“What will you do now?”
It was the next morning and his mother was preparing cereal for the baby who was seated in a chair, tied with a belt, waiting. Martin was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, watching a ray of sunshine as it fell across the floor at a slant. He watched dust motes dancing in the light. When he was younger, he used to think it was space dust, even as his mother told him they were Angel’s tears.
He looked up at his mother and shook his head.
“You’re not staying, are you?” she said, and he shook his head.
“I can’t, Mama.”
“What do you mean, you can’t? You’re my son! Gott fer damma!”
She fought back her emotions and started again.
“All these years, I thought you were dead. Do you know what that means to a mother? For five years, I thought you were dead. When they took you away, my world—the world as I knew it—came to an end. Can you even begin to understand that? No one would tell me where they took you—only that you’d been picked up. They said they had a special place for people like you. When they told me they locked you up in Sachsenhausen, all I’d heard was what they did to people like you—”
“And what exactly does that mean? ‘People like you’?”
“You know very well what it means.”
“It shouldn’t matter,” he said.
“No! Don’t you tell me that. I don’t believe any of that—I never have. They made it up. It was Beck! He made you do those things.”
“No, it wasn’t Beck, and you know it,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Whatever stories you heard about Sachsenhausen, it wasn’t like that for me,” Martin said, hanging his head.
“It wasn’t? And why wasn’t it like it was for the others?”
He looked up at her. “They knew who I was, Mama.”
“And why would that make any difference?”
“Because I was a concert pianist, and I was well known. I played on the biggest stages of Europe; I played in front of Kings and Queens. They didn’t want that kind of publicity, Mama. They wanted the world to think they were sympathetic to…people like me. They asked the world if they wanted to take the Jews. Remember? No one would take them. Do you remember that? Not one country said: ‘Yes, send them over: send us your Jews.’ And so they justified their condemnation of the Jews, by saying the world could have stepped in at any time to help. But the world did nothing, did they? It’s hard to argue with that, isn’t it? What else were they going to with us? Because in that world, the world of the camp…people like me were one step above the Jews. Instead of gassing us, they worked people like me to death.”
“I don’t think that people thought they’d do what they did.”
“What? Kill innocent people? It doesn’t matter what they did, Mama. It’s not a matter of they, or them, it’s us. We did it, as a people. As a country. Do you think the world’s going to forgive us in fifty years if you say not all Germans supported the National Socialists? Do you know how many there are hiding in Berlin today? They call it ‘Collective Guilt’. In fifty years from now, they’ll be calling us Nazis—that’s what the rest of the world calls us. Did you know that? It’s guilt by association.”
“No,” she said, her voice calm as she crouched down in front of the baby, spooning food into his mouth. “I refuse to believe that. People forget; or else, they just don’t care anymore. But they don’t affix blame. How can you be blamed for what they did to you?”
“That’s all people ever do, Mama,” he said, looking up at her. “They affix blame.”
“Is that why you’re leaving?”
“No. I need to find Beck. I want to play again, and I need him to help me get back into playing shape. They’re giving us back the air waves.”
“Why Beck?” she said, looking at him and shaking her head. “You don’t need him in your life.”
“He taught me for fifteen years.”
“Yes, I know. I paid him, and then some,” she said, her voice trailing off.
“There’s more to it than that, isn’t there? There’s something you’re not telling me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that he can help get me back on the stage, and that’s all that matters. He still knows people, Mama.”
“The man’s one of your so-called National Socialists.”
“Yes, but half the city is. Their so-called denazification plan isn’t working the way they want it to. Anyone can see that. They don’t have enough people to translate. At this rate, it’ll take them fifty years.”
“Why don’t you do it, then?”
“Why don’t I do what?”
“Translate? What’s the point in speaking all those languages, if you don’t use them?”
“They want people who are fluent.”
“You speak excellent French.”
“I had an excellent teacher.”
“Merci,” she smiled, laughing and scooping another spoonful into the baby’s open mouth.
“All the same, I have to talk to the Americans.”
“Why?”
“Because I think Beck lives in the American sector—somewhere in Bavaria, the last I heard.”
“You’ve always been in denial when it comes to that man,” she said, wiping food off the baby’s face with her thumb. She sucked her thumb clean, and fed the baby another spoonful.
“Why would you say something like that? You used to be friends.”
“Because it’s true.”
“That’s not the reason,” he said, wagging his finger at her.
“Who do you think told the Gestapo about that man?” she said at last.
“That man? Do you mean Dieter?”
“Oh. Was that his name? I never knew.”
“I doubt that,” Martin said.
“The man was a homo,” she said evenly.
“And so what if he was? So am I,” he countered.
“You’re not. How can you think you are?”
“Deny it all you want, Mama; I’ve got a tattoo on my arm that tells me different.”
“You were going to marry her,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper of accusation. “How can you be a homo, if you were going to get married?”
“Oh, please Mama, must you be so naïve?”
“I’m not being naïve,” she protested, and looked at the baby when he gurgled.
“You are,” he pointed out.
“You’re the one being naïve if you believe you can trust that man.”
“Because you say he turned me in?”
“Ask him to deny it.”
“I don’t have to.”
She finished feeding the baby and stood up slowly, painfully, working the pain out of her back by the time she reached the sink. There, she pumped water into the bowl and cleaned it. She used a rag to wipe the floor around the chair and then undid the belt and lifted the baby up, perching him on her hip with a practiced ease.
“Why?” she asked.
“I know who it was.”
“Ridiculous! How could you? You were locked up.”
“You’ll have to take my word for it,” he said, pushing himself up off the floor.
“Are you not going to tell me?”
“Why? It’s better if I don’t. Besides, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you who it was.”
He looked at Annaliese on the bed, staring out of the window. He walked towards her and looked out of the window, but there was nothing to see. A broken wall, charred by flames and riddled with bullet holes.
“What’s she looking at?” he asked.
“Do you mean the wall?”
Martin turned, and looking at his mother, nodded.
“That’s where they lined up the prisoners and shot them. Ten prisoners a day. Every day.”
“Prisoners?”
“Near the end, there was no one left in the city to fight. So they conscripted boys, and old men—some women even volunteered. Both her mother and father volunteered. But they were no soldiers; they were just an old man and his wife. She watched her father get shot—after they raped her mother in front of him. She saw that, too.”
“How long ago was that?”
“It was after the war. After the Cease Fire. Probably a month before the Americans stepped in. They should’ve stepped in sooner, but people were saying that Russia demanded retribution—and the Americans let them take it. I don’t think there could ever be enough blood spilled as far as the Russians were concerned.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and reached down to pick up Annaliese’s hand. She pulled her hand away from him, a look of horror crossing her face as she screamed. The baby started to cry and his mother ran to the bedside, pushing Martin away as she placed the baby on Annaliese’s chest and tried to soothe her.
“What did you do?” She was angry; her lips pursed, and her eyes hard.
“I just wanted to hold her hand.”
“Just go if you’re going to go,” his mother said, sitting on the bed and stroking the hair out of Annaliese’s eyes.
“Do you want me to come back?”
“That’s up to you, but I expect you will. Where else can you go?”
THE TRUTH OF WHO WE ARE