episode 5
There were saplings sprouting up through the rubble of broken houses and bombed-out streets, from trees that were planted before the Great War. They’d held on with a tenacity that only Nature could address. Some of the larger trees had been split, looking as if they’d been struck by lightning and still somehow survived. Tall pines, oaks, and willows, all twisted up with what he could only think of as an arthritic writhing of the limbs. He could see oaks that braved the bombs with a steadfast resolution and strength that defined their character, and he thought, how cliché. The entire street had once been lined with trees casting their shadows along the cobblestoned streets. Few had survived.
And at last, there it was: his mother’s house.
There was a candle burning somewhere inside—the faint flickering flame dancing like a heartbeat—and it reminded him of his childhood and how his mother left a candle burning through the night for his father to find his way home. She’d heard they did that somewhere, but didn’t know where it was. He felt it somewhat ironic that he was now following that same candle.
What if it’s not her?
There was every possibility that she’d died during the bombings, or that she’d been killed by a soldier—Russian, German, British, American? Did it really matter anymore? When you’re a civilian, everyone’s your enemy. You’d have to live the same way out here as you did in the Camps. He’d been luckier the most. He ate table scraps, and was happy to.
He had an overwhelming need to know and kicked the broken gate to the side, stumbling across the shattered bricks of the small sidewalk he remembered helping his mother put in when he was a child. He walked to the porch, part of it broken and laying in the yard, and pounded on the door.
The candle went out.
“Mama! Mama! It’s me! Open up!”
“Martin?” he heard a voice calling out.
“Mama, please?” he called, tears coming to his eyes. He rubbed the tears away, placing his hand against the door as if he were caressing it. All he could think of was that she was alive. It was all he needed to know. It was home, and home was love. All of the years—all the pain, and torture, the not knowing—were lifted from his heart and his tears felt like a cleansing.
The door opened and a fugitive slice of light escaped where he saw the figure of a child peeking out from behind his mother’s tattered dress. The door was thrown open and she ran into his arms, her tears spilling out in gasping sobs as she held him tighter with every struggling breath.
“My son, my son, my son,” she cried into his shoulder, before finally stepping back to look at him. She was wearing an old dress that had seen better days, he thought. Her hair was tied into a short bun at the nape of her neck. It was almost white, he could see that much in the soft light. There were dark lines on her face that he thought were wrinkles, and realized they were scars. Deep, red, penetrating lines, that ran down the length of her face like bloody tears.
“And who’s this?” he asked, seeing the child holding fast to his mother’s dress. He was a toddler at most, and Martin watched his mother bend down to scoop the child up into her arms, kissing him gently and whispering softly to him.
“Annaliese’s boy,” she said, sounding somewhat sombre.
“Annaliese? Annaliese is here?” he asked, stunned by the news.
“Come,” she said, taking his hand. “She’s inside. You have to know, she’s not herself.”
Martin stepped inside, letting his mother guide him through the once familiar house. Looking at the child, he was wondering so many things, his mind couldn’t keep up. The child had large blue eyes, a cupid’s bow for a mouth, with chubby cheeks and dark, curling hair hanging to his shoulders. A beautiful child no matter how you looked at him, he thought.
An innocent, he told himself.
And the father is…?
He looked at what was left of the house he’d grown up in. Almost all of the wood paneling had been pulled down from the walls and used as firewood. Most of the furniture had been burned, except for two chairs; the dining room table was in splinters, the huge pedestaled legs, mere stumps. The railings and spindles of the bannister; the riser of the stairs themselves; his father’s books—a family heirloom—the piano he learned to play on: gone.
“What happened?”
His mother stopped and turned to face him. There was a degree of anger in her eyes he’d never seen before; her voice was harsh. Hoarse. She looked at the child and held him closer to her, kissing his head in an effort to distract herself, looking at him as she slowly rocked the child in her arms.
“What do you think happened? They let the Russians tear the city apart for five days. What do you think happened? But as harsh as they were, the winter was worse. There were five of us living here, now there’s just me and Annaliese, as well as the baby.”
“Her baby?”
“Yes, it’s her baby,” she said, stepping forward and looking up at him. “Do you want to know the details? Do I have to tell you what happened here? Does it matter?”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“Good,” she said, and then walked into what was left of the study.
It was the one room they lived in. There were drapes and blankets hanging over the windows, and a large bed they all shared. Annaliese was sitting up in it, staring at the wall to her left with a purposeful gaze, refusing to look at him.
If she even knows it’s me.
There were tears in her eyes, slowly running down her face, and then she looked at him, with terror in her eyes, and turned away muttering endless “Hail Marys.” Martin stood in stunned silence as his mother placed the child in Annaliese’s arms, stood up and waited as Annaliese wrapped her arms around her child and began rocking back and forth. His mother tucked the blankets around Annaliese and the baby, kissed them both, softly, tenderly, and then stood up.
“My God. Annaliese?”
“When you’ve never known a man, and then you’re raped by seven men for three weeks straight, day in, and day out—week in, and week out—the mind sometimes closes itself off. Well, that’s what they told me. The American doctors, I mean.”
He remembered the Russian soldiers coming into Sachsenhausen, and how they’d stood in stunned silence as they stared at the survivors. They had little to offer in the way of food, blankets, or medicine, but they willingly shared what they had. Then they lined up the officers they found, and shot them. There was no trial. There was only anger, and rage; when it was over, all they could hear was the haunting echo of silent rage. Then they rounded up the guards, one by one, and the Kapos, and they beat them to death with their fists. The soldiers were taking their anger and hatred out on what they thought was a common enemy, Martin realized as he watched. It was brutal; it was honest; and while a part of him said it wasn’t enough, he knew that what Annaliese and his mother suffered through, had been much worse.
“And now?”
“And now?” she said with a sigh. “Now we deal with the Americans, the best we can. They give us food, and milk for the baby, and we’re grateful. They give us rations we can live off of, if we measure our food. But, there’s always those girls willing to give more, aren’t there? You know the ones? The girls that are willing to trade…for certain favours? Those are the ones that are rewarded, of course.” She smiled as she looked at him. “Of course, what the Americans don’t know is that half of the women are syphilitic, thanks to the Russians. It truly is the gift that keeps on giving.”
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