The Best New Horror 1 Page 3

  “I remember Roswitha’s wedding day,” said Jo with shame. “I had to wear a velvet suit. Holy hell, that’s one memory I kept quiet about!”

  “I remember the wedding,” said Lucy. “Hans had a beard and a bow tie. Harald got drunk on champagne, even Papa might have been a little bit plastered. Mom wore a long dress, a formal, in the middle of the day. Aunt Helga ran about so much that she had a nervous collapse in a wicker chair, under the oak.”

  She was beginning to see how weird and stiff and Teutonic the wedding had been. The older men had worn black frock coats and top hats. There were at least no uniforms, except for the band. Harald had sprung unsteadily onto a wrought iron garden seat and accused his father of bourgeois tendencies. Papa had passed it off with a silly joke in English “I represent that remark . . .”

  Lucy was surprised by another memory of the wedding day. Outside the upstairs bathroom as she looked down at the sun-drenched landing. Aunt Helga took her by the arm. She had recovered from her swoon, and she towered over Luisa, her hair damp, her face unpowdered. “Your Papa is an innocent,” she whispered, “an innocent. These people crowding into the house . . .” Which people? At the time Lucy had had no idea, but now she saw that there had been several undesirable elements at the wedding. Artists, socialists . . . with a sinking feeling, as the plane lost altitude, Lucy included the Jews. Mom was half Jewish, which was why they had had to go into exile in the first place.

  There had been more wire-pulling. Papa made the decision to stay, as he explained in Letter Four, posted at Lisbon, December 1939. He must remain in the Deutsche Sprachraum, the area where German was spoken. The Nazis had left him alone after a token arrest in ’41; he had his little retreat in Schleswig Holstein where he wrote but published nothing, and waited until the liberal spirit was reborn.

  “I remember a great place,” said Jo, “the attic. We had our Geheimbutze there, our secret clubhouse. We used to have a Christmas party with the toy animals and the dolls. There was an old dressmaker’s dummy, shaped like a dame, you know, with no head and no arms. And a little door all covered with wallpaper.”

  “Honest to Betsy,” said Lucy, rolling her eyes, “the things you remember, Bruderherz.”

  Actually, Lucy remembered the stifling, dust-smelling playhouse in the attic very well. She had always been a little afraid of the dressmaker’s dummy.

  Then they were down in the cold at Rhein-Main, entirely surrounded by a reunion of Air Force husbands and wives. Two American kids in their best clothes—Jo had cuffed trousers, nicely creased, Lucy a pleated skirt and nylons. Now they appreciated the overcoats and boots that had seemed so dumb in California. They looked about nervously at their first German civilians. A tall man, emaciated, wearing a duffel coat with wooden toggles over an awful threadbare blue suit, came swinging through the crowd. He was questioned by an MP at whom he arrogantly waved documents. Lucy thought she would die.

  “Harald!”

  He was so old. He was so thin. His German was so hard to understand.

  “Great God, look at the pair of you! Two spoiled brats from America!”

  He shook hands with them both, painfully hard.

  “Where’s Mom?” demanded Jo. “Where’s Papa?”

  “Your mother hasn’t renewed her driving license,” said Harald. “Did you think Papa would appear in public? No, no mein Lieber, I have to undertake this unpleasant duty.”

  It was rather unpleasant, Lucy conceded. They took an hour to get out of the building. Harald bundled them into a queer old jalopy, an Opel, and they were whirled over the autobahn, past ruined factories and plantations of young firs, to the small town of Breitbach. There was a long high wall of pinkish stone; through an iron gate in the wall, they saw gravestones and grey monuments. The day was very still, grey and cold, but there was no snow. And there was the house, set back from the road on a deep, narrow site.

  ‘Freidhof Strasse,” announced Harald to his silent passengers. “Cemetery Street.”

  A tall woman with ash-blonde hair was sweeping the stone path.

  “Your Aunt Helga,” said Harald, “Frau Fuller Krantz.”

  “What happened to Uncle Markus?” asked Lucy.

  She knew that it was all very sad. Her aunt had married late; Uncle Markus came back from the war and then died.

  Harald scratched his head.

  “Well, I’ll give it to you straight,” he said. “You’ll get a lot of evasive nonsense in this house, but none from me, I swear it. Poor old Markus came back from the war . . .”

  “Was he a Nazi?” asked Jo.

  “No, of course not,” snapped Harald. “He was a decent chap, son of a bookseller in Frankfurt. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht. He was lucky enough to get back from the Russian front in July ’45. He committed suicide a week later.”

  “In the house?” whispered Lucy.

  “Hung himself over the stairs,” said Harald. “He was sick, exhausted . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “Was Papa at home?” asked Jo.

  “No,” said Harald. “Still up in his little dacha in the northern meadows. Helga was getting the house ready.”

  They struggled up the path with their suitcases while Harald stayed back, tinkering with the car. Lucy could not go any further; she rubbed her gloved hands and drew her turban of blue wool jersey down over her ears. The grass was dry, the trees were bare. Where was Mom? Why didn’t she come out to meet them? The separation from her mother seemed as long and hard to bear as the lifetime she had spent away from Papa.

  The house was broad and high, its dark yellow plaster peeled back in places to the bricks underneath. The windows had chocolate-brown shutters folded back upon the wall, and, in the center, over the front door, there was a deep balcony of the same brown wood. Lucy remembered the balcony and its window boxes stuck with evergreen twigs. Papa’s study lay behind the balcony; she felt a rush of loving apprehension . . . after so long. . . .

  She looked through a gap in the untidy cypress hedge and saw a ragged figure in black. A young man ran off among the tall grass and the grey monuments, flap, flap, he was gone, like a great black bird. She picked up her suitcase and caught up to Aunt Helga and Jo. Aunt Helga pushed back Jo’s curls from his forehead and tucked them under his knitted cap. She took him by the shoulders, changing her grip, and held him at arm’s length.

  “Oh, he will be pleased!” she said. “Joachim at last! Joachim, the youngest child!”

  Lucy recognized her aunt, and was shocked. Only the luxuriant hair was still as beautiful as ever. Helga’s face had lengthened and set; there were heavy wrinkles on her brow. She was pale; even her lips were pale. Lucy realized that she wore no make-up; she had a naked face, as if she had just got out of bed in the morning, but she was a little bit dressed up, in a blue woollen dress and silver drop earings. Lucy herself was wearing powder over a rachel foundation and her peppermint-pink lipstick. Aunt Helga turned, stared, pursed her lips, and looked her niece up and down with a sigh.

  “So, Luisa . . .”

  She embraced her quickly.

  “Go along.”

  She stood back with a motion of her broom and they heaved their suitcases into the house. There was Mom in the dark too-small hallway beside the Bulgarian atrocity, and she was in tears. Jo flung himself at his mother with a joyous shout.

  “Ssh!” said Vicki Fuller. “Oh, my darlings, my darlings . . .”

  As Lucy joined the family embrace, she remembered at last how things had been. They were hushed all day long because of Papa. But what did it matter now that they had Mom, their very own, pretty as the painted Jugendstil girl upon the hallstand mirror, girlish and slim, with Jo’s dark eyes.

  “Where’s Papa?” cried Jo, shrugging out of his overcoat. “Is he in the study? I must go up!”

  “Ssh!” said Aunt Helga as she came in. “You may go up quietly.”

  She laughed.

  “Poor August . . . to have such a big boy burst in!”

  “Go on,�
�� said Mom softly, “Go on, Jo do you know the way?”

  Jo went thundering up the stairs and Lucy went to follow him, but Aunt Helga caught her by the wrist.

  “Let him go,” she said. “Let him go first. You must wash your face, Luisa. Your Papa doesn’t like make-up.”

  Lucy shook off her aunt’s hand. She saw that her mother was not wearing any make-up. She knew too that Mom would be no help. She never had been in certain situations.

  “Now come,” said Helga. “You look like a whore who runs after the Americans.”

  Mom said in a shocked voice, “Helga!”

  Lucy ran lightly up the stairs without looking back at the two women. There was the study door, ajar; she went inside.

  Jo had drawn up short of the huge desk where his father sat. Lucy saw that Papa had not changed at all. He looked just like his photograph on the book jackets: thick white hair, white since his fortieth year, a broad mild face. He brought his sentence to an end and looked up, shy and charming.

  “Well, are you here?” he said.

  He held out an arm on either side of his chair. Jo ran around the desk and was gathered up, but Lucy came more slowly. Her father stared at her as she approached.

  “A film star,” he said.

  Then he held them, one on either side, and a wave of sadness passed over his face.

  “I thought I would never see my little ones again.”

  “Papa,” whispered Jo, “is Hitler really dead?”

  “I hope so,” said August Fuller devoutly.

  “Papa, is it true about the horror camps?” asked Lucy, not to be outdone.

  Even as she asked she realized what a foolish question it was. Harald, her own brother, was surely a victim of some camp. Had he been in Belsen?

  “I will say this,” said Papa, “I will say this, my dear children. The misery will never end. They will be counting the dead and arguing about the guilt for another fifty years.”

  “Papa,” said Jo, “I’m going to give you an early present.”

  Their luggage was stuffed with presents. Now Jo drew from his trouser pocket a dime-store puzzle; tiny ball bearings had to be rolled into the eyes of a tiger. Lucy left them rolling the puzzle this way and that, and walked to the balcony doors. Far away there was a sound of children’s voices, from a backyard or a playground. She looked out at the head garden, and wished it would snow.

  There was a gap two trees wide in the cypress hedge. A young man in black, perhaps the same who had flapped away at their approach, stood in the long grass of the cemetery, gazing up at the house. She could see his black curly hair and his pale face. He wore a long, black coat, not exactly an overcoat. Lucy could see neat graves with flowers and raked paths laid out beyond the wilderness.

  Aunt Helga came to collect Lucy and Jo.

  “Visiting time is over,” she said briskly, like a hospital matron.

  Jo was as balky as a six year old. He wanted to stay with Papa. He wrenched his arm away from Aunt Helga’s firm grip and protested loudly in English.

  “For crying out loud! We just got here!”

  Lucy looked at her father. With a faint gentle smile, he laid aside the puzzle and picked up his fountain pen. Aunt Helga chased Jo around the desk. Papa sat like a man under a bell jar and let his sister hunt his youngest child out of the room. As they passed Lucy, Aunt Helga said, “You too! You too, Luisa!”

  Lucy glanced down and saw that the young man in black had gone away. They followed Aunt Helga up to their old bedrooms, which they had shared with Harald and Roswitha. Lucy liked her room well enough, and tried not to think of the sunny bedroom at the O’Briens’, all ruffles and polka-dots. The suitcases had been brought up, so Mom and Lucy unpacked and laughed and looked at farewell snapshots of Oakland, CA. When he had changed into his sneakers, Jo was allowed to go exploring. At last Mom went back to her typewriter downstairs and Aunt Helga said, “Come, Luisa!”

  They carried the empty suitcases up to the third floor, where Helga slept, then up the narrow attic stair. There was a tiny landing with a window that looked out onto the slates. Lucy glanced anxiously at the stair rails, wondering about Uncle Markus. The long attic was partitioned off into small rooms, well-swept, and reeking of mothballs. The skylights were covered with brown paper. Sure enough, there was a version of their playhouse, with an old sofa and a heavy wardrobe against a partition. In one corner lurked the dressmaker’s dummy, draped in a net curtain like a headless bride. There was a soft thump on the stairs and Jo came in, flushed with excitement.

  “We used to play here!” he said. “I remember!”

  “Oh, Joachim . . .” said Aunt Helga gently.

  They stood beside her and saw that there was a field grey uniform stretched at full length upon the couch: nearby stood a pair of worn boots.

  “A sad place for us all,” she said. “My poor Markus . . .”

  Subdued, they trooped out, and Aunt Helga locked the door at the top of the stairs.

  “It would be pretty cold for a clubhouse, I guess,” sighed Jo.

  At five o’clock, they went down to the dining room for a meal of rye bread, margarine, plum jam, mettwurst, and awful sour plumcake covered with half-raw plums. Mom lit the first candle on the advent wreath of tannen and pine, decorated with gilded cones. There was nothing Lucy and Jo could drink except water. They tried disgusting peppermint tea and unrefrigerated skim milk. Jo spoke wistfully of Thanksgiving, and Aunt Helga asked, thanksgiving for what? At half past five, Aunt Helga cried, “Go up, go up, little Vicki . . . he will be waiting!”

  Vicki carried up a tray to her husband. When Jo tried to follow, Aunt Helga held him in his chair with her hands on his shoulders.

  “Hush,” she said, “you must understand. It is their time together.”

  “Do we get any time with our father?” asked Lucy.

  The irony was lost on Helga. She smiled benignly.

  “I have been thinking,” she said “You might be permitted to go along on August’s walk.”

  “Permitted?” cried Jo, “are you mad? You’re not my parent . . . he is!”

  Aunt Helga smacked Jo across the face. Lucy, filled with instant strength, like Superman, sprang up from her place, pushed her aunt aside, and shielded her brother.

  “How dare you!” she shouted. “Mom! Papa! She hit Jo in the face!”

  No one came or questioned; the dining room was a long way from the study. Aunt Helga collapsed into her chair and burst into tears. Jo jumped up angrily and padded out of the room.

  “I should not have hit the boy,” said Aunt Helga, turning to Lucy with a dreadful tear-stained face. “Luisa, dearest child, it has been so difficult to care for your father. To give him conditions in which he could work, to protect him from interruption.”

  “Jo will go to Papa and Mom,” said Lucy.

  “Oh, August will send him away,” said Aunt Helga. “It is his time alone with little Vicki.”

  She sipped her peppermint tea and said, “I was sure I would die when the arrest took place. August was so brave. We had a tip, we were always well-informed. He walked down the path carrying his hat and coat. He did not want them in the house.”

  “Who came for him?” asked Lucy. “What did they look like?”

  “Two men in soft hats and raincoats,” said Aunt Helga. “August said to me ‘Such a cliché . . .’ We had fugitives in the house, he sacrificed himself for them. He was speaking to the men; I was stationed at the front door; Frau Rothmeier and the children had fled into the back garden, then through the hedge into the cemetery. No one would look there, under the old trees. We did it at every serious alarm, but it was more difficult in winter.”

  Frau Fuller Krantz wept again, her face crumpled.

  “Oh Luisa, it was so terrible . . .”

  “Please, please don’t cry,” said Lucy, as warmly and sympathetically as she could. “Papa is fine. We’re all here.”

  “I waited at the Praesidium in Darmstadt for thirty-six hours,” said
Aunt Helga. “Went to the ladies’ toilet in a large store and washed my hands and face. Ate a bread roll and drank coffee. I came back to this house on the bus and managed to get through by telephone to an American businessman in Berlin, Mr. Walker. I didn’t bother about secrecy, I said straight out: ‘August Fuller has been arrested’. I lay down for a few hours just as I was, but I had Frau Rothmeier wake me. I changed my clothes and set out on my bicycle all over Breitbach, to the police, to the town hall, to a very cultivated man from the Labor Front, a party intellectual who had a villa on the Steinberg. I like to think it all helped. In three days, August was free. It was at this time, the autumn of ’41, that we decided to go to Schleswig Holstein, to the little hut on the Mariensee.”

  “You saved Papa,” said Lucy. “You were very brave, Aunt Helga.”

  Her aunt smiled at last. They sat in silence before clearing the table. It was dark outside, and there was only candlelight in the room, from the advent wreath. There was no heating, and a heavy chill was seeping into the house. Far away there were monotonous bursts of tapping and hammering, as if some amateur carpenter were patching some other house to keep out the cold. Suddenly, Lucy heard a wailing cry, dampened by distance, and a soft, horrible thump.

  “Did you hear that?”

  It was hardly necessary to ask; Aunt Helga had heard nothing.

  “Really,” said Lucy, “it sounded as if someone . . .fell down.”

  Helga’s face became set and disapproving.

  “I’m surprised at Harald, filing you up with these sad tales.”

  “What sad tales?”

  “Enough!” said Aunt Helga. “We will clear, and if you are a good girl, you may have a tiny glass of elderberry wine.”

  They went down a few steps into the kitchen, which didn’t smell of cookies any more. There was a pervading reek of smoke from the stove. All cleaners were in short supply: soap, washing powder, polish, spirits. There was sand to scour the pots and pans. When the washing up was done, Lucy opened the back door and looked into the yard. The night was undark; it was just beginning to snow. There was the old swing, moving to and fro as if Luisa, nine years old, had just run indoors.