‘It makes no difference to me, obviously, an old woman.’ ‘A half-Jew!’ he barked. ‘Well and …’ she shrugged her shoulders, ‘there’s a dog over there, can’t a poor old woman be
allowed in?’ She was stared at with anxious eyes from all around; what recklessness to challenge the warden of the block. He tensed his jaw muscles. She looked at him defiantly. He lowered his eyes and slunk off to another corner of the shelter, as though his
presence
were urgently required there.