“C’mon. Let’s go home.” Anna stood up, slung her bag over her shoulder, and brushed her hands on the top of her thighs. Charles turned back toward her and she put her arm around him and squeezed him against her hip in a protective, loving way. This seemed to comfort him and together they crossed the bridge that would lead them down the stairs to the platform.
They’d just passed the midway point when Anna startled herself with a memory. “Wait, come here.” Anna stopped, knelt, grabbed Charles’s hands and turned her son to face her. “Do you remember the first time we went to Tante Mary’s house? The first time you met Max?” Charles hesitated. Was this a trick? Was this, like the kiss he did not see, a memory he didn’t recall? “No, it’s okay. Tell me. Do you remember?” Charles gave a cautious nod. “Do you remember when you came downstairs and Max told everyone you’d told him a secret?” Once more, Charles nodded, then let his gaze fall to the floor of the walkway. “Good boy. Now tell me what the secret was.” It was a paranoiac’s question. She was afraid that his secret was one of her own. “Tell me.”
Charles shuffled slowly foot to foot. “I told Max that I thought Marlies Zwygart was pretty.” His whole body flushed with embarrassment. Anna’s ring tightened on her finger. She’d never felt so awful in her life.
THE FIVE MOST FREQUENTLY used German verbs are all irregular. Their conjugations don’t follow a pattern: To have. To have to. To want. To go. To be. Possession. Obligation. Yearning. Flight. Existence. Concepts all. And irregular. These verbs are the culmination of insufficiency. Life is loss. Frequent, usual loss. Loss doesn’t follow a pattern either. You survive it only by memorizing how.
ANNA WATCHED CHARLES VERY closely that night. And the next night. And the one after that. She kept a vigilant eye on him until she was sure that he hadn’t and he wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened at the zoo. By the third night she started to relax. He’d never once disobeyed her—why would this time be any different? There was no cause to believe that it would.
What else could I have done? Anna rationalized.
That night after the children were in bed she knocked on Bruno’s office door.
“Are you going for a walk?” he asked. He didn’t look away from the computer screen.
“No.” It was a fair-enough assumption. Most usually that was what Anna came to his office to tell him at this late hour. It sank her heart a little, Bruno thinking that’s the only reason Anna would ever knock upon his door. It sank a little more, she conceding that it most often was.
“Did you need something?”
She had interrupted him watching online videos of the Schweizer Luftwaffe, the Swiss Air Force. Earlier in the afternoon, the Benzes had heard from inside the house the matchless sound of supersonic jets slicing through the sky. An air show? Flying practice? General maneuvers? Unclear. The noise was tremendous. The whole family went outside to watch. Polly Jean didn’t like it one bit. Anna held her tightly against her body and covered her ears. Victor and Charles were captivated, then alarmed. How fast they flew! How close they came to each other! Charles reached for Anna’s hand, and when one of the planes executed a barrel roll right above the house, Victor threw his arms around his mother’s legs. That was unforeseen. In light of the week’s troubles Anna welcomed any request for consolation.
Anna didn’t like the planes. The noise hurt her ears and she was terrified by how low they flew to the ground. They’re just one sneeze away from crashing through an attic, Anna thought. Bruno, however, was transfixed. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. As a boy he’d been as fascinated by airplanes as Charles was by trains. After ten minutes Anna, Polly, and the boys went back into the house. Bruno stayed outside the whole half hour, wide-eyed and watching so intensely that one might think he believed that it was his vigilance alone that kept the planes in the air.
The monitor’s volume was turned almost as high as it could go. He’d waived his own excessive noise rule. The same cutthroat roar that frightened Anna earlier sliced through the office atmosphere.
“Do you believe in God?” Anna looked at Bruno’s bookshelves. The books were arranged alphabetically and by subject.
“Huh?” Bruno paused the video and turned to look at his wife. “Where’s this come from?”
Anna pointed at his monitor. “I was thinking about the planes today.” She moved her gaze to the wall where, affixed by sticky putty that, if removed, would not leave a mark, hung several drawings the boys had done. Victor liked to draw animals. Charles, of course, trains.
“I don’t understand.”
Anna wasn’t sure she did either. The correspondence had made perfect, poignant sense in her head just a moment earlier. Now, as she spoke it aloud, her words became minor and inept. She sounded deranged. “That noise they made.” She searched for the clearest explanation. “It sounded like they were cutting open the sky.” Bruno’s face was rimpled, harried. Anna let all current semblance of logic and composure go. “What do you think is on the other side of the sky?”
“The sky doesn’t have another side, Anna.”
“No, I mean … Bruno, do you believe in God?”