CHAPTER 28 - OLDENBURG, GERMANY—JANUARY 30, 1917 #2
Bruno, despite an invitation by Norbie to join them at the piano to sing, chose to sit on the sofa.
It surprised him that Norbie, who’d lost a great deal of weight from his last visit, had the stamina to sing.
But it soon became evident, to Bruno, that Norbie was attempting to lift his daughter’s spirits.
The more horribly he sings, the more she smiles—and he knows it.
He could not imagine either of his parents behaving in such a selfless, kindhearted manner for him, even when he was a child.
After a few songs, Norbie patted Max on the back. “Splendid job, my boy. Your music makes me want to sing for hours. However, it’s my turn to cook dinner.”
“It’s always a pleasure.” Max stood from his bench. “I’ll help you in the kitchen.”
“Rest,” Norbie said. “You’ve trained all day, and I’m starting to feel quite lazy with you preparing much of our food.” He turned to Bruno. “Want to help me prepare dinner?”
“I’m not much of a cook,” Bruno said, regretting that his upbringing did not include learning to make meals.
“You’ll only need to dice turnips and leeks,” Norbie said.
“Okay,” Bruno said.
“But your hands are scraped,” Anna said.
“Oh, I nearly forgot.” Bruno glanced at the cuts and dried blood on his knuckles, and then looked at Norbie. “Would it be okay to take a pass tonight?”
“Of course.” Norbie peeked at Bruno’s hands. “Ouch. Next time, use my gardening gloves; they’re on a shelf near the back door.”
“I will,” Bruno said.
“I’ll help you,” Anna said. She followed Norbie into the kitchen, leaving Bruno with Max and Nia.
Max, sitting on the piano bench, lowered his hand and patted Nia.
“How long have you been playing the piano?” Bruno asked.
Max turned toward him. “Since I was a child.”
“You play well,” Bruno said.
“Danke,” Max said. “My vater taught me to play. He used to work at a piano manufacturer.”
“What does he do now?”
Max stroked Nia’s ears. “He’s dead. My parents died at the onset of the war.”
“My condolences.”
Max nodded. “Are your parents in Frankfurt?”
“Ja,” Bruno said.
“They must be anxious to meet Anna.”
Bruno shifted in his seat. “They are.”
“Tell me about them,” Max said.
“There’s not much to tell,” Bruno said. We barely write each other. “My vater’s life is committed to his business, and my mutter travels a lot, or at least she did before the war. They’re not, how shall I say, as affectionate as Norbie.”
Max nodded, staring toward Bruno. “There are few people in this world like Norbie. He’s incredibly supportive of Anna, and he helped save Nia.” He patted the dog’s side.
Nia wagged her tail and leaned to him.
“What will you do at your family business?” Max asked.
“Research and production. Eventually, I’ll run the business with my half-brother, Julius. However, Julius is much older than me so someday the business will be mine.”
“Sounds like you and Anna will have a comfortable life,” Max said.
“I think we will.”
“You had mentioned that your vater acquired military contracts,” Max said.
“Ja,” Bruno said.
“I’m curious,” Max said. “What does the military do with ink and dye?”
An image of a chlorine gas cloud floating over no-man’s-land flashed in Bruno’s head. He buried his thoughts and said, “Lot of things.”
“Like what?”
Bruno crossed his arms. “Dye for uniforms. Ink for writing. You’d be surprised how many things—from paints to textiles—need colorants.”
“I see,” Max said, appearing satisfied with the explanation.
Bruno thought about leaving him and going to the kitchen, but he worried that Anna might inquire as to why he’d left Max so quickly. “Enough about me. Tell me about the composition you’re working on with Anna.”
“Pull up a chair,” Max said.
Bruno retrieved a side chair and placed it next to Max’s bench, facing the piano.
Max stood, retrieved the staff paper from under his seat, and then gave the draft to Bruno.
Bruno scanned the paper, covered in lines and symbols. “I can’t read music.”
“It’s okay,” Max said, sitting. “I’ll help you follow along. Look at the top left-hand corner of the first page. I’m going to play the first bar. Follow it like you’re reading a book.” Max played and stopped.
“Interesting,” Bruno said. “I think I saw on the page how the sound of your keys went up and down.”
“Precisely,” Max said. “I play a bar, and Anna records the notes onto the paper. It’s an intricate and time-consuming process, but we’re nearly finished with the piece.”
Bruno placed the manuscript on top of the piano, then glanced at Max’s milky eyes. “Do you mind telling me how you were blinded?”
“Nein,” Max said. “It was chlorine gas.”
Allied bastards, Bruno thought.
“Is poison gas still heavily used at the front?” Max asked.
“Ja.” Bruno swallowed. “Where were you injured?”
“Ypres,” Max said. “Do you know where it is?”
“I do,” Bruno said, recalling his first assignment. “I was once stationed there. However, it would likely have been prior to you.”
“Oh,” Max said. “When were you there?”
“Spring of 1915.”
Max took a deep breath and exhaled. He rubbed his temples, and then placed a hand on Nia, who was sitting beside him.
“So, tell me, Max,” Bruno said. “Was it British or French gas that blinded you?”
Max turned toward him. “Neither.”
Bruno furrowed his brow. “Canadian?”
“German.”
Bruno’s mouth turned dry. “How?”
“I was in a front-line trench,” Max said calmly, as if he’d rehearsed the story many times in his head.
“My unit was informed that the German artillery was going to conduct a forty-eight-hour bombardment. While the men in my unit hunkered in a dugout, I’d decided to walk the trench for a little fresh air before the attack began. ”
Bruno gripped his chair.
“I was on my way back to my dugout when the bombardment commenced, and the French retaliated with their own shellfire before I could get underground.” Max raised his head toward the ceiling, like he was searching through his memories.
“In the weeks prior to the bombardment, a special unit installed several thousand metal cylinders along the trench line. They were buried—except for their tops—into the base of the trench. Rubber hoses, attached to cylinder valves, ran up and over the trench to face the enemy lines.”
Oh, God. Bruno’s breath stalled in his lungs.
“We were never told what the cylinders were for,” Max said.
“One my friends, Jakob, had jested that the containers contained medicine to kill lice. But we found out what was inside them when a French artillery shell exploded near our dugout, piercing one of the cylinders.” Max ran a hand through his hair.
“My friends attempted to escape from the dugout, but they were swallowed in a green-yellow vapor. They flailed on the ground with froth spewing from their mouths until they were asphyxiated. I was the only survivor in my unit; I escaped—with scorched lungs and burned corneas—by clawing my way out of the trench.”
“I’m sorry,” Bruno said.
“Danke.”
Bruno’s chest ached. “When did it happen?”
“Spring of 1915,” Max said. “The twentieth day of April to be precise.”
Fear flooded Bruno’s veins.
“It appears that you and I were in Ypres at the same time,” Max said.
“It seems so,” Bruno said.
“Pioneer Regiment Thirty-six, right?”
“Ja.”
“What did your regiment do in Ypres?”
Bruno’s stomach turned nauseous. “We constructed bunkers.”
Max nodded.
Nia stood and placed her head on Max’s lap.
Bruno’s hands trembled.
Max stared toward him. “Have you ever heard of something called the Disinfection Unit?”
Bruno’s blood turned cold. “Nein. What is it?”
“The name given to the unit that installed the gas cylinders. I was curious if you’d known about them.”
“Never heard of them.” Bruno, desperate to end the conversation, stood from his chair. “I’m going to check on Anna and Norbie in the kitchen.”
“Sure,” Max said.
Bruno turned and froze at the sight of Anna, standing at the entrance to the living room with her hands clasped. “Anna, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Dinner is ready,” she said.
How long was she there? Bruno thought. “We’ll be right in.”
“All right.” She turned and left.
Bruno, his pulse thudding inside his eardrums, went to the kitchen and took his seat next to Anna at the table.
Dinner discussion was sparse, with the exception of Norbie, who attempted to fill the conversational void with fond stories of his late wife, Helga.
I’m so sorry, please forgive me, Bruno thought, glancing at Max’s opaque eyes.
But if it wasn’t for a French shell, he rationalized, Max would not have been blinded.
And if he wasn’t injured, he might have been killed in combat.
He struggled to keep the fork in his hand from quivering as he forced himself to eat a turnip cutlet with slivers of leek.
And he prayed that he’d convinced Max that his regiment assignment in Ypres had nothing to do with poison gas or the Disinfection Unit.
After dinner, Anna joined Max at the piano to work on his composition, and Bruno excused himself to take a walk outside for some fresh air.
He walked, his legs feeling like they were filled with sand, along the icy cobblestone street.
Memories of gassed corpses, their mouths contorted and faces the color of plum, played over and over inside his head.
Forty meters from the house, his stomach lurched and he vomited onto the snow.