After the Train Read online

  We don’t go to Travemünde just for fun. There is money to be made. The people who stay in the hotels are well-to-do; even those from Rolfen who come by train for the day are in a spending mood. If you keep your eyes open, there are little services you can do for the vacationers. Once settled in their basket chairs, they don’t want to run across the sand to get a soda or some tanning lotion. The sand is hot and gets between their toes. Hans concentrates on the women, charming them with his big smile, while Kurt goes for the fat men who loosen their belts for comfort and don’t want to tighten them again to get a coffee or sausage and roll. I look for mothers of little kids who are begging for ice cream. I get the ice creams and the mothers give me a tip. On good days we earn enough for third-class train fare back to Rolfen instead of having to hitchhike.

  It is a Saturday in July when I notice a couple with two children, a boy of eight or nine and a girl a few years younger. The parents settle into their basket chairs and give pails and shovels to the children for castle building. The children run to the wet part of the beach, where the sand is good for packing. The girl starts her castle at once, but the boy heads for the sea, making dashes into the water, catching the waves as they roll in.

  The basket chairs wrap around you on three sides. Seated in one, you can’t see behind you or to your side. Hans, Kurt, and I have funny stories to tell of things we overhear while standing unseen beside someone. While I wait with an eye on the boy and girl, who will surely soon be thinking of ice cream, I listen to an older man and woman who have no idea I am only inches away. The man has been swimming laps as if he were in a race, his arms mechanically rising from the water and cutting back into it so that he looks like a giant windup toy. As he hurries out of the water, he gives the boy and girl a long look. After rubbing himself briskly with a towel, the swimmer throws himself into his basket chair. I hear him say to the woman in the chair next to him, “Well, Gerda, so it starts all over again. I thought we were rid of them.”

  Gerda says, “You’d think, Konrad, they would know by now they weren’t wanted here. First the East Germans come and take our jobs and make the town a slum with their sloppy ways, and now they are back.”

  I don’t know who they are talking about; then it occurs to me that the couple with the two small children look Jewish. After all that has happened in Germany, how could the stupid Konrad and Gerda say such things? For the first time, I see why we need Herr Schmidt’s class. I think of Herr Schafer and want to tell them to shut up.

  Instead, just to show I’m not at all like Konrad and Gerda, I go over to the children of the Jewish couple and ask them if they’d like an ice-cream sandwich. They say an eager yes, and I buy each of them an ice cream with my own money. When they run to show their parents, the parents protest, calling me over and insisting on repaying me. When I refuse, they became suspicious of my motives. Why would a young boy who doesn’t even know them bestow ice cream on their children? I can see they think I am in league with the ice-cream man and it’s all some sort of scheme. I meant to be kind, and instead I merely look foolish. Reluctantly I take their money. I meant to do a good deed and this is what I get for it. I’m angry with them and with myself, for I understand that what I have done has smacked of condescension. As I look for someone to blame about the misunderstanding and not wanting it to be me, the thought goes through my head, Jews are funny about money. Disgusted, I see I am no better than Konrad and Gerda with their anti-Semitic talk.

  Unhappy with myself, I turn away, thinking to plunge into the water and let the sea wash me clean, when I hear Hans calling to Kurt and me. I hurry across the beach, eager to get as far away as I can from the scene of my embarrassment.

  Hans is hopping up and down with excitement. “I talked the man who rents the basket chairs and the boats into letting us have a sailboat for an hour,” he says.

  Kurt says, “We don’t have any money to rent a sailboat.”

  Hans said, “We don’t have to pay anything. We get the sailboat in exchange for the three of us staying late and cleaning up the beach and stacking the basket chairs.”

  “We’ll be here until dark,” Kurt says. “And it’s hard getting a ride back home at night. Besides, none of us knows how to sail.”

  Hans says, “Peter reads all those books about sailing around the world.”

  “Those are books,” I say, “and reading isn’t sailing.”

  Hans brushes away my doubts. “You’re always telling us that books are real to you.”

  I’m skeptical, but for weeks we have talked about what it would be like to be in a boat on the sea, and here is our chance. We drag the sailboat into the water. Hans holds it steady while Kurt and I climb in. Hans grins. “There’s nothing to it. You just put up the sail and turn that lever at the back of the boat in the direction you want to go.”

  “What a fool you are, Hans,” Kurt says. “That’s a rudder, and anyone can tell you that you have to turn the rudder in the opposite direction from the way you want to go.” Kurt begins to describe some rule of physics, but I’m not listening. I’m trying to keep the boat from tipping as Hans climbs in.

  Hans orders, “Peter, help me put up the long pole with the sail on it.”

  “That pole is the mast—and you don’t put it up, you step it,” I tell him. As soon as we have it in place, the wind seizes hold of the canvas and the sail begins whipping back and forth like it’s a wild animal trying to escape. The boat tips one way and then another.

  I shout, “Kurt, grab hold of the boom.” Too late, the boom swings around and hits him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. Hans pays no attention. He’s busy letting out the sail, which immediately catches the wind. The sailboat is flying over the water. I hardly feel the boat beneath me, only the excitement of being carried across the waves toward the horizon by some strong force. The people on the beach grow smaller. The owner of the boat, looking like a cartoon character, is jumping up and down and waving his arms.

  “What’s he yelling?” Hans asks.

  “He’s signaling to take down the sail,” I shout. “We’re headed out to sea.”

  I can tell from the expression on Hans’s face that the idea of heading out to sea is exactly what he wants. If there’s a danger of drowning, all the more exciting. Desperately I grab at the sail and, fighting off Hans, begin to take it in. We rock wildly back and forth until at last the sail is down and the boat steadies. “How will we get back?” I ask, but the answer is there on the bottom of the boat. A pair of oars. Kurt is still groaning from the blow he received and refuses to have anything more to do with our adventure; and Hans is mad because I lowered the sail. He grumbles, “We could have made it all the way to Sweden.”

  “You belong to a rowing club,” Kurt says to me. “Let’s see how good you are.” I row us back through the waves. By the time we reach the shore, my shoulders are aching. Rowing at sea is hard work. Kurt and I are so happy to be on dry land, we forget our anger with Hans until the owner of the boat and basket chair concession calls us Dummköpfe and a lot of other things, reminding us that we have to stay until dark to rake the sand and put the chairs away. “That means even if we’re lucky and someone gives us a ride,” I say, “it’ll be midnight before we’re home. My parents are going to be wild with worry.”

  Kurt says, “It was your idea, Hans. Peter and I should go home and just let you clean up.” But a minute later he is saying, “While we’re raking the sand, we’ll look for money. I’ll bet people drop lots of coins during the day. Maybe we’ll get enough to take the train back.”

  Hans is trying to talk us into using any money we find to rent the sailboat again, when we notice people leaving their basket chairs and hurrying toward the shore. They’re looking out to the sea, where a small white figure is struggling in the water. The Jewish mother and father have waded out a way and are floundering in the waves, unable to swim and shouting for someone to rescue their son. The man I overheard talking about being “rid of them” plunges into the sea. His
arms thrash in and out of the water, his head hardly coming up for a breath. The boy disappears beneath a wave. The next second we see him again. Another wave is coming, but the man reaches out, scooping up the boy. Tucking him under his arm, the man heads back to shore. The couple are crying with relief, thanking the man for saving their son. Even though the boy is now safe, the man who has rescued him keeps one arm around the boy as if, having saved his life, he had a stake in him.

  All we rake up is a few pfennig, so just as I feared, it’s midnight when I get home. To put off my scolding from Mother and Father, I tell them about the boy. “The man who rescued him looked like he didn’t want to let go of the boy,” I said. “Yet only a short time before, he was saying awful things about that family because they were Jews.”

  Mother says, “Ach, Peter, nothing is more precious to you than a life you have saved.” Though she has never seen the boy, there are tears running down her cheeks.

  FIVE

  THE NEXT DAY I have one of my nightmares. The nightmares come less often than they used to when I was younger, but after Travemünde the bad dream comes slinking back like some animal living in the shadows. The nightmares began when I was little, hardly able to walk. In the dream everything looms over me. There are shouts. Someone is pleading. I am lifted up by a young woman; my face is wet with tears, my own and hers. I scream as I am pushed through a door or a window from darkness into light. I awaken, afraid my parents have heard me screaming, but at breakfast they say nothing.

  Hearing my screams when I was little, Mother and Father would hurry into my room in their nightclothes, Mother’s hair in a long plait, Father’s hair standing up every which way. As I sobbed out the nightmare, Mother and Father would become as upset as I was, insisting that what I had dreamed was not true and that all was well. But there was something about the way they spoke that was not convincing. I saw they were troubled by my nightmares, and I began to believe there must be something real in them, something my parents knew and wouldn’t tell me. The nightmares continued, but unwilling to upset Mother and Father, I managed to keep myself from crying out. Little by little the nightmares came less often.

  After church I wander around the empty house, cursing the rain that is keeping me indoors and thinking of my nightmare and the secret I am sure my parents share. Father and Mother have gone to spend the afternoon with the Kesslers down the street. I begin poking about in Mother’s dresser drawers. Mother is neat and organized and has a place for everything. She doesn’t like me rummaging about. I am looking for the bundle of letters Father and Mother wrote to each other during the war. Once before, I gave them a quick glance, but it embarrassed me to see the soppy things they wrote, especially since they are so old, at least ten years older than the parents of my friends. Now I untie the ribbon that holds the letters together and begin to read.

  In the early years of the war there are long sticky paragraphs about how they miss each other. Father is stationed in Berlin, and Mother worries about bombs falling on his office. She says the small garden she planted is producing vegetables and that there is little bombing in the part of Swabia where she is living. Soon she is writing about her work with the German Red Cross, helping soldiers. The letters are carefully written and give little information about what she sees. I guess that letters to soldiers were censored by the Nazi government. It takes me an hour to make my way from 1941 to 1944. I find no secrets and am hurrying through the last of the letters when something Mother writes puzzles me. The letter is dated July 30, 1944.

  My darling,

  I have taken a great chance. If only you had been here to tell me what to do. Perhaps when you learn what it is I have done, you will be very unhappy, but I could not act otherwise. I believe it was a gift from God, who took pity on me because of my deepest longing. You will know what that is, but I can say no more.

  Mother is the most sensible person in the world. She thinks over everything twice and then once again. What chance did she take? And what is her “deepest longing”? Eagerly I open Father’s reply.

  Dearest Emma,

  It is terrible that this war keeps us apart. I know your good sense and I cannot think you would do anything foolish.

  He goes on to describe the weather and his life in Berlin and says he has a surprise for Mother. He has been given a few days’ leave and will soon see her.

  Quickly I turn to the next letter written after Father’s leave. Mother speaks of how happy she was to see Father and how relieved she was that he had shared “the greatest joy and the greatest terror” she has ever known. After that some nonsense about picking wild raspberries in the fields and complaining that you cannot make jam without sugar. Father’s final letter comes just before the war ends and is full of talk of a reunion and kisses to her and to “little Peter,” and other such mush. There are no more letters, only an envelope with no address. I open it and draw out a picture of a young woman. I have seen the woman. She is the woman in my nightmare, the woman whose tears mingled with mine.

  My hand shakes as I put the picture into the envelope and carefully arrange the dresser drawer as I found it. I make my way into the kitchen and throw myself onto a chair. There in its usual place is the woodstove, which we use when there is wood and don’t use when wood is scarce or too expensive. Also in its place is the nearly empty icebox, with its drip pan underneath that I forgot to empty, and the sink, which Mother scours so severely that the metal shows through the white enamel. At the window is the yellow striped curtain Mother made from an old dress of hers. On the floor is the oval rug braided with scraps of clothes; if you look closely, you can see Father’s old tie and a blue shirt of mine that I have outgrown. Nothing has changed, yet everything has changed.

  It is not a nightmare at all, but a memory. Who is the woman? What has she to do with me? Questions I have put out of my head now came tumbling out. I know about the birds and bees, so why haven’t I wondered how Mother could have become pregnant when Father was away in the army for a year before I was born? Why, when there are so many pictures of me as a young boy, are there no pictures of me as a baby? Why has there been no mention of me in the letters until the last one? Why have we moved so far away from our home in Swabia? Why were Mother and Father so upset over my nightmares? What does Father mean by his talk of the one thing he is proud of? Little by little, like the colored bits of a kaleidoscope, all the questions form themselves into a pattern. Mother and Father are not my parents. Whoever my parents were, for some reason their identity is being kept from me.

  The world shifts. I am no longer sure who I am. I have always been Peter Liebig—I even have my father’s name—but now I could be anyone or no one. I look in the mirror that Mother keeps by the doorway so she can fuss with her hair and put on lipstick before she goes off to school each morning. A familiar face looks back at me, brown hair that flops over my forehead and always needs pushing back, brown eyes, the small white scar from my fall off Father’s bicycle, which I had sneaked for a ride when I was seven. I feel if I pull the familiar face off like a mask, underneath I will see someone quite different, someone I don’t know.

  I wait to confront Mother. I will tell her I read the letters and saw the picture of the woman and I know the woman. Night after night the mysterious woman came to me in my nightmare wanting something. I will ask Mother, “Who is the woman? What does she want from me?”

  Luckily another hour goes by before my parents return, giving me time to come to my senses. How can I be sure the woman in the picture and the woman in my nightmare are the same? Even if they are, after all the years of caring for me, how can I confront Mother and accuse her of not being my mother? The whole thing might be my imagination. If I am wrong, how could I make up to Mother for such a terrible accusation? I will have to find the answers to my questions for myself. Though it will be nearly impossible, I will pretend nothing has happened.

  Father goes off to his study to pore over his blueprints. Mother catches me staring at her and says, “Peter, why
are you looking at me as if you didn’t know me?”

  I feel myself flush and manage to mumble, “You’ve got your hair in some new way. It looks very nice.” It’s a safe answer, for Mother is always looking for another way to wear her hair. “If I can’t have new clothes,” she says, “I can have a new hairdo, which costs nothing.”

  She glances in the mirror, the same mirror that has held my two images. “Why, Peter, imagine you noticing. What a nice compliment. For that I’ll make you some cocoa. The Kesslers gave us a packet of chocolate.”

  “Not now, Mother, I promised Kurt I would meet him. We have to talk about an assignment from Herr Schmidt.” I know that if I stay in the same room with her, I won’t be able to keep from asking questions. I suddenly have to tell someone my story.

  I throw on my jacket and I’m out the door, my mother watching me, a puzzled look on her face, for I have never been known to refuse anything with chocolate, which is my favorite and very scarce. I’m surprised and a little disappointed to find that the city takes no notice of how I have changed. People walk about under umbrellas. No one gives me a second glance.