The History Of History Part 17

"It doesn't hurt Asja, and it doesn't hurt you. When you get tired of me you'll grow up and get married yourself. I'm not doing anyone any harm. It's just a matter of good management. Keep little wife number one happy. Keep little unofficial wife number two from getting upset. That's all. Settle down now, unofficial wife of mine."

"I'm going to leave you."

At this, Amadeus was ruffled. He shrugged his shoulders, but she could tell he was hurt. "But you'll always come back, we can't stay away from each other." He gave her a pained and serious look.

"No, I'll never come back," Margaret said, her voice thick.

"You're vicious. How you women torture me. And you Americans are the most terrible. You learn it from the oil barons. You're warmongers."

"Don't talk to me." Margaret said. Amadeus was quiet. Margaret spoke again: "I'll leave you forever someday. And when I do, it will be terrible. Terrible things will happen."

"But not now," and he threw a half a breadstick into her hair, which was curly and could catch things, and then reached to get it, as if he were drawing it out of her ear. "There now, look at that, you've got breadsticks in your ears. Why do you store your breadsticks there?"

He winked at her and laughed uncertainly, catching her eye. At last, Margaret smiled.

On Amadeus's birthday, he threw a party. He invited Margaret, typical of his munificence when it came to sharing his life with both his mistress and his wife.

The day of the party came and Margaret's heart scratched at her throat from the early morning. There was something that had risen in her like an enchanted beanstalk overnight, with a great, muscular hydraulic push out from the ground. It was a burning jealousy. She thought of Amadeus's wife, Asja-nowadays she knew a thing or two about her. The woman was also an academic. Her name had a von von and her West German family had a large house on Lake Constance. Although Margaret sometimes thought she was as much in love with the idea of Asja as she was in love with the idea of Amadeus, she was not ready to cede him to her; she had been convinced for some time now that it was she, Margaret, that he loved, not his wife. So she planned her day carefully. First, she would go to the shops and buy herself a new dress-so that she would stun all who saw her. She repeated several times to herself, "She shall and her West German family had a large house on Lake Constance. Although Margaret sometimes thought she was as much in love with the idea of Asja as she was in love with the idea of Amadeus, she was not ready to cede him to her; she had been convinced for some time now that it was she, Margaret, that he loved, not his wife. So she planned her day carefully. First, she would go to the shops and buy herself a new dress-so that she would stun all who saw her. She repeated several times to herself, "She shall not not look better than I." Then, she would go and have a free makeover at the French department store where they were having a promotion, and then she would go up to Alexanderplatz and pick out a gift for Amadeus at the electronics store there, and finally she would stop by a bar and get herself a stiff drink to make the arrival easier. look better than I." Then, she would go and have a free makeover at the French department store where they were having a promotion, and then she would go up to Alexanderplatz and pick out a gift for Amadeus at the electronics store there, and finally she would stop by a bar and get herself a stiff drink to make the arrival easier.

This was the breed of desperation that flourished throughout the affair.

Margaret did go to the shops, but it took her a very long time to make up her mind about a dress, and she fell behind on time. In the end, she chose a white canvas one that grazed her self-consciously small waist, clutching close around her self-consciously well-shaped b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It closed with a red belt. She went home to change into it, and in the end had to race to Alexanderplatz, where once again the shopping took longer than expected. She ended up going down a side street to a junk shop, where she picked out an antique radio in a teak case. The radio was very heavy, and she worried that its grime would get on her white dress, so she carefully wrapped it in her trench coat, and became very cold as she lugged it uphill, north into Prenzlauer Berg. In those days the trip from Alexanderplatz into Prenzlauer Berg was still through unreconstructed factory buildings abandoned like silos, and walking up the empty streets, with their slopes and brown cobblestones, she was alone. She listened to the sound of swallows. She pa.s.sed leafy residences and the brick water tower that rises into view from behind a gentle hill, and she realized that with the heavy radio in her arms, she could hardly go into a bar or rather, if she did, she would attract too much attention.

So instead, her stomach rising into a collection of hasty insects, she stopped just before she got to Amadeus's fine apartment on the Winsstra.s.se at a Doner kiosk, where she bought a little flask of vodka from a smiling Turk. He watched her as she drank. Margaret felt very conscious of being a girl in a white form-hugging dress. She quickly finished almost the entire little bottle, right there on the street. When asked, she made up a story: she told the Turk that she was about to see her beloved whom she hadn't seen in many years; she was frightened of what he would think of her after all the time pa.s.sed. He laughed. He offered her another bottle for free. She accepted, and by the time she arrived at the apartment on Winsstra.s.se she was quite beyond self-awareness in the conventional sense. In particular, she didn't notice the time-in her rush, she had been too quick, and when Asja opened the door, Margaret found she was the only guest-it was just man and wife at home.

With her dress and her fresh face, Margaret had been successful. She was tall, Grecian-formed. Asja was tiny beside her, blouse old-fas.h.i.+oned; and she wore no bra beneath it. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were visibly sunken. So Margaret, young, muscled, in her radiant white dress and upturned b.r.e.a.s.t.s, had trounced her opponent. But she saw right away that she had beaten her with far too rousing a gesture, as though she had raised a sledgehammer to kill a moth.

Asja, standing indifferently before her, or perhaps with only a slightly sniffy dislike, had not even bothered to put makeup on her face, and her clothes were quiet, aged, poetic, as.e.xual. Asja managed to have more cla.s.s and style than Margaret would ever have.

That was how Margaret saw it. Her yearning for Amadeus had never been divorced from her desire to live like Asja, to be just as Asja was.

The two of them looked at each other, and then all at once began to fuss, in sugar-sweet voices, over the placement of the dirty radio, an item Asja eyed for a long moment once it was put down in the bedroom.

The apartment had very high ceilings, s.h.i.+ning parquet floors that buckled ever so slightly. These Amadeus had stripped and refinished himself. They gave off a golden glow now. The moldings around the ceilings were broad and detailed, the balconies large, and filled with hyacinths, climbing roses, dill and basil. Amadeus's study, where the party was to be held, had a large fireplace with a great Parisian mirror above it, bookshelves lining one wall, and a thick white carpet in the center of the room into which the feet sank with grat.i.tude.

The kitchen was down a long corridor all the way at the back of the flat. This is where Amadeus was, when Asja ushered Margaret in. She said he was putting together the salad-he knew how to make a good vinaigrette. Margaret had never known that Amadeus knew how to make a good vinaigrette. She had never seen him cook in all her years as his mistress.

In Margaret's drunken state, her embarra.s.sment was both aggravated and mitigated, depending on how you considered it. Drunkenness only allows for one emotion at a time. The emotional thrust of the drunken mind has the wattage of the sun whose light burns out all other stars. So Margaret was sunk deep inside her excruciation. On the other hand, drunkenness also softens and blurs, so she found this excruciation much easier to tolerate than she might have.

Amadeus came in to see her in the study in the blank instant after Asja left for the kitchen. If he had not been so big, and Asja so small, Margaret would have entertained the possibility that they were the same person, exchanging masks, to fool her. She tried mightily to hide her intoxication. Amadeus was in high spirits. He pretended she was not his mistress of course, saying in casual, avuncular tones, that she looked "like a model." This was colder than any unkind words. But he was quite taken with the radio, his jowls bouncing with a warm smile when she led him to it. He spent a nice amount of time twiddling the dials and pretending he knew how to fix it, as it seemed to be broken in the end, although it made a humming sound and the board lit up when the k.n.o.b was pushed. After a while, he offered her a drink. He said that so far it was only the red wine that was open.

So she took red wine. Somehow, shortly after, when three or four more guests had arrived, as she was tripping gaily down the long corridor to the kitchen with the winegla.s.s, she managed to spill it all down her white dress, in a long vertical stain the color of a pig's kidney.

She went back into the kitchen, where Asja was working on the last of the dinner preparations. Asja said to Margaret, in a voice that Margaret would never forget, "Oh, you've spilled your wine."

They looked at each other. Margaret wanted to laugh at the clarity. It seemed so keen, the rightness of her red humiliation-the scarlet, organ-shaped stain marking her brand-new dress, the obvious, quiet pride and womanly satisfaction of her hostess. But Margaret too felt satisfaction, though it only lasted a short while-not the pleasure of the m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t, not in this case at least, but rather of the eager gamester, who sees that the gauntlet, thrown down, has been registered, the challenge accepted. The show will go on. Nothing has been canceled, far from it. Asja said in the same flat, slow voice: "You must use salt, otherwise the stain will be permanent." And she handed Margaret, with a slow hand, a box of sea salt.

From then on, Margaret lost all control. She treated the stain on her dress with almost the entire box of salt, most of it ending up on the floor of Asja and Amadeus's bathroom, the little pointillist crystals bouncing merrily away. Margaret began to cry then, drunkenly, with sarcastic self-pity, feeling that her eyes were crossing, or the room was moving up and away, or her sinuses were imploding. She cried easily and without strain or shame, like an actress. She cleaned herself up and headed back toward the study, noticing on the way a handmade calendar with a snapshot of Amadeus in his youth on the month of July. This she tried to rip off for herself and put in her handbag when no one was looking, but found she couldn't detach it from the construction paper without tearing the photograph, so she left it with just the corner pulled loose. She wept to herself: You've just pulled the corner loose, he'll never come free from her handmade calendar.

By midnight she had to be sent home; she was crying openly by then, looking like a little girl, her streaming hair framing her face in tenebrous curtains. She told no one why she was crying, but everyone looked at her quizzically, then down into their winegla.s.ses, then back at one another, smiles about their own conversations reemerging already on their lips. But Amadeus reached through the door and squeezed her hand as she was leaving. She left the cold thing for a moment in his hot grip-soft and motionless.

It was after that night that Margaret began to go out with another man: the upstanding Philipp. Chivalrous Philipp, who, when he learned of her affair with Amadeus (his love for Margaret having grown obtrusive; he broke into her e-mail account one starry night when she did not come to him), surprised everyone by going up to Prenzlauer Berg to find Amadeus. When Philipp found him, he beat him. He raised his limp fists and punched him and kicked him several times with his green crocodile boots, until Amadeus had taken to the floor, panting, his arms over his head in a theatrical pose, frightened out of his wits but not actually hurt. For that, Philipp was too much man of his milieu. Afterward, Margaret looked at Philipp and he looked like a gargoyle. From then on she would not meet him, and there were no more breakfasts of black bread and eggs, and Margaret's attachment to Amadeus took on a renewed desperation.

As for Amadeus-troublesome triangulations with women were the stuff of his entire life. So when Philipp beat him, he howled-but resignedly, as if he had almost almost expected this to happen all along. expected this to happen all along.

When Amadeus was a young man in a young man in Gymnasium Gymnasium, just cutting his teeth with girls, he had a virulent case of macho pride and a mild case of cerebral palsy. The palsy left him weak, and thus also with the sensation that he was entirely at their mercy-the mercy of women: too much man not to be spared their attentions, not enough man to be sure he could satisfy. His homunculus damaged during birth, the palsy left the right side of his body frail, and he compensated by building up the muscles on the left side, hobbling with the force of a beached swordfish that will regain the water after all. He played soccer until he fell into bed exhausted after the afternoons on the field, and he was very good at the game. He had managed that. But he never got rid of his daily physical intimidation. He was afraid of branches falling from trees when he stood under them in the summer, afraid of icicles falling from eaves in the winter, and after the Wall came down, afraid of foreigners, because their males were so often tough.

For their birthdays, he gave both Margaret and Asja escape ladders made out of rope with metal hooks at the top to go over windowsills, in case either were ever caught in a fire. He was afraid of fires. And there was a famous story of how once, late at night, on the subway with Asja, he abandoned her. A group of Russian men boarded the train and began eyeing Asja. Amadeus heard them say rude and lascivious things, thinking their language wasn't understood. Amadeus, instead of defending her, changed to a seat where he did not appear to be her squire. He kept his head forward. When she berated him afterward, he said, "Better you get raped alone, than you get raped while I get beaten." And then he laughed and laughed.

But all the world's dangers aside, women were frightening on their own. They had always seemed to Amadeus a prize too heavy to carry. They wanted everything, and they would suck out his hard-won strength, force him to procreate when all he wanted was to escape the tightening noose of life. When he didn't call, they cried, and then what was he to do? It was unbearable, and then when he felt like crying himself, it was unbearable, he thought he would collapse. So, early on, he had discovered that he must take control of women in order to keep women from taking control of him. The extraordinary thing was that they seemed to like it that way, at least the ones who came back, and there were several of that kind.

He had gotten into the habit already at eighteen or nineteen of having a stormy relations.h.i.+p with a strong and severe woman on one side, while at the same time sleeping with one or two soft and pliant women on the other. This was a habit he never broke.

Amadeus sometimes felt sorry about the situation with Margaret. But then again, who was the victim? She wasn't so weak. It was precisely her youthful strength that had first attracted him. She was very tall and long-limbed, her femurs looked like the kind of things one could use to defend oneself in time of war, solid as cricket bats, and that was what Americans were for, weren't they? Ha-ha.

Of course, it had then been a sort of surprise to discover how very fragile Margaret actually was, the young thing. And now, after the birthday party, she was fighting like an animal cornered, but again, was that Amadeus's fault? Really she was crazy, she was a completely completely insane person, and sometimes he thought that that alone was a reason to keep his distance from her. insane person, and sometimes he thought that that alone was a reason to keep his distance from her.

On the other hand, from the beginning, he had never met a woman who wasn't wasn't insane. It was the price of s.e.x. They seemed to be strong, women, but then all you needed to do was to begin to withdraw intimacy, and they went mad. Amadeus always did pull back-it was a double satisfaction: allowing him to avoid an appearance of weakness, and at the same time making their desire shoot through the roof, destroying their strong exterior. He liked to see them like that. insane. It was the price of s.e.x. They seemed to be strong, women, but then all you needed to do was to begin to withdraw intimacy, and they went mad. Amadeus always did pull back-it was a double satisfaction: allowing him to avoid an appearance of weakness, and at the same time making their desire shoot through the roof, destroying their strong exterior. He liked to see them like that. But she breaks just like a little girl But she breaks just like a little girl. He thought of the song. It had become an act of his personality.

His wife, Asja-he met her while he was getting a second Ph.D., a Western Western one this time, una.s.sailable. He married her because she was the only woman he ever met who could unwrap a birthday gift and dismiss it in a single gesture, with the same haughty grace with which his mother had been able to do it, the sort of cruelty that only enhances beauty. Asja was the last child of her family, born late-in 1965-the very same year that her father was indicted for war crimes. After this father disappeared to a haven of which only certain other veterans of the Waffen SS knew the location, Asja grew up with only her mother and siblings, the mother having various peculiarities. She made the children peel the skin off their grapes before eating them and would not speak a word to them until they were done. one this time, una.s.sailable. He married her because she was the only woman he ever met who could unwrap a birthday gift and dismiss it in a single gesture, with the same haughty grace with which his mother had been able to do it, the sort of cruelty that only enhances beauty. Asja was the last child of her family, born late-in 1965-the very same year that her father was indicted for war crimes. After this father disappeared to a haven of which only certain other veterans of the Waffen SS knew the location, Asja grew up with only her mother and siblings, the mother having various peculiarities. She made the children peel the skin off their grapes before eating them and would not speak a word to them until they were done.

After Amadeus and Asja were married, they locked themselves into a strategy game of humor and ice. They were both very funny, and they were both very cold. It didn't matter that she grew up on one side of the Wall and he on the other, those cultural differences were only fuel for their loving hatred of each other. One day he would pretend he didn't hear her when she came home from work-even if she perhaps yelled to him some news, that she had been awarded, say, a coveted grant. He would pretend to be deep in his work, only greet her over an hour later. From Asja there was no exasperated "can't you even say h.e.l.lo h.e.l.lo to me?" Instead, she simply put the fresh mozzarella and tomato salad he had made for their dinner down the drain, insisting even under duress that she had never seen such a salad-her face unimaginably blank. Later they would make fun of the neighbors together and the s.e.x would be fantastic. to me?" Instead, she simply put the fresh mozzarella and tomato salad he had made for their dinner down the drain, insisting even under duress that she had never seen such a salad-her face unimaginably blank. Later they would make fun of the neighbors together and the s.e.x would be fantastic.

But once he did not help her to the hospital when she had an attack of asthma. In retaliation, she secretly erased the article he had been writing diligently for weeks, both the copy on the hard drive and the one on the back-up disk. Then months went by without s.e.x of any kind, or even any acknowledgment of the other's existence.

But as long as Asja was home, that was the main thing Amadeus cared about. He trusted that with her devotion to the church, she would never be unfaithful to him.

Margaret Taub, on the other hand, not a religious girl, had never once lashed out or been unkind, never done a harsh thing, never even ribbed him. Her love for him had disarmed her, she said. This was gratifying to Amadeus, made him feel the conqueror, but also made Margaret a bit unexciting. Submissiveness had its uses, but she was certainly no "true love" as Asja was. When Margaret finally did begin to turn vindictive, her claws emerging, he found his pa.s.sion for her growing for the first time.

Amadeus knew that he was dependent on the lock-dance with women-deep down he believed he loved women more than life itself. What he couldn't stand, couldn't bear to even think about, was the prospect of losing any woman he had ever had. He made a point of trying to seduce each of his ex-lovers regularly, with even more dedication, not less, after his marriage. He became peeved if an ex-girlfriend left the country, or even left Berlin.

There was one night when Margaret was going to Paris on vacation, threatening never to come back to Berlin, when he completely broke down. He invited her over, exceptionally, to the apartment on Winsstra.s.se (Asja was away visiting "family"), and he was unable to keep his eyes off her all through dinner and kept his hands on her knees under the table, and then afterward, in the bedroom, he drank vermouth straight from the bottle and sang "I Saw Her Standing There" in such a way that it was meant for Margaret and Margaret alone, and then he started crying and was not able to stop, and then he started drinking schnapps, and pretty soon he was sobbing. He got slaphappy, insisted that he wanted to sleep with her even though he was clearly too drunk-he danced naked to the Smiths and put his head under her skirt, and then undressed her and kissed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s but as he was kissing them, he started crying again, his tears running the length of these upturned slopes.

Margaret was in transports.

He kept saying: "I rejected you so many times, I don't know why I did," until Margaret began to cry too.

But then the next day he wouldn't go with her to the airport even though Asja was out of town and it was a Sat.u.r.day, and Margaret's face hardened and she took off the bracelet he had given her and threw it on the pavement in front of the cafe where they ate breakfast. Amadeus admitted to her that all the emotions he gave her were self-serving and cowardly, but he said it in proud defense. He said it was right of him-it was all he had ever meant to give to her. At least he was consistent.

TWENTY-SIX

Erich Erich

Erich the Hausmeister Hausmeister stood across the street from the apartment house on the Grunewaldstra.s.se. He was hidden in the shadow of Number 54. From here he was leaning back on his heels, regarding Number 88 cannily. It huddled between two buildings more ornate than itself, but still it was apparent that Number 88 had once been a grand place to live, as Erich estimated with a certain paternal pride, although, precisely because his pride was of the paternal kind, not entirely approvingly. Number 88 was his adopted child-he would have told anyone that. The facade was covered in red brick; there were white balconies and crumbling white plaster moldings in the cla.s.sical style. It was Erich who had made sure the moldings were restored after the old pattern, and he who had organized the repair of the balconies. stood across the street from the apartment house on the Grunewaldstra.s.se. He was hidden in the shadow of Number 54. From here he was leaning back on his heels, regarding Number 88 cannily. It huddled between two buildings more ornate than itself, but still it was apparent that Number 88 had once been a grand place to live, as Erich estimated with a certain paternal pride, although, precisely because his pride was of the paternal kind, not entirely approvingly. Number 88 was his adopted child-he would have told anyone that. The facade was covered in red brick; there were white balconies and crumbling white plaster moldings in the cla.s.sical style. It was Erich who had made sure the moldings were restored after the old pattern, and he who had organized the repair of the balconies.

Now Erich regarded the building cannily. He already knew who was at home and who wasn't, but still he surveyed the windows for any sign of life. He had a grocery cart in front of him, borrowed from the nearby Lidl, and he was ma.s.saging clumps of almost dried pigeon excrement into fibrous b.a.l.l.s. When he was sure no one was coming in any direction, and that the shadow falling on him was heavy, he lofted one of these clumps of droppings up and across the street in a tall arc, his sinewy arms surprisingly powerful, but unsurprisingly accurate. His thin, ropey arms, they looked looked as if they would be accurate. The first ball dropped down onto the lowest balcony. Erich couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard the as if they would be accurate. The first ball dropped down onto the lowest balcony. Erich couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard the plop plop of the ball doing what it was meant to do-that is, upon impact, splitting up into the many clumps of droppings it was composed of, so that the floor of the balcony would be strewn with the solidified excrement. of the ball doing what it was meant to do-that is, upon impact, splitting up into the many clumps of droppings it was composed of, so that the floor of the balcony would be strewn with the solidified excrement.

It wasn't that Erich had any ill will toward the tenants. They were nice people, always cordial when they pa.s.sed Erich on the stairs. However, the Croatian couple had been resisting the installation of anti-pigeon spikes along the wide stucco railings of their balcony. They preferred to use the ledge as a sort of breakfast table for their coffee tray in the summers and as a place to air musty carpets in the winter. They also claimed that no pigeons roosted here, they had never seen a single one. Erich knew better. He was finding ways to convince them gently, rather than picking a fight. He felt it was important that he do this while it was still early in the spring, when they wouldn't yet think of eating outside.

After he had gone into his garden house and washed his hands, he set to work digging up the hard ground and putting flower bulbs in the courtyard. He was only putting in one bulb per meter-a minimalist look that he had seen in a gardening magazine once. It struck him as very economical.

As for the American, Erich had seen her on the subway earlier that same day. Erich almost never took the subway, preferring his mountain bike, but this had been a special trip to see his lawyer-he had had good enough reasons to hire one. Not suing anyone, not exactly at least.

He had seen Margaret right away, but she had not seen him. Typical of her. She was sitting with her head thrown back; her eyebrows drawn up in a peak of amus.e.m.e.nt; her gaze on something off to the side; her mouth in a knowing half grin. Even at a glance from the other end of the car he had recognized her-she was identifiable by the adolescent's bravely pathetic habit of believing herself to be masking best her insecurities precisely at those moments when she most revealed them. Look at her legs, side by side in that simpering, pinup-girl position. He had thought his own mother was a generation too late for such stylization. Margaret's body was tall, thin, and limbs gangly-it wasn't right for her to make those coy moves! She kept her shoulders hunched up so high that the blades cut sharply out of her skin. It looked like she would keel over with eagerness to please. When she got out of the train at Rudesheimer Platz, she wobbled her head. Margaret always walked in a way that made it look as if she knew she were being watched, her arms swinging, her head bobbing up and down, winningly cheerful, like an ingenue or a nymphet.

The problem with the show, Erich thought-what made it ridiculous, some some would say-was that Margaret's face didn't fit the part, when she was motionless she didn't look at all like a puppy or nymphet of any kind. She had a very high forehead and a pointed, knowledgeable chin. Her dark eyes, on those rare occasions when she revealed them completely, were sensitive. She should have been reasonable. Erich would not have minded being her friend. would say-was that Margaret's face didn't fit the part, when she was motionless she didn't look at all like a puppy or nymphet of any kind. She had a very high forehead and a pointed, knowledgeable chin. Her dark eyes, on those rare occasions when she revealed them completely, were sensitive. She should have been reasonable. Erich would not have minded being her friend.

Erich was on his way home when he ran into Margaret on the subway. At just that moment, he had nowhere he needed to be. So he followed Margaret off the train. It wouldn't do any harm to see what she was up to.

Margaret walked by the Justizkammer and Erich followed. Margaret walked and walked, and Erich followed and followed. Finally they were almost at Nollendorfplatz, and lo, Margaret went into the St. Matthias Church. Erich ducked inside as well, almost catching up as he caught the heavy door before it closed behind her.

The church was empty. Margaret, in the still, moist, cold air, knelt in one of the back pews. Erich was surprised. And then surprised to see her face in an expression broad with the laxness of despair, the way of looking when there is finally no one left to look at.

Erich thought of one of her diary entries, one he had read a trifle too absentmindedly, not really taking care to decipher it; it seemed like more of the same gus.h.i.+ng nonsense that filled the rest of the journal, albeit a trifle more overwrought, with slightly more self-satisfied, mysterious references. In retrospect, these were easy enough to decode. He had simply lived a long time outside the society of women. In any case, he grasped its meaning now in the church, and he began to think of the large men's coats Margaret had begun to wear.

More than two years ago, Erich found what appeared to be the entire contents of Margaret's wardrobe in the trash-girlish, coquettish clothes. And once, too, he saw Margaret throw something yellowy-gold out of the window and into the chaos of the neighboring courtyard. (Over there, they had no Hausmeister Hausmeister.) Later, Erich went and rummaged through the wet dead leaves and rusted coat hangers and garbage lids. In amongst, he found a simple bra.s.s key, single-toothed, as though for a piece of furniture. It had been in the autumn.

Now that he was beginning to understand, he felt sorry for her.

February 3, 2002Oh, dear G.o.d forgive me, but I have the most wonderful, most wonderful news! Amadeus was not careful with me, and to be entirely frank, I was not careful with myself and now things have gone all the way. Oh gracious, sweet G.o.d! Let it work out and be good for both of us. I must tell you and only you, silent journal, that this was unplanned for Amadeus but not really unplanned for me. For months now I've been trying to make things happen accidentally. I don't think Amadeus suspected anything, and the second two weeks of this month have been a time of perpetual suspense. Looking out my window I've seen so many women with round bodies walking by, as if taunting me. This morning I almost killed myself biking over to the drugstore to buy a test, I didn't pay attention to the traffic at all, and a woman called out to me: Junge Frau, sind Sie lebensmude? Junge Frau, sind Sie lebensmude? And that's the one thing I'm not, see, I'm not tired of life! But sometimes life is so alluring that in rus.h.i.+ng toward it you rush over the edge of it, and so when I changed lanes directly in front of the car coming up behind me, it was one of those moments where I was gripping so firmly at the quick of life that I couldn't even consider the possibility that it could come to an end. And that's the one thing I'm not, see, I'm not tired of life! But sometimes life is so alluring that in rus.h.i.+ng toward it you rush over the edge of it, and so when I changed lanes directly in front of the car coming up behind me, it was one of those moments where I was gripping so firmly at the quick of life that I couldn't even consider the possibility that it could come to an end.Oh, let Amadeus leave Asja, and come to us!I'm so happy. I wonder if it will give my life meaning. I imagine it will. How nice to have something to work for. I am so good with things that don't demand that I divide my attention-I love activities that allow me to stay at home and focus on what I can see clearly in front of me. Which is such a good description of what this will be like! I'm teetering on the verge of the most perfect happiness.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The Lake of Fire

Margaret awoke the day after she met Philipp. Philipp in his green alligator boots, Philipp with his toy soldier's gaze-and she was sick with memory.

She did not want to think.

With exhaustion, she heaved herself back toward Regina and the Family Strauss. She knew what she was doing. She was finding a way to think about herself that did not involve herself and, what's more, involved finer, more gracious people.

She became something like a detective; it was an Indian summer. She looked a second time at the date of the Strauss family's suicide. She opened a clean notebook, turned to a white page. March 5, 1943, she wrote down in block letters at the top. She double-checked-the date coincided with the so-called something like a detective; it was an Indian summer. She looked a second time at the date of the Strauss family's suicide. She opened a clean notebook, turned to a white page. March 5, 1943, she wrote down in block letters at the top. She double-checked-the date coincided with the so-called Fabrikaktion Fabrikaktion-the factory action-at the beginning of March 1945, when the Gestapo rounded up Berliner Jews from the factories where they were enslaved. They were forced into cattle cars bound East, the point after which Goebbels declared Berlin judenrein judenrein. So the suicide must have been an evasion of deportation, as Margaret had first believed.

She turned to the biographies and journals of Jewish women living in Berlin with non-Jewish husbands.

She suspended her tours and read under the feather bed at home, leaving the house only to buy cans of kidney beans and frozen spinach.

She learned a great deal.

Although officially exempted from deportation, mixed families, who were deprived of all chances of work, were on the verge of starvation in 1943. Jews were denied the papers that would allow them not only to work but also to travel, that would allow rations for meat, dairy, and vegetables. If the non-Jewish spouse did not divorce his spouse, he was in a terrible position. He was called a Ra.s.senschander- Ra.s.senschander-race defiler-usually denied work, denied food, marginalized and isolated as much as, or in some cases even more than, Jews themselves, mobs sometimes being even more enraged by their own kind "gone astray." Denunciations to the Gestapo were a daily occurrence. Mixed families were hounded by continual visits from the police and random, inexplicable deportations of entire families. Although the non-Jewish half of the couple could easily divorce his spouse, the consequence was grave-the Jewish half would be starved to death or slaughtered. In Berlin at least, this consequence was known full well. So despite the official exemption of mixed families, Margaret began to see very well how the Strausses might have been driven to kill themselves.

But still the question of the children. Why, at least, wasn't there anywhere to send them? Weren't there non-Jewish relatives' homes where the children could be sent, pa.s.sed off as war orphans, camouflaged? The question would not leave her mind.

Margaret reread her copy of the entry in the police log yet again. This time she focused on the places of birth. Fritz Strauss, born 11/5/06 in Gross-Strenz, and Regina Sara Strauss nee Herzberg, born 11/20/09 in Schwedenhohe Fritz Strauss, born 11/5/06 in Gross-Strenz, and Regina Sara Strauss nee Herzberg, born 11/20/09 in Schwedenhohe.

She began to search. She took out her atlas of Germany. Oddly, neither city was in the index.

She looked at the names again. Perhaps she had misspelled or mis-remembered. But no. She went to the computer. She put Gross-Strenz into Google and found only one reference-on a genealogical page tracing an American family's origins-to Poland.

All was given away. Both places must be in the eastern realms lost to Germany during the war. Margaret took out a world atlas from 1938 and turned to the pages showing the old Germany. She found Gross-Strenz near Wohlau, a tiny place in lost Silesia, not so far from Breslau, in today's Poland.

Then she looked for Schwedenhohe. Today, it seemed, the place was called Szwederowo, in what was once Posen. But in the 1938 atlas, even after looking at Posen until her eyes ached, she found no trace.

She sat back in her desk chair. Half of today's Poland was once German. This family that with such cunning laid itself into a mute and message-less grave to escape the n.a.z.is-not only were they wiped away without a trace, but both husband and wife came from towns that no longer exist.

From the suicide note of a Jewish wife and mother married to a non-Jewish husband in 1943, Margaret copied the following into her notebook.

Please try to understand me. I am desperate, crushed, without hope. I can't continue to breathe. I am afraid of the prison walls which await me...Forgive me that I leave you like this. I am powerless...my heart is tearing apart. I am perspiring with fright day and night.

Margaret read this. Her eyes flicked back and forth.

She would return to the Salzburgerstra.s.se, she decided. If there were a secret door that might crack open and let her approach the Family Strauss, then it would be there.

At the Salzburgerstra.s.se, she would look for the ghost of Regina Strauss one more time.

Having made up her mind to go, Margaret longed to already be there.

That afternoon, on her way out of the flat, she pushed her hand into the cabinet by the front door, looking for the second key to her bicycle lock. The old one's shaft had broken off, that cheaply made thing.

So this was how it happened.

As she pushed her hands about in the drawer, she found a little perfume bottle, marked on one side with the word freesia freesia. Margaret's face darkened. She hoped it would not be raining outside. Where was her umbrella? The days were so dark, with all the clouds.

Over Western Schoneberg a heavy fog was floating. Margaret waited for someone to come out of the outer door at Salzburgerstra.s.se 8. She sat on the stoop. Her back curved with fatigue, her head she held down, her hands she tucked under her thighs. After a while there was a rain so light that although she could not feel it against her cheeks, the earth around her began to crumble with it. a heavy fog was floating. Margaret waited for someone to come out of the outer door at Salzburgerstra.s.se 8. She sat on the stoop. Her back curved with fatigue, her head she held down, her hands she tucked under her thighs. After a while there was a rain so light that although she could not feel it against her cheeks, the earth around her began to crumble with it.

The time of her life that had belonged to Amadeus was present beside her, coiled like a snake. It flushed her with a certain smell of hopelessness, a piece of moss stuck to a shoe tramped indoors-impropriety and shame. The trouble was this: she felt that the young woman who had loved Amadeus was not she-it was someone else. Or no, not someone else! But it was a character in a play for which she had only memorized the lines, nothing more than a dramatic idea she had had-an idea that she had given power over her tongue for one long, endless summer that went on for years. But it had never been more than an idea. She had been high on love, how could it have been woven into life?

Finally an old woman came out of the house and Margaret caught the door. She stepped into the foyer. The light in the foyer-the soft, rich foyer-was milkier than last time. It was almost melting in the rain. Margaret looked for a long time into the mirrors at her gently doubled and tripled reflections.

She looked for the ghost, she looked for Regina Strauss. But there was no motion in the mirror. The silence was strong; it hurt her ears. She moved her hands to break the stillness. The silence crept.

She went out the back door of the foyer and into the courtyard. She followed the little path that led farther into the greenery. She emerged in the back garden where the goldfish pond nestled in the high gra.s.ses, surrounded by tall juniper. All the plants whispered, rustling, given voice by the rain. She looked into the pool and saw the goldfish under the plink-plank plink-plank of the drops; they were of the darkest orange, like strips of fire. of the drops; they were of the darkest orange, like strips of fire.

The rain slowed to a drizzle, and then stopped. The pond was dark, but even with the grey light, here too was a reflection, and Margaret saw a bit of herself shaking in the ripples. And then for a moment, she thought she saw herself, but underneath the fish-deep underneath the fish.

A movement caught her eye. Under the water, there was a white and moving face. Pale, silken hair, and dark, pooling eyes.