Michelle Barker - My Long List of Impossible Things

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

For my mother, and in memory of her mother and sisters

an incredible group of women.

This is not their story, but it could have been.

Germany, 1945

Everything Is to Remain as It Is

It was early March, drizzle-cold, and the world outside our window was noisy. Military vehicles rumbled down the road, and refugees and displaced Germans created a constant traffic from the east, their wagons overloaded with pots and blankets.

My older sister, Hilde, burst into the house trailing a conversation behind her like an unraveling scarf. They say Ivan is getting closer. They say

Thats enough. Mutti was in the kitchen taking bread out of the oven. And you will please lower your voice. Katja is practicing.

But Id heard. Ivan was the Soviets. That was what everyone called themas if they were one man, the size of an entire army, wearing giant kirza boots.

Hilde wandered into the sitting room. Dont you have anything better to do?

Who told you that? I asked quietly. About Ivan?

A girl. I dont know. I dont ask their names anymore.

Right. It was like naming barn cats. You called them Cat or Mouser, and then your heart didnt get broken every time they moved on. But I always asked their names. A name could be held on your tongue, like chocolate.

A name can dissolve. I didnt want to think about that, but sitting at my piano working on the Moonlight Sonata, it was difficult not to.

I persisted. What did she say?

Nothing, Hilde said. Its nothing to worry about.

Stop treating me like a baby. I was sixteenold enough, I felt, to know the truth about what was going on.

That morning Id heard the radio, before Mutti had shut it off. Everything is to remain as it is, the Nazi Gauleiter announced. The German population is in no immediate danger. I wanted to believe him, but his voice was full of forced calmlike we were panicked horses a startle away from bolting. Even I could tell the people from the east were fleeing their homes. Was the danger like typhus? Would it spread?

Hilde went back to lingering by the side door, waiting for the postmanthese days we never knew when hed show upwhile I practiced the opening arpeggios of the Moonlights third movement in the right hand. The first bars were charged with fury, hard to play without my fingers getting tangled. It took up enough of my attention that I could ignore my sisters smug look: Im waiting for a love letter.All you can do is play that stupid piano.

Hilde was like a planet; the force of gravity around her drew men in. She was taller than I was, and prettier, and had nicer hair. Even the postman was in love with her, and he was at least sixty years old. Id never had a boyfriend. But what did I care? A piano didnt run off to war hoping for a fancy belt buckle that said Gott mit unsGod with uslike Hildes boyfriend did.

Beethoven wasnt pleased with this sonata, Herr Goldstein had told me during one of our lessons. It was winter and the cellar was especially cold. Hed brought down a mug of warm water for my hands, and we both kept our coats on. A yellow Star of David was sewn conspicuously across his. He considered it inferior to his other pieces for piano.

How could he think that? I said. Its the best sonata he ever wrote.

I agree. My piano teacher gave one of his theatrical shrugs. But an artist is rarely satisfied with his own work. Look at you, how hard you are on yourself.

The memory was even sweeter than the smell of Muttis bread. He had called me an artist.

But I was an artist with small hands. Anything more than an octave reach was too much of a stretch, so Herr Goldstein had doctored up the sonata, crossing off nonessential notes to make the bigger chords manageable.

For Gods sake, stop playing the same bits over and over, Hilde shouted from the door. Youll make us all crazy.

Its called practicing, I said. Its how you get better.

When the postman arrived, she stepped outside and asked, Anything for me?

No, my dear. Im sorry, he said in a softened voice.

I didnt know why she bothered waiting for mail anymore. There hadnt been a letter from her boyfriend, Paul, in months. These days most mail arrived in black-bordered envelopes, like the news of Papis death. The postman had the worst job, handing over those envelopes and watching peoples faces crumple. Papis farm jacket still hung in the closetsmelling like the hay fields, expecting his return.

Hildes skinny, pimpled boyfriend, Paul: if he was all that stood between us and the Soviets, we were in trouble.

Mutti darkened the doorway between the kitchen and sitting room. The bedsheets should be ready for scrubbing now.

I groaned. Washing bedsheets was a three-day chore. Theyd been soaking in soapy water since yesterday, in gigantic pots in the pig kitchen.

Hilde glared at me. Today youre helping.

Herr Goldstein said its not good for my hands, I said.

Herr Goldstein isnt your teacher anymore.

Hilde. Mutti gave her a pointed look. Herr Goldstein was one of those names that silenced a room and made everyone pretend to be busy.

And I dont care about your delicate hands. Hilde flicked her long hair back. You didnt make her help yesterday, she said to Mutti. Its not fair.

Hilde was eighteen, but my piano playing reduced her to a whiny five-year-old.

All you did yesterday was boil the water, I said. You didnt need my help.

All you did was play the same notes youre playing today, Hilde said. Youre not even getting any better.

Shut up. Thats not true.

Girls. The dirty washrag was in Muttis hand. One of us would get it in a second. You will help this morning, Katja. The piano isnt going anywhere.

I wanted to work on putting the right and left hands together in the opening bars, but I would have to do it later. I rose reluctantly, exchanged my house shoes for wooden clogs, and went outside. The winter snow had melted and the ground was thawing, but the world was in that in-between stage where everything looked brown and bare and smelled like sour chicken shit. The mud sucked at my clogs as I crossed the small yard to our barn.

The pig kitchen was dim and cold and smelled of the boiled potatoes we cooked for the pigs. A hint of manure lingered from the other side of the barn, even with the door closed. Three large buckets in the middle of the room held the soaking bedsheets. In a corner sat a basket of potatoes from last years harvest.

Mutti brought out the washboards and we began scrubbing. The bedsheets were heavy when they were wet. After ten minutes my arms ached. Mutti used to sing when she worked, but that was before Papi had been killed. Now she just worked, hair pulled tight into a bun, face pulled tighter with determination. The back-and-forth scrubbing reminded me of the dull noise of marching soldiers.

Ach, Katarina, do a better job, Mutti said. Its all for nothing if they dont come out clean.

Hilde gave me one of her looks. Im not redoing the sheets because of you.