The Last Visit to Berlin: A Historical Family Saga Based On A True Story by Ruvik Rosenthal

Author:Ruvik Rosenthal [Rosenthal, Ruvik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-18T16:00:00+00:00

Yvonne read the letter late in the evening. Hilde, who had been reading in her room, came out to sit with her. Yvonne said, “Well, he wants to come to Berlin, to see us.”

Hilde said, “What are you going to do?”

“He calls you ‘Meme,’” said Yvonne.

Hilde raised her voice, again asking, “Yvonne, what are you going to do?”

Yvonne replied, “And you? What do you want, what do you think?”

Hilde said, “I don’t know, I am tired, Yvonne.”

Yvonne placed a kiss on Martina’s forehead, now fast approaching puberty, her face happy and content even in sleep. Then Yvonne lay in bed for a while and tried to draw portraits of Erich that would differ from the one photograph of him she still had. Then her dreams were troubled: Erich came to the door, but his mouth was foaming, and his face was white, and orderlies in white coats surrounded him. She woke up, awash in a warm current of memories, and Erich’s beautiful eyes looked upon her as he rhymed, a little poem he had written her: Yvonne, Yvonne, my little one, here’s your teddy bear, it isn’t going anywhere; and Hilde is standing behind him and he turns around and screams, a hard, shrill cry.

The scream woke Martina; she sat up on her bed, confused. Yvonne got up and set a kettle on the stove, but by the time she had made the tea Martine was asleep again and Yvonne sat alone, silently, in the kitchen. Dawn came and Hilde came out to sit with her. Yvonne took some paper and jotted down some quick words.

“Dearest Father, this all sounds very difficult to arrange, but if you manage to come you are more than welcome to stay here for a few days.”

She raised the letter and was about to rip it up, but Hilde took it from her, read it, and said, “Is this what you want?”

Yvonne stood up and said, “I don’t know, it is hard.”

Hilde told her, “No good can come of this. I don’t have to tell you this. You know your new world well. Your Jewish father will come visiting from Palestine and after a week the entire Stasi will live here with us and we will never be rid of it again. And after he is gone what will become of your life? There are many people who want to see you fail.”

“I can take it,” said Yvonne, “I will not fail. But you, what do you want, Mutti?”

“I don’t know,” said Hilde. “I am afraid. I thought nothing will ever scare me again, but he does, something about him scares me now.”

“He never scared me,” said Yvonne, “I always found him exceedingly kind.”

“He is a good man,” said Hilde, “But a madness lurks in him that I could never explain, a demon that emerges in crucial moments and destroys everything, turns him into an instrument of ruin.”

Yvonne frowned and said, “He beat you.”

Hilde, horrified, said, “No, never, what are you thinking?”

“I don’t understand, Mutti,” said Yvonne, “I don’t understand what you are saying.

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