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 (143 page)

As Caleb turned from Yvonne’s breast and that very first bone-aching need, she lost the fascination that had bonded her to him. It was her yearning for that intensity and for that status of early motherhood—not for another child—that led to her next pregnancy. But Emma, born two years after Caleb, was not the serene child Yvonne had envisioned. A stocky and red-faced infant who’d fight sleep until she was exhausted from crying, she would clutch her mother’s hair or breast, trying to force her into merging with her once again, making the journey back to that fusion of blood and flesh.

Though Yvonne would try to soothe her, she’d usually end up pulling herself free from this daughter who tugged at her nipple and depleted her instead of filling her with contentment. Some days she felt so afraid of Emma’s fierce needs that she’d yearn to lash out at her. But she’d make herself turn from the red-screaming face because she was not about to hurt her child.
Though I want to. Oh how I want to. Never the boy, though. Never Caleb.
Beating your child bloody-blue did not fit into the way Yvonne saw herself as a mother, did not fit the image of herself
bending over a happily gurgling child, satisfying and calming that child with her presence alone, smiling while her dark blue hair—shining, always shining—emphasizes her pale profile….

But the child she pictured had no resemblance to Emma, who would tear at your hair if you ever were to let it hang close enough to those greedy fists. To divert that urge of hurting Emma, Yvonne would break a plate or tear a newspaper. Usually that would settle her. And if not, she knew how to stop from harming her daughter by bringing the hurt to her own skin. By spilling hot coffee on herself. Or beating her hands against the tiled wall of the bathroom. Sometimes she stood in front of the stove, watched the wide coils of the right front burner redden, and imagined pressing her palms against that slow glow. But she always stopped there. Because if she did, Robert would notice. And who would bathe Caleb? Change
Emma’s diapers? Easier to cut the insides of her upper arms. Move the paring knife through soft, pale flesh till she felt calm. Hidden beneath sleeves in the day. By the dark at night. Robert made love in the dark, ashamed of his body. Believing her body to be so perfect. How little he knew of her.

To make up to Emma for that rush of destruction that Yvonne never let her see but that the child, nonetheless, could feel behind the strained smile, Yvonne would flood her with affection, confusing her.
But at least I’ve never hurt my babies.
It gave Yvonne some comfort to remind herself that. And brought back the sensation of being
small and flying at her parents’ bedroom door as they lock it against her—too late, she’s always too late—beating her hands against their door till all she becomes is the wing-beat of her hands, such ugly hands, the slap and flutter that drown all other sounds.

What terrified her most about being a parent was that you never knew which of your actions would affect your children for life. And because she wanted them to remember her as lighthearted and loving, she would dance with them around the apartment, take them hiking or skiing or swimming, depending on the season. She’d build kites for them from narrow slats of wood and half-transparent paper—green or blue or red—making the tail by tying bows of tissue paper and spacing them five inches apart along the length of twine, enchanting Caleb and Emma with her playfulness so much so that, sometimes, it all would become real.

But never for long. Then she’d pass the children along to Robert. And so Emma and Caleb both switched parents: from their mother during that initial season of need—their need as well as hers—to their father, steady and kind and large, who could lift anything with his strong arms, who made music for them with fast-flying fingers, who always had stories and sweets for them when he’d tuck them in at night, who knew that Caleb liked to fall asleep with the light on, and that Emma needed more blankets in the evening, when her skin felt cold, than in the morning because she’d only throw them off once she had warmed herself with sleep.

Though the Blau children wouldn’t be able to explain this to themselves, they’d always feel a searing, wordless link to their
mother, a longing that had not been satisfied entirely, though—for a brief time—they both had known the promise of it. And while Caleb would find that link within himself and, eventually, translate it into films that would make audiences feel they were watching something too intimate to witness, Emma would seek that connection in others, chasing a bliss so inflated by memory that she would only be able to match it with her
Opa
—grandfather—who would be alive till she was six, long enough to infuse her with his passion for the
Wasserburg.

That day of Emma’s birth, when Stefan had first held her, he’d felt startled because he’d recognized the whirling child from his longago vision. Decades ago, after his own children had been born, he’d stopped searching for that child, but now that she was here, he felt entitled to her because she was his family—more so than anyone before her—giving him an even stronger foothold in America than he’d thought possible. Drawn to Emma’s need—the very same need that now repelled Yvonne—he marveled at the grasp of those tiny hands, the force of her wail, and he predicted it would be impossible to wrestle anything from her if she refused to let go, a prediction that Caleb would remember years later.

Stefan’s bond to Emma was instant and far stronger than his bond to Helene, to his children, or even to his dead wives. And he was sure Emma understood that, because as soon as she learned to walk, she’d head for him first. He lulled her into the German language, although Robert reminded him that it wasn’t wise to speak German in public, and Emma grew to cherish the language so much that, often, she refused to answer her parents when they spoke English with her.

“Hoppe, hoppe Reiter, wenn er fällt dann schreit er …”
was her favorite game. Her
Opa
would bounce her on his knees—“…
fällt er in den Graben, fressen ihn die Raben…”
—and she would ride across ditches, past ravens to the final tumble into the swamp,
“Plumps,”
squealing with delight as
Opa’s
knees opened and she fell, fell into bottomless adventure and exhilaration while his hands pulled her up again to another
“Plumps,”
her breath snagging with a sound
that was as close to laughing as it was to crying when she plummeted again and again, confident her hands were anchored in
Opa’s.
They had other games, of course, but none left Emma as breathless. “More,” she would cry each time he’d pull her up, “more.”

Whenever they had dinner at
Opa’s
apartment, Emma would claim the chair next to him and sit on top of the old encyclopedias from Germany that used to boost her
Vati
on the piano bench when he was a boy.
Opa
had told her that sitting on those leatherbound books would put the German words right into her blood. While Robert enjoyed it when Emma called him
Vati,
he spoke English with both children. Though Yvonne agreed with him that it was better for the children to not be identified as German, she rather liked it that they were growing up bilingual because she had always wanted to speak more than one language and had admired that ability in Robert, although, considering the times, she would have preferred French or Italian.

It not only astonished everyone in the family but also the tenants how much Stefan Blau, who’d never been one to fuss over children, adored his granddaughter. While Helene was glad that he was capable of such joy in a child, she felt disappointed that his own children had missed out on that. And Yvonne, though relieved whenever Stefan took Emma along, felt jealous because it seemed too easy for Emma to leave her behind. To be the object of Emma’s unrestrained devotion—she missed it as much as she had dreaded it.

And now Emma’s affection had shifted to her grandfather. Yvonne was reminded of it in a hundred ways. Like one summer afternoon, when the entire family was walking on the path by the lake, and she stretched out her hand for Emma. Who reached for Stefan’s hand instead. It was over in a second. And of no significance, Yvonne told herself. No significance, really.

But why then did she feel cut to the bone?

Why then did she hate Stefan as he crouched, circled his arms around Emma’s shoulders, and told her, “I want you to hold your
Mutti’s
hand”?

Why then did she have tears in her eyes as she walked away from her daughter and said, “You don’t have to”?

Emma learned to dodge the warm milk that her
Oma
—grandmother—insisted was good for children, but Caleb said the skin was the best part. It made Emma shudder when he slurped it up, flecks of white on his lips.

“Your Uncle Tobias was like you about milk,”
Oma
would say to her and shake her head as if everything bad that had ever happened to Uncle Tobias was a result of his refusal to drink warm milk, like always looking so angry, or like living by himself and being lonely.

But Emma didn’t think Uncle Tobias was lonely, because she’d seen him dance with Danny Wilson in Danny Wilson’s living room one morning. She’d been playing hide-and-seek with Caleb and had crawled behind the shrubs along the back of the house where the windows were wide but not high, so that when you were outside, you saw the ceiling but not the people inside. Not until you looked down, the way you would into a fish tank. And that morning the people down there had been Uncle Tobias and Danny Wilson, dancing on the couch, and as Emma had watched them from above, she’d noticed how smooth Danny Wilson’s back was while her uncle’s was covered with black hair so thick it looked like fur.

Another reason Uncle Tobias was never lonely was that he had every book in the world. When her father had taken her for a visit to Uncle Tobias’ bookstore in Hartford, he’d let her climb up one of his long ladders that rolled along the shelves and had read her a story from a red leather book.

Those times Tobias slept with other men were not because he was drawn to them, but because of Danny—trying to crowd Danny less with his love; wanting to get even with Danny for not loving him as much as he did. But what Tobias was always left with afterwards was disgust with himself and the unease at having used himself as well as someone else, even if that someone else had gotten what he’d wanted. Still, sex without love felt all wrong—not in the sense the church considered it to be wrong, but in a deeper and more personal way.

In a few years he would be forty, and he no longer wanted to be alone; but whenever he talked to Danny about living together, Danny would get skittish. Distant. That’s why their days together were better if Tobias didn’t mention it. Though Danny would always start out glad to see him, Tobias would soon feel burdened by maintaining that balance of lightness with his silence. Yet, whenever he managed to keep quiet about moving in together, he’d drive back to Hartford anxious about Danny with other men, especially Stewart Robichaud who worked right next door at the restaurant and had been Danny’s first lover.

If only he could see Danny struggle with being faithful. But Danny refused to understand any reasons for being faithful, and Tobias was afraid that if he ever made Danny choose between only him and those others, he’d be sent off by Danny with a generous hug and minor regrets.

One weekend in January, when Danny visited him in Hartford, Tobias got impatient with himself for being cautious and offered, “I’d even move back to Winnipesaukee if you wanted to get a place together.”

“You’d get cranky being around your family that much. Besides, you have your work here.”

“I bet you could find a really good job here.”

“That would be convenient, wouldn’t it? For you.”

“That’s not how I meant it.”

“I already got a job.”

“What I meant was that there are a lot of apartment buildings in the city, and with your experience—”

“My experience is doing just fine where it is.”

“But you’ve worked in the same place since you were a boy, practically. Do you want to retire there?”