The train stopped at some point in the night. The tracks went no farther. The Berlin station had been bombed by the Allies and then flooded by the SS, who feared the Russians would use its vast tunnels to stage their invasion. Drowned bodies were supposedly still washing up onto the streets. They learned this from a grizzled old man who was eager to warn Marianne off. Liesel and Martin listened, half-asleep. So we will walk, Marianne responded, unfazed. Both children did not protest. Martin’s wonder at being free had worn thin, though. His feet ached and the road was crammed with fellow refugees. In the gray light of dawn, the city’s suburbs looked mean and haggard. Somewhere within all this crumbling brick, his mother waited. Martin tried to fill his mind with her but found he could barely conjure her face.
They walked all day through the suburbs and into the ruined city. They trudged down cavern-like streets piled high with debris. The fronts of buildings rose from the wreckage like jagged cutouts. Had the buildings always been so fragile? Like sand castles taken down by waves. At street level the remaining walls were covered with papers, scrawled names, and messages. Martin could see Liesel staring at them.
“Missing people,” she said in her defiant way. “Probably dead.”
Makeshift chimneys rose from the rubble like waving arms.
For the final portion of the journey, Marianne flagged down a passing American army jeep. At first, the driver shook his head without even looking at them, but the soldier in the passenger seat jabbed him with his elbow. He slowed to a halt and extended his hand. Martin hesitated before accepting, but the sores on his feet and his general fatigue won over his doubts. Frau Vortmuller’s warnings about the Americans already seemed like something from another life. Marianne sat with the soldiers in front and spoke English, while Liesel and Martin huddled in the back. To their amazement, the soldier who had waved them in turned around and handed them a chocolate bar. And after that, for some time all else fell away. There was only the unaccustomed sweetness of the chocolate, the slippery melting on the tongue. When was the last time Martin had tasted something so delicious?
When they arrived, Meerstein Strasse did not look like a street where anyone could live. No more tall, speckled plane trees lining the curbs, no more lively café on the corner, no more gurgling fountain. But still, pockets of memory opened in Martin. The smell of damp stone, rot, and chemicals; the sight of people emerging from cellars covered in dust . . . the empty brass birdcage that hung in their shelter, the pee bucket in the corner. The horrible, glass-eyed elephant trunk masks.
Marianne climbed out of the jeep and thanked the Americans. Still sticky and slightly dazed from the chocolate, Martin and Liesel scrambled after her. She pulled a crumpled envelope from her jacket and regarded it for a moment before crossing the street to ask a group of women at a water pump for directions. The paper looked ancient and unpromising. But the script stirred something in Martin—it was familiar. His father’s handwriting.
As Marianne spoke, one of the women tried to fill a woven basket. The water rushed out through its lattices, but she didn’t seem to notice. On her hip, a baby stared at Martin.
“Over there,” another woman said, pointing to a building, if it could be called that.
Marianne looked back down at the letter as if hoping for some other indication, before she led Martin and Liesel toward the remnants of number 27.
“Building is full,” a Russian soldier barked as they approached. “Move on.”
To Martin’s surprise, Marianne answered in Russian. A wide smile spread across the soldier’s face. “Ty govorish’ po-Russki?” he asked.
More Russian issued from Marianne’s lips and the soldier bounced on his heels like a delighted child. “Jiri,” he called, and soon they stood at the center of a small group of Russians, all grinning and slapping Marianne on the back.
Benita Fledermann—Martin distinguished his mother’s name.
“Ah.” The man nodded, his face sobering. More Russian.
“This is where you lived?” Liesel whispered. She too seemed impressed with Marianne’s Russian.
Martin shook his head. Where he lived was not like this.
The Russian gestured for them to follow.
What had once been a courtyard was now piled high with rubble and crisscrossed by narrow footpaths. “Don’t fall,” Marianne said as they walked. She was stern again; the freedom that had come over her on the train was gone.
They followed the man through a doorway, down a black hall, and up a staircase, climbing blindly. It smelled of mold and cabbage and human shit. Marianne’s dry hand gripped Martin’s hard enough to hurt. He was thankful for the pain; without it his body might disappear in the dark.
Then there was light. A man sat outside a closed door beside an electric lantern. He was terrifyingly ugly: swarthy and scarred and low-browed, wearing the uniform of a Red Army soldier. At their approach, he pulled a rifle across his lap. He and the man they followed exchanged words, and with a terse nod to Marianne, their escort departed.
The man outside the door was not moved by Marianne’s Russian. He answered her in a short guttural grunt that did not sound like any language Martin had ever heard.
From behind him, a rich and salty smell of bacon wafted from the flat; also the sharp scent of alcohol.
The man rapped on the door, entered, closed it behind him, and then reemerged, opening the door for them. Inside, men clustered around a table, playing cards. Martin did not need to speak their language to understand that they were amused.
Was this where his mother lived? With all these men? Martin was confused. One wall was entirely gone, revealing the beams and brick and pipes, and old bits of newspaper insulation. Water dripped from a corner of the ceiling into a tub. But the smells—bacon, and onions, maybe even butter frying—were of delicacies he had not eaten in years. His mouth watered. Tins of beans and fruit lined the countertop.
But where was his mother in all this? A dreadful feeling grew inside him. Smells of the devil, Frau Vortmuller would have said. There was an old woman at the stove, and a girl with bright painted lips and cheeks stood beside her, wearing only a grubby silk robe that revealed her scrawny chest, the breastbones like a chicken’s.
“Where is Frau Fledermann?” Marianne addressed the old woman, whose expression shifted from hostility to surprise.
“Dear God!” she exclaimed, looking at the children and crossing herself.
On the stove the potatoes began to smoke.
“I’ll get her,” the woman in the robe said. She stabbed her cigarette out on a plate. As she passed, one of the Russians grabbed her wrist and said something that made her laugh.