With that, he turned his back to the class again and began writing a lesson plan. Gerlinde didn’t ask any more questions. Neither did the students; only the Wehrmacht fellows muttered their quiet thanks as she laid the textbooks in front of them.
“I’m sorry for shouting before,” Gerlinde whispered.
“It’s all right. It did us good.”
She regarded them all, books still piled high under her chin. “Have you not anything else to wear?”
“Not yet. We registered with the Red Cross but there’s a wait for civilian clothes. There are too many of us.”
“What of your families? Homes?” she asked, already suspecting what the answers would be.
“All four of us are homeless,” explained the shortest one with dark, curly hair.
“My family fled to Munich. Our apartment is in ruins.” This one reminded Gerlinde of Götz, wheat-headed and soft-spoken, only her brother didn’t wear glasses.
“I still haven’t had any news of mine.” Their friend, with a long, still-pink scar on his forehead, gave a shrug. Gerlinde wondered if it was a shrapnel wound or a mark from an Ivan’s knife.
“My family is dead,” replied the blond one, whom they called Wirths and smiled at her, as though in apology. “And my entire street is one big pile of rubble.”
Soldiers, who had fought for their land all this time just to return and find it in ruins.
At home, she ran up the stairs to the third floor and headed in the direction opposite to her bedroom almost entirely forgetting Tadek who followed her, confused, like a silent shadow. The familiar door of her parents’ bedroom, which she hadn’t entered ever since the Amis got there and violated it with their search, creaked softly. She forced herself to push it open and marched inside, hands trembling, heart beating almost in her throat. Next to the family portrait, a gilded mahogany wardrobe stood. Gerlinde reached to open its double doors but found herself looking at the portrait instead, oil on canvas, a present from a truly gifted artist. Vati, in all his regalia, white braided cords across his chest, sitting with his hand resting on the handle of his sword. Next to him, Gerlinde’s mother, her face beautiful and cold. Behind them, Götz and Georg looking almost like twins, all white hair and brown uniforms. And next to her mother, young Gerlinde stands, just seven years old, a bit puzzled and unsure of what to do with her hands.
They never posed for this portrait. Someone drew it from a photo that was published in a magazine and sent it to Gruppenführer Neumann in 1938 along with a long letter which Vati burned right after reading. For a long time, the portrait stood in one of the closets wrapped in cloth and Gerlinde would hide behind it when Vati had time to play hide and seek with her. And then one day he hung it and stood before it for a very long time, sighed heavily, muttered something about the man having talent but that orders were orders and there was nothing to be done…
And now, Gerlinde stood before it and felt her eyes welling with tears as she began to piece it all together. Angrily, she yanked the doors of the wardrobe open and began pulling her father’s clothes out of it. Countless silk shirts with initials embroidered on his cuffs and breast pockets; cashmere pullovers, hardly worn; trousers, with creases, sharp as razors on them; made-to-measure suits, with silk linings – she hurled them all on top of the tremendous bed and then herself on top of that pile and cried and cried until her throat was raw with tears.
For some time, Tadek shifted from one foot to another, two possibilities at war within him. Leave the room and pretend it didn’t concern him? Or take a step forward and make it his business, no matter how much the prospect terrified him? He looked at the door behind him, at Otto Neumann’s daughter digging herself into a pile of her father’s clothes and made that one step in the direction that felt right for some reason.
“Gerlinde?”
“I miss him so much!” She only sobbed harder.
“Of course, you do. He’s your father.”
At once, she straightened herself and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “You think it’s so simple, don’t you? You think a little girl cries because she misses Vati. No, Tadeusz. I cry because I miss the old him. I miss the father that I knew so well, not this new one whom I’m getting to know now. I cry because whatever happens in the future, I shall never look at him with the same eyes ever again and that breaks my heart and I hate you and the Amis and Mann’s son and whoever painted this damned thing for—”
Another attack. Tadek let her cry until it passed and didn’t point out the fact that it was Otto Neumann himself to blame for it and not them. He didn’t have to, for he sensed it deep inside that Gerlinde knew it as well but some sort of a protection mechanism made her hurl all these accusations at someone much like she’d hurled all these clothes before because it still wasn’t possible for her to say openly what she’d begun to feel inside. He stood before that pile of suits and silk ties and suddenly found himself feeling infinitely sorry for her. His own father was dead but at least Tadek would carry his untainted memory around for as long as his own heart was beating. His father was a good man and he’d always remain such. Gerlinde’s father was a murderer and she would have to live with that knowledge. It couldn’t have possibly been an easy thing for her to realize.
“What are you going to do with all these clothes?” he asked when she got possession of herself once again.
“I’ll
