Fall 2000 Charles River Review: Mink

He hadn't seen the boot until it was right there, dangling almost directly above his head. Under his feet the bushes and crusty grass were a heavy tangle, weighed down with snow, and he'd been stomping through the woods with his head bent low. He'd looked up for just a second to get his bearing, and there it was.

The boy stumbled backwards. It was an unfamiliar-looking boot, hanging there, not at all like the ones Lotte's fiance wore. This one was very old, the brown leather dull and cracked. It was neither black nor shiny, and there was mud on it, pressed hard into the treads. No one had bothered to polish this boot in a long time. You could probably not see your reflection if you peered into it. Dieter's boots, on the other hand, were so shiny they looked like black water.

Karl held his breath, and his chest swelled out. But the foot--the leg really--hung too high for him to reach. And the other leg was obscured behind the body. He calculated quickly: go home and get a ladder . . . but that would be useless. He couldn't drag a ladder from Potsdammerweg all the way over the creek through the thistle meadow into the snowy woods. And he wasn't supposed to be here in the first place. He thought about climbing the tree. But he wasn't very tall, and although he was a good climber--a great climber really, better than all his friends--he didn't think he'd make it up the slippery pine bark. Soggy wool mittens, unraveling all around the edges, had left his fingers cold and stiff.

A whistle made its way through the rustling branches all the way to Karl's slightly protruding ears. The Werner family whistle. His father was really good at it, his notes shrill and loud, but his mother managed it pretty well too. This time he knew who it was calling him; it was Mama. He recognized the faint wobble at the end of the notes, the ever-so-slight hesitation.

Jamming his hands into the pockets of his flannel pants, he took a last look at the tree. It wasn't really the boots that interested him so much; it was the shining silk of the parachute. Ropes and shreds of silk were tangled up all around the man's torso. A big piece of silk hung in a creamy, billowing bundle among the green-black needles. Now that was worth getting. Karl imagined holding the material between his fingers, stretching it out so that it was perfectly smooth and soft. Gliding the pads of his fingers over it. Earlier, he'd been cursing the unexpected April snowfall, but now he understood it had been the key to preserving this find. He'd have to think of a way to get back, to get some of that silk, before all the snow disappeared.

Karl hunched his shoulders and launched his body against the wind, toward home.

The kitchen smelled of wet rags. The family sat at a large butcher block table scarred with deep ridges, many of which Karl himself had carved into the wood--before his father took away the pocket knife. It was thistle soup for dinner again. Mama got half a potato from Frau Schlemmer and cut it into tiny chunks that rolled around on Karl's tongue. He pretended they were lard, or meat. Papa sat at the table, the newspaper he brought home from the factory stretched out in front of him. He wore a black suit that Mama pressed every day until the material was stiff. He was the head of the big Siemens' plant in Berlin, an important man in town, and he liked to dress well. A thick, short mustache rested on his upper lip. Every now and then he would pat it with his napkin.

Karl was staring intently at his father's head. The balding scalp was so shiny it almost looked wet. The boy wondered if the skin would feel like glass or like leather, but he knew better than to reach out and touch (he was always getting into trouble for touching things he shouldn't).

His mother sighed. It was a long, drawn out affair, and Karl glanced over at her. In the last few years her hair had gone completely white, like heaps of cotton puffs all over her head. "I tell you," Mama said, settling her large flat bottom onto a chair. "Whatever they say, I don't care. I know the truth and it's bad. Really bad."

From his father's look it was clear he didn't think this should be discussed now. But Mama didn't stop. Her hands shook, and she spilled some broth onto the table as she ladled it into Lotte's bowl. All the little lumps of potato looked like baby teeth. "Where will we go? What about the factory?" Mama's voice was rising. "Did the SS come again? Did they? You are telling me everything, aren't you, Otto?"

Karl's father folded up the paper very slowly. His mouth sat in a straight line on his face.

"Eat your soup," he said to his son.

Karl shot a look at his sister, hoping for some reaction. He always thought it funny when Mama got all worried and Papa would start doing things really really slowly. It drove Mama crazy, but it made Karl laugh.

But Lotte sat very still and looked ahead. She wasn't looking at anything in particular. Her gaze was often sleepy and unfocused; Karl couldn't imagine the boredom of living life like that, like being dead when you're still alive. Even though Lotte was much older, she used to catch his eye all the time, giggling at the horrible food, jabbing him under the table with her clumpy, flat-heeled shoes. Now, with her hair tied back in a thick braid at the nape of her neck and her face as dull as dough she looked like his grandmother, not like a 17-year-old.

His mother slapped her hand on the tabletop to get his father's attention. The thin band of her wedding ring was the only adornment on her large, reddened hands. "Otto, I'm sorry, but I don't want you going to work anymore. It's too dangerous. You hear me?" Mama's voice was shrill now.

Karl put down his spoon. He already knew what was coming.

"Children . . ." Papa said in a tone that meant leave.

On his way up the stairs, Karl pulled at the back of his sister's skirt. The fabric was very rough, tweedy and brown, not unlike a bird's nest. It looked very itchy. Goosebumps rose on Karl's skinny arms. "Lotte?" he whispered. "D'you think the Russians are finally coming? Do you?"

She snapped her head around. In the partial darkness her face suddenly looked like a witch's. "Don't say that, you stupid boy," she hissed at him. "You think Dieter is fighting for nothing? You think Dieter is going to fail?"

He didn't get it. Why was she always so angry--he hadn't even mentioned Dieter's name.

In his room, a small closet-like space off the main hallway, Karl sat down on the mattress and bit his bottom lip. Normally, he'd never bring out his collection while Mama and Papa were still awake. But his stomach felt so twisted up, his throat so dry, he knew that looking at it--touching his things--would make him feel better. He found his flashlight and switched off the overhead light. Prying up the floorboards in one corner, he took out an old potato sack and carefully emptied it onto the floor. His breathing instantly became more regular. Smiling, he picked up a small piece of fur.

This was a coup. A few months ago he'd snipped it off the belt of one of Mama's coats that she'd hidden in the attic. Her best things were all up there, poorly hidden under piles of scrap. Everyone else in the neighborhood had long ago donated any items of value for the war effort, but this coat, this was really special. Mama had cried and cried when Papa told her to give it up. And then she'd lied, packing it away in a crate under a pile of broken chairs.

He held the piece of mink up to his cheek and slid it over the skin, back and forth. He slipped it over his forehead and felt a sense of release as his muscles began to relax. After a few minutes, he pointed the flashlight at his collection: a pair of silk underwear, so huge he could have worn them as a shirt; a bronze pin, like a crooked cross, that shone with a warm glimmer; the toe part of a woolen sock. There were pebbles of all shapes and sizes, and bits of glass wrapped in paper. He wondered absently if there were some way he could get a piece of his sister's skirt.

Just then, there was a huge crash. He stiffened momentarily, then threw a blanket over his treasures. Opening the door a crack, he checked to see if anyone was coming. Papa would take away Karl's collection in a flash; he'd promised as much when he caught him snipping off the laces from a pair of his mother's shoes.

"Otto!" his mother was yelling in the kitchen below. "Otto, it's over! Can't you see?"

There was another crash. "I can't do it! I've worked all my life in that factory! I won't, it's barbaric!" His father's voice was so loud, Karl covered one ear with the silky piece of mink and the other with his hand. But he discovered that he was curious, and he inched the mink under his chin.

"--breached the Oder. The Oder! You know what that means? It's just a matter of time. Gleiwitz is gone. You have to listen to the SS, Otto, you have to . . ." The sound of crying filled the air, touching Karl with long wet fingers, pressing against his temples, cold and hard.

Then there was silence. The fingers disappeared, and in their stead, Karl felt only the softness of the fur against his collarbone.

"I will not say it again." His father's voice was steady. "The factory will continue . . . it will continue to produce, it will be open until the Russians come and shoot me in the goddamn head! Do you hear me? I don't care what the SS say. There will be no sabotage! None. Now, gather your wits about you, woman, for the sake of your children. This is war and we will be strong. Crying does nothing. Nothing but cause panic."

In the weightless, dry silence that followed, Karl imagined a bullet. New, unused. Not like the ones he found all the time in the huge piles of rubble. This one was cool to the touch. Smooth and shining. Sending a shiver along his finger and down his forearm.

The whole thing had started with Lotte's fiance's boots. Dieter wasn't even a teenager yet when the war had begun, but by last year things were getting desperate. The day was overcast, but the sky was heavy with gray clouds. It was Karl's birthday, March 6, and he was in the forbidden woods with his friends. They had made a mound of mud and stuck nine twigs in it, one for each year of his life. Magnus was trying to light a match from a pack he'd stolen. They heard a droning in the air, a sound altogether different than the one the British Lancasters made. The Lancasters came at night, but today--in broad daylight--the hum in the air signaled a dangerous change.

The children stopped in mid-motion and craned their necks upward. The hum became louder and they all started running.

When Karl got home, so out of breath it felt as if dust were stuck in his throat, he found his mother, Lotte, and Dieter waiting for him. The bombs starting dropping like fat raindrops from the clouds. It was the Ammies this time, the Americans, bombing in the middle of the day. Everyone's eyes were big and round with disbelief.

As soon as they all scuttled down the ladder into the damp cellar, Karl noticed the shimmer of Dieter's boots under the flickering light of the candle. "Dieter!" he shouted. His mother shushed him (as though the enemy were going to hear him yelling in a basement!).

"Dieter," he said again, more quietly this time. "You're joining the Wehrmacht!" He crouched down in front of him. Reaching out his hand, Karl pulled his fingers over the glistening black leather, from the heel to the very top.

Dieter threw his head back and laughed. "They're my father's," he said. "Mine have laces. But I get a real coat, with brass buttons on the lapels!"

Just under the knee, where the boot stopped, a zipper winked on the side of Dieter's pants. Karl let his finger drag over the edge of the boot and onto the zipper. The zip was hard, with sharp, bumpy edges like hundreds of tiny knives.

Inside his head, all the things that had been confusing and frightening began to shift around and slip into little pigeonholes where they rested, quiet and orderly. After they emerged from the cellar, Karl found the empty potato sack in the garden shed and began the hard but pleasing work of filling it up.

All night long he thought about the parachute. He knew there was no way he could get the boot home, though he liked the cracked look of the leather (it looked like earth to him; dry, dry earth, like you might find in a desert). But he figured if he could keep his fingers warm, he might be able to climb up the tree trunk and at least cut off a piece of the silk.

In the morning, his mother sent him off to school with Magnus and Heidi from next door. He stuck some rope in his pocket, and on the way there Karl told them he had a secret mission and disappeared. It was a risky move. They might tell his teacher, who might get curious--but probably not. Half the time nobody turned up for school anyway. Three of the kids in his class had been killed in the last year alone. There'd been no bombing last night, but maybe she'd think he'd found a mine or got himself hurt in the ruins. He ran and ran as fast as he could, stumbling through the undergrowth, clingy and wet now that the snow was melting.

There it was, the tree. The boot. The parachute. Yesterday he hadn't noticed the jacket, but today it was obvious to him. The man was a British pilot, the first he'd ever seen. At the collar of his jacket there was a fuzzy strip of fur. Dark and wet, but when it was dry who knew how wonderful it might feel.

He took the rope and threw it clumsily over a branch. After a couple of tries it snagged, and he pulled himself up, bracing his feet on the trunk. He was pretty strong, although his arms were thin, his legs too long and spindly for his body. When he finally reached the branch, he hoisted himself onto it so he could sit and catch his breath.

Turning his head slightly, he looked at the tangle of silk and ropes. He pushed aside some of the material, and it was then, as he caught sight of the expression on the man's face, that he thought for the first time about the fact that the boot, the foot, the leg, the parachute all belonged to a person. A person who was dead.

The air in his chest began to expand, like a balloon being pumped endlessly, until his throat became blocked and he began gulping for air. The man's face was gaunt, the eyes open, the gaze aimless just like his sister's had become once Dieter was declared missing in action. The man looked young, with dark hair and gray skin. The expression on his face was one of surprise, not horror or fear. Surprise at being caught in this awkward situation, with so much still to do. Karl began to choke.

He fixed his eyes on the man's collar, forcing himself to figure out what kind of fur it might be that made small damp clumps like the back of a ragged cat. The longer he stared the better he felt. Tentatively he reached out and touched it with one finger. Though wet, it was as soft and silky as mink.

Karl's breathing evened out and he took out a pair of scissors from the pocket of his jacket.

Among the rubble of burned-out houses in his neighborhood, bluebells began to push their tiny heads through the debris. The weather hadn't improved considerably--everyone was still freezing and hungry pretty much all the time--but by the end of April a mild breeze blew every now and then with the vague promise of happier times to come. Everyone had been talking about the Russians for weeks, but they still weren't here. Karl felt very optimistic. He fingered the snippets of fur from the pilot's collar that he carried with him at all times now, and raced home feeling as fast and light as a cheetah.

Lotte was sitting on the front steps of the house on Potsdammerweg when he finally got home. It was almost dark and he'd been dawdling with the others after school, hoping to hear more about the Russians. Some of his friends said the Russians were cannibals, others said they were kind, gave you food. Karl worried most about his collection and whether they would take it away from him, or if his father would find it if they had to flee. But today the talk was all about the English aviators, one of whom was said to have been found after hiding in someone's barn for weeks. Karl kept quiet about his pilot. He didn't want him to be found; he wanted to know that he would be right there, in that huge old pine tree, waiting for him like a friend who couldn't leave. Though he was afraid to get too close now (even Karl had a sense of what happened to a human body after it's been separated from its soul), he'd often creep to the edge of the woods to see if he could catch a glimpse of the white silk glinting through the branches in the distance.

His sister's face as she sat on the stoop was impassive as usual, but she had two bright spots of red on her cheeks. "Have you seen Papa?" she asked him, as she fiddled with the edge of her apron.

"No," Karl said, putting down his satchel. "He's at work."

"No, he's not," Lotte replied quickly, loudly, as though pleased to contradict him. "The SS shut the factory today. They burned everything--"

He pushed past her and ran into the house. None of the lights was on, and the air was very cold. Taking the stairs two at a time, he raced into his room. The floorboards in the corner were pulled up, showing a gaping hole where his sack should have been. The cold air began to seep into his bones, making them feel like scraps of metal that would screech when they moved. He concentrated on breathing in and out slowly as he backed out of the room.

The attic was dark. In the bluish light that filtered in through the one tiny window, he made out a shape in the corner. The floor was littered with bits of wood and nails. Stepping gingerly, he moved toward the shape. As he neared, he saw it was his mother, curled on the floor. In her arms she held her long mink coat. By her feet was Karl's sack of treasures.

Karl stood, rooted to the spot. Mama was stroking the fur with one shaking hand. She didn't look up. Finally Karl dropped to his knees beside her. He reached into his pocket and took out the chunk he'd managed to cut from the dead pilot's collar. Leaning over her body, he put it to her cheek and began stroking the skin.

"Karlchen, he's gone," his mother whispered.

"Shh," Karl said, stroking, his face creased into a deep frown.

"The Russians will be here by tomorrow, for sure. And now we're alone."

Images flashed through Karl's mind. His father's shining skin; his sister's fat braid; the smooth, pale skin of Dieter's hands as he pulled his boots off for Karl to try on. He thought of his pilot, the look of surprise on his thin face. He wondered if the Russians would be wearing shiny black boots, or dirty laced-up ones, with German soil pressed hard into the treads.