Free The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert Page A

The children sit quietly, hungrily, while Lore searches her mother’s pockets for coins. She tells the twins to stay inside, takes Liesel and Peter across the yard and up the short track to buy food from the farmer.
    His wife takes the money Lore offers and tells them to wait by the door. Liesel sneaks a look inside the house while she is gone, whispers to her sister about the huge stove and the tin bath hung on the wall. Lore watches the farmer’s wife making her way back from the barn. Remembers the order of their house in the village, and, further back, the family home in Hamburg before the bombs. Wallpapered bedrooms and hot water from taps. Liesel says it’s cozy in the farmer’s kitchen, with onions and smoked bacon and five new loaves sitting ready by the oven door.
    —Is your mother still here?
    —Yes, of course.
    —Well, can you tell her my husband wants to speak to her, please?
    —Of course.
    —What did she mean, Lore?
    Liesel struggles with Peter on her hip, so Lore swaps him for the egg basket.
    —She didn’t mean anything. Don’t drop them, Lieschen.
    —She thought Mutti was gone.
    —No she didn’t. Be careful with the eggs, hold them higher or you’ll bump the basket on the ground.
    Mutti stands at the door in her dressing gown. Her eyes are small and her hair flat and dull. She snatches the basket of eggs from Liesel and the children slip out into the yard.
    —The boys were hungry.
    —They had bread this morning.
    —But there’s nothing else left.
    Mutti gets back into bed and smokes the last of the cigarettes she has been rationing since they moved. Her remaining photos of Vati are lined up on the quilt in front of her. Peter dozes and Lore sits at the table and cries.
    —How much longer do we have to stay here?
    She remembers the women in the village: how the queues outside the shops looked like funeral groups, and the dye dripped in black puddles from their skirts in the winter rain. The air in the room is hot and dry. Dense with her mother’s cigarettes and sickness. In Hamburg, Vati sat out on the step with Lore and wriggled his toes in his thick woollen socks. He wore braces under his uniform. The twins crawled behind him in the garden, laughing, watching their reflections in his high black boots. Soon the war will be over. Lore closes her eyes and wills the army to come, the fighting to begin. She holds the valley in her mind’s eye. Sees the grasses along the edge of the country road, seed-heads unsteady in the breeze. A bird sings close by. She can hear it high and clear through the window glass.
    Mutti’s skin is hot to the touch, the hair at her temples damp. She lifts the quilt and pulls Lore into the warm bed. The photos slide to the floor.
    Lore feels safer in the bed, wrapped tight and secure. Mutti’s tears tickle her scalp, wet cheek pressed against her ear. She moves her lips, whispers, but Lore doesn’t understand. She pulls the quilt up higher, over her mother’s encircling arms. She is almost as thin again as she was in her engagement pictures, which lie scattered on the floor by the bed. Lore looks at them while her mother sleeps. Mutti, Vati, and Oma in Hamburg. By the railing along the Jungfernstieg , with the lake behind them. Before I was born. Their faces are familiar but unfamiliar, too. All three smiling, holding on to their hats, the wind pulling their coats stiffly to the right.
    Mutti sets off for the town at dawn, promising fresh bread for breakfast, but she doesn’t come back until after midday. Lore takes Liesel and Peter down the track from the top gate to meet her. Her bag is empty, and her coat is open, flapping in the wind. Peter shouts for his mother, twisting in Lore’s arms, but Mutti doesn’ttake him. They stand squinting in the sunlight. Mutti’s hair blows across her face and Lore can’t see her eyes. She tells her daughters. The war is over. Our Führer is dead.
    Liesel cries, and Mutti strokes her cheek.
    —Just think of how he