Motherland Read Online Free PDF Page A

off. From meters away, Liesl recognized the graceful matronly figure of Frau Hefterstanding beside Marta, making kissy noises at the baby in the pram. Jürgen dimpled and beamed. She was almost upon them when she heard what they were saying.
    “Remember the time Susi visited the spa?” Frau Hefter said. “She wanted to stay a whole month, but he made her come home early. Now I wonder why.”
    “She loved company,” said Marta. “She would come down and talk to me during the children’s naps. She was never too proud.”
    Their voices dropped out of earshot again, and then Marta said sourly, “Unkraut vergeht nicht.” Weeds do not perish .
    It could have been her aunt’s voice speaking that dismissive phrase. For the Gypsies who came through Franconia with their begging children. For the town drunk. For the ugly black cat who dragged herself around, pregnant, every spring and fall, and left behind kittens no one wanted. Unkraut vergeht nicht .
    Liesl spun around and hurried home. The houses beside her blurred into a broken line of brown and white, but she didn’t cry.
    She managed to remain stone-faced around Marta all day. When night came, she sobbed into her pillow. The noise woke Frank, who was across the room on his own bed, having not yet touched her as a husband. He sat up in the dark and demanded to know why she was weeping. The story came out, muddled by sobs. Frau Hefter and Marta. They hated her. They had called her a weed.
    “A weed?” He sounded amused. His derision angered her. His distance bothered her even more. Why wouldn’t he touch her?
    “You know what I mean,” she said, and then pulled the eiderdown over her head, refusing to say anything else. In the morning, before Liesl fully understood what was happening, Frank had accused Marta of calling Liesl a Mischling , a half Jew, and endangering the family with her lies. Marta had quit. Liesl wept and railed at Frank for misunderstanding her and scaring off the only household helpshe had. He had groused that she shouldn’t involve him in the overemotional affairs of women. Eventually their fighting had led to kissing, and kissing to Frank finally climbing into her bed at night. The children somehow noticed the change in both parents and became more agreeable. There was a blissful week when it seemed the broken, grieving Kappus family might begin to mend together. And then Frank had to leave for Weimar. And then the employment office said there might be a six-month delay in finding a new housekeeper. All available workers were needed in munitions factories.
    Weeds do not perish , Liesl thought angrily whenever Frau Hefter passed with her constantly pissing dachshund. Yes, I am here to stay .
    And here she was, elevated to a Putzfrau herself now. She allotted herself five hours. Jürgen would enjoy the superior mothering of Frau Hefter, Herr Geiss would go to his Stammtisch at the local pub, Hans would stand in line for milk, and she and Ani would work together to whip the cobwebby Geiss house into proper order. Rags in hand, they began together in the kitchen, washing cabinets, but then he drifted away.
    “What are you doing, Ani?” she called after a few minutes.
    His voice was small and distant. “Cleaning.”
    “What are you doing, Ani?” she called again, a quarter of an hour later.
    “I’m cleaning . . . Mutti,” he said from the exact same spot.
    His use of the endearing name didn’t thrill her now. It sounded like a bribe. She wrung out her rag, draped it over her wrist, and went to find him. The air was stale and musty, the furniture heavy, but not especially dirty. And yet something was strange about the Geiss house, something she couldn’t put her finger on.
    Ani stood in the hallway. He was holding a waxen statue of the Führer, his hands curling around the knee-high boots. “Does the Führer know about the dwarf?”
    “Oh, Bübchen , the dwarf’s not real.”
    He stroked the boots with his thumb.
    “Your brother just