one more phantom in the extinguished city. Closed restaurants, empty markets, train lines cut off, families mutilated. A zip code obliterated. Street corners full of photographs of men and women who had left for work that day, like Dad had, and never returned. At the entrances to buildings, in gyms, offices, bookshops, thousands of lost faces. Each morning they multiplied; new descriptions appeared. Except for Dad’s.
Mom didn’t tour the hospitals or go to the morgue or the police stations. She was not a victim, much less the wife of a victim. She didn’t accept condolences. Nor did she answer the phone when people kept calling to give her news she refused to listen to, or to feel sorry for her. Dad was not wounded or dead. She was convinced of it.
She would let time go by, and that would sort everything out. She couldn’t fix something that had no solution. She wasn’t going to shed a single tear. There was no need.
My mother wrapped herself in silence. That was her best refuge. She didn’t hear the noise of the traffic or any of the voices around her. All the background music disappeared. Each morning, she roamed the neighborhood that reeked of smoke and melted metal, with dust and debris everywhere. Every streetlamp offered more photos. Sometimes she stopped to peer at them: the faces seemed strangely familiar to her.
She tried to continue her daily routines. Going to the market, buying coffee, picking up her medicine from the pharmacy. She lay down to sleep with the smell of smoke and charred metal sticking to her skin.
Mom left her job and has not been back since. At first, she asked for a leave, but later on that turned into an unannounced resignation. She didn’t need to work. Dad’s apartment had belonged to his family since before the war, and we lived on the trust fund his grandfather had set up many years earlier.
I sometimes think that withdrawing from the world was the only way she found to help her bear the pain. Not just from having lost Dad but also from not having told him I was going to be born. That he would become a father.
H annah
Berlin, 1939
I opened the dining room windows, pulled back the curtains, let in the morning light. Then I took a deep breath. There was no odor of smoke, metal, or dust. When I closed my eyes, I could smell the fragrance of jasmine. I opened them, and tea was served on the dining room table with its delicate lace cloth, standing in the corner closest to the window so that we could catch a little sun. There were the vanilla biscuits that my friend Gretel and I liked so much. I needed a hat. Ah, and a scarf. Yes, a pink silk scarf to receive Gretel and Don, her dog. When we had finished, I would run downstairs with him.
Gretel opened the door and crossed the main living room, but Don was the first one in; he scampered around the table like a mad thing. I tried to pet him and caught him by the tail to calm him down, but nothing would stop him. He was free.
Gretel could not stop chattering: Don had said hello; he was learning to sing; he got her out of bed every morning. Don is a completely white terrier, without a single dark patch or stain, not a single blemish, and perfectly proportioned, like all the dogs of his race. He is privileged: he has even been in Villa Viola, where they train pure pedigree dogs. He was taught alongside its most famous dog, a German shepherd named Blondi.
Gretel liked to drink ice water in champagne glasses, closing her eyes coquettishly and pretending the bubbles made her feel giddy. I had such fun with her. She came to the house twice a week to have tea and champagne without bubbles.
“What are you doing sitting there in the dark?” Mama had arrived home and put an end to my daydream: my memories of afternoon tea with Gretel.
I followed her into her bedroom and was overwhelmed by the scent of 10,600 jasmine flowers and 336 Bulgarian roses. She used to explain that all this went into concocting the perfume as she subtly let a drop
Mom didn’t tour the hospitals or go to the morgue or the police stations. She was not a victim, much less the wife of a victim. She didn’t accept condolences. Nor did she answer the phone when people kept calling to give her news she refused to listen to, or to feel sorry for her. Dad was not wounded or dead. She was convinced of it.
She would let time go by, and that would sort everything out. She couldn’t fix something that had no solution. She wasn’t going to shed a single tear. There was no need.
My mother wrapped herself in silence. That was her best refuge. She didn’t hear the noise of the traffic or any of the voices around her. All the background music disappeared. Each morning, she roamed the neighborhood that reeked of smoke and melted metal, with dust and debris everywhere. Every streetlamp offered more photos. Sometimes she stopped to peer at them: the faces seemed strangely familiar to her.
She tried to continue her daily routines. Going to the market, buying coffee, picking up her medicine from the pharmacy. She lay down to sleep with the smell of smoke and charred metal sticking to her skin.
Mom left her job and has not been back since. At first, she asked for a leave, but later on that turned into an unannounced resignation. She didn’t need to work. Dad’s apartment had belonged to his family since before the war, and we lived on the trust fund his grandfather had set up many years earlier.
I sometimes think that withdrawing from the world was the only way she found to help her bear the pain. Not just from having lost Dad but also from not having told him I was going to be born. That he would become a father.
H annah
Berlin, 1939
I opened the dining room windows, pulled back the curtains, let in the morning light. Then I took a deep breath. There was no odor of smoke, metal, or dust. When I closed my eyes, I could smell the fragrance of jasmine. I opened them, and tea was served on the dining room table with its delicate lace cloth, standing in the corner closest to the window so that we could catch a little sun. There were the vanilla biscuits that my friend Gretel and I liked so much. I needed a hat. Ah, and a scarf. Yes, a pink silk scarf to receive Gretel and Don, her dog. When we had finished, I would run downstairs with him.
Gretel opened the door and crossed the main living room, but Don was the first one in; he scampered around the table like a mad thing. I tried to pet him and caught him by the tail to calm him down, but nothing would stop him. He was free.
Gretel could not stop chattering: Don had said hello; he was learning to sing; he got her out of bed every morning. Don is a completely white terrier, without a single dark patch or stain, not a single blemish, and perfectly proportioned, like all the dogs of his race. He is privileged: he has even been in Villa Viola, where they train pure pedigree dogs. He was taught alongside its most famous dog, a German shepherd named Blondi.
Gretel liked to drink ice water in champagne glasses, closing her eyes coquettishly and pretending the bubbles made her feel giddy. I had such fun with her. She came to the house twice a week to have tea and champagne without bubbles.
“What are you doing sitting there in the dark?” Mama had arrived home and put an end to my daydream: my memories of afternoon tea with Gretel.
I followed her into her bedroom and was overwhelmed by the scent of 10,600 jasmine flowers and 336 Bulgarian roses. She used to explain that all this went into concocting the perfume as she subtly let a drop
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