Necessary Lies(88)

“She said Helmut Rust was an officer,” Anna says, meaning Frau Strauss. “That he and K?the were in love. That they quarrelled. She never mentioned why.” Quickly she tells Ursula of what she had learned that afternoon, just days before. The trek from Breslau. The horrendous story of escape.

Ursula is not surprised. “Lebenslüge,” she says. “This is what you get here, in this country. A lie you live with for so long that it transforms your life. But also,” she adds after a moment, “a lie that enables you to live.”

“K?the didn’t lie,” Anna says.

“Here is more. Some Wolfgang Hildebrand, the Dean of Chemistry at the University of Breslau, reports” — Ursula keeps translating what she reads — “that Frau Professor Herzmann came to see him. Frau Professor was dressed in black and asked for intercession on her husband’s behalf. Which Herr Professor Hildebrand says here he is not going to do. Then some Jürgen Stein reports that Frau Professor Herzmann came to see the rector of the University, asking for his support. The Rector tried to give her money, but she refused to take it... Frau Professor’s Berlin address. Her letter to her husband, parts of it blackened with ink. A grandson, Wilhelm Herzmann, born in 1940. Claus Herzmann was executed in the yard of Pl?tzensee prison, April 13, 1945. No last words were recorded. The widow was not allowed to see the body.”

Ursula leafs through the last of the documents and leans back on the chair, closing her eyes. They sit silently for a while in this dreary room with its faint reek of cheap cigarette smoke. Lighter rectangular patches on the wall reveal the places from which pictures have been removed. Anna puts the papers and photographs back into the file and carefully ties the grey ribbon. When she is finished, Ursula places her hand on hers and squeezes it gently. Not a sound reaches them through the padded door.





PART VI





MONTREAL 1991



In K?the’s nursing home, the doors to the residents’ rooms are left opened, and as always Anna tries not to see what’s inside, not to mind their disinfectant and other smells. Waves of recorded television laughter burst out of the rooms, mixing with cries and groans. There are a few Alzheimer’s patients here. The nurse who is taking Anna to K?the’s room says that out of all the ways to grow old, this must be the worst. She used to think that not remembering saved them from pain, but it wasn’t so. At least for most of them. Memories leave slowly, lingering for months. They cry. They call for their parents, long dead. They think they are being robbed, held captive. One resident, she says, literally walked himself to death. Even when he no longer had the strength to stand up, his feet kept moving.

“Distraction,” she says. “We try to distract them. This is all we can do.”

In the dining room, the nurse says, a man of seventy has been hitting the arm of his chair incessantly for days. He won’t talk with anyone anymore, but speaks to himself. A long string of curses, always the same. His daughter says he has always been such a gentle man. She is surprised he would even know words like that. The doctor ordered a foam pad around the arm of his chair, to soften the blows, but his hand is bruised and bloodied anyway. “Like a piece of raw meat,” the nurse says, shaking her head in defeat. “He won’t stop.”

They walk down the corridor. The door to K?the’s room is closed. Anna knocks.

They can hear the shuffling of feet, and the door opens. K?the is wearing the same old black dress with white lace collar and the pink angora sweater that softens the paleness of her face.

“Anna,” she says, her eyes brightening up. “You are back.”

Anna places a terra-cotta pot with a blooming azalea on the table in K?the’s room. Nothing has changed here. The photographs of William, Marilyn, and Julia on the night stand. A music box on the side table. The wicker chair by the window.

There is a small canvas stand right beside K?the’s armchair. The sweater she is knitting is thick and soft, done — Anna thinks — in what Babcia used to call a Norwegian pattern, two deer eyeing each other, their heads ready to lock in a fight. Navy blue and white.

“It’s for Julia,” K?the says. “It will suit her. I’ll make one for you, too, if you like it.”

Anna has brought a tin of Turkish Delight, soft fragrant pieces buried in powdered sugar. The tin is decorated with painted figures of elephants, and Anna places it in K?the’s hands. The taste of sugar is one of the few tastes still left to K?the.

The nurse has brought a tray with juices in small, plastic cups and the pills. K?the swallows the pills one by one, twisting her mouth in a grimace. Anna watches, half expecting her mother-in-law to argue with the nurse, but K?the doesn’t complain. The nurse must have been bracing herself for some protests too, for she smiles and gives Anna a telling look.

Anna walks toward the window. There is a cluster of wheelchairs outside, on the lawn, beside the oak tree. She might take K?the for a walk, she thinks. If K?the gets tired, she will use one of the wheelchairs to push her.

In her purse there is one more letter from Germany, this time addressed to her. At the Berlin airport, Ursula leaned forward to embrace her. It was a long, silent embrace neither of them wanted to break.

Dearest Anna, Forgive me for calling you that, but you have read enough of my letters to know I am not going to stop myself from being rash and impatient At the airport you said, “Please write to me” I was so moved that I couldn’t go back to the apartment. I got into the car and drove to Berchtesgaden. Straight from the airport, like a fool. I asked for the same room at the hotel where I stayed with William last time I saw him. Sat at the same table. Tried to talk to him, but I thought of you, the hesitation in your face, and your pain.