Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire (126 page)

But the girl slipped right past her, and as she stood facing the pictures of her mother, it was obvious that she’d seen them before.

“My
Mutti
is coming back real soon,” she said.

That evening, when both children were asleep, Helene implored Leo to take those photos down. “Not only because of Trudi. But it isn’t good for you either … looking at Gertrud like that.”

But he was reluctant. “I keep thinking of everything I was not for her.”

“And I keep thinking of all you were to her.”

He shook his head.

“You brought her happiness, Leo.”

“How can you know that?”

She recalled how he’d once spoken of Gertrud as his sister.
A second sister
. “More happiness,” Helene said resolutely, ignoring her uneasiness, “than Gertrud could have had on her own. Everyone could see that.”

But he did not look convinced. The brown wallpaper behind him made the room feel darker.

“Gertrud’s oddness,” she reminded him, “was in her long before you married her. But I’m sure she would not have wanted you to have those pictures around you. No woman would. It isn’t… proper.”

“I didn’t think about them that way. I just wasn’t ready yet to let her go.”

“I know. But it isn’t right for Trudi to be reminded of her mother’s death so constantly.”

“I’ll do it then … take them down.”

“I’ll help. If you want me to. Did you know that Trudi talks about a box and about Gertrud bringing Horst back?”

“At the funeral—” His eyes grew bright with tears. “At the funeral,
Frau Weiler tried to console Trudi by saying her
Mutti
was with her little brother now.”

“What a stupid thing to tell her.”

“She meant well. It’s what people say at funerals.”

“Meaning well is not enough.”

“Still, it has to count…. Did you know that you have an accent?”

“Of course. People in America tell me—”

“No, here. In German.” She was stunned.

“Not much of an accent,” he hastened to tell her. “It’s like a different melody almost that runs beneath the language.”

“A different melody…. That means I have an accent in both languages now.”

“Does it bother you?”

Slowly, she nodded. “It marks me. Instead of feeling connected to both countries, I belong to neither one.”

“A foreigner?”

“That’s what it felt like over there at first. And it still does—not as often though.”

“For me feeling foreign goes deeper than language … into values … customs. Being an exile in the world. It was like that when I came back from the war. For other men too. Michel, for him it was worse because he’d been away longer. You come back and everything is changed. Even if it still looks the same.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s how it is for me.”

“People, too, they’ve changed. Those who stayed. They don’t understand that when you come back, you’re not the same. And neither are they. It’s like that with grieving … you enter a foreign country. And sometimes you don’t come back.”

“Unless you want to?”

“Oh, but wanting to come back is just a small part of it, Helene.”

They stayed up late, talking at the kitchen table, and whenever Leo spoke of Gertrud, he sounded far more passionate in missing her than he had been in loving her when she’d still been alive, and Helene thought how deadly a kind man could be if his kindness were to take the place of passion.

All at once she felt an urgency to do something significant for Trudi, and it was that urgency—born of guilt and compassion—that compelled her to offer, “I could bring Trudi up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take her back to America with me,” she said, thinking
this is crazy. What am I doing? The three I have are already too much for me
.

Leo looked stunned. “I’ll make us some tea,” he said.

She kept silent as she watched him prepare his favorite Russian tea, brewing its essence in a small pot, and boiling water in a larger pot, so that they could each choose at what strength they liked it. He served it in paper-thin porcelain cups.

“Gertrud’s?” Helene asked.

“Part of her great-grandmother’s dowry.” He closed the white kitchen cabinet and sat across from Helene.

“What I mean is that I would raise her along with Robert. And with Stefan’s other children. Of course you could always visit…,” she added.
What am I doing? Three already
. “I like Trudi,” she said quickly. “I like her fierceness, even her bossiness with Robert. Because it gives me such hope for her. And I see so much of you in her, Leo. That sageness and—”

Leo squinted at her. Shook his head.

“I already feel closer to her than to Stefan’s children.”

“I am … grateful. Of course I am grateful. How could I not be? But she is my daughter.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I want to do something.”

“But you are doing something. You are here.”

Every day she visited the Blaus next door, answering their hungry questions about Stefan, watching their delight in Robert while she told them about life in America. She didn’t object when her mother-in-law insisted she pack her telescope and star charts for Stefan. With her, as with others of that generation, Helene found that she slipped right back into that politeness of her childhood, where with Americans she felt equality regardless of age.

Whenever Margret came over, she and Helene would be right back to where they’d left off, eight years bridged in moments as they talked
about their childhood and about their children. But not about Helene’s offer to raise Trudi. She was too embarrassed to tell Margret how she’d trespassed with that offer. And yet there were times when she could picture Trudi in the
Wasserburg
growing up with Robert and the other children.

The small girl would snuggle up to her, listening closely when she and Margret talked about the people in town, like Axel Lambert who had not been right ever since he’d come home from the war, the one survivor of his battalion.

One afternoon, when Margret was whispering to Helene, Trudi leaned closer, and though she didn’t know what an affair was, she understood it was something bad between the lady from the bakery and the man who sold asparagus.

“Ottilia is pregnant again. In her last month,” Margret said, “and confined to bed.”

“I loved being pregnant.” Helene stroked Trudi’s hair.

“Seven daughters so far. Bettina is their youngest… the same age as Robert and Trudi.”

Margret’s parents watched the children while Helene and Margret went for long walks along the Rhein. One morning at the cemetery they planted yellow chrysanthemums on the graves of both families and said prayers for Helene’s parents, as well as for Leo’s wife and son.

“I worry about Leo,” Helene said as she set a plant into the earth. “He doesn’t look healthy.”

“Sadness,” Margret said. “I think it’s sadness, mostly. My mother goes over there at least once a day. Others too. Like Ilse Abramowitz. And Emil Hesping, of course.”

The way she said Emil’s name made Helene glance at her.

“Have you seen him yet?”

“A few times. He usually stops by the pay-library for a quick game of chess.”

“Your brother likes slow games better.” Margret’s eyes followed the black shape of a widow on her bicycle. On one handlebar dangled a shopping net with gardening tools, on the other a watering can. “People talk about Emil.”

“They always have.”

“Only more so now. Because he stayed out of the war. Some say he … loves your brother.”

“And I’m sure Leo loves him too.”

“They’re not talking about that kind of love, Helene.”

“Their friendship was always passionate in spirit. Just because Leo isn’t very… physical with women doesn’t mean he looks for that with men. It’s just never been all that important for him.”

“And that was painful for Gertrud. It distracted her. Embarrassed her. Some say Emil courted her to—”

“Emil flirts with almost every woman.”

“Not like that. I think he courted her to get her away from Leo. So he could have Leo for himself.”

“Wait.” Helene sat back on her heels. “I don’t understand the logic. Sleeping with a woman to get the man?”

“My mother saw her on the back of his motorcycle when Leo was away in the war.”

“Maybe Emil just—”

“His reputation is a lot worse now than when you used to live here.”

“I never really believed in his terrible reputation. Beneath all that, he’s a decent man.” Helene pulled a candle from her handbag. “For Gertrud,” she said and rummaged for matches. “I forgot matches.”

As she searched on other graves for a lantern with a burning candle to light hers from, she was devastated by the many new names on gravestones, young men who’d died as soldiers. Most of them she’d known. A few had even been her students.
Children
.

With the lit candle she returned to the Montag grave; but it was too long to fit into the lantern. Suddenly she found herself sobbing.

“It’s just a candle.” Margret smoothed the earth around a chrysanthemum she’d just planted.

But Helene cried. Cried for all who had died in the war. Cried for the waste of death and the waste of war. Cried for her parents and for Leo’s wife and son. And all along—while a woman with a baby carriage and two widows walked past her family’s grave—she kept holding on to that burning candle.

“Let me,” Margret offered.

“It’s the wrong size.”

“The wrong size for the lantern. That’s all.”

Helene only sobbed harder.

“It’ll fit the candle holder on my table. Let me keep it for you. Please?” Gently, Margret placed one palm between her friend’s shoulder blades and rubbed it up and down. “You’ve been away a long time.”

Although Helene had heard about Axel Lambert, she was not prepared for the change in him when she saw him in the street outside Immers’ butcher shop, where she stood waiting in line with Robert and Trudi to buy
Weisswurst
—white sausage—for their
Mittagessen
—lunch.

A secretive smile on his lips, Axel was circulating both hands in a strange and repetitive pattern between his face and his chest. Devastated by the recognition of what the war had done to him, Helene left the line and stepped up to him. His smile got wide as though he were glad to see her, but his eyes looked through her.

“Axel? It’s me. Helene. Helene Montag.”

He dropped both arms, then raised them, one toward his nose, the other toward his chest, touching briefly with his forefingers, then dropping his arms again.

“Axel?” A half-forgotten fondness for him rushed in on her. “Don’t you remember me? Helene Blau. It used to be Montag. This is my son. Robert. And I’m sure you know Trudi. Leo’s daughter.”

Up came Axel Lambert’s arms again, graceful, purposeful. Unstoppable.

Ilse Abramowitz came walking toward them in a beige linen dress with deep pleats on one side. “He doesn’t understand.”

“What is he doing?” Helene whispered.

“Touching his heart? Who knows … But that’s what people call him now, the man-who-touches-his-heart.”

“Who looks after him?”

“This month his sister. Then he’ll live with his cousin for a month. His parents take him in after that. Then back to his sister.”

“But he’s never liked being around his family much.”

“Well, he’s lucky he has them now.”

“He always preferred his time alone.”

“Not as much as he enjoyed being with you.”

“He was a very shy man.”

“Not like your Stefan.”

“Not like Stefan at all… Listen—” Impulsively, Helene laid her hand on Use’s arm and took her aside, making sure the children couldn’t hear her. “Something’s been bothering me. I said something foolish to Leo when I first arrived here. I offered to take Trudi back with me to America.”

Ilse winced.

“I wanted to help.”

“Of course you did.”

Axel Lambert brought his left hand to his chest, the right to his face.

“Still—” Ilse hesitated. “It must have been hard for Leo to hear.”

“I told him how I admired all he did for her, even mentioned what a good cook he has become—have you ever tasted his
Eierkuchen
with onions?—but he’s been guarded with me as if waiting for what I’ll propose next.”