The Hunger Angel: A Novel Read online

  We were all Germans and had been rounded up at home. All except Corina Marcu, who arrived at the camp with bottle curls, a fur coat, patent-leather shoes, and a cat brooch on her velvet dress. She was Romanian; the transport guards had picked her up the night we stopped in Buzău and stuck her in the cattle car. Presumably they had to fill a gap in the list, replace a woman who had died during the trip. Corina Marcu froze to death in the third year while shoveling snow on a railroad embankment. And David Lommer, known as Zither Lommer because he played the zither, was Jewish. Because his tailor shop had been expropriated, he traveled around the country, plying his trade, stopping at the better homes. He had no idea how he wound up as a German on the Russians’ list. His home was in Dorohoi, in Moldavia. His parents and his wife and four children had fled the Fascists. He didn’t know where they were, and they didn’t know where he was, even before he was deported. He was sewing a woolen suit for an officer’s wife in Grosspold when he was picked up.

  None of us were part of any war, but because we were Germans, the Russians considered us guilty of Hitler’s crimes. Even Zither Lommer. He had to spend three and a half years in the camp. One morning a black car pulled up in front of the construction site. Two strangers wearing fine karakul caps climbed out and spoke with the foreman. Then they took Zither Lommer away. From that day on, his bed in the barrack was empty. Bea Zakel and Tur Prikulitsch probably sold his trunk and his zither at the market.

  Bea Zakel said the men in the karakul hats were high-ranking party officials from Kiev. They supposedly took Zither Lommer to Odessa, and from there shipped him back to Romania.

  Because he came from the same region as Tur Prikulitsch, Oswald Enyeter could get away with asking why Odessa. Tur said: Lommer had no business being here, and from Odessa he can go wherever he wants. Addressing the barber, and not Tur, I said: But where is he supposed to go. There’s no one left for him at home. At that point Tur Prikulitsch was holding his breath, to keep still while Oswald Enyeter pruned his nose hairs with a rusty pair of scissors. The barber finished the second nostril and brushed the snippets of hair off Tur’s chin like so many ants, then turned away from the mirror so Prikulitsch couldn’t see that he was winking. Are you satisfied, he asked. Tur said: With my nose, yes.

  Outside in the yard the rain had stopped. The bread cart came clattering up the drive, through the puddles. Every day the same man pulled the cart with the large loaves through the camp gate to the yard behind the mess hall. The loaves were always covered with a white linen cloth, like a pile of corpses. I asked what rank the bread man had. The barber said none at all, that he had either inherited or stolen the uniform. With so much bread and so much hunger he needed the uniform to gain some authority.

  The cart had two high wooden wheels and two long wooden arms. It resembled the big cart the scissor-grinders rolled through the streets from town to town, all summer long. As soon as the bread man stepped away from the cart, he limped. According to the barber, he had a wooden leg made of shovel handles that had been nailed together. I envied the bread man; it’s true he had one leg too few, but he had more than enough bread. Like me, Oswald Enyeter the barber also watched the bread cart pass by. But he only knew half-hunger; he probably made deals with the bread man every now and then. Even Tur Prikulitsch, whose stomach was full, watched the bread man, either to monitor his movements or simply out of absentmindedness. I didn’t know why, but I had the impression that the barber wanted to call Tur Prikulitsch’s attention away from the bread cart. Otherwise why would he have said, just as I sat on the stool: What a motley crew we are here in the camp. Everybody coming from someplace else, just like a hotel you live in for a while.

  That was in the time of the construction site. But what did words like MOTLEY CREW, HOTEL, and A WHILE have to do with us. The barber was not an accomplice of the camp administration, but he was privileged. He was allowed to live and sleep in his barber room, while we were stuck in our barracks, our brains clogged with cement. Of course, during the day, Oswald Enyeter didn’t have the place to himself, since we were always coming and going. He had to cut and shave every wretch who stepped inside, and some men cried when they saw themselves in the mirror. Month after month he had to watch us coming through his door looking seedier and seedier. Throughout the five years he knew exactly who was still coming but whose body was already half wax. And who was no longer coming because he was too exhausted, or homesick, or dead. I don’t think I could have put up with that. On the other hand, Oswald Enyeter didn’t have to put up with work brigades or days cursed with cement, or night shifts in the cellar. He was besieged by our misery, but not betrayed by the cement. He had to console us, and we took advantage of him, because we couldn’t help it. Because we were blinded by hunger and sick for home, withdrawn from time and outside ourselves and done with the world. Just as the world was done with us.

  That day I jumped up from the chair and shouted that unlike him I didn’t have a hotel room, just cement sacks. Then I kicked the stool so hard it nearly fell over, and said: And believe me, Herr Enyeter, I’m not one of the owners of this hotel, like you are.

  Leo, sit down, he said, I thought we were on a first-name basis. You’re wrong, the owner is Tur Prikulitsch. And Tur stuck the pinkish-red tip of his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and nodded. He was so stupid he felt flattered. Then he checked himself in the mirror, combed through his hair, and blew through the comb. After that, he placed the comb on the table and the scissors on the comb, then the scissors next to the comb and the comb on top of the scissors. Then he left. Once Tur Prikulitsch was outside, Oswald Enyeter said: Did you see that, he’s the owner, he’s the one who keeps us in check, not me. Sit back down. You know, you don’t have to say anything to the cement sacks, but I have to say something to everybody. Be happy you still know what a hotel is. By now everything people think they remember has long since changed into something else. Everything except the camp, I said.

  That day I didn’t sit back down on the stool. I held firm and walked away. Back then I wouldn’t have admitted it, but I was just as vain as Tur Prikulitsch. I felt flattered that Enyeter had become conciliatory, though he didn’t need to be. The more he pleaded with me to stay, the more determined I was to leave unshaven. With stubble on my face, the cement was even more unrelenting. It wasn’t until four days later that I went back and sat down on the stool, as if nothing had happened. I was so tired from the construction work, I couldn’t care less about his hotel. He didn’t mention it either.

  Weeks later, when the bread man pulled the empty cart up to the gate, I remembered about the HOTEL. By then I liked the idea. I used it against the dreariness. Coming back from unloading cement on the night shift, I trotted like a calf through the morning air. In our barrack, three people were still asleep. As dirty as I was, I lay down on my bed and said to myself: At least nobody needs a key in this hotel. There’s no key check, either, no locks, it’s all open living, just like in Sweden. My barrack and my trunk are always open. My valuables are sugar and salt. Under my pillow is the dried bread I’ve rescued from my mouth. It’s a treasure and guards itself. I am a calf in Sweden and a calf always does the same thing upon entering its hotel room—before anything else, it looks under the pillow to make sure the bread is still there.

  For half a summer I was assigned to the cement, and trotted around like a calf in Sweden. I came off the day or night shift and played hotel in my head. Some days I had to laugh to myself. And some days the HOTEL just caved in completely, in me, that is, and tears came to my eyes. I wanted to right myself, but I no longer knew who I was. HOTEL was a cursed word we couldn’t inhabit because we were living inside another word, one that sounded close but was very far away: APPELL.

  Wood and cotton wool

  There were two types of shoes. The rubber galoshes were a luxury, the wooden shoes a catastrophe. Only the sole was made of wood, a piece of board two fingers thick. The upper part consisted of gray sackcloth nailed to the sole along a narrow st
rip of leather. Because the cloth was too weak for the nails, it always tore, first at the heels. The wooden shoes were high, with eyelets for lacing, but there were no laces. We used thin wire instead, which we threaded through the eyelets and tightened by twisting the ends. Within a few days the sackcloth around the eyelets was also in tatters.

  You can’t flex your toes in wooden shoes. You can’t lift your feet, either, you have to slide them. Your knees get stiff from the shuffling. It was a relief when the cloth tore at the heels, because then your toes had a little more room, and you could bend your knees more easily.

  The wooden shoes had no right or left, and only three sizes: tiny, gigantic, and, very rarely, medium. To find two shoes of the same size you sifted through the pile of wood and sackcloth in the clothes room. Not only was Bea Zakel Tur Prikulitsch’s mistress—she was mistress of our clothes. Some people she helped rummage for two well-nailed shoes. With others she merely slid her chair closer to the pile of shoes, without so much as bending over, and lurked there to make sure nothing was stolen. She herself had a good pair of low shoes made of leather, and felt boots for when it was icy cold. If she had to run through the mud she’d pull on her rubber galoshes.

  The camp administration expected the wooden shoes to last half a year. But the cloth tore at the heels after three or four days. So, in addition, everyone tried to barter his way into a pair of galoshes. These were flexible and light, several sizes larger than your foot. There was ample room for several layers of rags—footwraps—which we used instead of socks. To keep your feet from slipping out of the galoshes, you ran wire under the sole and tied it off on top, at the instep. The wire knot chafed, so the top of your foot was always raw. And that sensitive spot always got the first chilblains. Throughout the winter, both the wooden shoes and the galoshes froze to the footwraps. And the footwraps froze to the skin. The rubber galoshes were even colder than the wooden shoes, but they lasted for months.

  Our work clothes—we had nothing else—in other words, the camp uniforms, were distributed every six months. They were the same for men and women. Apart from the wooden shoes and rubber galoshes, we were given underwear, padded suits, work gloves, footwraps, bedding, towels, and one piece of soap that had been chopped off a bar and smelled strongly of lye. The soap burned the skin and had to be kept away from any open sores.

  The underclothes were made of unbleached linen: 1 pair long underwear, with ties at the ankles and in front at the stomach, 1 pair short underwear with ties, 1 undershirt with ties, which was really an all-purpose, underoverdaynightsummerandwintershirt. The fufaikas had rolls of padding that ran the length of the garment. The pants had a wedge cut for fat stomachs and tight cuffs that laced at the ankles. There was a single button in front, at the waist, and pockets on either side. The jacket was shaped like a sack with a standing collar known as a rubashka-collar, and had cuffs with one button on each sleeve, a row of buttons in front, and two square pockets sewn onto the sides. For a head covering, both men and women were issued quilted caps with earflaps and laces.

  The fufaikas were blue-gray or green-gray, depending on how the dye had taken. But after a week’s work, they all turned brown and stiff from the dirt. The fufaikas were a good thing, the warmest clothing for the dry winter, when the frost sparkled and your breath froze on your face. And in the scorching summer they were roomy enough to let the air circulate and the sweat dry. But in wet weather they were miserable. The padding soaked up the rain and snow and stayed wet for weeks. Our teeth chattered and we suffered from extreme cold until evening, when we could finally return to the barrack. And in the barrack, given the 68 bunks and 68 internees with their 68 fufaikas, 68 caps, 68 pairs of footwraps, and 68 pairs of shoes, the air was stuffy and oppressive. We lay awake and stared at the lightbulb. The yellow gleam seemed to contain melting snow. And in the melting snow was the stench of the night, covering us with forest earth and moldy leaves.

  Exciting times

  After work, instead of going back to the camp, I went begging in the Russian village. At the UNIVERMAG the door was open but the store was empty. The saleswoman was bending over a shaving mirror on the counter, checking her head for lice. A gramophone was playing next to the shaving mirror, taa-tatata-taa. I recognized the melody from the radio back home: Liszt, announcing special bulletins from the war. My father had bought the Blaupunkt with the green cat eyes in 1936 for the Berlin Olympics. In these exciting times, he had said. The Blaupunkt paid off, because the times got even more exciting.

  Three years later, at the beginning of September, it was once again time for cold cucumber salad in the shade on the veranda. The Blaupunkt sat on the little corner table, hanging on the wall next to it was the large map of Europe. Taa-tatata-taa: Special News Bulletin. Father tipped his chair to reach the knob on the radio and turned up the volume. We all went silent and stopped clattering with our silverware. Even the wind listened through the windows on the veranda. What had started on September 1, my father called Blitzkrieg. My mother called it the Polish Campaign. My grandfather, who had sailed around the world as a cabin boy on a big frigate out of Pola, was a skeptic. He was always interested in what the English had to say. When it came to Poland, he preferred to keep quiet and take another spoonful of cucumber salad. My grandmother said that dinner was a family affair and not the place for politics on the radio.

  My father had cut out several little red triangular flags—victory banners—and affixed them to pins with colorful heads. He kept them in the ashtray next to the Blaupunkt. For 18 days Father moved his little flags eastward on the map. That was it for Poland, said Grandfather. And for the little flags. And for the summer. My grandmother plucked the little flags off the map of Europe and returned the pins to her sewing box. The Blaupunkt migrated to my parents’ bedroom, three walls away. At the crack of dawn I heard the wake-up broadcast from Radio Munich. The program was called Morning Gymnastics, and the floor began to vibrate rhythmically. Led by the gymnastics instructor in the Blaupunkt, my parents performed their exercises. And since I was too chubby and they wanted me to be more soldierly, my parents sent me once a week to a private exercise class that most people called Gymnastics for Cripples.

  Yesterday an officer wearing a green cap the size of a cake platter gave a speech at the roll-call grounds, the Appellplatz. He spoke about peace and FUSSKULTUR, which sounded to us like the culture of feet. Tur Prikulitsch couldn’t interrupt, he stood next to the man like a devout acolyte, then summarized the contents of the speech: Fusskultur strengthens our hearts. And in our hearts beats the heart of the Soviet Socialist Republics. Fusskultur steels the strength of the working class. Through Fusskultur the Soviet Union will blossom in the strength of the Communist Party and in the peace and happiness of the people. Konrad Fonn, the accordion player, who came from the same region as Tur Prikulitsch, told me that Y in the Cyrillic alphabet was like our U, and that the speech was all about the power of physical training, which the Russians call FISKULTURA. The officer had evidently tried to re-create the word in German and come up with PHYS-KULTUR, but had read the German Y like a Cyrillic U, and Tur didn’t dare correct him.

  I knew all about FUSSKULTUR from the cripple gymnastics and from our Volk course in high school, which we had to attend every Thursday. We drilled in the schoolyard: lie down, stand up, climb the fence, squat, lie down, push up, stand up. Left, right, march, sing songs. Wotan, Vikings, Germanic ballads. On Saturdays or Sundays we would go on marches out of town. We trained in the brush on the hills, we used branches for camouflage, we practiced finding our way with owl calls and dog barks, and played war games wearing red and blue woolen threads. If you tore the thread off an enemy you had killed him. The person with the most threads was decorated as a hero, a blood-red rose hip serving as a medal.

  Once I simply decided not to go. It wasn’t easy. There had been a big earthquake the night before. An apartment house had collapsed in Bucharest and buried a number of people. In our town all that collapsed were a few chimneys,
and at home two pipes fell off the stove, but I used the earthquake as an excuse. The gym instructor didn’t inquire further, but I was already feeling the effects of my special training: my act of disobedience only reinforced my sense of being crippled.

  In these exciting times my father photographed girl gymnasts and Transylvanian Saxon girls in folk costume. He had even purchased a Leica to do so. And he became a Sunday hunter. On Mondays I’d watch him skin the hares he had shot. Stretched out without their fur, stiff and tinged with blue, the hares looked like the Saxon gymnast girls at the barre. The hares were eaten. The pelts were nailed to the wall of the shed and after drying got stored in a tin chest in the attic. Every six months Herr Fränkel came to pick them up. Then he stopped coming. No one wanted to know anything more. He was Jewish, reddish-blond, tall, and nearly as slender as a hare. Little Ferdi Reich and his mother, who lived in the rear of the building, were no longer there either. No one wanted to know anything more.

  It was easy not to know anything. Refugees arrived from Bessarabia and Transnistria, they were given lodging, stayed a while, and went on. Then German soldiers came from the Reich, were given lodging, stayed a while, and went on. Neighbors and relatives and teachers went off to fight for the Romanian Fascists or for Hitler. Some came home on leave from the front and others didn’t. There were also rabble-rousers who avoided the front but stirred things up at home and wore their uniforms to the ballrooms and cafés.

  Our science teacher, too, wore a uniform when he taught us about the yellow lady’s slipper growing in the moss. And the edelweiss. The edelweiss was more than a plant, it was a fashion. Everyone wore some kind of talisman: badges and pins with edelweiss and gentian, or airplanes and tanks, or various types of weapons. I collected and traded different types of insignia, learning the order of ranks by heart. My favorite was private first class. I thought it meant someone who was very good in private, because we had Dietrich from the Reich billeted in our house. My mother sunbathed on the roof of the shed, and Dietrich watched her through the skylight with a pair of binoculars. And my father watched him from the veranda, dragged him to the courtyard, took a hammer, and smashed his binoculars on the pavement next to the shed. My mother moved to my Aunt Fini’s for two days with a small bag of clothes under her arm. A week earlier, Dietrich had given my mother two coffee demitasses for her birthday. It was all my fault, I had told him she collected demitasses, and had gone with him to the porcelain store, where I pointed out two little cups my mother was bound to like. They were pale pink, like the most delicate cartilage, with a silver rim and a drop of silver on the top of the handle. My second favorite insignia was made of Bakelite and had an edelweiss coated with phosphorus that glowed in the dark like the alarm clock.