The Distance of Mercy
Between too early and too late, there is never more than a moment.
- Franz Werfel
Part I
- 1 -
A week after my birth, the Red Army entered Vienna. Soviet soldiers broke open German storehouses and fed hungry Viennese who ran back to their flats with armfuls of canned milk, sour potatoes, and dried peas. Papa saw an old man pushed to the ground for a bag of flour but could not get close enough to help him stand. Each morning, after the soldiers opened the storehouse doors, Mama sent Papa out, fearing that without more food she would not produce enough milk to keep me alive.
By the first week of the Soviet occupation, the older girls in the neighborhood knew that the Viennese women did not like the soldiers. Screams were heard from alleys and first-floor flats.
When the Red Army had been in our country for a long time, for ten years, their heads would not turn at screams anymore. Instead they would whisper to each other, whisper how the soldiers liked Viennese women because their skin was smoother than the grainy-skinned wives they’d left behind.
When Soviet soldiers discovered Austrian wine cellars lined with vintage bottles, they clipped off necks of bottles and poured wine into their helmets, the red liquid spilling out onto the floor like thin blood. After depleting one cellar, they would seek out another, would rush down wooden steps into basement after basement, their drunken footsteps echoing into musty air.
A month later, leaders of the major powers signed a treaty, and our country was divided into four zones, controlled by the four powers of England, America, France and the Soviet Union. Our flat was in Vienna’s fourth district, Wieden, a district controlled by the Soviet Union.
- 2 -
Papa’s violin held a reddish sheen, its back made from maple of alpine forests, its belly from spruce. As soon as I was old enough, Papa taught me the parts of the violin. I pointed and repeated each name after him: scroll, strings, saddle, bridge, fingerboard, tailpiece, sound post. He told me the bow was made of horse hair and I laughed then touched the bow to see if it was true.
Papa smiled, the first in a long time.
I never heard Papa play the violin, but saw the music in his eyes, heard it in the taps of his foot. He preferred Schubert to Beethoven and Mozart to Haydn—all who died in Old Vienna.
During the Nazi occupation, his father carried the name, Alte Kampfer, Old Fighter. When he learned of Papa’s refusal to play in Hitler’s Orchestra, he wrote his son a letter from Salzburg demanding that he return the violin to him at once, declaring the family heirloom useless if not used for the advancement of the Third Reich. The violin, he continued in crisp penmanship, should not be kept by a man who had forsaken his heritage, forsaken true beauty, for schweine.
But Papa refused to return the violin, and, with that decision, severed himself from his family.
Papa’s injured hand and its lack of movement did not concern me when I was young; it had always been that way. Yet my eyes were always drawn to the pink smooth skin stretched across his palm and the back of his hand. At first, as was often the case when my curiosity surfaced, Papa appeared agitated yet said nothing. But when I continued to question him, he slammed his right fist on the table spilling my glass of water. I ran to get a towel and heard him say that children should know their place and never ask such things. As I wiped up the water, I dared not looking at him.
Papa did not have to tell me it was the Germans. I knew. I had heard stories of men being killed, of men being sent away if they resisted Hitler and his army in even the simplest of ways. I felt that Papa was one of the lucky ones; he was still alive, but wondered why he did not seem to know it.
Every Sunday afternoon after we walked home from Mass at Karlskirche, Papa would not drink. Instead, he would sit back in his chair and say, “Nicolette, the violin.”
Tired from the long liturgy and the priest’s endless words, I wanted to go to Anya’s next door where sounds shook the flat from siblings chasing one another and Anya’s mother chattering in the kitchen. Or I wanted to sit on my floor and let my thoughts float like the painted clouds and cherubs on the dome of Karlskirche. Instead I would walk to the wooden trunk where the violin sat in its case and carry it to Papa.
He tried to teach me how to tune each string, but my ears did not have his perfect pitch—nor would they ever. I glanced to see Mama’s face in the afternoon light. She watched us from the kitchen while she prepared the evening meal. Even at a young age, I knew I had not inherited my mother’s beauty—neither in name nor in body. Her cheekbones were high, while mine were lost in rounded flesh. Her hair, pulled in a tight bun, was almost gold, while mine a sober brown. My grey eyes were dull, compared to her blue. Even her name, Paulina, flowed like stream water; my name with its taut syllables reminded me of the sounds of dry twigs cracking underfoot.
Mama smiled at me, her eyes directing me to pay attention to Papa. I moved the bow across the strings, releasing each note as Papa had taught me, until Papa’s eyes lit up and he said, “Yes! Continue!” But within a short time, the violin, heavy and awkward on my thin shoulder, and the chin rest that made my chin itch, caused me to complain and my notes to sound like screeches against the air. His voice raised, Papa would almost unfailingly add a quarter of an hour to our lesson.
When we finished and I placed the violin in its case, I watched Papa walk toward Mama. She stood by the kitchen sink. He wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed the bend of her neck. She leaned back into him. The three of us made our family, but in such moments I felt as if there were only two.
-3-
For many years, while Papa worked in the iron factory—one not stripped of its machinery by the Soviets—I walked with Mama on weekly processions to the shrines throughout Vienna. Led by a Franciscan priest, we petitioned the Holy Trinity for the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from our country. A tithe of Austrians, a tenth of the population, wrapped rosary beads around hands and wrists, reciting prayer after prayer, week after week, year after year. Through rain, through snow, through heat that pasted my dress to my skin, I walked alongside my mother.
After years of reconstruction, Stephansdom reopened to the people. Church bells chimed, their ringing carried by brisk spring air. Crowds circled the cathedral on the cobblestoned square, waiting for the doors to open. I leaned against Mama and felt the bells’ vibrations inside my chest. While my mother wept, I wondered why one tower stretched higher than the other.
An old man with white whiskers poking from his chin bent down toward me. I did not like the way he smelled. I had never met my grandparents, had never been around the elderly, and quickly backed away from him, afraid that his whiskers would scratch my cheek.
He said, “Guess, child, how many bells are inside?” I did not answer him, only looked at Mama. The old man stood upright and said, “Twenty-two.” He winked at me. “Without the Pummerin, but she will return soon. The largest one in Austria.”
Mama smiled and took my hand and walked me closer to the entrance. Our fingers touched its cold limestone wall. She directed my fingers to feel the engraved numerals, 05, Osterreich, told me it was a secret symbol of Austria’s resistance. The man with whiskers walked in front of us, bowed slightly, and opened the Giant’s Door.
Inside the vast entrance, I felt like a miniature doll. Bronze and white tiles gleamed beneath us; above us, the ceiling soared. The air was silent. People flocked to light candles. Mama took my hand, to keep me close in the sudden swell of bodies, and we walked past the statues of saints on columns, their stone eyes watching us.
When we neared a small chapel, Mama bent low, turned to me, and whispered, “This is where they held Mozart’s funeral. A pauper’s funeral.” And she made the sign of the cross. But I did not follow Mama’s blessing; my hand remained still by my side. He didn’t need a blessing from someone like me. Papa had assigned me Mozart’s “Sonata in B flat” and I had not yet learned it to his satisfaction. Mozart was only a child, was of an age close to my own, Papa had told me, when he wrote the composition. I had heard the tone of disappointment in his voice, and knew at that moment that I would never be the violinist he wanted me to be.
We walked past a pulpit with carved toads and salamanders and a barking dog.
“Mama, look. Look at that dog. They don’t let animals inside churches. Why is he barking?”
“I’m sure there’s a reason. Come this way.”
“But why would a toad and salamander chase one another like? Toads don’t run.”
“I don’t know. I had never noticed it before. They’re symbols. Ask your father.”
“But Papa doesn’t like it when I ask too many questions.”
“He doesn’t mind if you ask the right questions. Come with me.”
Mama and I approached the left chapel in the choir that displayed a gilded, open-winged wooden altarpiece of the Virgin Mary holding her infant son.
Mama said, “Mary is between Saint Catherine and Saint Barbara, the one holding the tower.”
The painted wooden faces of the Virgin Mary and Saint Catherine were serene, joyful, but it was the eyes of Saint Barbara which spoke to me.
“Why is she holding a miniature tower? It looks like a toy.”
“Her father kept her in a stone tower when she told him she wanted to become a Christian. He sent her teachers in philosophy and poetry. But he wanted her to remain a pagan.”
“What happened to her?”
“She still became a Christian, and then died for her faith.”
“Who killed her?”
Mama paused. “That’s not important.”
“Was she burned up like Joan of Arc?”
“Nicolette! Don’t make light of a martyr’s death. We are in a church not at home.”
“Did God want them to die?”
“No,” Mama said then looked toward the altar. “I don’t know.” She touched my face. “But I know he wants us to have the same faith. Saint Joan was on a military crusade to save her country. We’re on a spiritual one to save ours. That’s why we need to pray.”
“So the soldiers leave?”
Mama nodded. “So we have our freedom. Let’s move so others can see. I need to light a candle for my father before we leave.”
“But Papa won’t like that.”
“He was my father.”
- 4 -
In late November, the year before I turned ten, alpine winds brought wet snow to our city. Mama promised me at breakfast that when I returned home from school she would teach me how to prepare dumplings for our evening soup with the white flour she had received from Fräulein Elstein. The smell of flour was clean and white and pure. Somehow Fräulein Elstein was able to acquire ingredients not found on the shelves of the greengrocers; once I saw her speaking with a Soviet soldier down a narrow street close to her flat. The soldier’s hands gestured rapidly while he spoke to her before he slipped something in her paper bag.
The school day seemed longer than usual as I sat in my stiff chair at the back of the classroom, my thoughts wandering toward the afternoon, when Mama and I would work the flour into fresh dough.
After school, too impatient to wait for Anya, I ran home, the snow like cold mist on my face.
When I opened the door to our flat, a Soviet soldier strode toward me. I attempted to scream but my voice would not make sound. The soldier bent down to me, his breath bitter as if he had swallowed mothballs. I could not see my mother, only the red, five-pointed star that branded his uniform. When the soldier’s fingers came close to my face, my throat refused to release its air. I stared at his heavy-soled boots then my own shoes, watching the water from the melted snow run down the black leather. I closed my eyes and prayed in silence. Gegrüßet seist du, Maria, voll der Gnade, der Herr ist mit dir. Du bist gebenedeit unter den Frauen, und gebenedeit ist die Frucht deines Leibes, Jesus. Heilige Maria—The soldier said the word, beautiful, in German, his hand now touching my face. I heard my mother’s voice, felt her grip my arm. I opened my eyes and heard my mother and the soldier exchange Soviet words that sounded like bullets within the walls of our quiet flat. The soldier grabbed my mother’s arm.
“Nicolette,” my mother said. “Go next door.”
My mother stood next to the soldier, her eyes like blue glass. The soldier drew Mama toward the bedroom. My head shook. My eyes blurred. I wanted to run and scream at the soldier. I wanted to scratch and tear at him. But my mother said “Go,” and closed the bedroom door.
- 5 -
Every week, the Soviet soldier rapped on our door. The other soldiers in our district wore bland faces, one melting into another. His face, this Soviet soldier, I knew apart from the others; it was yellowed with a bulbous nose, lined with hair the color of mud. He always brought a gift for me, an item I was seldom allowed: a small jar of raspberry preserves; a piece of marzipan shaped like an apple just plucked from a tree; a blood orange with a fragrance that stayed on my fingers long after I had eaten it. I wanted to refuse each gift. Instead I took what he offered me, his forearm lined with wristwatches, before I left for Anya’s flat.
When I returned home for dinner, many times Papa was not home. If he had stopped a beisl, I would not see him for the rest of the night. But he would always appear the next morning, sitting at our wooden table with a cup of black coffee, an empty liquor glass and a cigarette burning in the ashtray. The nights when Papa came home tired from the factory I wanted to tell him about the solider but the words stayed buried inside me. At our dinner table, I watched Mama, waiting for a sign to cross her face that would signal me to tell Papa about the soldier. The sign from her never appeared and I learned to become part of my mother’s secret.
- 6 -
In spring, an afternoon when I returned home from school, I heard Mama cry through the black wood of the bedroom door. I began to practice the violin. When Mama came out of the bedroom, strands of hair hid her eyes. A knock brushed the front door. I went to the door and answered it, expecting the soldier to push through, bringing his odor of tobacco and brandy, and his small gift for me. Instead, a woman wrapped in grey woolen clothes filled the doorway. She smelled of cloth left out in the rain.
“Come in, please,” my mother said from behind me. Mama said to me, “Nicolette, go finish practicing.”
Their voices remained low.
Mama said, “I was expecting you at noon.”
“Yes, I suppose it is now jause.”
Mama hesitates. “Would you like coffee?”
“Yes,” the woman answered. “Do you have torte?”
“No, I’m sorry. We don’t have cake.”
“Never mind with the coffee then.” The grey woman looked perturbed. “How do you feel?” placing her hand low on my mother’s stomach. “You don’t look good.”
“May I come to you this week?” Mama said.
I stopped playing the violin.
Mama looked at me. “Nicolette, keep playing.”
The grey woman asked, “Do you bleed?”
“No,” my mother said.
“Are you certain...” the grey woman heaved, her round body consumed by her breath, “this is what you do?”
“How many schillings?” Mama said.
“I tell you after.”
- 7 -
Mama woke me early the next morning and gave me only a kipferl to eat. I tore a small piece off and swallowed the sour, dry bread. Mama then walked me to Fräulein Elstein’s flat.
Fräulein Elstein had no children, no husband, only sewing to keep her hands occupied. The hunger gnawed at my stomach as we walked the four blocks in the early cold air.
When my mother prepared to leave, she placed her hands on my cheeks, and spoke in a whisper, “Meine Liebe,” and kissed my forehead. “Now mind Fräulein Elstein. Come back here after school.”
Upset that I could not return home alone after school—now that I was ten—I said, using a tone of voice I had never used before with Mama, “Why do you treat me like I’m an infant?”
She looked at me as if I had slapped her cheek. Mama lowered her eyes, hesitated, and said, “Not today.” She turned to reach for the doorknob. As she closed the door, I knew that she had not heard my whispered apology.
When I returned to Fräulein Elstein’s in the afternoon, she fed me a sandwich of cold sausage. She then pulled out her sewing basket, handed me a spool of thread, a needle, and a piece of yellow fabric. Fräulein Elstein sat in her wide chair. I tried to work with the thread but my fingers were not used to thread so thin.
After a long while, Fräulein Elstein said, “When your father played in the orchestra, his friends would come not only to hear him play, but to see your mother.” She looked out the window, yet her fingers continued to move. “They were so naïve.” Her fingers became motionless. “Look at what her beauty has cost them.” She lifted the cloth and checked her stitch.
I wanted to ask her what she meant, but concentrated on untangling the knot I had made in the thread.
“I told your father,” she said, “a long time ago.” She looked at me, shook her head. “Give me the thread, Nicolette,” she said, taking it from me. “You are slow to learn.”
When Mama arrived, she looked feverish, tired. Fräulein Elstein made coffee for afternoon jause. No one besides me took a piece of the cake baked with fresh ginger.
I helped Fräulein Elstein clear the table while Mama sat. She did not seem interested in hearing about my school day. The three of us walked to our flat, Mama’s slow, shuffled steps making us get caught in the rain. Close to home, I reached down to put a wet stone in my pocket.
Fräulein Elstein said, “Drop that, Nicolette. Now come along. We don’t need debris inside.”
Mama looked at her but said nothing.
Inside, our flat was dark and empty. I felt Mama flinch when I touched her sleeve; her eyes looked beyond me. Fräulein Elstein put my mother to bed, and told me to start the water for potatoes. I heard nothing but my own footsteps on the wooden floors. No one came to help me light the stove. I filled the pot and waited for the water to boil. My hands scrubbed the potatoes in angry swirls. When the bubbles appeared and exploded into the skim of the water, I dropped the potatoes in one by one.
Mama and Fräulein Elstein did not come out to eat dinner. Papa did not return home. I left two plates of potatoes and thick slices of dark landbrot at the door of the bedroom. With my ear to the door, I listened but heard only silence. I practiced my violin twice as long as was required.
At bedtime, I changed into my nightdress and then slowly cracked my parents’ bedroom door. A smell of dampness from the window left open filled the room. I heard the faint taps of Mama’s rosary beads. Fräulein Elstein sat in the corner chair with her sewing in her lap, her fingers pulling the needle through the fabric in perfect rhythm. Through the dim light I saw Mama’s body curled on the bed with only a thin linen to protect her from the chilled air, and, on the floor, a cloth with drops of blood. Without looking up, Fräulein Elstein said, “Go to sleep, Nicolette. Your mother is very ill. Let her rest.”
I said, “Goodnight, Mama,” and closed the door as I was told.
In bed, I remembered when Mama and I were in Stephansdom and acolytes had released incense, its harsh odor, reminiscent of burning silk, reached us as we turned back toward the entrance. After Mama’s death, when the boundaries of my life dissolved, when a permanent trill of loss sounded in my ears, each time a priest swung the censer and I smelled the same burning silk odor, I returned to the afternoon with Mama inside Stephansdom, feeling her warm hand in mine while the saints watched us.
Later in the night, I heard Papa return home. I got out of bed and opened my door. Father Vogl was with Papa carrying a small jar of consecrated oil and a prayer book in his hands. He followed Papa into the bedroom, closing the door behind them. I went to the door and sat against the wall. When Father Vogl came out of the bedroom, he walked slowly to my side, crouched beside me, blessed me, and crossed himself.
Papa came out of the bedroom and walked Father Vogl to the door. I stood beside Papa.
Father Vogl said, “What about Paulina’s family?”
I knew little of my mother’s family, only that they lived in a town on the way to Salzburg, and had a home surrounded by rose gardens and enclosed by low limestone walls. Mama had told me once with a tight laugh that my grandmother’s glory in life had been to serve Nazi officials coffee and peppermint schnapps, platters of fruits and tortes late into many evenings.
Father Vogl, looked at Papa, waiting for his answer.
Papa said, “It’s too late.” His words covered my head like a heavy cloak.
The priest said, “It’s never too late,” before he shut the door.
- 8 -
After dawn, in the new light of morning, my mother died.
Papa wanted his wife buried in Zentrafriedhog, the cemetery that kept the bones of Beethoven and Schubert. I only wanted Mama to be protected from the rains and winds, snow and ice that would come year after year upon her grave. I told myself that in the autumn trees would drop red leaves like kisses upon her tombstone, and in the spring, wild violets would grow beside her to keep her company.
At the funeral Mass, Papa and I entered the first pew. When I knelt, my stiff black dress that Fräulein Elstein had bought me for the funeral scratched my knees. I kept expecting Mama at any moment to come into our pew and kneel beside me. Tears would not fall from my eyes.
When the priest swung the censer over Mama’s casket, incense was released and its harsh odor, reminiscent of burning silk, reached me. A trill of loss sounded in my ears.
We were driven in a black automobile to the cemetery. Outside the window mist clung to the countless monuments and stone crosses. The car moved slowly down the long road and stopped where the earth had been opened.
Fräulein Elstein, others from the church, and Father Vogl circled the casket, adorned with yellow roses, Mama’s favorite. I stood next to Papa, stoic and silent. My legs quivered like reeds in the wind and I was afraid that they would fail to keep me upright during the burial. I held onto Papa’s arm, dug my fingers into his overcoat. Father Vogl spoke of mercy and salvation, but his words wound around me, giving me no comfort. As they had in life, both my parents’ families abandoned us in death.
One of Papa’s friends, a former singer in the State Opera Chorus, waited for the nod from Father Vogl. After the final prayers were said, the man looked upward, and in a low voice, began to sing “Ave Maria.” I watched the man sing Schubert’s hymn to my mother, concentrating on the movement of his lips, the lifting of his chest, the inflection of his voice, all to keep me from running to her.
When the service ended, I was left alone with my father who fell deeper into despair, into a depth that we both owned, but one that he would not share with me.
Weeks after Mama’s death, the four occupying countries signed a treaty declaring Austria’s permanent neutrality and our freedom.
In autumn, the last unit of Red Army soldiers would leave our country. They would leave Austria for their frozen soil. Other countries would remain less fortunate; there, the Soviets would stay.
- 9 -
I waited for my mother’s voice. I waited in the early hours of morning for her to wake me for school, and in the evenings I waited for her to call me to our table. The sound of her voice soon slipped from me; her voice had been soft, melodic, but in truth, I had forgotten.
One afternoon when I returned home from school, the air startled me with fragrant smells of apfelstrudel and coffee. A pitched voice spoke to me from my parents’ bedroom.
“Your day?” Fräulein Elstein said. “How was your day?” She walked into the kitchen; her hands held a white towel. At the table, she poured coffee into a cup and sat down, waiting for my answer. She slid a ceramic cup of cocoa toward me, the sound from the cup lingering like the soft screech of a bird.
She asked again, her tone more urgent. “Nicolette, how was your day?”
“Good,” I said.
“That’s better. Now you must practice the violin after you eat. I promised your father that you would keep to your schedule.” Her skin looked as stale as three day old bread. She bit into the strudel, her lips dry and cracked. I looked down at my strudel, a stone upon my plate. Waves lifted in my stomach and sour liquid rose in my throat. I tried to will it down but had to run to the lavatory, my stomach purging itself. I splashed cold water on my face and returned to the table.
Fräulein Elstein said, “Nicolette, we must try, for your father’s sake.” I wondered if she was aware that I had gotten sick. Mama would have known, would have come to comfort me.
She stood and took her empty plate to the sink. “Your father will be late tonight. I bought the ingredients for gulaschsuppe.” She stood with her back to me. “You like that, yes?”
With bitter traces on my tongue, I could not think of food, not even one of my favorite dishes.
Fräulein Elstein turned around and said, “Did you say something?”
“Yes, I would like that.”
“Good,” she said. “But first I need help moving the rest of my things into the bedroom. Come with me.”
I carried one of her boxes into my parents’ bedroom, expecting Mama’s scent of jasmine to reach me. The photograph of my parents at their wedding ceremony had been removed from the bureau. A crystal bell sat in its place. I set the box next to it, pushing the bell close to the edge of the dresser, wanting to see it shatter on the floor.
Fräulein Elstein handed me a thin book. “Your mother loved Blake.”
It was a book of poems.
“With her voice, she could recite these with near perfection. I miss her too, Nicolette. She was a good friend.”
The nausea returned and a lightness swept through my head. “Fräulein Elstein, I still don’t feel well,” I said to her. “May I go lie down?”
“Bring me the other box,” she said and took a step closer to me. “Then you may rest before you practice.” She squeezed my arm, a little too hard. “Perhaps you can shorten your practice time.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Our little secret,” she said. And then she winked, her skin crinkling even more.
Later that night, when Papa and Fräulein Elstein were in my parents’ bed, thoughts of my mother and the Soviet soldier stirred in the dark. Did she care for the soldier, and not Papa? Why had Mama not told him? Why had he not protected her? Why had the soldier chosen Mama? I prayed that sleep would take me from these thoughts, but was taunted by images of Mama’s eyes softening toward the soldier, of her face warming to his presence. Had I seen her touch his sleeve?
I tried to recall my mother’s saints and the stories she had told me about them: Saint Cecilia, Joan of Arc, Saint Francis. I turned on the small lamp beside my bed, and pulled out the heavy book Mama had given me on my tenth birthday, her last gift to me. In its pages I found a reproduction of Reni’s painting of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians. Reni had painted a young Cecilia holding the violin in front of her with her left hand, and, in her right hand, the bow, crossing the center of the instrument. Cecilia’s dark eyes looked upward; her face, pale and soft; her head wrapped with an ivory cloth. Mama had told me that for three continuous days Saint Cecilia sang to God in the midst of her martyred dying. For her faith, she was granted an incorrupt body after her burial—a body untouched by decay.
I saw my mother’s body, buried under layers of soil and clay, without mercy.
- 10 -
Two years after Mama’s death, Papa received a telegram from my mother’s mother. She asked whether, as she would be in Vienna for business, she might meet with Papa. As if to lure him, my grandmother promised to bring personal belongings of my mother’s. Papa refused to respond to or acknowledge the letter, but I wanted whatever she had to give me—Mama’s comb, a handkerchief, a photograph of Mama when she was my age. After my continued pleading, Papa’s arm waved me off, and he ordered Fräulein Elstein to accompany me. Frau Dreher’s letter instructed Papa to meet her at a kaffeehaus close to Stephansdom for jause. She told him to meet her on Tuesday at four o’clock.
Though it was a weekday, Fräulein Elstein and I entered the kaffeehaus in our Sunday clothes. Before today, I had never entered one, had only walked past countless times, peering through the windowpanes of glass at the desserts displayed like miniature pieces of artwork.
Inside, we were surrounded by glass and wood and light. Smells lingered and wrapped around me—roasted coffee beans, cigarette smoke, tortes baked from butter dough. Marble tables held small silver trays with white ceramic cups and water glasses. Men sat reading newspapers, smoking, while women gathered in groups of two or three, talking and laughing, something I was not accustomed to. Near a window, an older woman sat alone, her head rigid as she watched us. A small black hat perched atop her silver hair; its sheer netting covered her face.
Fräulein Elstein gripped my hand as we walked toward the woman. She said, “There’s your grandmother. Now mind yourself, Nicolette.”
At the table, Fräulein Elstein remained standing and nodded to my grandmother. “Frau Dreher. Good afternoon.”
“I expected to see Josef, Fräulein Elstein,” my grandmother said. “Tell me, it is still Fräulein?”
“Yes,” Fräulein Elstein said, her eyes fixed on my grandmother’s face. “Josef is working today. Nicolette asked for her mother’s things, so I brought her. I help Josef with the child.” She paused. “Nicolette told me she has never met you. Could this be true?”
My grandmother did not answer but gestured for us to sit across from her in the booth. The seat’s red velvet-like material was the same color as the inside of my violin case, the same color as the new red wine Papa drank. My fingertips rested on the marble table, and I immediately felt grounded by its coolness. Fräulein Elstein cleared her throat and I dropped my hands into my lap.
My grandmother removed her hat. The glare of the late afternoon sun shone through the picture window; my grandmother’s blue eyes—those I knew; they were my mother’s—stood out against her skin, the color of the paste we used at school. Above red painted lips, her wrinkles looked like violin strings pulled too tightly.
She studied my face. “You look little of your mother. How old are you now?”
“Twelve,” I answered.
My grandmother’s eyes did not move from my face. “Is that so? And what about your father? How is he?”
Fräulein Elstein answered for me. “Josef is fine.”
“I’ve heard that he is not so good, that he drinks too much, yes?” my grandmother asked, though I could not tell which of us she was questioning.
Again Fräulein Elstein answered. “He works at the factory. And he composes.”
“Yes, such a pity he can’t play anymore. Paulina wrote and told me about the terrible incident,” my grandmother said. “I always warned Paulina of his ideas, and of his drink, but it was no use. And you, child,” turning her glassy eyes back upon me, “you must play the violin.”
I did not know if hers was a question, until she raised her eyebrows. I nodded. An urge rose within me to speak out—to tell her how I was required to keep an extended practice schedule, some days for hour upon hour behind a locked door, that my fingertips were numb and reddened. My eyes met Fräulein Elstein’s. “Yes, I play.”
Fräulein Elstein said, “Frau Dreher, who gives you this information? You live far from here. You failed to attend your daughter’s funeral—”
“—Let me remind you, Fräulein Elstein,” my grandmother said, her voice slapping against the sweetened air but stifled enough to avoid a scene, “Paulina and Josef chose against our heritage and only hope at the time. And her funeral...even if I had tried to come, there were far too many blockades at the Soviet zones.” She took in a sharp breath and waved to the waiter. “You remember how it was?”
Dressed in a black jacket and pants, a white dress shirt and black bowtie, the waiter approached our table. His gestures stiff, he said to Fräulein Elstein, “May I bring you something to drink?”
“Only water for the two of us,” she said. “Thank you.”
The waiter’s eyes scanned us momentarily, his lips tightened before he slightly bowed. He asked my grandmother, “Would you like me to bring you your linzertorte now?”
“Yes, I’m ready.” She asked Fräulein Elstein, “You’ll allow me to order something for my granddaughter?”
I touched the cold marble, my fingers moving in small circles.
Fräulein Elstein sighed. “A mélange for me, and for Nicolette, a hot cocoa. I don’t want her dinner to be spoiled.”
The waiter left to retrieve my grandmother’s torte from the kitchen.
My grandmother said, “I hope he gave her beautiful funeral. Did he have enough money?”
Instead of talking about my mother’s funeral, I wanted to run from the table, follow our waiter to the kitchen to watch how they prepared the pastries that laced the heavy air. At the table next to us, I watched a woman lift a fork to her open mouth. I imagined its taste, thick with sugar, dense with cream, on my tongue. Under the table, my legs swung back and forth, timed and exact like the metronome that Papa used at our lessons.
Fräulein Elstein said, “Let’s not discuss that in front of Nicolette. We came for her mother’s belongings.”
“Very well,” my grandmother said. She smiled at me. “Did your mother ever talk of our family?”
“No,” I said, “not that I remember.”
Her smile stiffened into an unpleasant smile as she looked out the window, her gaze following a man walking toward Stephansdom.
The waiter returned and set the silver tray in front of her, the linzertorte perfectly centered on the plate. Black current jam filled the layers, glistened along the edges. Like a veil waiting to be lifted, confectionery sugar clung to the lattice pastry. With swollen fingers, she picked up the white napkin, unfolded it, and placed it on her lap. I sat motionless and watched her take a drink from her water glass. My hands, hidden under the table, pressed together until my entwined fingers hurt. Kept loose and free, they would have seized her torte and pushed it into my mouth.
In a few minutes, the waiter returned with another silver tray, holding a mélange and a hot cocoa and two glasses of chilled water. He placed the tray in front of us.
No one spoke. When my grandmother finished, she lifted a wooden box from underneath the table, and slid it toward me. The lid of the box was painted with liquid-red flowers.
She said, “This is what you came for. Open it.”
The wooden box held a photograph of my mother as a girl with her sister, a rosary made of crystal beads, and, at the bottom, a small book of prayers. I closed the lid of the wooden box and thanked my grandmother.
She said, “Your mother asked me to mail the box to her. I told her that she had to come home to retrieve it.” Her hand waved to the waiter. “But she never returned home.”
“Like Joan of Arc,” I said quietly.
But my grandmother did not hear my remark; she was counting her schillings and placing them on the top of the slip of paper the waiter had left. She reached for her hat, and arranged it on her head. Mama’s eyes became veiled once more. My grandmother said, “I would like to visit Paulina’s grave.”
Fräulein Elstein lifted her cup to her lips. I heard her swallow the hot liquid.
My grandmother said, “Fräulein Elstein, we all have our sins, do we not? And if you must know, I have received mercy from our Lord. Under the circumstances, under the pressure of our country, I did what I had to do. To say the very least, I’ve certainly paid the price with the loss of my husband. Please understand.” She lowered her voice and said, “I simply want to pay my respects to my daughter.”
Fräulein Elstein lowered her cup on the table.
From the back corner of the kaffeehaus, silverware crashed against the tiled floor and a water glass shattered. In one breath, without thinking, I said, “My mother is buried in Zentralfriedhof. The tram will take you to the main entrance.”
Fräulein Elstein’s fingers gripped her cup.
I hesitated then said too loudly, “Lot 24, row 6, number 8.”
My grandmother pulled out a paper from her purse and handed me a pen.
“Please write it down, Nicolette,” my grandmother said, a smile crawling on her face. She stood erect and took the paper from me, folded it, placed it in her purse. “Let me know if there is ever anything I can do for you.” She paused then looked at Fräulein Elstein and said, “You really should buy Nicolette a pastry before you leave.”
- 11 -
Winters and summer passed like collected stones in the jar under my bed. At night, my hands wandered over my body, my fingers finding new flesh that had thickened my legs and breasts. Some days, a sudden tightness gripped my mind and a sharp tongue lashed at Fräulein Elstein and I feared that a hint of madness had settled within me. When my monthly blood came, to soothe the pain that coiled inside, I pressed and kneaded my skin with my palms, curled my legs to my chest, wrapped my arms around my knees. When the pain did not ease, I dipped rags into boiling water, rung them out, and placed them low on my stomach. Scraps of rags that I used to catch my blood I threw out with the refuse. Fräulein Elstein knew none of this.
Mama’s book of poems, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, stayed under my pillow. To teach myself words in English, I brought home a paper sack full of books from the library: Learn English in Thirty Days; English: The Proper Way; English Is Quite Easy. While other girls my age looked at themselves in front of their mirrors, wrapping and curling their hair in ways they were sure boys would like, I looked at myself in the mirror, watching my lips move, listening to my uttered sounds. My voice slowed, like an adagio, to capture each of Blake’s words.
By the time I was fifteen years old, I committed his poems to memory in their original English. I quietly recited this poem while I walked to school most mornings.
Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee On a cloud I saw a child. And he laughing said to me.
Pipe a song about a Lamb; So I piped with merry chear, Piper, pipe that song again— So I piped, he wept to hear.
Drop thy pipe, thy happy piper Sing thy songs of happy chear, So I sung the same again While he wept with joy to hear
Piper, sit thee down and write In a book that all may read— So he vanish’d from my sight. And I pluck’d a hollow reed.
And I made a rural pen, And I stain’d the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear.
Most days after school, I walked alone through the streets. Anya, and my few other friends, understood that I was different than them and did not ask me to go with them to the park near our building. On my walks, many times, I caught glimpses of Mama. One autumn afternoon I watched my mother’s body turn down Tuchlauben. The woman carried herself with a sudden familiarity to me: elegant shoulders, her head slightly tilted to the left, a stride that matched Mama’s pace. The shade of her hair was too dark; still, I followed. Beside the woman, my heart pulsed as if I ran the distance to her. I turned and looked and saw not the face of my mother, but that of a stranger.
“Grüss Gott,” the woman said with a polite nod.
“Grüss Gott,” I said and took a step away from her.
Later that afternoon, instead of going home to practice the violin, I found myself south of the Ringstrausse, at the Heroes’ Monument of the Red Army. The foundation’s specks of red stone glinted in the sun. On top of the large monument stood a bronzed unknown soldier; on the side, Stalin’s engraved words commended his Red Army for their victory, their liberation of Vienna. I walked around the monument, twice. I bent and scraped a handful of dirt from the ground and threw it at the Soviet soldier, the drops of soil scattering into the air but not touching him. Those of us who remembered called the monument by its true name, The Monument of the Unknown Plunderer.
- 12 -
On National Day, the day that marked the declaration of Austria’s independence and the end of the occupation, Papa pledged to complete Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. It had been broadcast seven years before my birth, on a March evening, shortly before hatred marched into our city. Not one shot was fired to keep the Germans away, Papa had told me. The war of flowers, Blumenkrieg. Even the Church had not been safe from Papa’s contempt. He cursed the cardinal who gave the Nazi salute on the steps of the Imperial Hotel, but then smiled later when he learned that Pope Pius XI reprimanded him. True Austrians chanted “Go home!” to the Nazis. But the Germans stayed and ordered the Jewish people to scrub Vienna’s sidewalks with toothbrushes while other Austrians watched.
Schubert’s eighth symphony, written in B minor, had only two of the three movements published upon his death. The score had been lost for nearly forty years, inspiring many composers to attempt its completion. I suggested to Papa that Schubert may have wished for the symphony to remain with only two movements, since they were flawless.
Papa’s eyes flashed. “Nonsense.”
For months Papa stacked large piles of his manuscript pages throughout our flat—on the floor, on the wooden table, on the trunk under the window—arranging them in order but quickly forgetting how he had placed them. Many nights he composed at our table into the early mornings.
Fräulein Elstein brought him coffee before she went to bed. With his right hand, he wrote on manuscript paper; his left hand lay limp on the table.
Each morning I tried to awaken before Fräulein Elstein hoping that I would be alone with Papa for a few moments. I glanced toward the closed bedroom door. Fräulein Elstein was attached to me only through Papa. She took care of my physical needs, purchased my blouses and skirts when I outgrew my old ones, monitored my schoolwork, and watched the clock while I practiced the violin.
“Papa, you should eat,” I said, placing bread beside his cup.
His right hand wrote quickly; his left hand lay on the table, red and useless.
“And you,” he said without looking up, “should smile more.”
Accustomed to his remarks, I ignored his words. “Did you sleep last night?”
Papa stood up, gathering sheets of paper from the table. “Why should I?” Papa said. “I can sleep when I’m dead.”
“But, Papa, you don’t look well,” I said. “I can take you to the doctor on my way to school.”
“I’m finished,” Papa said, bringing the manuscript papers close to my face. “Now get the violin.”
I walked to the case and unhooked its clasp. The wood was cool. As I prepared the violin, Papa placed the score on the music stand. He closed his eyes.
I positioned the violin on my shoulder, lifted the bow to the strings then began to play though the chords were difficult to read.
Papa opened his eyes. “Not like that!”
“Papa,” I said.
“What?”
“Papa, I can’t play what you have written,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he said. As if he held a violin, he flung an imaginary bow back and forth. “Like this!” he said, his body shaking. His elbow knocked the music stand and it fell to the ground, the white music sheets falling to the floor like clusters of snowflakes.
- 13 -
Like a monotonous composition, my life held the same tempo from year to year. In my last year of gymnasium, I passed a set of examinations, earned my diploma, and began study at the Art Academy. Papa planned that I would audition for orchestra once I had finished my degree. In the middle of my third year, I mailed a letter to my grandmother and awaited her reply.
A February day when the wind stayed restless, Papa and I were home alone. I walked into his bedroom; he sat at his small table, composing, his back to me. I touched his shoulder but he did not turn around. His hair, streaked with grey, was kept too long for a man. I placed a small box of marzipan with four pieces of miniature fruit inside on the table. Pages of “Quartet in A Minor” were spread around him with Papa’s notes written over those of Schubert’s.
I said, “Papa, you’re working too long again. I brought you marzipan.”
“How can composers rest,” Papa said, “when there is music to create? Schubert must have sensed, when he held a torch at Beethoven’s burial, that his life would be cut short. Compositions flew from him at such a rapid pace.”
“Papa,” I said, “I need to talk with you.”
Ignoring my words, he continued: “Did you know that Beethoven once said of Schubert’s music that it must have come from the divine light. And now—how many years later—I have the privilege of improving his work!”
Against Papa’s window, sleet began to fall. I sat on his bed. My fingers touched the white coverlet, one that Fraulein Elstein had brought with her, one that, when I was younger, I had wanted to cut into shreds. I removed the envelope from my satchel. “Papa, I must read a letter to you.”
He turned in his chair. “Nicolette, I’m sorry. I get carried away.”
“It’s from Oma,” I said pulling the ivory paper from the envelope, refusing to look at him.
“Why would she write you?”
When I did not answer him, with impatience in his voice, he said, “Go ahead.”
Written in blue ink, my grandmother’s handwriting was small and slanted. I heard Papa shift in his chair. In a quiet voice, I read the letter aloud.
Dear Nicolette, 2 February 1967
I received your letter, and have to admit how surprised I was by its arrival and content. The reason for my delay is that I needed time to consider what you asked of me.
Prior to now, I never thought I would see you again.
Your mother and I had a conflicted relationship. How she loved to debate me—even as a young child. She seemed to want something from me that I could not give her. When she was young and ill, she would call for her governess in the middle of the night, never for me.
The annexation and then the war led to our final separation. Her father and I did what we thought was aligned with God’s will. Only now do I see that we were wrong.
I must ask—what does your father think of your request of me?
I presume that Chicago has fine universities but thought that New York City would offer more opportunity in musical study. But what do I know of such things, living in the countryside of Austria?
Your request reminds me of your mother. She wanted to study in London, somehow developed a keen sense of the English, especially with their books and poetry. There was always something different about Paulina. She was never content with her reality. As a child, she lived out her dreams, and thought that life should reflect the magical. Whereas I have always believed in the concrete, in the actual matter of things, Paulina always believed in ideas, in the possibility of things.
From your letter, I assume that you have received appropriate placement at the university and are only awaiting my response. After your father’s approval, let me know where you need the money wired. And then, please write me when you are settled there. I would like to stay in contact with you.
In some inexplicable way, I feel this is a way to make amends with my daughter.
Yours truly,
Oma
The door opened and Fräulein Elstein strode into the bedroom still wearing her coat. “Why are you disturbing your father?”
I stood up as if I were a child again. “I needed to ask him a question.”
“Josef, I need her help in the kitchen.”
Papa turned to face me. “She can stay with me.”
Fräulein Elstein turned and closed the door. Within seconds, a pan banged against the stove.
“Papa, I should have asked you first. I never thought the university would accept me...but they did. I will stay for only a year then will come home.”
He stood with his back to me. As if he were a kapellmeister and I his audience, he lifted his right arm, swinging it back and forth through thick air. He lowered his arm.
“You are willing to accept money from a Nazi?”
“Oma’s money is the only way for me to study in America.”
“Do you know what you are asking of me? Look at this.” He shakes his limp hand.
“I’m sorry that happened, Papa. I have always done what you wanted, always played the violin, for you. This is what I want.”
“To leave Vienna and study music in the middle of America?” He laughed. “That’s inconceivable! Why America?”
“Everyone wants to go to America!”
“There is nothing for you there.”
Sleet fell against the window like small slivers of broken glass.
“And what is here for me?” Anger opened inside of me like uncontained flames. “Unless I hold a violin in my hands, you pay no attention to me. I play only because you cannot. And now, every day, I watch you do this.” I picked up the score, shaking the pages. “You act as if you are a composer, changing Schubert’s compositions.” I tore the sheets. “You cannot change what he has done,” I said. “He is dead, Papa, dead like Mama.” I took in a deep breath, unable to stop the words that followed, “because we did not protect her.”
“Protect her?”
“Yes,” I said, “from the soldier.”
Papa looked out the window. “She did not want protection.”
“No, Papa...that’s not the truth.”
“The truth.” He paused and looked at me, his eyes the same color I imagined the center of the ocean to be. “What is truth?”
“No, Papa. She—“
“—Go help in the kitchen, Nicolette. I have work to finish.”
Part II
- 14 -
This girl just ended up at my door. Well, Mrs. Forde told me to expect her, said that some college student had called about the job. I opened the door and there she was, this girl. She was tall enough, but kind of boney lookin’. She didn’t hint of a smile, looked kind of scared, like maybe she never seen a Negro woman before. Or maybe it was my size. I am an ample sized woman.
“My name is Nicolette,” she said.
“I know your name, honey,” I said. “Mrs. Forde, the lady who runs this business, said you’d be here tonight.” I looked at my wristwatch. “A half hour ago. She likes me to meet people before she hires them. I been with her for years.” I put out my hand. “I’m Tillie.”
She followed me inside with these hesitating footsteps that made me wonder if she thought that black people eat white people in America. Mrs. Forde told me she was foreign, and I could tell she was strange from the start.
“I am late. I am sorry. I had to ride the—”
“—what kind of accent is that you have?” I said.
“I am from Austria.”
“Like The Sound of Music Austria?”
She nodded.
“Ain’t that something? I liked all them children singing songs in clothes made from curtains. I could relate to that. And who wouldn’t like Julie Andrews?” I hesitated. “I hear you Germans are good cleaners. You ever done this work before?”
“I am not German, I am Austrian—”
What’s the difference I wanted to tell her but kept my mouth shut. Then I said, “You know how to clean, right?” I wondered what Jimmy would of thought about me working with a German.
“Yes.”
“What about England—that’s over there. Ever been there?” I said. “That’s where my husband was stationed. I’d like to know someone who been there, you know, tell me what it was like drinking tea like that every day.” The girl shook her head, but looked at me kind of funny. I said, “You understanding me? I don’t want no communication problems. We have enough of them in this city as it is. Here, have a seat.” I gestured to the couch for her to sit down. “My tongue is drier than baked pavement, so before we get to talking, I need me a little fizz. You want a Diet Rite?”
Her eyes pinched up, looking all confused. She tried to repeat the words.
“A drink,” I said, pretending to drink from an imaginary cup.
“No,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Be right back,” I said, and walked into kitchen. No way this arrangement was going to work out, me and this girl. I should just get on the phone right now and call Mrs. Forde, tell her to find me a worker from America.
When I came back into the room holding my glass filled with ice and a bottle of pop, Nicolette was still sitting on the couch, leaning over and feeling the brown shag carpet. I didn’t say nothing, didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. For all I knew, maybe that’s what people did in her country. I needed to at least finish the interview, be polite about it.
I poured the pop into the glass, lowered myself into a chair, and rested my elbows on its wooden arms. Sure felt good to sit. I preferred the couch but didn’t want to crowd the poor thing, she looking all nervous as it was. I seen her eying the bowl of candy on the coffeetable.
I said, “Take some candy.”
She looked confused.
Pointing to the bowl, I said, “THE CANDY.”
Nicolette took one piece. They was Opal Fruits. I just poured a fresh bag so they’re was plenty.
“Take more than that.”
The girl grabs a handful and puts them in her pocket.
Then I asked, “So how’s your English?”
“I speak English.”
“I hope so, you being here in Chicago and all. I gotta ask, if you don’t mind, why are you here?”
“I came to America to study the violin. I was at University for few years in Vienna. Now I am here.”
“The violin? Really? Well, then you better put some rubber gloves on those hands of yours. I only use lots of bleach.” I looked at her hands. “You got yourself a husband?”
“No.” Her cheeks bloomed like a pink rose. “I stay at a boarding house. Men are not allowed.”
“Yeah, I suppose these days girls are all about waiting. Waiting so they can do their own thing first.” I grinned at her. “Whatever that thing might be. By the time I was your age, I was married and settled down.”
I got up and walked to the bookshelf and picked up the frame of James. “That’s my Jimmy. Handsome, ain’t he?” I showed her the photo and she nodded. “He got killed in Normandy.”
“In the war?”
I shot a look at her. How else in God’s name would he die in Normandy? I ignored her lack of common sense and continued, “I suppose you know what you’re doing, being half ‘cross the earth from your family? They still in Vienna, or did they come on the boat with you?”
“I travelled on an airplane.” She looked over at the wall and I wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Then her eyes started roving around the apartment, and if I didn’t know better I’d a thought she was staking out the place. Finally she said, “I came alone. My mother died when I was ten.”
“Oh, sure am sorry to hear that. Every girl needs her mama. I’m a grown woman, and I still need mine. She must have been young. Was it the cancer?”
She looked at me and shook her head and whatever crossed her face right there made something ripple through me.
I said, “The cancer got my Aunt Lucille last summer. Took her in less than three months. The doctors opened her up and seen a full-blown nest of it in there, had to close her right back up. We buried her on the hottest day of July. Dear Lord, we was a mess, tears mixing with perspiration, all of it running down our faces while we was singing.” I paused. Nicolette didn’t seem interested in hearing about my Aunt Lucille, or maybe she couldn’t understand what I was telling her. I said, “So then, what about your father?”
“He is in Vienna.”
I said, “That’s good he still alive. Mine is dead. You got any brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
Getting information from this girl was like sucking blood from a rock.
"Not a one?” I said, a tone of disbelief shooting through my question. I smiled, but this girl didn’t seem capable of returning one.
“Well, how’d you like the airplane ride?”
“It made my stomach empty.”
“You mean you threw up?” I gestured the act of getting sick.
“Yes, I did.”
Another reason we shouldn’t be working together—I had no time for all these charades.
Nicolette’s eyes fixed on my collection of panda bears on the bookshelf.
Guess I’d try again. “You like them pandas?”
“You have many of them.”
“See all them nieces and nephews,” I pointed to photos lined up on my wall. “I got all those pandas from all them. I seen this program once on PBS about these bears that eat bamboo, you know that plant that grows two foot a day, and guess I told one of them, probably Monique, she’s always hovering around me like a pesky little bumblebee, that I liked them black and white bears from China, so now every birthday, every Christmas, every single time I unwrap a present, one of them bears is staring up at me. Now what’s a grown woman supposed to do with a toy stuffed animal?”
Nicolette started to rub her fingers with her thumb. Maybe I could give it some time to see if she’d work out. Anyways, I didn’t want to sit through no more of these interviews; it cut into my evening programs.
I said, “Well, I don’t have time for all this chatting. Back to what brought you here. Mrs. Forde will pay you a dollar and fifty cent an hour and if you work hard, can be on time, and don’t mind getting bleach on them shoes of yours, you can work with me. You hear me?”
The girl nodded. “Yes, I can hear you.”
I tilted my head to the side. “No, I mean,” I said, speaking in slow syllables, “do you understand what I am saying to you?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” I said. “Now that we got that settled, how about some greens?”
I could tell by her silence she didn’t have a clue what I meant.
“Lord have mercy,” I said, shaking my head. “Come on in the kitchen with me, child, and get yourself a plate.”