The Kaminsky Cure by New Christopher;

Author:New, Christopher;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Saqi

12

Never see again

But it isn’t only our relations that are disappearing. Millions of other people’s are too, although we won’t know about them till later. But I do know our boys on the Eastern and Italian Fronts are disappearing. They’ve been giving ground and blood then disappearing for months now, though according to the papers which Willibald still sometimes brings home into our semi-Jewish household, every city lost is in fact a battle won. Fräulein von Adler pulls on her stubby black-stemmed pipe, which she fills with tea leaves when she can’t get tobacco, and declares sardonically that in that case they ought to lose Berlin tomorrow and win the war at once. I’ve got a feeling she’ll be disappearing too if she doesn’t watch out. That episode outside that shabby house in Berlin has really brought things home to me.

And to Gabi too I judge, because she’s been subdued and withdrawn ever since we came back. As though she realises her own time may soon be coming and she’d better be prepared. I come across her in the kitchen with Sara one afternoon, when Willibald’s away on one of his longer pastoral visits. At least that’s what he calls them, but it’s a plump and sympathetic Aryan lady in Plinden that he’s mainly doing furtive good to, and she perhaps to him. Gabi is reading aged and discoloured letters to herself, then dropping them one by one into the stove, while Sara watches her like some acolyte at a sacrificial rite, which is probably just what she is. Gabi is shaking her head and wiping her drooping eye on the corner of her apron as she watches the sheets of paper blacken at the edges, curl up and burn like ancient fragile bodies in a crematorium. ‘What do you want?’ she demands, slamming the grate irritably shut when she sees me. I wanted to get warm by the stove, but I’m not so sure about that now, so I merely shrug my shoulders guiltily, although what I’m guilty of I’m also not so sure. But then she seems to forget me altogether and sits down by Sara, gazing at the oven with far-focussed eyes. It’s as if she’s still reading all those letters whose ashes were now eddying like delicate black butterflies up the chimney.

It’s not the best time for Ortsgruppenleiter Franzi Wimmer to come calling at the Pfarrhaus, but that’s exactly what he does, disturbing Gabi’s melancholic reverie. He’s doing the rounds collecting money to buy warm clothes for our boys on the Eastern Front who are saving Europe from the International Jewish-Capitalist-Bolshevik hordes. He’d like a contribution from the Herr Pfarrer, he tells her meaningly – that is, not from her – and holds his position on the second step as steadfastly as our boys are holding theirs on the Russian steppe – those that haven’t disappeared yet. Or are they already back in Poland now?

Gabi’s eyes are still abstracted. ‘He’s out.’

‘Every house makes a contribution,’ he insists, peering blearily but warily past her for some half-Aryan he can dun.

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