Herr Finkham arrived at the Blue House in April 1918. He could not walk through the red door. He was carried from the ambulance into the living room. Mutti hovered. Agatha and Sarah were silent. They had never seen their father so vulnerable. Herr Finkham smiled weakly. Frau Bleich returned his smile, understanding.
Looking at his grey face, Mutti asked, “Shatz, are you in pain?”
“Not so much now. I am healing.”
“This is healing?” blurted out Sarah, noting how his right leg was small and shriveled compared to his left.
Herr Finkham smiled thinly. “Yes, shatz.”
Sarah could not contain herself. Even though she was not yet a doctor, she began shouting like one. “We shall make a temporary bedroom in the downstairs study. You can wash in the kitchen. You must exercise every day. Try to stand. The bone will strengthen as you put weight on it. Stretch the muscles. You must massage the leg and hip every day to get the blood flowing into the damaged tissue. Every hour place warm towels on the leg and hip. Warm, not hot. You do not want a burn. Let the warmth bring fresh blood so the leg and hip can heal.
I will stay with you.”
“You will not,” retorted Mutti. “You have your studies.”
“Agatha and I can stay with you to help.”
“We are two old ladies. We sleep. We read. We have time,” laughed Agatha. Frau Bleich returned the laughter as if there was a joke between them that no one else knew.
Agatha could see the relief on Mutti’s face. “Running the fish auction is very demanding. I could use your help.”
“I will be no bother,” said Herr Finkham quickly. “I will strengthen, with the fish and the sea.” It was only Sarah who saw that Herr Finkham winced when he said that.
“Then it is settled,” said Frau Bleich. “Agatha and I will stay for as long as you need. Sarah will return to Berlin to study.”
At that moment, Frau Kochin called them to the kitchen to eat. She had prepared gefilte fish because no bread, butter or milk was needed, just the Nordsee bounty, the ingredients from Mutti’s garden and matzi. “We eat it when we left Egypt. Herr Finkham can eat it when he returns home.” She smiled.
Agatha, Sarah and Frau Bleich tried to be polite, but they gobbled up their meal, particularly the fish. Protein was a luxury they did not see in Berlin every day. Mutti noted. “Do you need me to send fish more than once a month?”
“Yes,” they said in unison. “More salmon,” gulped Sarah.
It was only then that Mutti noted how thin they had become since she had last seen them. She looked down. “We are blessed by Nordsee.”
When Mutti and Herr Finkham were alone, Herr Finkham allowed Mutti to look at his right side. The truth was revealed. The flesh of his right leg was wasted. His right hip protruded forward. The muscles on the right of his back were so taunt they twisted. The flesh was blackened, months after the accident. Mutti’s breath sharpened. “Oh, Shatz.”
“I have not seen the wound. Is it bad?”
“It is not good,” Mutti laughed, breaking the tension. “We will manage.” She tenderly covered the leg.
“So many boys, shatz. Boys I trained. Cut down like sausages.”
“Herr Major has told me that you were very brave. They say you saved a whole detachment of men.”
“Boys, Marah. They were boys.”
“Boys.”
“I would have drown. One boy, named Fritz… he looked like Bella, too… picked me up by my hair after the cannon ran over me. He rolled me over, wiped the mud from my mouth. I would have died. He died a minute later. His body stayed next to me, until the hill was won, and they took me away. He had blond hair, like Bella.
“Our war was supposed to last months, not years. It was only to teach France, and England and Russia that they could not surround Germany like a dog. No civilians were to die. Few soldiers, at most. But our Great War lasted so long they sent men like me to fight. I am old, shatz. Now, I am broken, but I am alive. So many boys died. English boys, French boys. Russian boys. German boys. A world where men do not protect their boys but use them as cannon fodder. That world is not a place I want to be, shatz.”
Herr Finkham was silent. Mutti was silent.
“I am to be award the Iron Cross, second class,” Herr Finkham said finally, staring ahead.
“Well, that is something, shatz.”