Nothing But Fear by Knud Romer Page B

matter how much they scrubbed and scoured. It was too much for Herr Hänsel, who could no longer control his urges, and Mother was constantly having to say no and to ward off his advances, which became more and more physical. She didn’t give a fig for the artist or for the Expressionist daubs he painted and hung along the corridor outside the toilet. And when she had been to the bathroom she would genuflect before his self-portrait and say,
‘Meister, ich habe gespült’
.
    Frau Dömicke’s son had suffered brain-damage from shell-fire and was missing a section of his skull. When he took off his hat, you could see the blood pumping round and his brain mass pulsating. He was mad – and madly in love with Eva, who had an admirer at last, but it was the bane of their lives. It ended up with him assaulting her and hauling her behind a bush, but she escaped and ran home weeping and screaming that she wanted to get away, to get back to Kleinwanzleben, wanted everything to be as it had been before!
    Mother fetched milk from the nearby farm, Mönchshof – they had ration coupons for three litres a week. To get to the cowshed, she had to pass a goose, which stood chained to the entrance and hissed at her. One day something went wrong and the goose was loose, flapping its wings and beating and biting until the farmhand came running to the rescue. Mother had fainted and was carried back to the farm, where prisoners were airing the place out. They had carriedtables and chairs out into the open and were beating the carpets – and they put her to bed. She had bruises all over her body and was sick and vomiting, but the only medical man in the vicinity was the vet. He told her that she had broken two ribs – and that she might be… pregnant? He beat his arms up and down and laughed – it was only a joke – and gave her morphine. She had had enough of life on the farm.
    More refugees kept arriving all the time, from Pomerania, from Lithuania, and Papa Schneider sank into black depression. Mother tried to comfort him, while at the same time she nursed Grandmother, looked after Eva and Inge and struggled on. And she determined that she would get back what they had lost, would go to the East Zone and fetch their things from Kleinwanzleben. So she contacted people she knew. Some of them were now at the top of the party – the SED – and had a say in the new administration, and a mention of the name of Horst Heilmann was enough for most doors to open before her. He had been part of the Communist resistance in Berlin, they said, part of the
Rote Kapelle
. He and Schulze-Boysen and Libertas and the rest were feted as heroes in East Germany – later a street was even named after him in Leipzig.
    Mother cycled off and slipped across the border – she was almost caught by two Russian soldiers – and all she had with her were the keys to the house and a bag of ground black pepper for self-defence and with them a letter from Horst Heilmann’s father:
    Halle (Saale) den 4.9.1946
    An den
    Herrn Landrat des Kreises Wanzleben
    in Wanzleben
    Frau Hildegard Voll war die Braut meines infolge aktiver Teilnahme an der Widerstandsbewegung Schulze-Bosen am 22.12.1942 hingerichteten Sohnes Horst Heilmann. Frau Voll selbst war mit meinem Sohn Horst und Schulze-Boysen, der der Lehrer der beiden an der Universität war, auch politisch eng verbunden. Frau Voll verdient es infolgedessen bei ihren Bemühungen um Rückführung des inzwischen von der Beschlagnahme frei gegebenen Inventars der Familie Dr. Schneider, nachdrücklichst unterstützt zu werden
.
    Ich bitte Sie, Frau Voll jede mögliche Unterstützung zuteil werden zu lassen
.
    Dr. Ing. Adolf Heilmann
    Stadtbaurat
. 4
    T he remainder of her trip to Kleinwanzleben was by bus. She visited Papa Schneider’s business connections, Rabbethge and Olbricht, who received her with open arms, putting her up and supporting her in