"Ernst Graeber is my own name. No one else in our family is called that."
"Well, you certainly can't be this one. We have no other Graebers here." The woman looked up and smiled. "If you like you can inquire again in a few days. Not all the reports have come in yet. Next!"
Graeber stayed where he was. "Where else can I inquire?"
The secretary smoothed the red silk ribbon in her hair. "At the registry office. Next!"
Graeber felt someone poke him in the back. Standing behind him was a little old woman with hands like the claws of a bird. He stepped aside.
For a while he stood undecided beside the counter. He could not grasp the fact that this was all. It had happened so fast. His loss was too disproportionately great. The one-armed official saw him and bent toward him. "Be glad that your relations are not listed here," he said.
"Why?"
"These are the lists of the dead and the seriously injured. As long as they have not been reported to us they are only missing."
"And the missing? Where are the lists for them?"
The official looked at him with the patience of a man who has to deal with strangers' misery eight hours a day without being able to help. "Be reasonable, man," he said then. "The missing are missing. What good are lists in that case? They don't help you to find out what's happened to them. If you knew that, they would no longer be missing. Right?"
Graeber stared at him. The official seemed proud of his logic. But reason and logic are poor companions for loss and pain. And what was one to reply to a man who had lost an arm? "Very likely," Graeber said and turned away.
He asked his way to the registry office. It was in a wing of the town hall and still smelled of acids and fire. After a long wait he came to a nervous woman with a pince-nez. "I know nothing," she chattered instantly. "It's no longer possible to find out anything definite here. The filing system is in complete confusion. Part of it has been burned. The rest was ruined by those blockheads from the Fire Department with their hoses. I'm not responsible!"
"Why didn't you put your records somewhere safe?" asked a non-commissioned officer who was standing beside Graeber. "Somewhere safe? Where is there safety here? Do you know? I am not the magistrate. Make your complaints to him." The woman glanced helplessly at a disordered heap of wet and torn papers. "Everything destroyed The whole registry bureau! What will come of it all! Now anyone can call himself whatever he likes!"
"That would be dreadful, wouldn't it?" The non-commissioned officer spat and nudged Graeber. "Come along, comrade. The people here have all gone crazy."
They went out and stood in front of the town hall. The houses around had been burned to the ground. Of Bismarck's statue only the boots remained. A flock of white pigeons was circling around the fallen tower of the Marienkirche. "Hot shit, eh?" said the non-com. "Who are you looking for?"
"My parents."
"I'm looking for my wife. Didn't write her that I was coming. Wanted to surprise her. And you?"
"Same thing. Didn't want to excite my parents unnecessarily. My leave was postponed a couple of times before. Then it came through suddenly. I hadn't time to write."
"A fine mess! What are you going to do now?"
Graeber glanced across the market square. Since 1938 it had been named Hitlerplatz. Before that, in the aftermath of the first war, it had been Ebertplatz; before that Kaiser Wilhelmplatz, and once, sometime or other, Marktplatz. "I don't know," he said. "I still don't understand all this. One can't simply get lost here in the middle of Germany—"
"No?" The non-com glanced at him with a mixture of irony and sympathy. "My dear boy, you will be surprised! I have been looking for my wife for five days. Five days from morning till night, and she's disappeared from the face of the earth as though she'd been bewitched!"
"But how is that possible? She must—"
"Disappeared," repeated the non-com, "and so have a couple of thousand others. Some of them have been transported. To temporary camps and small towns. Just try to find them with the mail not working. Others have fled in swarms to the villages."
"The villages," Graeber said in relief. "Of course! I hadn't thought of that. The villages are safe. That's where they must be—"
"You may well say that's where they must be!" the non-com snorted contemptuously. "That doesn't get you any further! Do you know that this damn city has almost two dozen villages around it? Before you get through with them your leave will be over. Understand?"
Graeber understood and it did not matter to him. All he wanted now was that his parents should be alive. Where they were was of little consequence.
"Listen to me, comrade," said the non-com more calmly. "You've got to get hold of this thing the right way. If you just dash around wildly you'll waste your time and go crazy. You've got to get organized. What do you intend to do first?"
"I don't know yet. I think I'll try to see some acquaintances. I've found the address of some people who were bombed out too. From the same street."
"They won't tell you much. Everyone's afraid to open his mouth. I've found that out. But try it. Now, listen! We can help each other. Wherever you make inquiries ask for my wife too and I'll ask about your parents wherever I go. Agreed?"
"Agreed."
"Fine. My name is Boettcher. My wife's first name is Alma. Write it down."
Graeber wrote it down. Then he wrote his parents' names on a piece of paper and gave it to Boettcher, who read it carefully and put it in his pocket. "Where are you living, Graeber?" he asked.
"I have no idea. I must find some place."
"There are temporary quarters in the barracks for bombed-out men on leave. Report to the commandant's office and you'll get an assignment card. Have you been there already?"
"Not yet."
"Try to get into Room Forty-eight. It's the infirmary. The food's better there than in the other rooms. That's where I am, too."
Boettcher got the butt of a cigarette out of his pocket, looked at it and put it back again. "Today I'm going to make a round of the hospitals. We can meet somewhere this evening. Perhaps by then one of us will know something.
"All right. Where?"
"The best place is here. Nine o'clock?"
"Agreed."
Boettcher nodded and then looked up at the blue sky. "Just look at that," he said bitterly. "Spring. And for five long nights I've been hitting the sack in a room with twelve farts from the Reserve—instead of with my wife who has an ass like a brewer's horse."
The first two houses in Gartenstrasse had been destroyed. There was no one living in them now. The third was still almost undamaged. Only the roof had been burned: it was the house in which the Ziegler family lived. Ziegler had been a friend of Graeber's father.
He climbed the stairs. On the landings stood pails with sand and water. Directions for use had been pasted on the walls. He rang and was surprised the bell still worked. After a while a care-worn old woman opened the door.
"Frail Ziegler," Graeber said, "I am Ernst Graeber."
"Yes—" The woman stared at him. "Yes—" She hesitated and then said: "Come in, Herr Graeber."
She opened the door wider and bolted it again behind him. "Father," she called then to someone behind her. "It's nothing. It's Ernst Graeber. Paul Graeber's son."
The living room smelled of floor wax. The linoleum was as smooth as a mirror. On the windowsill stood pots containing plants whose big, yellow-spotted leaves looked as though butter had been dropped on them. A sampler hung on the wall behind the sofa. "Hearth and Home are truest Gold" was cross-stitched on it in red.
Ziegler appeared from the bedroom. He was smiling. Graeber saw that he was nervous. "You never know who's coming," he said. "We certainly didn't expect you. Have you come from the front?"
"Yes. I'm looking for my parents. They were bombed out."
"Put down your knapsack," Frau Ziegler said. "I'll make some coffee. We still have good malt coffee."
Graeber carried his knapsack into the vestiblue. "I'm
dirty," he said. "Everything's so clean here. That's something we're not used to any more."
"It doesn't matter. Just sit down. There, on the sofa."
Frau Ziegler disappeared into the kitchen. Ziegler looked at Graeber uncertainly. "Tcha—," he said.
"Have you heard anything of my parents? I can't find them. At the district office they don't know anything. Everything's in confusion there."
Ziegler shook his head. His wife appeared again in the doorway. "We no longer go out at all," she said quickly. "We haven't for a long time. We hear almost nothing, Ernst."
"Then you haven't seen them at all? But you must have seen them some time."
"That was a long while ago. At least five or six months. At that time—" She fell silent.
"What about that time?" Graeber asked. "How were they then?"
"Well. Oh, your parents were well," the woman replied. "Only since then, of course—"
"Yes—," Graeber said. "I've seen. At the front we knew in a way that our cities were being bombed, but not that it would look like this."
The two made no reply. They did not look at him. "The coffee will be ready right away," the woman said. "You will stay and have some, won't you? A cup of hot coffee is always good."
She put cups of a blue flower pattern on the table. Graeber looked at them. In his home there had been some of the same kind. For some reason the name of the design was onion pattern. "Tcha—," Ziegler said again.
"Do you think my parents might have been sent away with a transport?" Graeber asked.
"Perhaps. Mother, are there still some of those cookies Erwin brought home with him? Do get them out for Herr Graeber."
"How are things with Erwin?"
"Erwin?" The old man looked suddenly frightened. "Erwin is all right! All right!"
His wife brought the coffee. She put a big tin box on the table. The labels were in Dutch. There were not many cookies left in it. From Holland, Graeber thought. Just so, at the start, he had brought things back with him from France.
The woman urged them on him. He took one with pink icing. It tasted old. The two elderly people took nothing. Nor did they drink any coffee. Ziegler was drumming absently on the table top.
"Have another," the woman said. "We haven't anything else. But they are good cookies."
"Yes, very good. Thank you. I had something to eat earlier."
Graeber realized he was not going to get anything more out of these two. Perhaps they really knew nothing. He got up. "Could you tell me where I might be able to find out something more?"
"We know nothing. We're sorry, Ernst. That's how it is."
"I believe you. Thanks for the coffee." Graeber went to the door.
"Where are you staying now?" Ziegler asked suddenly.
"I'll find some place. And then there's always the barracks."
"We haven't any room," Frau Ziegler said quickly, looking at her husband. "The army authorities must certainly have made arrangements for men on leave who have been bombed out."
"Yes, certainly," Graeber replied.
"Perhaps he could leave his knapsack here till he finds a place, Mother," Ziegler said. "It's heavy, you know."
Graeber saw the woman's glance. "I'll be all right," he replied. "I'm used to carrying it."
He shut the door and went down the stairs. The air smelled musty. The Zieglers were afraid of something. He did not know what. But since 1933 there had been many possible reasons for fear.
The Loose family was living in the big concert hall of the Harmony Club. The room was crowded with field cots and mattresses. On the walls hung a few flags, swastika decorations with pithy sayings and an oil painting of the Fuehrer in a wide gold frame—leftovers from earlier patriotic celebrations. The room was Grawling with women and children. Between the beds stood trunks, pots, stoves, groceries, and odd pieces of salvaged furniture.
Frau Loose was sitting apathetically on a bed in the middle of the hall. She was a gray, heavy person with disorderly hair.
"Your parents?" She gazed at Graeber with lackluster eyes and reflected for a long time. "Dead, Ernst," she murmured finally.
"What?"
"Dead," she repeated. "What else?"
A little boy in uniform ran into Graeber's knees. He pushed him away. "How do you know that?" Suddenly he noticed he had lost his voice. He swallowed hard. "Have you seen them? Where?"
Frau Loose shook her head wearily. "You couldn't see anything, Ernst. It was all fire and the shrieking and then—"
The words became lost in a muttering that presently stopped. The woman stared straight ahead, her arms braced, wholly absent and motionless as though she were alone in the room. Graeber stared at her. "Frau Loose," he said slowly and with difficulty. "Try to remember! When did you see my parents? How do you know that they are dead?"
The woman looked at him blankly. "Lena is dead too," she murmured. "And August. You knew them both—"
Graeber vaguely recalled two children who were always eating honey-covered bread. "Frau Loose," he repeated, forc ing himself not to pull her to her feet and shake her. "Please tell me how you know my parents are dead. Try to remember. Did you see them?"
She seemed no longer to hear him. "Lena," she whispered. "I did not see her either. They would not let me near her, Ernst. There wasn't all of her there anymore, you know. And yet she was so small. Why would they do a thing like that? You must know. You're a soldier."
Graeber looked around in desperation. A man made his way toward them between the beds. It was Loose. He had become thin and old. Cautiously he laid his hand on his wife's shoulder. She continued to. sit on the bed sunk in despair. He made a sign to Graeber. "Mother still can't grasp it, Ernst," he said.
The woman stirred under his hand. Slowly she looked up. "Can you grasp it?"
"Lena—"
"For if you can grasp it," she said suddenly, clear and loud and distinct, as though she were saying a piece in school, "then you're not much better than the ones who did it."
Loose's eyes slid fearfully over the nearby beds. No one had heard. The youngster in uniform was playing hide-and-seek between the trunks with two other children.
"Not much better," the woman repeated. Then she let her head sink and was once more nothing but a little heap of animal woe.
Loose motioned to Graeber. They moved to one side. "What has happened to my parents?" Graeber asked. "Your wife says they are dead."
Loose shook his head. "She doesn't know at all, Ernst. She thinks that everyone must be dead because our children are. She isn't quite—'you noticed—" He swallowed. His Adam's apple went up and down in his thin neck. "She says things— we've been reported already because of them—by people here—"
For a moment Graeber saw Loose very small and far away in the dirty gray light—then he was there again-as before and the room stood still. "Then they aren't dead?" he asked.
"I can't tell you, Ernst. You don't know what it has been like here during the last year with everything getting worse and worse. No one could trust anyone else any longer. They were all afraid of one another. Very likely your parents are safe somewhere."
Graeber was breathing more calmly. "Didn't you see them at all?"
"Once on the street. But it must be four or five weeks ago. There was still some snow on the ground then. It was before the raids."
"How did they look? Were they well?"
Loose did not reply at once. "Yes, I guess they were," he said then and swallowed.
Graeber was suddenly ashamed. He realized that it was frivolous in such surroundings to ask whether or not a person had been well four weeks ago; here you asked about the survivors and the dead, and nothing else. "I am sorry," he said in embarrassment.
Loose shook his head tiredly. "Forget it, Ernst. Today each can think only of himself. There is too much unhappiness in the world—"
Graeber stepped out into the street. It had been dismal and dead when he had gone into the Harmony Club—now all at once it appeared brighter, and life
had not entirely died out of it. He no longer saw only the ruined houses; he now saw the growing trees too. Two dogs were at play, and the sky was moist and blue. His parents were not dead; they were only missing. An hour earlier when the one-armed clerk had told him this, the news had been desolating and almost unbearable; now it had mysteriously transformed itself into hope. He knew that it was only so because for an instant he had believed his parents were no longer alive—but what needed less nourishment than hope? And from what incomprehensible roots it could draw it!
CHAPTER IX
HE stopped in front of the house. It was dark and he could not make out the number. "Where do you want to go?" asked a man who was leaning beside the door.