The Photographer E-Book

Meike Ziervogel

• Herausgeber: Salt
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 233

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Meike Ziervogel's new novel celebrates how humanity can thrive against all odds. Set at the end of the Second World War when eleven million Germans fled from east to west, The Photographer explores love and survival in a time of mass migration. Pomerania, 1933: Trude falls in love with Albert, a young photographer who takes her picture in the street. Her mother disapproves, and when war breaks out she arranges for Albert to be sent to the front. Eventually, Trude and Albert are reunited in a refugee camp near Hamburg. But now the couple face a new challenge: can they begin their relationship anew? In a Europe of ruined cities and refugee camps, Trude and Albert learn to respect each other's flaws and, in doing so, discover unexpected strengths.

Leseprobe

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

MEIKE ZIERVOGEL

Meike Ziervogel’s new novel celebrates how humanity can thrive against all odds.

Set at the end of the Second World War when eleven million Germans fled from east to west, The Photographer explores love and survival in a time of mass migration.

Pomerania, 1933: Trude falls in love with Albert, a young photographer who takes her picture in the street. Her mother disapproves, and when war breaks out she arranges for Albert to be sent to the front. Eventually, Trude and Albert are reunited in a refugee camp near Hamburg. But now the couple face a new challenge: can they begin their relationship anew?

In a Europe of ruined cities and refugee camps, Trude and Albert learn to respect each other’s flaws and, in doing so, discover unexpected strengths.

About the author

Meike Ziervogel grew up in Germany and came to Britain in 1986. Her debut novel Magda was shortlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize and nominated as a book of the year 2013 by the Irish Times, Observer and Guardian readers. Meike’s second and third novel, Clara’s Daughter (2014) and Kauthar (2015), were both published to critical acclaim. Meike is the publisher of Peirene Press.

Praise for this book

Book of the Week ‘Meike Ziervogel’s The Photographer is a beautiful and moving work of art, told in a series of vivid and visual chapters like snapshots. With its underlying message of acceptance, forgiveness and hope, The Photographer should be an obligatory teen-read on every school curriculum. It is a perfect book to kick off a book club. Buy it and see.’ —Georgia de Chamberet, BookBlast Diary

‘The Photographer has that wonderful combination of being dense with reading, yet with an openness to the writing. The novel is structured like a photo album: whole lives are narrated, but intermittently. Some events are told in detail; others have to be inferred by the reader; still others are so private that they don’t appear on the page. This is a novel of history as something lived through and looked back on, vivid incidents scattered among the threads of life.’ —David Hebblethwaite, David’s Book World

‘The writing is spare yet strikingly affective, touching the essence of each individual with precision. This is an impressive work of literary fiction that remains compelling and accessible. Like fine wine, it is best savoured and shared.’ —Bookmunch

‘Ziervogel’s plot is consciously elliptic, full of inscrutable silences, screaming questions (or accusations) and glaring absences. She succeeds in transcribing both the guttural, monistic psychology of pre-war Germans but also the mechanics of how they were precipitated into a void so irrefutably full of human presence – of all sorts. Refusing to edit or beautify through elaborate framing, she would rather capture the moment as it happens, in its ineluctable fragmentary sequence. As a novel, this reads powerfully, intriguingly, engagingly. As a human record, it has a depth of uniqueness, a perspective not often acknowledged: that of anonymous, inconsequential, commonplace Germany during the first half of the 20th century, and the exceptional, undeniable value of singular, individual lives.’ —Bookanista

The Photographer

Meike Ziervogel grew up in Germany and came to Britain in 1986. Her debut novel Magda was shortlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize and nominated as a book of the year 2013 by the Irish Times, Observer and Guardian readers. Meike’s second and third novel, Clara’s Daughter (2014) and Kauthar (2015), were both published to critical acclaim. Meike is the publisher of Peirene Press.

Published by Salt Publishing Ltd

International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN United Kingdom

All rights reserved

Copyright © Meike Ziervogel, 2017

The right of Meike Zirvogel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Salt Publishing.

Salt Publishing 2017

Created by Salt Publishing Ltd

This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 978-1-78463-115-4 electronic

To my grandparents:Heinrich & Lotte Arnold & Lisbeth

PART I: HOME

Child’s Play

Once upon a time there was a German town in Pomerania, a medieval fortress with four gates and eight towers. In the middle of the town stood the biggest church in the region, Marienkirche. Our story starts one morning in the early spring of 1920. In an apartment not far from Karowscher Park lives five-year-old Trude. Her mother is a seamstress and her father a carpenter. He fought in the Great War and came home with a wound in his chest and three missing toes.

Trude has woken up early. The birds outside are still asleep. She is kneeling in front of the bed, pulling a little suitcase out from underneath. She unbuckles the belt, lifts the lid and starts to pack. Pants, vests and, her most precious possession, a red nightie with puffed sleeves. Her mother made it but the girl has not worn it yet because she worries that it will crease. Her woollen socks. She doesn’t need any outdoor clothes; they won’t be much use where she is going. Trude tries to remember the images from the film. The beautiful lady was wearing a lace nightie with wide tulle sleeves, and her shoulders were covered in a delicately knitted shawl with two bobbles at the front. Asta Nielsen – that’s the name of the actress. The film is old, her mother said, from before the war. But Trude didn’t mind because Asta Nielsen looked like an angel in that shawl. Trude needs something like it, something she can put around her shoulders so she won’t get cold while she is sitting in the hospital bed. She has no shawl, but she does have a cardigan. She will drape it around her shoulders like Frau Knopf, who lives in the big villa. What else? Asta Nielsen embroidered while she sat in bed. Trude doesn’t like needlework and isn’t much good at it either. How about taking a book instead? Her mother could read her stories. After all, she will of course be lying in the bed next to her daughter’s. Having a baby in hospital is very chic indeed. Only ladies in the movies have theirs in hospital. And Trude’s mother. Trude fetches her fairy-tale book with the big pictures that look like real paintings. And her comb. Then she closes the suitcase and pushes it back under the bed.

She doesn’t know what else to do. Wouldn’t it be nice if the baby came today? It’s Sunday and Sundays are always boring. If the baby came today at least something exciting would happen. Mummy’s tummy is already quite big. Mummy and Daddy want a boy. They wanted a boy before, but then Trude came along instead and her father had to go to war. Trude walks into the corridor and stands in front of her parents’ bedroom. She doesn’t want to be alone any longer. She opens the door and scurries up to her mother’s side.

‘Mummy,’ she whispers.

Agatha opens her eyes.

‘Is the baby coming today?’

‘Today? No, not today.’

‘When is it coming?’

‘I don’t know, Trude. Babies come when they want to come. Go back to bed. It’s too early to get up.’

Agatha closes her eyes again. For a moment Trude looks at her sleeping mother, then she returns to her room. It’s lovely and warm underneath the duvet. Her feet have got cold. She curls up, pulls the cover up to her nose and goes back to sleep.

‘Where’s my mummy?’

Trude is standing at the door to the kitchen.

At the table Frau Silberstiel is sitting with Lotte on her lap, feeding her porridge. Frau Silberstiel lives next door. Mummy says Frau Silberstiel is strange. She is Jewish. But she has a good heart. She always looks after children whose mothers are too young to have them. Lotte is not her real baby either. The parents of the young women give Frau Silberstiel money to look after the babies, Trude’s mother says.

‘Where is my mummy?’ repeats Trude. A funny feeling is creeping into her tummy.

Lotte, on the other hand, is as happy as a lark. She flashes huge smiles at Trude, her face covered in porridge – there is even some stuck on her big forehead. The woman puts another spoonful in front of the toddler’s mouth, which opens like that of a little bird, while Lotte’s face is still turned towards the door.

‘Well done,’ Frau Silberstiel coos. Then she looks at Trude.

‘Get dressed. I’ll make you breakfast.’

‘Where is my mummy?’ Tears well up in the girl’s eyes.

‘Your mother had to go to hospital. She’ll be back soon.’

Lotte gurgles and laughs, and the porridge runs out of her mouth and down her chin.

‘But . . . but,’ splutters Trude. Why didn’t Mummy wake her up?

The girl turns on her heels, runs into her room, drags out the suitcase from under the bed. There is no time to get dressed. She marches out of the room, along the corridor. She knows what to do. She will get to the hospital on her own. Her mother has always said that she, Trude, will be the first to hold the baby.

‘What are you doing, young lady?’ Frau Silberstiel, with Lotte perched on her hip, has appeared at the kitchen door.

Trude is sitting on the floor, putting on her boots. The woman’s towering frame does not deter the girl from her task. She tightens the lace of the second boot, stands up, takes her coat from the low hook that her father carved for her in the form of Snow White with a couple of her dwarfs. Frau Silberstiel puts Lotte down on the floor. Trude buttons her coat while she keeps an eye on the fat toddler waddling towards her. Before Trude has time to move, Lotte has wrapped her short arms around her, Trude’s, legs. With a forceful movement of her hand, Trude pushes the pest away. Lotte falls to the floor, holding her breath for a moment, flabbergasted. Then she wails.

Without losing any more time, Trude picks up the suitcase and turns to the door. Frau Silberstiel’s hand grasps the girl’s thin arm, trying to pull her away. But Trude is holding on to the handle with all her might. Dropping the suitcase from her other hand and wrestling herself free from the woman’s grip, she pushes down on the handle with both hands. The door’s locked! Frau Silberstiel’s fingers are already trying to pull the key out of the lock when Trude bends forward and bites. She hears something crunching as her teeth hit bone. Horrified, she opens her mouth. Frau Silberstiel pulls out the key. Trude didn’t want to hurt Frau Silberstiel. She just wants to help her mother with the baby in hospital. ‘You will help me with the new baby, won’t you?’ her mother had said. Frau Silberstiel’s face is now turning red in rage and pain. Lotte sits behind them on the floor, howling.

‘Into your room!’ Frau Silberstiel hides the key in her fist, briefly examining the blood-flecked tooth marks on the back of her hand.

Shocked by her own deed, Trude hasn’t moved.

‘That’s enough. Children don’t belong in hospitals.’ The woman stares angrily at Trude, feeling the throbbing wound on her hand. Frau Weiss has mentioned before what a nuisance her daughter can be. But she, Frau Silberstiel, has never seen it with her own eyes. Until now. She has only ever known Trude as a rather quiet and shy girl.

Trude’s head is hanging forward, big tears falling on to her brown, unpolished boots.

‘I want to see my mummy,’ she sobs.

Suddenly, as if pushed by a force beyond herself, she turns again to the door, kicking and hammering her fist against it.

‘Let me out!’ The door shakes. ‘Let me out!’

Trude screams as loudly as she can, until a hand places itself over her mouth and her feet are lifted off the floor. For a fleeting second, with ferocious determination, the girl keeps hold of the handle, but she is too weak to resist being pulled backwards. She has to let go. Frau Silberstiel puts Trude down, but not for long enough for the girl to understand what is happening to her. The woman forces her arms under Trude’s and crosses her forearms in front of the girl’s chest, holding Trude tight. She begins to drag her along the corridor.

‘Let me go!’ the girl screams, trying to throw her body from side to side.

And then. Suddenly. She sees it.

At once she freezes.

The door to her parents’ bedroom has swung open: the bed still unmade, the covers lying carelessly crumpled at the bottom, half on the floor. On the mother’s side there is a huge bloodstain. Trude has never seen so much blood before. Her mother must have bled to death. What have they done to Trude’s mummy?

Frau Silberstiel jostles the girl towards her room. Trude is in such a state of shock that for a few steps she doesn’t resist. She is pushed into her room and, before she has time to straighten herself up, the door is pulled shut with a bang and the key turned from the outside.

Trude cowers against the door, her legs pulled in to her chest. She holds on to them tightly. For a while she cries silently, but then she stops. Crying is no use. She has to save herself. And Lotte. Of course she has to save the little girl. Trude is no wicked person who would leave a small child in the hands of a witch. And she’s now convinced that Frau Silberstiel is a wicked witch. That’s why her mother always says that Frau Silberstiel is strange. Trude is courageous. And her father will come back and rescue them. She only saw blood on her mother’s side of the bed. Her mother might be dead and the baby too. No, not the baby. Babies always survive: they scream and breathe and kick. Trude has already seen the baby kicking against her mother’s tummy and felt its little heel. It must have hurt. The girl is certain that the baby is alive and her father too. That’s how it works in fairy tales. The father always survives, like in Cinderella’s story. He’s probably burying the mother. And soon a beautiful hazel bush will grow on her mother’s grave. Trude looks just like Cinderella in the picture in her book. And now she is cowering against the door, lonely and forsaken, just like Cinderella. Abandoned by everyone and kicked by the wicked Frau Silberstiel. But Trude will survive. After all, Cinderella survived and married a beautiful prince.

The girl enjoys the new role. She tousles her hair and lies down on her side, pushing her back up against the door and pulling her legs in tight to her chest. A cold draught comes through the bottom of the door. It penetrates the coat that she is still wearing. Cinderella must have felt just like this while lying in the cold ashes.

The front door opens, then slams shut; the key is turned from the outside. Trude can hear Frau Silberstiel’s steps on the wooden stairs. After that, total silence.

Trude has turned to stone. She has never ever in her entire life lain that still.

Something has happened. Frau Silberstiel has murdered Lotte. And she will return to get Trude.

Frau Silberstiel has killed everyone: her mother, the baby and Lotte too. She eats little children. In fact, that’s why she looks after them. Only Trude and her father are still alive. But where is Daddy? Carefully, so as not to make any scraping noise, she pulls her knees a few centimetres higher.

A horse neighs in the street below. Terrified, Trude halts mid-movement. But nothing else happens.

The draught from under the door has got worse. The bed. She has to get into bed. And hide beneath the blanket. Like in a cave. She’ll be safe there. When Trude dreams of ghosts and monsters at night, she knows she’ll be safe as long as she stays totally hidden. Sometimes the monsters are everywhere, but they can’t get to her as long as she stays beneath the duvet. The trick, however, is that nothing, absolutely nothing, is allowed to show, not a corner of her nightie, not a single hair, not a toe. But now the bed seems so far away. At the other end of the room. And she doesn’t dare look too closely in case the monsters are lurking beneath it.

The danger is not only prowling outside the room but has already entered it. Because Frau Silberstiel is a witch and witches practise black magic, Frau Silberstiel or Frau Silberstiel’s helper might already be under the bed. And it’s only because Trude hasn’t moved yet that they don’t realize she is here. She tries to make herself even smaller by pulling in her tummy, to make herself blend in with the floor or the door. That’s probably also why Frau Silberstiel hasn’t killed her after murdering Lotte. Witches always have weak eyesight and a bad memory, so she has simply forgotten that Trude is here.

Then, without any further thought, Trude jumps to her feet, runs across the room, throws herself into bed, pulls the duvet over her head, holding on tightly from the inside. She curls up. With her free hand she smooths her hair to ensure that not a single strand escapes. She pulls her coat tighter around her body and her knees higher and lowers her chin on to them. She has turned into a little ball, closed within itself so that evil can no longer touch her or harm her.

The fear starts to evaporate. But not for long. As it returns, Trude focuses all her energy on keeping her little ball of safety intact, pushing her chin as hard as possible against her knees, while trying not to breathe, so that the up and down movement of the cover doesn’t betray her.

When the mattress shakes, she screams. She screams so loudly that she can’t hear anything else. She holds her hands over her ears, presses her eyes shut. Only her mouth stays wide open. Whatever might happen now, she doesn’t want to know. She kicks. She notices the duvet slipping off her body. The cold embraces her. Then she feels a hand on her hips and she screams even more loudly, and presses her hands even harder against her ears, squeezes her eyes shut even tighter, kicks more ferociously and throws her head wildly from side to side. Another hand takes hold of her wrist, wants to pull the hand away from her ear. Never! She will not allow that to happen. If the monster wants to gobble her up, tear her apart, so be it, but she will not watch that happening to herself. Never! The hand keeps hold of Trude’s wrist. It is a strong hand. Eventually, she can no longer stop her hand being removed from her ear.

‘Trude, you are dreaming. Calm down.’

She hears the words, but she doesn’t want to understand them.

‘Trude!’

The voice is stronger now, more determined. She recognizes it. She stops kicking, suddenly lying motionless. Her eyes are still shut but she is no longer screaming. The hand releases her wrist and she can press her palms against her ears again. Which she does, but no longer as firmly. They rest loosely at the side of her face.

She opens her eyes.

‘Mummy.’

In one movement she sits up and throws both arms around her mother’s neck.

For a moment Agatha sits immobile on the edge of her daughter’s bed, then she too hugs the girl tightly. Trude weeps on her mother’s shoulder. Finally there is no need to hold back her tears any longer.

‘You had a bad dream.’

Trude lifts her head, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. She shakes her head, sobbing: ‘No, I didn’t dream. Frau Silberstiel . . . Frau Silberstiel was really mean . . . and . . . and . . .’ She searches for words to express the horror of what has happened. Her mother is clearly still alive. But what about the baby?

‘I asked Frau Silberstiel to look after you.’

Trude shakes her head. Then her glance falls on her mother’s tummy. The tummy is still there but it looks somehow different. Smaller.

‘She . . . she . . .’

‘Frau Silberstiel had to shut you in your room because you wanted to run away.’

Doesn’t her mother understand? Doesn’t she know? Trude edges away, pressing herself against the wall but keeping her eyes firmly on the funny-looking tummy. Her mother, Trude now notices, doesn’t look normal either. She looks like a ghost. So pale.

‘Is the baby still in there?’

Her mother shakes her head.

‘Where is the baby?’ Trude’s tone is defiant. She can’t allow herself to show fear. Something is not right. ‘There was a lot of blood,’ she adds.

‘It’s all clean now. And the baby is next door.’

Her mother doesn’t look happy about the baby at all.

‘Did Frau Silberstiel do that?’

‘What? Clean up?’

The girl shakes her head. ‘No. Make you bleed.’

‘Of course not.’

Her mother’s voice sounds strange. As if she isn’t telling the truth.

‘I still think Frau Silberstiel is mean.’

‘Trude, listen to me. Frau Silberstiel is not mean. She is a kind woman. I’ve explained to her that you are a bit of a scaredy-cat and that your imagination runs wild. She understands, but you will never repeat the performance from this morning. Is that clear?’

Trude nods. Secretly, however, she decides to watch Frau Silberstiel closely from now on. Because only she knows what Frau Silberstiel is really like.

Every now and again Trude nods, smiles, moves her lips as if she is saying something, responding to something. As if she is holding a conversation. But not a word can be heard. She leans forward, pretending to serve tea, pouring it from a delicate white china pot into an even more delicate china cup. She picks up the air-saucer and guides her air-cup to her mouth, holding the handle between thumb and index finger with her little finger out straight. She is an elegant lady. She is wearing her red nightie with the puffed sleeves. They are having a picnic. She is chatting to a prince, whose horse is tied up by a tree. The prince is in love with her. She, too, is in love with the prince. Soon they will get married. And then they will live happily ever after, smiling at each other like the dancer dressed as a prince and the beautiful ballerina in the photograph that her friend Ilse had given her. ‘From Paris,’ Ilse told Trude. Ilse’s uncle visited Paris. Trude has hidden the photograph in a metal box behind the chicken coop at the bottom of the garden. It’s her secret.

From the corner of her eye Trude is watching her mother, who is now leaving her sewing and walking over to the wooden crib where the baby lay for a few days. Her mother often walks over to the crib, kneels down beside it and rocks it gently, humming a song – a song that Trude doesn’t know. A lovely, sad song only for the dead baby. Her mother crouches by the empty crib for a long time. In the meantime the prince has mounted his horse again. He’s approaching Trude, who is still sitting on the floor under the big table in her mother’s sewing room, and from his horse he bends down towards her and offers her his hand. Trude doesn’t move, waiting for her mother to return to her sewing work. Finally her mother gets up. She holds her arms as if carrrying a baby and she sits on the sofa. For the few days that the baby, the real baby, was there, it was always asleep. ‘Not like you, Trude. You used to scream until you turned blue in the face.’ Her mother is now opening the buttons of her blouse. She puts a little bowl into her lap, leans forward and squeezes the milk out. Then she leans back and closes her eyes. When the baby used to suck on her mother’s breast, the sucking noise travelled right across the room, to underneath the table where Trude was sitting. It made a lot of noise. Trude is never allowed to make such a noise at mealtimes. But no one seemed to mind with her little brother. ‘He is such a good boy,’ Trude’s mother would say. ‘He sleeps and drinks and doesn’t cause any trouble. With you, Trude, it was a different story.’

Trude turns away from the sight of her mother. The prince is still holding out his hand. The girl smiles and places her hand in his. In one big sweep he lifts her up on to his horse and sets her down in front of him. But not straddled across, like men and farmers and poor people; no, like a princess, with both legs to one side. She feels his strong arms encircling her from the left and the right, so that he can hold the reins in front of her.

The Arrival of the Prince

A real prince did eventually arrive in Trude’s life, but it took a few years. In the meantime, her father died of the war wound in his chest and her mother became a respected seamstress, counting the wives of town notables such as lawyers and doctors among her clients.

So, one sunny Sunday afternoon shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Trude was strolling along Nightingale Walk when, from afar, she spotted a young man sitting on a bench beneath the old maple tree.

Albert is smoking a cigarette. His camera is on the tripod next to him. Business has been good today. Lots of young families out for a Sunday stroll enjoy having their picture taken. He will have to work through the night to develop all the photographs in time. Most customers want them as quickly as possible.

He takes another drag and then leans back, his face turned upwards. Perfect smoke rings escape slowly from his mouth.