Nineteen #2
How strange that Vati would want to hold a child. He’s never been interested in children. I can hardly remember receiving so much as a hug from him.
The girl wraps her fat little arms around his neck and whispers something in his ear, giggling. Such an intimate thing for a child to do. It’s as if she knows him.
All at once, in a terrible moment of realization, I understand. I slap a hand over my mouth to stop myself from crying out.
The woman wears a tight black skirt and although I can’t see her face, in that instant, I know who she is. The fat behind gives it away.
It never crossed my mind to wonder why Fr?ulein Müller had disappeared as suddenly as she arrived, replaced with an older, middle-aged secretary with glasses and a gray bun.
Fr?ulein Müller was pregnant with Vati’s child.
I gag. Swallow the vomit in my throat.
No, no, no!
I cannot bear to see any more. Jaw clenched, I turn away before either of them notices me and merge into the crowd streaming in the opposite direction.
People, stinking strangers, press their bodies against me.
There is no air. They’re squeezing tighter and tighter and I’m suffocating.
I elbow and push my way through, desperate to get out onto the street and away, far away, as fast as possible.
I stumble out of the crowd and into the path of cars in the road.
Horns honk and vehicles veer around me. I dodge a horse, and a man on a bike swears at me.
The buildings close in. All I can see is the little girl’s big eyes staring at me and the way she snuggled so comfortably into Vati’s arms. I can’t go home.
How can I? Mutti will be sick with worry, and Vati angry that I’m not home for dinner, but I don’t care.
I will not go home and look Vati in the eye, not after what I just saw.
Mutti!
Poor, poor Mutti.
Can she know?
Should I tell her?
I walk and walk without any idea where I’m going, or what I’m going to do.
I pass through alleyways and streets, past churches, shops, schools, and apartment blocks.
Daylight fades and the lights of the city illuminate my path.
Time loses all sense of meaning. The shadow of Vati’s contentment with that bundle of strange child in his arms hovers everywhere I look.
Finally, drained and bone-weary, I dry my tears and slowly make my way back home.
“W HERE ON EARTH have you been ?” Mutti is crying, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy.
“I ran into a friend,” I mumble. “We went back to her place. Sorry, I lost track of time.”
“What were you thinking, Hetty?” She is shouting now, wringing her hands in despair. “Disappearing like that in times like these?”
What should I say to her? How can I possibly put into words what I witnessed?
Vati’s face is blotchy red. Piggy eyed with soft, wobbly flesh.
“We’ve been content for you to roam around this town with your friends.
But if they are a bad influence or it leads you down the wrong path, we’ll put a stop to it.
Immediately. There’ll be no more hanging around town with your friends. This is a warning, fr?ulein.”
I hate you. I hope he sees it in my eyes.
A vision of the pretty, blond, curly-haired girl is etched in my memory. My sister! The word is alien on my tongue. Schwester.
“Sorry, Vati.”
“You deserve a beating for causing your mother such alarm,” he continues. “Go to your room. I don’t want to set eyes on you until morning.”
Gladly. I don’t want to set eyes on you either. You make me sick. If I deserve a beating for causing Mutti alarm, what do you deserve for being unfaithful?
I turn and silently climb the stairs. I reach for my diary under the mattress.
I cannot tell Mutti what I saw. It will destroy her.
It will destroy everything. It’s clear, she can never, ever know.
How I wish Karl were here. I can just picture him, his eyes kind, his head close.
“Don’t worry, Little Mouse,” he would say.
“I’ll deal with Vati.” But Karl is hundreds of miles away and I’m all alone.
Walter takes me into his arms and whispers in my ear that he will make everything all right.
Leave your parents , he urges. Come and live in America with me.
I’m leaving the house for the last time, inexplicably wearing a Luftwaffe uniform.
Mutti refuses to say good-bye and Vati is happy to see me gone.
I turn back for one last look and see Vati, seated on the sofa, bouncing the cherubic, golden child on his knee.
Only the child acknowledges my leaving, with a look of victory in her glacial blue eyes.
I snap awake, extinguishing the vision of Vati and the girl-child.
I’m stiff and cold sitting on the bed, the diary open on the floor.
My head swirls with exhaustion and a dull ache pulses in my temples.
I pick up the journal, close it, and hide it away, climbing into bed without bothering to change.
But now I’m wide awake and the night crawls by, the darkness expanding and contracting. A stone lies in the pit of my stomach. A rock of pity for Mutti. A great slab of loathing for Vati. And all the while, the walls of the house pulse and throb in time with my beating heart.