Mother sat rocking the infant in her lap, its eyes heavy and losing the struggle against gravity. Mother was wearing a full–length black dress and laced shoes. In a wicker and steel–framed Frankonia stroller beside her, another infant slept beneath a pale blue blanket.
Father sat cross–legged on the sofa, holding his ornately carved nicotine–stained Meerschaum pipe in his mouth. He stared at Mother through the fragrantly spiced smoky haze, his eyes resolute, his dark suit immaculate.
Ingrid walked sombrely into the room in a knee–length pale green dress, hands clasped together in front of her waist, a beret perched at a jaunty angle on her head.
“May I please go into Inez’s bedroom?” Ingrid asked.
“The door should be locked,” Father said sharply, looking accusingly at Mother.
“Yes, Ernst.” Mother rocked the infant with greater enthusiasm as it began to stir in her lap, its fingers opening and then closing again as if grasping at something invisible.
Father turned to Ingrid. “Please, Inga, your sister is gone. I will clear her room before I—”
“I will clear her room while you are away,” Mother interrupted.
Father clasped the pipe between his teeth again as he contemplated Mother with a disdainful look. “Do not keep things, Ute,” he warned her.
“There are some special things in Inez’s room that are mine,” Ingrid protested, gently stamping her flat–soled black pump on the floor.
Father sat forward. “Enough! We will not mention Inez’s name in this house again, understand?”
Ingrid’s chin wobbled as she looked to Mother.
“Ssshhh, Ernst, you will wake the child.”
“Don’t ssshh me, that is not even my child.”
Mother looked at him with large doleful eyes, resignation in her body posture as she rocked the infant. “Well who is to care for her child now, Ernst?”
Father stood up and walked away from Mother. In the far corner of the room Dieter sat on the floor in khaki shorts and a loose flannel shirt held up by braces. He was setting up rows of lead soldiers and watching as his coiled metal Slinky magically wormed its way along into his troops, knocking them over.
“The child must go for adoption,” Father said, back still turned to Mother.
Mother’s eyes widened as her cheeks sank inwards. “Ernst?”
He turned around, pipe in hand. “I will not have that… that Jewish child in my house.” He gesticulated towards the sleeping infant in her lap.
“This is Inez’s son,” Mother pleaded.
“Yes, Papa, please… can’t we keep him?” Ingrid pleaded, moving to her mother’s side.
“That’s enough!” Father said, waving his pipe at Ingrid threateningly. “This does not involve you, Inga. Please, leave us, and take Dieter with you.”
“What have I done?” came the plaintive voice of little Dieter.
“Please, Papa,” Ingrid pleaded.
“Out!” Father pointed to the door with an outstretched arm, holding the smouldering pipe aloft.
Ingrid and Dieter left dutifully without a further whimper of protest. The infant in Mother’s lap began to stir and Mother made to unfasten her blouse and expose her breast.
“For God’s sake, Ute, not for the Jewish child,” Father said.
“What will you have me do?” Mother said, looking up at him, the infant now crying and reaching for her breast.
“That is for Otto,” Father said, pointing at her bosom. “This Jewish child must go.”
“It is all we have left of Inez.”
Father’s head spun back to confront Mother. “We have nothing left of her. She is gone, do you understand? Dead.”
Mother’s eyes stared at him, hurt and loss crumpling the edges of her composure. “You would abandon your own grandchild?” she asked softly, “He looks so like Otto.”
Father slumped back down on the sofa and crossed his legs. “He is a Jew, Ute, he is not my grandchild.” He contemplated Mother and the infant for a few moments. “We gassed children like that in Germany, remember? How do you expect me to raise one now as my own? I will be a laughing stock.”
Mother’s gaze faltered and she looked down at the screwed–up little infant’s face she was denying as she buttoned up her blouse.
“I will not do it, Ute. The child must go.”
Otto now began to stir in the pram, soon bawling lustily.
“Look what you’ve done,” Mother chastised Father.
Father stood up.
“Please just pick Otto up for me and see if he’ll settle. He hasn’t slept long enough,” Mother said.
“I’m going to pack.” Father walked to the door and then paused. “I am very serious, Ute: when I return from Etosha in two months’ time I want that child gone.” He brandished the pipe menacingly at the infant in Mother’s lap, as if he was holding a pistol.
Mother sat in stunned silence, a solitary tear clinging desperately to each lower eyelid, gently bouncing one crying infant on her knee as a beetroot–faced Otto bawled from his pram. Ingrid entered the room cautiously.
“Oh, Inga, please pick Otto up,” Mother said.
“Where’s Father going?” Ingrid said as she cuddled Otto against her shoulder, gently patting his back.
Mother sighed. “He’s off on a hunting trip to Etosha with some of his Otjiwarongo friends.”
“How long will he be gone?” Ingrid asked.
“Quite a long while.”
Ingrid walked around in a contained circle, rocking Otto, whose crying had abated. “Can we clear Inez’s room together then please?” Ingrid’s eyes filled with tears. “There are things I want to keep.”
Mother smiled sadly and swallowed. “Of course, Inga. Just don’t tell your father. It’ll be our secret.”
Ingrid tried to smile, but her eyes were drawn to the cherubic face of her dead sister’s child. “What are we going to do with Johan?”
Mother’s face crumpled together as her chin quivered. “I don’t know, Ingrid. I just don’t know.”
Dieter sat dutifully in the rocky sand, scuffing his black shoes back and forth. He was wearing a double–breasted jacket over his braces, seemingly dressed for Sunday school. He drew patterns in the dust with a finger. Close by Otto and Johan crawled about, inspecting flowers and wreaths and turning over everything they encountered.
Mother, in her black dress, knelt beside the mournful mound of barren Lüderitz soil piled on top of Inez’s fresh grave. Ingrid stood behind her, hand on Mother’s shoulder. They both cried, tears rolling down Ingrid’s cheeks and dripping onto the parched earth.
“I miss her so much, Mum,” Ingrid sobbed and sniffed, wiping at her wet face with the other hand. “Why did this happen?”
“Put that down, Otto,” Mother said, turning her head to see what the two crawling infants were up to.
Ingrid walked over and removed the plastic wreath from Otto’s resolute grasp.
“I am so sorry, Inez my dear,” Mother said, speaking to the mound of earth as though her daughter could hear her. “We’ve come to say goodbye. Little Johan is leaving us.” Her shoulders shuddered and she looked down, pinching the bridge of her nose as she winced, trying stoically to suppress her sobs. “I cannot do anything, I’m so sorry. It’ll be for the best, I’m sure.”
Mother placed the palm of her hand on the soil tenderly. “Say goodbye to your mama, Johan.” She began to sob openly, wailing in embarrassment, trying to hide her miserable face from Ingrid.
Johan suddenly let out a piercing cry, more like a scream, and did not relent. The tear–streaked faces of Ingrid and Mother turned sharply towards him. In his lap lay a bunch of flowers. His face was turning red, like a poached tomato, as his lungs squeezed chilling cries from his gaping, wet mouth.
“It’s OK, baby,” Ingrid said and bent to lift him.
He cried even more, his eyes staring around fearfully, his mouth dripping saliva.
“What happened?” Mother said.
“I don’t know.”
“Put him in the pram. There’s a bottle of milk there.”
Mother turned back to the grave, rubbing her temples, gently rocking herself back and forth.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Dieter said, coming up to his mother and pressing himself against her side.
“I’m very sad, my boy. But I’ll be alright,” Mother said and forced a smile for Dieter, rubbing his nose playfully.
Ingrid laid Johan down in the pram and rocked him gently, plugging his mouth with the bottle of milk. He cried and cried.
“It’s as if he knows,” Ingrid said, turning to glance at the grave and Mother’s hunched profile.
Soon Johan calmed and fell silent. Ingrid knelt down beside Mother and stared at the mound of earth. So emphatic. So final.
“Every morning when I first wake up, I forget that she’s gone. My heart does not ache straight away. Then suddenly… I remember,” Ingrid said, her eyes filling with tears. “Every day, it’s the same.”
“Look, Mama, a giant spider!” Dieter said excitedly. He was pointing at something, his face a blend of fascination and horror.
Ingrid glanced across to where Dieter stood and went to investigate. What she saw chilled her blood. “Oh my God, Mum. It’s a scorpion!”
Scurrying away on hideous yellow–orange legs towards an adjacent headstone was a black scorpion, its long body covered with fine hairs. Behind it lay bunches of fresh flowers from Inez’s grave. Ingrid screamed and covered her mouth with one hand. Then she pulled Dieter out of harm’s way.
“Oh my!” Mother said, now standing, her deadpan face apparently mesmerised by the size of the scorpion. “Oh my…”
“Is it a spider?” Dieter said.
Otto came crawling along to the flowers, reaching out.
“No!” Ingrid shouted, grabbing him by the arm and lifting him away.
He cried out in protest and perhaps some pain as he dangled in Ingrid’s grasp. In a flash of simultaneous deduction, Mother and Ingrid both turned to the silent pram. Mother began to wail as she rushed towards it. When she reached the pram the haunting sound of visceral suffering that she was emitting suddenly intensified.
“No, no, nooo…” Mother screamed as she lifted the blue and floppy body of Johan out of the pram. “Oh God, noooo…”
Ingrid, feeling weak at the knees, stared in shock, still holding Dieter’s hand. She lifted Otto up to her shoulder as both he and Dieter began to cry, frightened by what they did not understand.
“We need Father,” Ingrid said, staring at Mother for affirmation.
But Mother flopped back hard onto the mound of fresh earth on Inez’s grave, shaking her head, Johan’s lifeless body in her embrace. She sobbed, her tears wetting the infant’s purple face and glassy eyes. It was as though Ingrid was afraid to go near Mother and the dead child. She kept her distance, holding Otto as she knelt beside Dieter, comforting them both as they all stared at Mother, howling in heart–wrenching salvos. It was too shocking for Ingrid to comprehend, as though her mind was shutting down in self–defence. Dieter pawed at her shoulder, rivulets of snot running down his upper lip.
“What’s happened?” Dieter asked, looking at Ingrid with naive innocence.
Ingrid did not know how to respond, and she pulled Dieter closer to her as he pushed his thumb into his mouth. Rising up from the shore was a wall of leaden fog, obliterating both horizon and sky, approaching fast, soon to swallow Lüderitz and all its misery.
“This is all your father’s fault,” Ingrid said softly, and kissed Otto on the head. Inside, she felt cold. Her tears had dried up. Her eyes burned from staring at Mother’s broken body holding Johan.