Among the letters Anna finds on her return home is one from the old Wehrmacht Research Centre in Berlin, the office that was in the middle of moving house when she first called with enquiries. Eva, the third in the trio of old classmates now roped in to obtain whatever information she could, had taken over. A very helpful, but not very hopeful young man had advised her that there might not be any documents whatsoever on the brief life of the Home Guards outfit in the old FLAK barracks on Stolpe Field. He had warned that, unless she could supply full names, birthdates and if possible birth places, it was unlikely that any documentation would be found. Anna then had sent Motz’s, Lilly's and her own, keeping her fingers crossed. She hadn’t remembered the names of any of the four regular army or FLAK personnel who had conducted the training, other than three of their last names. Not helpful with names such as Schmitt and Peters and no other information.
Their search, the letter regretfully stated, had turned up no trace of the unit in question. If no I.D. had been found with the casualties, and in the absence of dog tags, they would have been buried in rows of unmarked graves, in the nearest cemetery.
Struggling with jet lag, Anna opens her email at 4.00 a.m. and finds a cheerful note from Frank Hornung. He and Helga hope that Anna had a good return flight to Canada. This afternoon they are expecting a visit from the local pastor for coffee, he a fellow member of the amateur historians’ club.
Many messages later, Anna encounters another email from Frank. Exciting news: The pastor had brought the information that the church was considering consecrating the ground in which local suicides from 1945, unknown civilians brought in from the streets, and anonymous combatants were buried in rows at the very back of the old cemetery way back then.
Progress, in tiny steps, but progress.
Yawning, she picks up the phone and calls Maya.
“What are you doing on the phone? You are supposed to be in bed, snoring, seeing that it’s a quarter to five in the morning where you are,” says she. “But I’m glad to hear you evidently got home in one piece.”
“How are the dogs?” says Anna.
“Splendid,” says Maya. “And I have some VERY exciting news for you. Remember, Eva thought she could get a hold of Emma’s former brother-in-law? Well, she did and he gave her — no, we haven’t found her, but we found the DAUGHTER, who lives in Munich now. Eva left a message on her voice mail. We’re waiting to hear back. The brother-in-law wasn’t sure, but he thought Emma was still alive, had remarried. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!”
“Maya, you made my day. You can’t imagine, if Emma were to remember even ONE of those names properly, just happened to remember a birth date, because it was uncanny, so many of those kids had birthdays right around the time we were out there together — the people at the archives said if they could locate ONE, then they might be able to hook into more information about the others. That’s how their system’s set up. Keep your fingers crossed she calls back.”
“I will, and now you go back to bed. I’ll let you know as soon as any of us hear anything.”
“Thank you, thank you ever so much. Good night.”
Anna doesn’t go back to bed. She sits in her pajamas in front of the filing cabinet and pulls out batches of correspondence, family documents, boxes of photographs — and thinks, oh dear, this is precisely what my own kids will be up against one day. All this stuff they’ll have to sort through, a lot of it in German! I can’t do that to them. One of these days — but right now she is looking for an orange folder, an old, thick, orange folder that she last saw and decided to save around moving day four years ago. Among notes for various writings, long published, she had found an envelope of scattered bits, references, ideas, scribbles and doodles. Yes, she had tackled this story once before, when the children were very young, and she remembers very well how it had ended in depression, a long summer of it, and abandonment of the project. What might these notes contain that could be helpful today?
Had Lilly contributed any material, before confessing she just couldn’t go near that dark place any more, had finally, finally put it behind her.
Anna extracts the folder. Yes, here are all the things she remembers seeing recently. And there is the envelope with notes and doodles. She moves the lamp over and spreads them out on the carpet. Did she remember anything then that she doesn’t have at her finger tips now? Any names in particular?
There’s Hansi, properly remembered, but not his real name. ‘Budigkeit’ was not entirely right, and isn’t, but close. Useless. Here is a snippet with the words Axel? Axel? And question marks. Now she is quite sure it was Axel. Great help. Eddie. He died long, long ago. With all or most of the others. No, there is nothing here that will help, and Anna puts all these bits and pieces back in the envelope and discards it.
The orange folder goes back into the filing cabinet and so does everything else. The box with the old photographs, black and white most of them, comes back out and is carried into the living room. Anna makes coffee and spreads a hundred photos on the sofa. What is she looking for exactly? There are no photographs of the time at Stolpe Field, she established that long ago. It wasn’t a time for snapshots, for posing, for preserving a moment for posterity. It simply wasn’t a time when anyone had a camera or film or the energy to go looking for such things. There’s a long gap between photographs chronicling Foffie’s toddlerhood and first day of school too, unlike their own that had been so lovingly, copiously witnessed by their Father’s camera.
The day flies by in silence, her friends unaware that she has returned. At 1.00 pm she makes a sandwich, eats it still in her pajamas.
The phone rings, and it is Eva with Emma’s number. The daughter had been very reluctant, very protective of her ailing mother, saying Emma didn’t want to talk about that time at all, but then given in to Eva’s suggestion that she ask her mother’s permission to pass on the number, and Emma had agreed. But Anna is not to call between 1.00 p.m. and 3.00 p.m. and not after 7.30.
Anna lies on the sofa daydreaming. Had there not been another effort at putting all this on paper? Hadn’t John urged her to ‘put all that on paper,’ the stuff of her last days in Berlin — last days of the war? They had been at the movies, and the feature film had contained an ancient German, black and white newsreel, taken during the war, a clip. Hitler was speaking. No, yelling as usual, and Anna couldn’t keep her hands from shaking. John had wanted to know what Hitler was saying.
“I don’t know,” was her response. How did she mean? Couldn’t she make out the words? Yes, she heard him, but she couldn’t translate the words. Here were the more than familiar slogans, the phrases all over again, the same old threats against ‘our enemies’, and yet, she couldn’t force herself to focus on the meaning. She did manage a meager translation the next day.
“I hadn’t realized, never fully realized, how scared we had always been of him,” she told John. “Of him, who professed over and over again that he loved us.”
And so she had begun a second attempt to write about the events of the last few weeks of the boys on Stolpe field, of the girls. After writing about a hundred pages, double spaced, made copious notes on the margins, she saw she had left out the most important things, the worst events, just swept them under the carpet, so she wouldn’t have to face them again.
That time she had been discouraged about her failure to put it together, but not depressed.
“Emma! Is this a good time to call? Your husband said you were lying down.”
“I was, but I have to get up now. It’s alright. My daughter told me you would be calling, Anna. I must confess I have no recollection of your face, vaguely remember your name, though. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Emma. It’s been so long. We haven’t seen each other or spoken since late April, 1945. I only heard from Eva and Maya that you got married early, and—”
“Yes. Was it April ‘45? That late? I remember Eva, of course. She lived just around the corner from me. We ran into each other regularly even after I moved downtown.”
Emma’s voice is very quiet, doesn’t remind Anna of the old Emma. She feels very reluctant to upset her. Or to tire her out, for that matter.
“Tell me about your life, Emma. Anything, I’m curious.”
“Oh, my marriage didn’t last,” says Emma evenly. “Times too tough, and with a baby, you know, so I moved downtown with her and went into electrical engineering. Took it part-time but got my papers and worked in Berlin for a few years. Went to Hamburg.” She does sound tired. Poor Emma.
“Got married again, turned my life around. He was alone too, with three kids. So now I’m a grandmother, a step-grandmother and that’s what I live for.”
“How old are they, Emma?” This makes her happy. Her voice is stronger.
“Five, two and there’s a new baby. We haven’t even seen him. He’s in Hamburg. Do you have grandchildren?”
“Yes. Isn’t it wonderful? I live in Canada. My granddaughter is seven. I miss her so much. They live abroad this year, but will return soon. Such interesting conversations already. She is curious about EVERYTHING.”
“They are interesting at every age, aren’t they? Whether they talk much or not, and each one so different. Such promise — and they are so beautiful. I was ugly myself.”
“Oh, Emma,” Anna takes a deep breath. “Do you ever talk with them about your own childhood, or will you one day, do you think?”
“Well, Anna, if they ever ask, they’ll be out of luck. I don’t remember much about my childhood. It’s just a blur. School, of course, and the time we spent in the emergency service downtown. You were there, weren’t you, and your sister? Wasn’t your sister with us?”
“Yes, Emma, Nadja. We were together, but mostly you and I spent almost four weeks with the Home Guards on Stolpe Field together. You had the bunk above mine, don’t you remember? You used to say, ‘caution, I’m dropping the other shoe!’ Those ladders were rough wood, full of splinters.”
There was a pause.
“Emma? Are you there, Emma?”
“Home Guards? Stolpe Field? I don’t remember being with the Home Guards. I wasn’t there, Anna. You’re getting me mixed up with someone else, I think. It wasn’t me.”
“Emma? But I know you were there. You and Lotte Schneider, remember Lotte? You and Lotte used to—”
“Lotte, that name vaguely rings a bell. Did she go to school with us?”
“No, Emma. Would you rather not talk about this? Is it difficult?”
“No. I’m just not remembering anything about those days. My daughter said you are writing something, and you thought I was the last of the girls, but I wasn’t there, Anna. You are mistaken.”
Anna sits slumped in her chair. She stares out the window without seeing anything. How is it possible that after these months, years of going back to search for the voices and images of those days, remembering so much, so many details all of a sudden, and finding recollections corroborated — how is it possible that she could have been so wrong, had imagined these separate incidents, conversations, crises in their work together? What if she had also been wrong about other things? Had talked herself into believing other circumstances, dates, happenings, invented memories, as it were?
An hour later Eva calls. Anna is sitting in the same spot.
“Have you talked to Emma yet? I couldn’t wait to hear. How is she?”
“Not very well at all. Her husband says she’s been very ill, is just now recovering.”
“Did he say what it was?”
“No, and I didn’t ask.”
“Anna? You seem a little — what is it?”
“Well, I’m sitting here wondering what to do now. Everything is, has, I feel so strange.”
“Do you want to talk later? Want me to-?”
“She says she wasn’t there, knows nothing about the time with the Home Guards. My reminders of little shared things didn’t ring a bell. Couldn’t remember calmly removing a bat from the Mess Hall when everybody else went a little silly — including me, didn’t remember what she was doing the last four weeks, but says she wasn’t there with us. Eva, I hadn’t realized how much I’d looked forward to finding her, talking with her.”
“Of course, you were. I’m so sorry, Anna. This is quite unexpected, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I had been prepared for news that she too had died already, but when you found her, I had such hope. It isn’t fair to Fritze, but I’ve discovered over the years that boys and girls do remember different things about shared events, and why wouldn’t they? They were only shared in limited ways, their reality quite different from ours.”
“Weeeelll, didn’t they want you to report to the Panzers to defend the fatherland in a tank?”
“Yes, Eva, but I didn’t and wasn’t — you know what? It occurred to me this minute, fully realized, that in the final analysis we too were expected to die for our country. I’d never ever thought that fully through before. They wanted to create a whole population of soldiers.”
“Right on.”
“It was clear and seemed normal to THEM, not to us. Even though, even though I visited the two girls in hospital who did report and were blown up in that tank. Didn’t totally get it.”
“So what does Fritze remember?”
“Oy! Tells me about pranks in the bunker on slow nights. I only remember some of the repercussions.”
“Well, I remember Emma arriving at our house the day the Russian tanks were all over the streets, she in full Hitler Youth regalia, except she carried her jacket over her arm, inside out. My Mom and Dad burned her uniform and gave her some of my old things (she was very small, after all) and hiding the two of us in the back yard shelter.”
“Did you know she had come straight from my house? We didn’t see her, were hiding in the attic, but my mother nearly fainted when she walked in the door, saying she was meeting me and Lilly to go downtown for emergency service. She hadn’t realized all those tanks were Russian!”
“Yes, I now remember she told my Dad something like that. Thought it was hysterically funny.”
“My Mom had offered to hide her, but she got very restless, so Mom just made her take off her uniform jacket, and scarf at least, and she left.”
“What are you going to do? How is this turn of events going to affect your work? Or is it?”
“It’s bound to. I’ll have to think about it. Thank you for everything. Thank you for the hard work you put in to find her. I’m glad just the same, would sooner know the truth. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”
Anna puts down the receiver. She goes into the kitchen and makes a cup of coffee, dumps it down the drain and makes tea. She takes a few sips. Why would Emma show up at Anna’s house, who lived more than 30 minutes’ walk away, and THEN go to Eva’s who lived just around the corner from her own place, unless she— Anna puts her cup down.
“Eva? Eva, what am I interrupting? Okay, sit down. Listen. What time did Emma arrive at your house roughly, the day the Russian tanks came, just roughly?”
“This has been an awfully short couple of days, but I can tell it’s something urgent. Hilde just came in, so you have us both, in stereo.”
“Great, give her a hug from me! But THINK please. Can you remember the time of day when she arrived?”
“Not exactly, of course, but I’d say it was around noon. I think we took some sort of snack thing or lunch to the shelter, but that doesn’t mean anything. Why?”
“Yes, it does mean something. It means a lot. It means that MY memory of events is correct, at least to the extent that she WAS there with us at Stolpe. And she is the one who has it wrong. It means that Emma arrived at 10.00 a.m. at our house the morning of April 22, as my mother said, to meet with Lilly and me — and IF she did, there is only one way she could have made that appointment, at 2.00 a.m. the night before, at Stolpe Field, when we said goodbye. Otherwise, how would she even have heard about it, been in touch? There is no other way. And now that I think about it, I feel very bad to have barged into her life like that, with the daughter sending signals not to, feel just awful.”
“Oh Anna,” Hilde’s voice in the background.
“But this is MY responsibility. I chose to phone. Please don’t feel bad for finding her! We said we’d stay in touch but I think here is a good reason for leaving her alone. I just wanted you to know.”
“It sounds like you may be right. She’s deleted this part of her teen years from her conscious memory for reasons we can guess at, and she is not keen on retrieving it, doesn’t need it. Um, Hilde wants to talk to you.”
“Anna? I’ve been sitting there thinking. You know when we were all looking for Emma, we were probably all wondering about what we might find. Maya and I talked about it once. What if we find her and she has Alzheimer, what if SHE is working on a similar project, what if she kept a diary and has a totally different take on things? Whatever. But we felt we should plough on, partly because we felt bad about giving up at the time of the school reunion years ago, found mates all around the world, but didn’t find her and so she wasn’t invited, didn’t come back into the circle, like the rest of us. Something like that, I think. So it’s a disappointment for you and us too, and maybe a little disturbing to her, but don’t you think part of her was also pleased that three old school chums went to such trouble to find her? Her daughter did tell her what this was about. All she had to do was say no, she wasn’t well enough. Wanted to be left alone. And don’t you think she enjoyed the part where you exchanged stories about the grandchildren, as all of us besotted old grannies do? Eva says Emma has three, including a new baby? I’m sure she wanted to talk about that, express her pride — maybe in hearing range of her husband — you know?”
“Yes, you’re right. She did cherish that part. Maybe she thinks we know awful stories about her early marriage or something? I for one don’t, of course, lost her altogether.”
“Who knows. But she did tell the daughter it was okay to pass along her phone number, and that is tantamount to opening the door to the rest of the world. Good for Emma!”
“I think I will just tell Emma’s story the way I remember it, write it with the fondness I felt for her, as part of the whole. Do you know she didn’t remember things about herself? Didn’t know we all thought she had just about invented buddyhood, was funny, quick and superbly organized, with sober judgment. I reminded her. She was baffled.”
“Well, but do YOU know how the other girls, or guys for that matter, saw YOU?”
“Not really. True. My sisters thought I was bossy. So do you remember then? What your friends thought of you, what you were like?”
“Oh, yes,” says Hilde, “everybody always expected me to make them laugh. They thought I was hilarious, full of silly stories.”
“That’s because you were that,” says Anna. “You laughed a lot yourself.”
“Enough for today,” says Eva, “I was an only child, and my parents treated me like another adult in the house. It was pots of fun. Shall we talk in a few days?”
“Phone hugs aren’t very satisfactory, but that’s all you two are getting from me today.”