Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire (192 page)

*

Twice, Fräulein Siderova made sure her door was locked. A nimbus of fire shivered from the direction of the square. Then shouts, a chorus of
Feuersprüche.

“
Gegen Klassenkampf und Materialismus
—against class-struggle and materialism . . .
Ich übergebe der Flamme die Schriften von Karl Marx
—I relegate to the flame the writings of Karl Marx . . . .”

“
Gegen seelenzerfasernde Überschätzung des Trieblebens
—Against soul-shattering exaggeration of the sex life . . .
Ich übergebe der Flamme die Schriften von Sigmund Freud
—I relegate to the flame the writings of Sigmund Freud!”

For weeks now, Fräulein Siderova’s school had become a drop-off center for
undeutsche Bücher—
un-German books, and schoolchildren had been ransacking classrooms, stacking books in the corridor. Some children brought in books they’d located under their grandparents’ beds or behind their parents’ bookshelves. Townspeople arrived to relinquish
undeutsche Bücher
: dirty books, books that belonged to the past. In the corridor, students could no longer run without toppling over these stacks that grew taller against the walls and around the statue of the giant, St. Christopher, until the little Jesus who sat on the saint’s shoulder seemed to float on a sea of books.

*

Thekla hoped Fräulein Siderova couldn’t hear the loudspeakers set up in the square, Goebbels’s voice from Berlin urging all Germans to prove their courage by burning
undeutsche Bücher
. Seventy-one writers on the blacklist! Arthur Schnitzler and Anna Seghers and Marcel Proust and Upton Sinclair and Theodor Wolff and Georg Bernhard and Erich Maria Remarque . . .

“
Gegen literarischen Verrat am Soldaten des Weltkrieges, für Erziehung des Volkes Im Geist der Wahrhaftigkeit
—Against the literary betrayal of soldiers in the Great War, for the education of the Volk in the spirit of truth . . .
Ich übergebe der Flamme die Schriften von Erich Maria Remarque
—I relegate to the flame the writings of Erich Maria Remarque. . . .”

How could Remarque’s
Im Westen nichts Neues—All Quiet on the Western Front
suddenly be unpatriotic? A novel that had been praised and read by over a million? Thekla knew if she asked that aloud, she might be accused of strengthening the enemy, perhaps even arrested like Herr Zimmer, who was trying to prevent two of his students from emptying a handcart of books into the fire.

*

“Against decadence and moral collapse . . . I relegate to the flame the writings of Heinrich Mann . . . of Erich Kästner . . .”

Fräulein Siderova thought of Jews all over Germany, curved toward their radios behind locked doors, while the savage crowds shouted about cleansing literature, and she wondered if they, too, were thinking how two crucial changes in their country were brought about by fire.

“
Neues Leben, neues Schrifttum, neuer Glaube blühe aus den Ruinen
—new life, new writing, new belief shall blossom from the ruins.”

Couldn’t they hear how, in their enthusiasm to cleanse, they contaminated language?

On the radio a pause, then crackling and an interview with a
professor of literature who stated it was better to burn too many books than to miss a single one. This from a professor of literature? He surely had to know Heine’s words “
Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen
—where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people.”

*

Flames tore into the spines of the books, into their soft centers. People were taking off their hats and kerchiefs. Their heads were bare as they sang: “
Nun danket alle Gott
—now let us all thank God.”

After that: “
Sieg Heil.
” Three times.

A haze shivered around the flames and smoke, like a second breath, and Thekla wondered if standing here meant she was one of these people. Sick with fear, she tried to step away but was trapped between the crowd and the Rathaus. Until now, she had taken for granted that she had moral courage, but suddenly she didn’t know if it was possible to defer moral courage, conserve it, and if it would still be there for her, or if each moment like this would take her into another silent agreement, and another yet, until she’d find herself agreeing to what she’d never imagined, and she would have to adjust what she believed about herself.

S
OME BOOKS WERE
still smoldering at dawn, but most had disintegrated to ashes when the cleaning crews shoveled them into wheelbarrows, swept the market square, and hauled away the debris.

Yet, the charred remains got tracked throughout the village, got inside your houses, and soiled your floors even if you hadn’t been near the pyre. As the smell of wet ashes seeped through your closed windows and doors, it settled in your bedding, your clothing, your wardrobes. The affront of that smell—flat and nasty—made you want to spit. You were sure you’d never get used to it; and yet despite your ceaseless scrubbing and airing, it would become part of your own smell, in your breath, on your skin, increasingly familiar.

*

When Fräulein Siderova arrived at the Catholic school, the corridors were slick with black mud that children and teachers were dragging in on their soles though Sister Mäuschen reminded them
to wipe their feet. She’d brought out every floor mat she’d found in the school and in the convent, but already these, too, were turning soggy, black.

Fräulein Siderova didn’t let her students see how shaken she was. She steadied herself by following her lesson plan on the Trojan War. Last week they’d started by sketching the colossal draft horse behind the brewery. When they’d voted on which sketch to use for their papier-mâché sculpture of the Trojan horse, Markus Bachmann’s had won. The boys had brought in newspapers and fabric scraps and horsehair and bits of fur. Together, they’d built a magnificent horse with a trapdoor in the underside of its belly.

For today, they’d brought toy soldiers, miniature German soldiers with helmets that the boys stashed inside the horse’s belly, though Bruno objected that they were not authentic.

“We don’t have any Greek soldiers,” Richard said.

“Once they’re inside, you won’t see them,” Andreas said.

“But I’ll know,” Bruno said.

Fräulein Siderova praised the boys when they read their assignment aloud, one paragraph told in the voice of their favorite character from the passages she’d read to them in the
Iliad
. Nearly half of the boys chose Achilles, the brave and handsome Greek hero; three were Paris, also brave and handsome, but a Trojan hero. Two each were Ajax, the tallest warrior, and Homer, who’d written it all down. One Zeus. One Poseidon.

For Sonja Siderova it had always been Cassandra, fascinating and influential. Cassandra, blessed by Apollo to see into the future. But when she resisted his courtship, Apollo revenged himself with the curse that no one would give credence to her prophesies.

*

That afternoon, the principal of the Catholic school knocked on the door of the house where Thekla lived with her parents. “Can you start teaching tomorrow?” she asked.

“Tomorrow?” Thekla stopped breathing.

One day’s notice to start the work she’d been longing for? The honor of that. While countless others were still waiting. All those years Fräulein Siderova had encouraged her to believe she would find a position. She’d reminded her principal that Thekla Jansen was her best student ever, and would be an inspiring teacher. And now Sister Josefine was here as though Fräulein Siderova had sent her, with her wide, wide shoulders and trim waist, the body of a horseback rider that her nun’s habit couldn’t conceal.

“Would you like to come inside?” Thekla asked.

“No.”

The wet smell of ashes spun around Sister Josefine, sealed her and Thekla in that moment of standing outside the door.

“Yes,” Thekla said and already pictured herself telling Fräulein Siderova . . . the joy in her kind face.

“Please,” Thekla said.

“Tomorrow,” Thekla said.

“Fourth grade,” Sister Josefine said,

“But that’s Fräulein Siderova’s class!” Thekla cried out. She was ready to tell Sister Josefine she couldn’t take the class from her teacher. Started to say, “Please, don’t—”

But she stopped herself. At least they hadn’t arrested Fräulein Siderova like Herr Zimmer, who’d also lost his teaching job at the Protestant school. But Herr Zimmer was a Jew
and
a communist. While Fräulein Siderova was more Catholic than Jewish. A child when she left Russia. Certainly no reason to be considered a communist.

“Tomorrow,” Thekla told Sister Josefine before she could stop herself, in her belly that familiar queasiness of doing something wrong. Knowing she was doing something wrong and still doing it. “I’ll be at school tomorrow.”

The instant Sister Josefine left with that long stride of hers—
you know how she walks, Fräulein Siderova, flaunting her muscles through
the cloth of her habit
—Thekla started toward Fräulein Siderova’s house to warn her.

Except I did not walk that far. Only up to the corner
. Still, she could see herself running to Schlosserstrasse and up the stairs to Fräulein Siderova’s apartment. But then it occurred to her how awkward it would be if Sister Josefine were to find her there. She couldn’t jeopardize the teaching position.
For both of us
. Better to wait a few hours. Once Sister Josefine had told Fräulein Siderova, Thekla would return, console her teacher, assure her that she’d do whatever she could to bring her back to school.

She went home. Wrote her lesson plan for Fräulein Siderova’s students. It was evening then, too late for a proper visit, and she promised herself she’d go the following afternoon.

B
UT IN THE MORNING
Fräulein Siderova walked into the teachers’ lounge, elegant and swift as always, while Thekla was still unbuttoning her camel hair coat. She wanted to hide, but Fräulein Siderova grasped her hands, face so radiant that Thekla thought she had to be the most forgiving person on earth.

“Does this mean they finally hired you, Thekla?”

That’s when I knew you hadn’t been told. And I felt like a Judas.

“Now we’ll be colleagues.” Fräulein Siderova bent toward her. “I’m ecstatic . . . for you and for me.”

Thekla tried to speak.

“Which grade will you be teaching?”

Thekla’s throat felt raw. “Fourth.”

Fräulein Siderova hooked two fingertips across the silver rims of her spectacles. Closed her eyes. “I see,” she whispered. As if she could.
See
. See how her tolerance for the fear of others would change until she’d feel brittle, forlorn when she’d read to the dying;
how she would receive fewer requests and how people would speculate that fear was clotting inside her; how they’d speak to the priest about their concerns, but not to her because they’d be embarrassed to draw her into their midst while trying to avoid her; how they’d whisper that she wanted to keep herself separate from them because certain family treasures came into her possession; how the pharmacist would accuse her openly of having his mother’s vase, and how she’d remind him that his mother gave it to her the night she died, and how he’d tell her she must have done something to make his mother give her the vase.

“I left the vase with the priest,” Fräulein Siderova said.

“Which vase?” Thekla asked.

“For the pharmacist.”

“I—I didn’t ask Sister Josefine for your position.”

“Of course you didn’t ask.” As Fräulein Siderova slid off her spectacles, they dropped to the floor. Tiny veins on her smooth eyelids, veins barely raised from the translucent skin.

To retrieve them, Thekla crouched by the long library table. One of its legs was smaller than the others, the wood lighter, as though it had been replaced. Why hadn’t she noticed before? It seemed an important question, a question to wrap her soul around.

“I’ve always taught girls,” Fräulein Siderova was saying. “When Sister Josefine gave me a class of boys this spring, I should have known. . . .”

Thekla felt odd to be kneeling at her feet. Specks of ashes. Dustings of ashes. When she handed up the spectacles, Fräulein Siderova’s fingers didn’t close around them.

“I’m sorry.” Carefully, Thekla folded the spectacles. Slipped them into the pocket of Fräulein Siderova’s silk jacket.

“Still . . . ,” Fräulein Siderova said. “Still . . . better you than one of them.”

One of them? Do you know how that cut through me?
“I don’t even think of you as Jewish,” Thekla said.

Fräulein Siderova’s chin puckered, deepening that oblong dimple.

“You pray at St. Martin’s,” Thekla said. “You sing in the church choir. I’ll tell Sister Josefine about the Christmas angels you make with your students.”

Couldn’t you feel how I wanted to help you? Just as you had helped me, inviting me into the classroom to get teaching experience.

Suddenly, Thekla knew what she had to do to save the position for Fräulein Siderova. “I’ll teach your class till you come back,” she promised, “only till then.”