Out of Sight, Out of Mind

It had started snowing at some point through the night. The ashen white powder stuck to Monica’s bare fingers as she drew a smiley on the hood of the car. For a second, she looked at it, smiling back at it, disdainful at how her cold fingers turned from a healthy pink to a scary blue. But, no, it did not feel right. Quickly, she wiped away the mouth of the smiley. Two blank points and a screaming mouth. Yes, that is how it should be. A Waisenkind should always scream. 

Michael loudly shut the front door behind him and walked towards her. The big K of the metal letters spelling Kinderheim St. Stürmer above the door swayed from left to right. 

With a beep Michael unlocked the car. The car door handle was frozen shut and took some force to open. Without speaking she sat down, placing her handbag on her lap. She preferred sitting in the front. The back seat used to feel like a trap. It had made her nauseous, as if she was a pregnant woman and the foetus inside the womb at the same time – isolated, too big for its surroundings and carelessly tossed from side to side. Ja, the front was much better. Through the windscreen she observed as Michael used warm water to rescue the car from the snow. He did so extremely carefully. Not minding it when the water splashed on his leather shoes. 

Monica’s mind wandered back to the only time that she had met Michael’s fiancé, Maria. A small girl, a sitting in the back row kind of girl, with breasts that would grant her access to every man’s slightly paedophilic fantasies. Monica had known better than to be jealous. She knew what Michael said to his ‘boys’ about her. She knew that he did not touch Maria nearly as carefully as he caressed his car. 

Michael opened the drivers’ door and silently slid into his seat. The car started, the doors were locked, the windscreen wipers started their dance. Monica got out her calendar and ripped out yesterday’s page and crammed the blank paper into her handbag. November 9th stared at her in bold letters. Beneath it was a handwritten note of an address. It was time to drive to the morgue. 

Months later, Monica would claim that this day never happened. What once had been an active ignoring, had turned into a passive forgetting – adjusting to the nations’ habit of letting dust settle until it formed to stone. 

Michael used to love to talk about this on long car rides: “There really is not point to all this performative nostalgia. Everything is possible in a country without history[i]. This leaves so much more room for crystal-clear brand-new ideas.”

Monica had never known what to say to that – she wasn’t as wise as he was and never had to carry the burden of memory throughout her life – but over the years, after he had repeated his little speech too many times, even he forgot about it. Forgot to care about his prior enthusiasm. What had started as freedom turned into a curse. 

 The routine was all they thought about and even though today was an exception, it would be no exception for the amnesia. Later, she would insist that she had never seen a mother in her whole life, not even in a picture, no. Even when she would look in the mirror as she grew old and longed so impatiently to see some sort of familiar features that would take away the pain of ageing, she would not remember this day. 

The motor stopped. Monica’s eyes opened. 

“We’re here.” 

“I see.” 

Michael opened his door. The cold air reached Monica’s skin and re-assured her that she was not in hell. Winter was heaven, especially if it came early in November. Her thoughts might have been brutally löchrig but her instinct told her that snow was something to love.  One of the few unpredictable changes that she welcomed whenever it surprised her. 

Monica got out of the car. The door creaked a bit. This would make Michael nervous.

“Shall I come inside with you?” 

“No, stay with the car.” 

“Thank you. And –,” Michael dared not look at her face, “Good luck.” 

Monica nodded. 

            She grabbed her purse and flung the heavy leather onto her shoulder. The snow muffled her steps to the door. She wasn’t afraid. Nein, she would not remember being afraid. The problem simply was that she did not like going to places that she had never been in before. Which was a shame considering she could not remember being to many places at all. 

            Her hands were shaking from the cold as she pushed the door open. Inside the windowless building she was greeted by a sterile environment. The white marble countertop that enthroned the room could not possibly be real marble. Or maybe it was, who knew how much money used to be made from someone’s body and someone else’s grief. The only thing disrupting the repetitive geometric shapes, like the square lampshades and the empty picture frames on the walls, was the round face of the receptionist. 

            “Welcome! How may I help you today?” Her smile seemed genuine but misplaced. The girl was a lot younger than Monica, even younger than Maria. She seemed perfectly content to be sitting on a desk chair typing away with her back turned to hundreds of dead bodies waiting to be looked upon one last time before they were burned to death, schon wieder.

            Monica stated her name and was given a few forms to fill out. Most of it was left blank. After turning down the offer for some water or coffee, she was directed to a white leather sofa. She sat down. The heater was cranked up to the maximum. Sweat formed on her lower back. 

            “Frau Wälzel?” 

            “Yes?” Monica got up. 

            “Mr Boerne is ready to see you now. He will be down in –,” the girl got disrupted by the opening of one of the white doors. A man appeared. 

“Oh, right on time.” 

            Boerne was tall like someone who was not used to bowing down. He probably brought the corpses up to his eye level to protect his aching back. Humans, not corpses, Menschen. He looked at Monica, smiling widely like the smiley from this morning. She wanted to wipe it away. 

            “Shall we?” 

            The blank walls of the corridor were interrupted with milk glass doors through which an icy cold crept. Boerne led the way. After one or two turns, he stopped and took a key card out of his white coat. With a beep the door opened. He gestured to her to go in first. The face of Maria appeared in her inner mind. That girl must be so used to having doors magically open for her without needing to lift a finger. Maybe that’s why she did not escape – she did not know how to turn the key and press down the door handle. She did not know that she had the choice to. 

It took a few painfully cold breaths to acclimatise to the air in the room. Rows and rows of metal cubicles. Boerne did not speak. There were no clocks, no footsteps, no sounds. Monica was painfully aware of her own loud heartbeat. How impolite, how unpassend to be so alive in this room.

            Another key card. Another beep. And without any warning, there she was. Headfirst, then followed by a neck, covered in a white cloth up until her feet. Her hands were poking out the sides, resting with their palms open. Eyes closed, serene. Grey skin at odds with two sparkling earrings, which had dragged down her ears over the course of many years. Two white opals encompassed in a brassen gold. Sie wollte mit Ihnen begraben werden.

 Monica looked up but Boerne had left the room. Was this a mother? If only she could open her eyes. Her eyes would have helped her recognise. If only the dust in the lines of her face would vanish and her mouth would open, revealing rotten teeth and rotting words. If only her hands could reach out to Monica’s like she must have done when she was little. Surely, she must have held a little girl’s hands and prayed with her while the bombs were dropping out of the skies and onto their feet. 

The urge to touch her was too great. She reached out and slung her hands around lifeless fingers, bringing something back to life. Monica’s skin was colder than the mother’s. Were those the same hands that used cups and pots to carry the kerosine left behind in deep puddles to heat their home at night? No, they felt like the hands of a mother, not like the hands of a Flüchtling. Maybe it was the wrong body? 

Nein, es war sie. Sie muss es sein. Die Ohrringe, those shimmering stones, heavy enough to loosen muscle and skin, sie waren dieselben, nicht die Gleichen. The same, not the same. Do fingerprints ever change? She lifted the heavy arm, bringing the fingertips close to her eyes, looking back and forth between her own blue and the mother’s red fingers. No, no parallels there. Sie wünschte sich so sehr, dass sie aufwachen würde. Her eyes remained shut.

Slowly, Monica tugged at the cloth until the mother’s upper body was revealed completely. There was a scar on her lower stomach, which seemed to never have healed. A thin line of dried blood contrasted the wrinkly skin. War das hier ihre Schuld? It felt like it had been Monica’s fault. Monica’s fingers traced the lines up towards where the heart must have beaten. Had this heart ever beaten out of anger and Hass instead of love? When the tanks rolled over her little brother; when they had announced that the war was ending and everyone could come home, but so violently ignored the traces that they were leaving, even when retreating to home and safety. When her own nation forgot about its people. But were mothers not filled with love? Was that not what made a mother a mother, someone who would love even if there was nothing left to love? Was bleibt denn übrig, wenn sogar die Mutter so zerbombt wurde, dass die Löcher größer sind als ihr Körper? Guckte sie sich manchmal ihren leeren Bauch an und vermisste ihre Kinder?

The skin burned Monica’s fingertips. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something fluttering. Her breath quickened. She took a step back. No, nichts. The body turned back to grey, leaving only the sparkling earrings behind. 

Boerne entered the room without a warning. He ignored the uncovered corpse and looked straight at Monica. 

“Und? Was nun? Oh, sorry, what do you want me to do with her?” 

“Verbrenn sie. Sie hätte es so gewollt. I’ll take the ashes with me.“

The door shut behind her with another beep. Her eyes had to readjust from the sterile white marble to the low grey skies. Michael leaned on the outside of his car, a cigarette caught between his thumb and index finger. He opened his car door but Monica shook her head. 

“We still need to wait. I am taking her home.” 

“But I told the kids that we would be back before noon.” 

“They will have to wait.”

Michael offered her a cigarette. She accepted it. As the skies turned darker and darker, the smoke burned Monica’s soul to dust. She inhaled deeply and exhaled completely. 

After a few moments of silence, Michael turned towards her. 

“Nice earrings.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Did you always wear them?” 

“Yes. You must have forgotten.” 

© Anna Diedrichsen 2024

[i] Sentence is translated from German (dt. “In einem Land ohne Geschichte ist alles möglich.”) Written by Michael Stürmer – Accessed: Stürmer, M. (2006, September 17). Ein Land ohne Erinnerung. Deutschlandfunk Kultur. https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/ein-land-ohne-erinnerung-100.html