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A Parachute in the Lime Tree

The History Press

Oskar

The Fall

Oskar had never been afraid of falling. He'd always loved the abandonment of the jump and the feeling of reprieve when the parachute did its job. This time, though, he screamed his way down. Once the parachute jolted in, he was a puppet in the dark.

He didn't see the tree. It tossed him this way and that as he bumped down through its layers. He felt a sharp twist to his knee, and was stationary at last, slung upside down among the branches. Then the rain began, coming at him from all angles and pelting the earth beyond the tree. He released his harness: tugged at the ropes, swung on them. The canopy of the tree released a shower of raindrops but the parachute wouldn't shift. The moon slid out from behind the clouds like a searchlight, and made it stubbornly visible.

He'd dreaded the jump but he was through the hatch before the others had time to tackle him. Willy was the only one who was quick enough but he couldn't hold his grip. As he plunged free of the plane, and the cold air whistled in his ears, Oskar was suddenly unreachable. Now, though, the parachute flapping overhead seemed like a bad omen.

It was only when he'd clambered painfully down that he saw the house. His first instinct was to head off in the opposite direction, until he realised the overgrown garden gave the only shelter for miles. Here and there, a small tree clawed at the lightening sky but there were no woods, no natural hiding places at all.

He skirted the right flank of the house, limped his way past an old bathtub invaded by weeds and scrawny daffodils, and headed for the densest growth. He was desperate to find somewhere to stop, think, gather himself. He pissed into a clump of nettles, and a cat sped out from under a bush and scrambled onto a wall, eyeing him suspiciously. Down here, there were traces of an old vegetable patch and a rotting shed that was barely distinguishable from the growth around it. Inside, it smelt of damp earth and rot, and the only window was green with slime. It might have been a summerhouse, though he doubted it had ever seen much sun. When he lifted a cushion, a trail of small black mice squealed out the door. There were jars of dark viscous liquids, a jumble of brushes and pencils in an old tin can; scraps of faded diagrams were pinned to the window frame.

He could hardly remember the last time he'd been alone. Before Vannes, there was the training school at Köthen: before that, the endless hikes with the Hitler Jugend. There had always been someone to tell him what to do next. Now, he didn't even know where exactly he was.

Later, when the sky was bright, there were voices and the scrape of something along a path but soon the sounds faded again. By now his knee had swollen; he forced himself to stand on it and used an old rag that smelt of linseed to bind it up but it wouldn't take him far. He fell into a fitful sleep. Joachim was there, playing his clarinet in some late-night bar with three elderly women in dirndl; there was the Jew with the bloodied face on the ground outside the Cafe Weissner, and Reinhard in his black uniform, drinking plundered French cognac with Vati. Elsa hardly featured but that's the way with dreams.

He awoke to the sound of an engine, and unsheathed his knife. After a while, he heard the vehicle drive off again. He remained on his guard, though, certain that by now someone would have seen the parachute. Hours passed and no one came, and fear turned to boredom. He found a tin of boiled sweets on the shelf, crunched on them two at a time, pooling the saliva in his mouth to try and quench his thirst. Afterwards, his mouth tasted of metal and he was thirstier than ever.

By nightfall, his tongue was dry against the roof of his mouth and his whole body felt battered. He opened the door of the shed just wide enough, then hobbled his way to the edge of the undergrowth. In front of the house was a grassy area, more field than lawn, then a gravelled stretch. Overhead, there was an ocean of stars so vast it took his breath away. He had forgotten a sky could be so silent. Once, with Elsa, back in Berlin in the old days, they had each chosen a star. Elsa wasn't interested in spring skies and winter skies and all the technical stuff.

'I'll just take the one above my head, Oskar. What does it matter which star is mine? A star is a star.'

But it mattered. And when the night sorties began, he became superstitious about catching sight of it. He would crouch in the gondola beneath the black belly of the plane like a grub in a cocoon, sickened by the smell of fuel, legs frozen, certain he'd be the one to catch the first hit. As he flew through clear, star-scattered skies to light the targets for the bombers who would follow, he always kept his eyes down.

He watched the house for signs of life. A dim light burned in a downstairs window. When the light died, he waited. Then, he took off his boots to cross the gravelled path that separated the house from the garden and crept in through an unlocked door. He drank in splutters from the tap, filled his can with water. In the pantry, he tore a hunk off a rough loaf, found some hard cheese under a china dome. He cracked an egg into a cup, then, holding his nose, he gulped it down. The clanging of a clock startled him. The sound was identical to his own family's hall clock, the one his father had threatened to throw in the Spree, and for an instant he was back home in Zweibrückenstrasse with his sister, Emmi.

'Forget her, Oskar. She's not coming back.'

The House Next Door

They struggled through a blizzard for most of the way but it was in the wilds of Brandenburg that the snow finally forced the train to a halt. For a while it looked as though Oskar's leave would be spent out there in the wilderness, but in the end they sent a snowplough out to clear the tracks and the train made it to Berlin after all. By the time he reached Zweibrückenstrasse, he was exhausted. As he walked up the path, he turned his head away from the Frankels' house, determined to start things on a positive note. Inside, with the Eintopf on the hob and the log fire burning, he felt reassured; it still smelt like home. His mother kissed him gingerly; his father clapped him on the back. When he asked where Emmi was, Vati seemed taken aback, as if it wasn't an obvious question.

'Married,' Mutti glanced at him nervously, 'to Reinhard. How long ago, Gert?'

'Oh, it must be a month or so.'

They used to joke about Reinhard, always strutting about with those friends of his. Oskar was barely in the door but already he felt the house close in on him. 'Nobody wrote. Why didn't Emmi–'

'Let's get you something to drink, Oskar. Some hot milk with cinnamon, maybe, something to warm you up,' said Vati.

'There was no church ceremony, nothing like that.' Mutti was brushing invisible crumbs from the lap of her skirt. 'It was just a Party affair. We weren't even there ourselves, darling.' When he opened his mouth to speak, she cut in, 'Emmi made her own bed.'

It was too soon for a row. Oskar went upstairs to change, even though there was no need. Mutti had kept all his old uniforms, right back to Hitler Jugend days, and they hung in size order in the closet, each lie bigger than the next. He turned his back on them, and went over to the window. It looked like the Frankels' garden had been cleared, and lights shone out onto the snow from a downstairs room. For a moment it was as though none of it had happened at all. He raced down the stairs and almost knocked into Vati, who was crossing the hallway with a tray of drinks.

'When did they get back?'

'Nobody came back. We have new neighbours now.' Vati raised his tray a little, but Oskar shook his head and made for the door without even bothering with a jacket. The Frankels' house looked freshly painted and the torn curtain was gone. The snow had stopped, and now that he was outside he felt his head begin to clear. He couldn't bring himself to go back in, so he just kept on walking. People passed in flurries, the phosphorous buttons on their outer clothing darting about like fireflies. He didn't go anywhere in particular, just walked around in circles, clapping his arms to keep the blood moving. It was hard to believe the war was happening at all; there was so little sign of it here. So far, the English had only managed a graze or two and the city remained confident, out of reach.

Next morning, no one mentioned his disappearance the night before.

'I've saved the Eintopf,' Mutti said. 'We won't bother with a big party. Just Frau Auger, of course, and Sophie.'

Oskar wondered what made Frau Auger such essential company; he wasn't even sure he could place her. He'd no idea who Sophie was.

'Oh Oskar, you remember: Emmi's friend, from the choir. Emmi had such high hopes for you two.'

When he saw Frau Auger, he recognised her right away. She was one of the women Elsa had been fearful of; some incident he couldn't recall now involving Herr Goldmann. As he sat down opposite her, he noted the little blue and white motherhood bow pinned to her lapel. He was surprised Mutti had any time for the likes of Frau Auger. 'I'm as much in favour of a glorious Fatherland as the next woman,' she used to say, 'but is there any need to be so unpleasant about it?'

Sophie spoke incessantly about a boyfriend who had some cushy number doing research flights with Telefunken. Frau Auger didn't say much but Oskar felt her dissect him like the meat on her plate. Once he'd had a glass or two of wine, he decided to take her on. 'I see they gave someone the Frankels' house,' he said. 'When did that happen?'

'Oh, Oskar, dear,' Mutti fumbled. 'It's hard to put a date on these things. People are always coming and going. Late summer? Not long after you left, I suppose.' She turned to Frau Auger, 'You know, the berries this year really were the best in years. We've had so many jams and jellies and compotes.'

Frau Auger chewed slowly, glancing up at Oskar from time to time.

'Where are the Frankels' things?' he asked.

'Long gone,' Frau Auger said. 'Sold or dumped.' She tilted her head to one side, awaiting his reaction.

'Stolen?'

'Confiscated.'

'Oskar, why don't you tell us about Brittany, darling. Is it as beautiful as they say? And does it rain all the time?' Mutti knocked over a glass of white wine with her elbow and began dabbing at it with her handkerchief. She looked like she might cry. Frau Auger crossed her knife and fork, and straightened herself in her chair.

'Go on,' she told Oskar, as she patted Mutti's hand maternally.

When Oskar looked up from the mesmerising whiteness of the dinner plate, all four faces were fixed on him. 'There is no point,' he murmured finally.

Frau Auger gave a small smile. 'Precisely,' she said. 'What's gone is gone.'

By the time Oskar got up the next morning, the house was empty. He walked through each floor, trawling it for some tiny sign of change. But even Emmi's room was exactly as it had always been, with her pink eiderdown folded neatly down and her collection of carved animals still on her dressing table. On the attic landing, a jag of sunlight blinded him a moment as he turned to mount the final flight of stairs.

Mutti's attic was a place of crates and packing cases and infallible order. It was a source of pride to her that she could put her hand on anything at all. Items were stored according to the frequency of their use, so that the Christmas decorations, used annually, were kept nearer the door than the schoolbooks that would probably never be read again. When he opened the door, he was astonished to find the place in chaos. There were papers strewn all over the floor, a string of glass beads, a fur collar, a jumble of scarves. Most of the paper seemed to belong to an academic dissertation of some sort, but there were other things, too: bills and general correspondence, even a handwritten score. He knelt down in the middle of it all and began to read.

Dear Herr Frankel,

I do of course remember you. Our meeting was very fine: a true meeting of minds. In relation to your enquiry, however, about the availability of a position in our institution, I regret to inform you that I am unable to assist you in this regard.

Then another:

Dear Frankel,

I am in receipt of yours of 29 April. We hope that one day you will come and speak in Cambridge on your chosen subject. I cannot believe myself that war is likely. I am sorry to hear of your ill fortune with regard to your position in Berlin and sincerely hope that matters improve.

Further in, the attic was as orderly as before. There were boxes labelled in his mother's neat hand: linens, underclothing, neck ties. One was full of piano music, in a house where nobody played. He began tearing them open, rifling through clothing for something of Elsa's. The paintings stacked against the wall were Professor Frankel's. He recognised the black contours, the bold colours now deemed degenerate. He came across a canvas that was much cruder than the others, daubed unevenly with bright red paint as if to cover up some image underneath. It puzzled him, and he took it over to the window to look at it in the light. He could see there was something there: a figure, perhaps. He traced the outline with his finger but the red paint was so thick he couldn't make it out.

He had almost given up hope of finding anything of Elsa when he spotted her handwriting in a stack of papers piled on top of one of the boxes. He raced to read it, then made himself slow down and read it again, measuring each sentence before moving on to the next one.

Dear Oskar,

They say there will be a war soon. But then, you probably know more about that than we do. I didn't get a reply to my earlier letter, so I suppose you've forgotten me by now. My parents are still in Amsterdam but hoping to join me here in Ireland. Papa has someone he thinks may be able to get them a visa, but he has spent so much time outside embassies that I can't help but feel it will be the same old story. Do you ever go to the woods now? Has anything stayed the same?

Your Elsa

Mutti must have intercepted the letter, written almost two years ago. He struggled to keep control of his anger as he held the flimsy sheet of paper to his cheek. He tried to imagine Elsa in Ireland but he had no mental picture of the place, knew little about it except for black beer and cattle. A teacher at school claimed once that Irish monks had civilised Germany and everybody laughed. He must have reread the letter a dozen times, hoping to find something more in it, before it hit him that Elsa had given no address and was as far away as ever.

He looked around him at the piles of neatly labelled boxes, at the jumble of things on the floor. He remembered the night, soon after the Frankels had left, that he and Vati went next door to tie back a broken shutter that had banged and clanked for hours the night before. Perhaps that had been the start of it.

The brass number on the Frankels' door was so tarnished it was barely legible but the key was still where they'd always kept it. It shouldn't have taken long to deal with the shutter but Vati was upstairs for ages, opening cupboards, sliding out drawers. Meanwhile, Oskar stood at Elsa's piano. He touched it lightly with his fingertips, not daring to press down the keys. As he waited at the bottom of the stairs, he noticed a photograph lying flat on the hall table. It looked like a family portrait; he wondered why it had been left behind. In the centre of a group of young men sat a small, elderly couple. The woman was compact and pigeon-chested. She wore an elaborate hat covered in flowers and feathers. The little man stared straight at him, with eyes that were too much like Elsa's. The resemblance disconcerted him, so he turned the image face down.

The thought of Vati rifling through Elsa's things made him feel sick. He refolded her letter and stuffed it into the pocket of his shirt, reclaiming her. He went to the little window in the roof and opened it to get some air. As he looked out on a city that didn't feel his any more, the idea hit him. He could hardly get down the stairs quick enough, almost tripping over himself in his haste to reach the front door.

The tramcar was full, mainly women and girls. It rattled around street corners and when it reached the Tiergarten, Oskar got out. Diplomatic missions were housed in every other building, and he walked up and down Tiergartenstrasse, peering at the nameplates until he found the one he wanted.

The woman who answered the door of the Irish Legation looked about the same age as his mother. She was German, not Irish, though he couldn't place the accent. She looked him up and down before letting him in, but he was sure the uniform would do the trick, and it did. Once inside, he came straight to the point 'I'm hoping to trace a friend. Someone granted permission to enter Ireland. A refugee, if that's the word.'

The woman's nose twitched. 'What kind of refugee?'

'A family from Berlin. Frankel is the name.' He watched her absorb this information blankly.

'And your interest in them?'

'I'd like to correspond.'

She started to snigger. 'Jewish penpals? You're pulling my leg.'

He tried to laugh along with her but found he couldn't.

'Don't go taking offence, Officer.' She was scrutinising him now, her eyes flickering over his uniform, scanning his face. 'Maybe they've not gone at all. Is that what you're thinking? Maybe they're lying low in some cellar, with their diamonds and their fox furs.' She leaned towards him, 'The last man we had here used to give their people back in Dublin all kinds of grief about the Jews. "How am I supposed to cope? It's a tidal wave. I'm inundated." To hear him, you'd think half the Jews in Europe were heading for Ireland. He put the wind up them, all right. He's gone now, more's the pity.' She whispered conspiratorially, 'The Foreign Ministry loved him but he wasn't neutral enough for the Irish. Neutral? With thousands of them fighting for Britain? Don't make me laugh. Anyhow, we've a young gentleman now. Came from Ireland last summer.' She lowered her voice and mouthed the words, 'Out of his depth ... But sit yourself down and I'll see if he'll talk to you.'

She led Oskar into a waiting room, then disappeared through a set of double doors. She came back a moment later and beckoned him in.

The official stood up when Oskar entered the room, which seemed odd until Oskar realised that he was standing for the uniform and not for him.

'All our records are confidential,' he started, 'There is no possibility of my being able to help you. None at all.' The man rubbed his eyes, then felt for his chair and sat down. He took a crumpled handkerchief from his drawer and caught a sneeze in it.

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Excerpted from A Parachute in the Lime Tree by Annemarie Neary. Copyright © 2012 Annemarie Neary,. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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