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Letters

Winter thawed into spring, but the tensions straining our family did not. It was now 1941, but I no longer cared what year it was. Since Jan had been taken from us, nothing seemed to matter. I moved through my day apart from myself; my mind one person, my body another. Hear the stove for breakfast, Alina. Fold the laundry, Alina. Straighten up in here, Alina. Over and over my mind worked through the thick fog. The house was silent. Everywhere I turned I saw Jan. His empty bed, his chair at the table, the over shoes carelessly strewn on the living room floor, never to be worn again. The lamb that was part blanket part animal, still lying on his blue blankets. What comfort would that lamb have given him in his final moments.

No. Not his final moments. He was alive out there, somewhere.

No one touched his things. The image of Jan was burned into my brain: the soft brown eyes, the dark hair that was fading to light, the beautifully fair skin and clever smile. The twinkle in his eye, the dimples in his cheeks. He was so sweet, so dear, and this is what happened to him.
Now you have to hang up the wet clothes.
I blinked myself back to the drizzling reality of Felsental, scooped up the basket, and began to waddle down the stairs. What was the date, even?
"Otto?" I called from half way down the stair case into the basement. I propped the basket on my hip. "Otto?" I called again. Sighing, I hefted the basket to my other hip and continued into the basement. The square, dark, and constantly boiling hot room, whatever the season, would dry the clothes quickly. "Otto, du bist nicht schwerhörig! I know you can hear me!" The stairs creaked, and the long cool stretch of his shadow reached me before he did.
"What do you need?" he asked, putting himself to use and hanging up a shirt.
"What's the date?" Otto squinted his eyes and furrowed his brow. I knew this face well; it was the one he wore in the event of slight annoyance, confusion, or the occasional amusement.
"All that yelling just to know the date?" He squinted to see the wall calendar hanging across the room. "April...I don't know I can't read the numbers."
"Where are your glasses?"
"I only need them for things far away and besides the glass-" he stopped mid-sentence. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" A high pitched siren stamped through the air, growing louder and louder until it was deafening.
"Come on!" Otto grabbed my arm, pulling me up the stairs as we ran out of the house. The sound was indescribable: like a train whistle, but higher and longer. Not quite like the police or the Gestapo's sirens; it was a unique and definite sound that dragged dazed and confused families from their homes in herds. I pressed my hands over my ears as the noise grew louder still, Otto guiding me by my shoulders to Angenehm street. Floods of people were moving down a series of stone steps, their heads disappearing below the pavement as they descended. My mind began to contemplate the situation as I stumbled onward. This was the air-raid shelter, a decent network of catacombs underneath the Angenehm street. But where were the planes?
"Keep moving," Otto's pensive voice broke my reverie, moving the two of us  like machines into the maze below. The world below the street was cool and shadowy. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of battery powered fixtures swaying from the ceiling, I took in the families staking claims against the stone walls of the winding passages. Everyone looked wet and confused. Babies cried, small children sat playing hand games with older siblings, parents and adults were huddled nearby in small groups, whispering amongst themselves. The air of apprehension hung thicker than steam in a kitchen.
Otto and I found a vacant corner and settled in for who knew how long. I rested my head on his shoulder.
"What's going to happen?" I asked. Otto shrugged, often a man of few words. He rarely carried a steady conversation when he didn't want to. He looped his arm around me. The protective embrace it provided me was enough of an answer; whatever happened we would be alright.
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We weren't stuck there for more than an hour or two, but it felt like an eternity. A uniformed officer appeared and kindly directed us to an exit. He smiled at me when pointing me to the stairs, but it seemed so false. He could have been one of the soldiers that-
No. I cut off the thought and continued on, holding Otto's hand as I walked.
"See? Just a drill." Otto said confidently as we turned onto the street. Mama and Papa were waiting for us when we got home.
"Where were you? We looked everywhere! Did you get to the shelter? Did you take anything with you?" They bombarded us with questions. We were at the air raid shelter. No, we didn't see you, sorry. No, we took nothing with us. Just like we had learned in school. Or, like I had learned in school. Otto was out of school, but pamphlets had come in the mail dictating instructions on what to do should there be a bombing. The yellow leaflets had been read and shoved next to the radio, where all the mail was kept. There was a knock at the door. Speaking of mail, I thought and began to stand.
"I've got it," Otto waved me down and hurried to the door. He greeted the mailman with polite conversation before closing the door. He flipped through it as he walked back in.
"Anything for me?" I asked, kneeling on the chair and craning my neck to see.
"Not yet," he continued to hand out letters and bills to Mama and Papa. "Nothing. Sorry, Alina."
"But what's that?" Otto still held a letter in his hands. A crisp white envelope with careful, perfect black hand writing.
"Who's is it?" I jumped from the chair and danced around him, trying to get a good look. He held it above his head; it was lost to me now.
"Mine, thank you! You can't reach it anyway, you're so short."
"I'm an inch taller now than I was!" It was true, 5'2" and don't you believe I was counting every one.
"Doesn't matter. You can't reach and it's my letter so back off!" With no option other than defeat, I sat back down with a huff.
"Some days I think it was easier when the two of you could not talk," Papa said with a twinkle in his eye. I chuckled, and for once, Mama showed the shadow of a smile. It was no larger than a Mona Lisa smile, but still, it was there.
"I forgot the laundry in the basement," I said and rose to go down stairs. The laundry was dry, most of it wrinkled from sitting in the basket. I sighed, perfect, just one more thing. Leaving the wrinkled heap in a basket to iron, my second basket full of dry clothes from the line makes me waddle like an over sized penguin. Dragging it up the stairs and into my room was a little more daunting and tipsy, but I make it in one piece. As I fold, the soft crinkling of paper makes my ears perk up. Someone sighs deeply, and the paper crinkles again. A few minutes pass, the someone begins pacing the room. The steps are without Mama's lightness and Papa's limp, so they have to be Otto's. I walk across the hall and tap on the door. There's no response, but I enter anyway, very little is secret between us.
"What did it say?" My voice comes out much higher and softer than usual. Otto turns as if noticing my presence for the first time, but does not object, just shrugs.
"Read it if you want, I don't care."
NOTICE OF CONSCRIPTION it proclaimed in big black letters. I scanned it, not really deeply reading the contents. Funny how such a neat letter can cause such a mess. I practically fall onto the bed, not really having felt my legs move me from the door to my brother's side. I barely hear him tell me how everything will be alright, that he'll send money home, that it won't be for very long.
"Alina? Alina you haven't said anything, tell me what you're thinking." I shrugged.
"We could write." He bit his lip and sighed.
"I probably won't write a lot of letters." he said.
"A lot doesn't matter to me." Did he not see it? That tonight changed everything? That those letters, few as they may be, were my life line to him? In a week, the likelihood of the two of us seeing each other again was going to plummet. Couldn't he write? To say that he was well? So I could tell him what was happening at home? Didn't he know how much I cared about him? Just a letter? Once a month would be enough for me, just to hear from him! I knew better than to press him, to ask again, to explain my thoughts, feelings. The more I pressed him the more I would be driving him away. So I nodded.
"Whatever you think is best." I said and left the room. It was amazing to think how a few notes, a sentence here, a phrase there, just a letter, could build and preserve, yet destroy and crumble everything in its path.