The Woman at 1,000 Degrees

50 Branded 1941

I slipped into the garden, moved along the wall of the building, and was about to climb up to our bedroom window when I heard a strange sound coming from the one beside it. It was the bathroom. A faint light glowed behind the pale green curtains, and the Frau could be heard panting loudly inside. Was she ill? The more her sighs persisted, the more I realised they belonged to the realm of pleasure. I rejoiced for her, clambered to my bedroom window, crawled through it, and slipped into my bed.

Heike lay with her head on her pillow and her quilt pulled up to her chin. She was pretending to be asleep, but I could see perfectly well in the starlit darkness that here lay a child who had just shut her eyes to a world full of gloom. I watched her a good while, waiting for her to give up and open her eyes.

‘Traitor.’

‘Do you want some chocolate?’ I asked, handing her the half-eaten bar.

‘Chocolate?’

‘Yes, we got chocolate at the bonfire.’

‘No, I’ve brushed my teeth.’

‘Hey, when a man is naked, he’s…’

‘What?’ she asked.

‘When a man’s naked, then he’s just a man.’

‘Huh?’

‘Then he’s neither a German nor an Englishman. He’s… you know… if he doesn’t say anything. If he just shuts up.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Then there’s no way of knowing whether you’re supposed to kill him or not. Look…’ I said, rolling up the sleeves of my jumper and blouse and placing my arm on her quilt. ‘A bare arm, flesh and bone. You can’t tell whether it’s Icelandic, Danish or Frisian… or German…’

She scrutinised the arm in silence.

‘You can’t tell what country it’s from.’

Suddenly her hand shot out from under her quilt and grabbed my bare arm. Then she stretched out for a pair of scissors in a basket on the bedside table, sat up, grabbed me with all her might, and pinned me to the mattress with a strength that took me so much by surprise that it left me defenceless. In just a few moments she’d managed to carve a whole swastika on my skin with the scissors, just above my elbow. And then let me go. Blood started to ooze out of one of the arms of the cross. I winced in pain and rushed towards the bathroom. Or intended to. But of course the door was locked. On the other side of it, the Frau was still releasing her wanton sighs. I hesitated and listened to her mounting the ladder of pleasure. When she’d reached its peak, I heard the scraping sound of a chair or table, or maybe even a drying rack, followed by a heavy sigh. Then silence.

I hurried back into my room, cursing Heike to hell. She had curled herself into the corner, so that I could barely see the crown of her head, but then answered in a voice that was half smothered by her quilt. ‘You deserved it.’

I tied a sock around my wound, undressed, and got into bed. Heike seemed to doze off quite swiftly, but I couldn’t sleep a wink. The turbulent events of the night shot through me, causing my heart to beat wildly.

Finally I decided to fetch a glass of water. My throat was extremely dry. The red tiles of the kitchen floor were illuminated by the light outside, which projected the shadow of the window frame. The moon was shining now. I let the tap run the Icelandic way, having learned from my winters in Reykjavík to allow the water to run until it got cold. But then the bathroom door burst open and Frau Baum stormed into the kitchen.

‘Oh, it’s you? What are you doing?’

‘Getting some water.’

‘Yes, drink the water, then! Don’t let the tap just run,’ she said, grabbing an empty glass, filling it, shutting off the tap, and then handing the glass to me. ‘Where were you? Where did you go? Down to the beach? I forbade you! I was terrified about you. When did you get home? Did you get in just now? And what’s wrong with you, child? Why are you looking at me like that? Did something happen? Have you been drinking beer?’

That was nine questions I could choose from. But I limited my answer to pointing at the pearl necklace she was wearing. This threw her at first, but then she recovered.

‘Yes, I was just trying it on,’ she stuttered awkwardly.

I had never seen this stiff, wooden woman in such a flattering light. With the fiery-red lipstick, she had managed to draw out a certain beauty in her face with the same effect that is obtained from painting a dilapidated house in bright colours: for a moment the eyes are beguiled into believing it’s beautiful. She was bare-shouldered in a silk nightdress and wore the pearl necklace I knew so well. Now I knew what she’d been up to that night.

‘That’s a truly magic box,’ I said.

‘Huh?’

‘My jewellery box. There’s something very special about it. I can’t quite explain it, but didn’t you… feel something?’

‘When?’

‘When you opened it?’

The Frau stared at me with her small grey eyes, wondering if these were matters that could be discussed with an eleven-year-old child. ‘Yes, actually, it… it was…’ She spotted the sock I had tied around my arm. ‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing. I scratched it outside against…’

‘What?’

‘Germany.’

Then I excused myself, telling her I wanted to go back to bed, and politely thanked her for the water. The newly unmasked Frau was unusually affable, just said bitte and told me to sleep well. And after that conversation of ours in a moonlit kitchen, she never raised her voice against me again. But I couldn’t sleep a wink and nibbled on some more of the pilot’s chocolate and stared at the face of the German orphan on the pillow. She was so beautiful when she slept. Damn her. Was I going to bear a swastika scar for the rest of my life? (Let’s see. I roll up the sleeve of my hospital gown. Oh, yes, I can still see the clumsily carved swastika on my shrivelled upper arm.)

I decided to call her Hækja from then on, the Icelandic word for crutch, Hækja Hitler, the arm molester. And she had no monopoly over being motherless and fatherless. I was just as much an orphan as she was, even if my Mum wasn’t dead like hers. Or maybe she was dead? No! And Dad wasn’t dead either. That couldn’t be. Where were they tonight? What were they thinking? Were they sleepless like me? Now I could never wear short sleeves again except maybe with Dad. He’d be happy to see his daughter branded with his ideals. Oh, why did he have to become a soldier? Why couldn’t he just follow Mum’s example, the wisest person who’d ever walked on earth?

My darling Mum. You’re now sleeping on a hard bed in a doctor’s house in Lübeck dreaming of Breidafjördur. Oh, what love didn’t do to you. It had pulled you up by the roots and planted you here and there. Maybe you weren’t the wisest person who’d walked this earth after all? Yes, you were. Brains have nothing to do with love. And love nothing to do with brains. When it comes to love, we’re all equally stupid.