_ _ _
Lumps of coal. Porous, pulverised.
Some of them still breathe.
I call out her name.
_ _ _
It is late afternoon when I find Eline on the steps leading down to Landstrasse.
I know it is her. The shoe one step down is hers, the cream-coloured silk, the discreet red strap, its fluid beauty, cream and red. Where is the other one? I glance around, but see only rubble, shards of stone, ash, a charred birdcage, broken items covered in soot, items that are no longer items, only remains, rubbish, unrecognisable, a wrought-iron balcony in the middle of the street, destroyed.
The shoe is almost pristine. One hundred and ten Reichsmark, from Paris, Rue Saint-Germain, Balmain. I had to force her inside, we had hardly any money. The old gentleman with the pigtail, high heels and silk jacket slipped the shoe onto her little foot.
‘Such fine and dainty feet … Madame …’
‘Mademoiselle Schlosser.’
I sit down next to her, but cannot bring myself to touch.
‘It’s me, Heinrich …’
I want to say darling, but I am unable.
Her terror as she was cast into the firestorm, as the flames took hold of her hair. I, who could not save her. Now she screams, but makes no sound, everything inside her is cremated and gone, she has no lungs, no mucous membrane, she is this charred crust and a hollow crackle from within.
Her trembling arms.
She is neither woman nor man.
She is mineral.
Carbon.
All of a sudden I hate her. I am consumed with rage, and yet helpless.
‘Who was he?’ I demand. ‘The man you were with. The one at your door. Who is he?’
Her blackened skin flakes away as she tries to speak, the corners of her mouth fall open, the pink tissue inside, her lips as they break apart, the pinkness of her tongue. I cannot hear what she says, I put my ear to her mouth.
‘No one. It was nothing, darling …’
_ _ _
I sit with her, my hands on my knees.
I have placed her shoe in front of me.
I speak to her, I have no idea what I am saying.
I pick up the shoe, exploring it with my fingers, as if it were her body they explored, the perfect curve of the topline, the click of the buckle, caressing.
I rip out the insole, breathe in the smell of the leather to escape the stench that is all around me, an intimacy amid destruction, pulling the shoe apart, piece by piece, kissing it.
I realise I am humming. What am I humming?
When I look back at her she is still. I put my hand to her mouth. Nothing.
I put my ear to what remains of her face.
There is something.
A murmur.
I hear it now. Everywhere.
The murmur of all things.
The heat of the blaze, ticking in the stone.
_ _ _
I get to my feet and stare at the heap of shining patent leather, silk and paper.
There is a folded piece of card. How did it get there? Was it in her shoe? Her charred clothing? I pick it up and open it, Deutsches Reich Kennkarte, the eagle on the front. Her photograph, fastened by a rivet in a punched hole. Her solemn face is put on, an attitude, an exterior about to crack, she is struggling to keep the mask together. Underneath is the way she is, blonde, vibrant, alive … Non-distinguishing features: Wears spectacles. Her fingerprints, right and left index fingers. The stamps of the Polizeipräsident. Distinguishing features: Slight deformity of right wrist due to Colles fracture, little finger stiff, crooked. Our skating trip to the Alster, my ugly mark.
I was banned from their house for the three weeks she was in plaster. I sent little letters she never returned. When eventually I was allowed to visit, the whole family was there, in the third-floor apartment at Dimpfelweg 6, in the crowded parlour, its plush satin and tassels and the professor’s carnivorous plants, the hum of the thermostat, the sense of being in an aquarium, the funnel-like crowns of the flowers sucking in the heavy, moist air, looking like ears directed towards me, and Eline, reading my letters out loud, making a quiz of my quotes for her brothers and sisters and cousins, while Manfred studied his fingernails with a malicious little smile on his face.
I had indeed quoted them all: Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, Morgenstern, Rilke, J. P. Jacobsen. And then, when it all got out of hand with Tristan and Iseult, a tale of love and death, and she was proceeding to my own dabblings, I burst out:
‘Am I never to be forgiven?’
‘What do you say, Eline?’ the professor’s wife inquired.
Prolonged silence.
Then whistles and jeers:
‘No!’
_ _ _
I take Klaus Maier’s Soldbuch from my inside pocket (Non-distinguishing features: Tendency to overweight, Distinguishing: N/A) and stare at his thick jaw. The photograph is attached with ordinary staples, the stamps are SS. Why this hierarchy, rivets and staples? Switching photos is easy. Does no one tamper with their Soldbücher?
I prise the staples open with my fingernail, twist and remove them, repeat the procedure with my own photograph, which I then affix to the corresponding page in Klaus Maier’s book, pressing the staples back into place. The stamps almost match up.
I flick through my new identity.
I have served in Croatia and have been decorated: EK (Second Class), close combat awards.
Dental records: upper teeth removed in ’37.
Wounded in the groin at Smolensk, nothing visible.
Wedding tackle intact.
The photo has me looking shrunken, my neck is like a lizard’s.
No tendency to overweight there.
Hello, Klaus.
I get up and walk away.
_ _ _
Dimpfelweg 6.
The clematis reduced to ash. The broad steps leading up to nothing, down to nothing. A pile of rubble, a carbonised garden. ‘House’. ‘Garden’. ‘Steps’.
The door of the basement is blocked by charred beams and rubble.
I hold my handkerchief to my
