The fire sputters. The fisherman’s cottage lies on the northern edge of a small cobblestone square called Apolonienmarkt. Dark thatched eaves cap the roof, swinging down at sharp angles toward the ground. The four-square windows and fading-green shutters distinguish it from the other houses on the square. Even though it is not in any way grand, with its long sloping roof and the small central window above the front door, it is the biggest house on the square, a sign of the status the family once enjoyed. By the late 1800s the Heilstrom men had built up a successful export business, managing the distribution of thousands of tons of fish to large mainland cities throughout Germany. But after the Great War the family’s holdings dwindled, eventually leaving nothing of their business but the one fish shop in Saargen, gone almost a year now.
Wearing old wool pants, workman’s boots inherited from the butcher’s son, and a wool sweater, Bettina shivers in the early-morning coolness. With the entire year to go and only forty-three points left out of one hundred on her ration card, she has to manage with whatever garments she can sew or scrounge up. The kitchen faces northwest and has a window looking out on a patch of lawn, hard as flint after the bitter winter, and a small shed for the chickens. It is a utilitarian kitchen, painted pale blue with speckled honeycomb tiles on the floor and a trestle sink. There is a compact table with a chipped enamel top around which the women of the house—her grandmother, her mother, Clara, Bettina, and sometimes an aunt or two from the mainland—used to knead batter for pumpernickel bread or stuff meat into cabbage. Now she is the only one left. The front room with its low-hanging beams and mullioned windows feels too big for her, and so the kitchen is where Bettina spends most of her time.
The radio drones and then barks on the countertop. It broadcasts constant, terrifying warnings about the Bolsheviks, and sometimes when there are noises on the cobblestones outside, Bettina imagines it’s the Red Army at her door, or perhaps stragglers from East Prussia fleeing the onslaught. The Führer promised them a swift victory, but it has long been clear that this is not to be the case. All the values Bettina and her neighbors have been taught to believe in—order, hard work, reliability—mean nothing anymore. No intelligent person can trust the media; everyone knows the Russians are advancing steadily westward, even if Goebbels denies it. Behind them they leave a trail of devastation; a scarred, barely recognizable landscape; and people so horrified by what they’ve seen and done that they no longer feel part of the human race. A neighbor’s son, Otto von Donnersberg, saw it with his own eyes on his endless overland journey home. Half-witted, he tells his tales of misery and horror, and people can barely bring themselves to believe him. Yet you can see from his dead eyes that the unthinkable is happening.
Bettina’s Ersatzkaffee long gone, the slightly bitter taste of the oak nuts lingering in her mouth, she heads into the dining room. She surveys the dishes from her grandmother glinting at her in the breakfront, thinking she should set the table today, her birthday. The blackout shades are still drawn, and the room is dark. Catching sight of a compact wooden dresser with swollen drawers next to the hutch, she has a sudden idea. After clearing a path to the door, she drags the dresser into the kitchen. There is a large hammer under the sink. Wielding the tool with both hands, she smashes it down on the dresser, again and again. At first, the hammer bounces back as though on a spring, but she doesn’t give up. Hitting the edges, she hears the first crack as the wood splits. Her long brown hair hangs loose, and moisture is accumulating at the base of her scalp. She peels off her sweater and continues pounding until the dresser has been smashed into long, irregular pieces.
Surveying the damage and the mess, she grins to herself, thinking how shocked her fastidious mother would have been. She gathers up some of the larger bits into a pile and places them by the back door; she will use those later. Then she tidies up the remaining wood, sweeping away the splinters and dust. Kneeling by the grate, she feeds the fire, little by little, until it blazes with warmth. The radio is tuned to a station playing music for the soldiers, and she turns up the volume.
And then—the song! Zarah Leander’s growling voice sings “Lili Marleen,” and Bettina begins mouthing the words to herself. Soon she is dancing, and then she is singing as loud as she can.
It is the story of lovers hoping to reunite under a lamppost by the barracks. A song that plays ceaselessly in homes and bars and even sometimes in the streets when someone opens their windows wide enough to let the notes fly through, sweeping over the cobbles and dirt tracks and touching the exhausted islanders with a rousing, familiar embrace. Bettina danced to this song with her boyfriend, Dieter, before he was conscripted, his long arms wrapped around her and his lean body—so thin, a young boy’s—pressed against hers. They kissed deeply and then laughed at their indiscretion, so certain of their future in spite of all the uncertainty around them. Bettina cannot listen to that rich, growling voice without remembering what conviction and pride felt like. She imagines herself a seductress or a lover, swaggering through a party, cocktail in hand, hope and lust and confidence transforming her into a beauty.
Bettina twirls around the small kitchen, crushing splinters of wood with her too-big boots, the music filling her up. The next song is faster, and she does a little jig. When Herbert Lange was courting her sister, Bettina and Dieter were sometimes allowed to tag along with them to the dance halls on Saturday nights. She would wear her favorite pumps, swinging herself from one eager man to the next until she was out of breath, muscles aching.
Everything had seemed possible back then. If she had been a little older and said yes to marrying Dieter before he left, maybe she would have a child to take care of now. A child—oh, the thought of a child. Would that be better or worse than being alone?
As dawn breaks, Bettina heads for the beach on her bicycle, her father’s camera bouncing on its leather cord around her neck. The streets are barely lit by the cool pink of a springtime sunrise, and vagrants are milling about, half-dead soldiers sleeping under trees and on sidewalks. It seems as though the whole world is on the move as the Russians march farther and farther west, ever closer to them. Her father’s last words to her as he lay dying had been, “Versteck dich, Bettinalein. Promise to hide.” But she can’t, not today. She badly needs to see the ocean again; she can’t stand being cooped up inside the house any longer. Bettina is willing to risk anything just to feel the sea breeze on her parched skin and taste salt in the back of her throat again.
A few fishermen have detangled their nets, hanging them to dry between long sticks. Bettina lifts the camera and looks down through the viewfinder, taking comfort in clicking the dial till everything comes into sharp focus. She presses the button, again and then again, even though the camera is empty of film. It has been years since she has been able to find thirty-five-millimeter cartridges. After a while she starts running, just so she can feel the wind against her arms and her legs, her neck and face. Her housedress flaps around her knees like wings beating against her skin. Close to the edge of the sea, she runs as fast as her feet will carry her, clutching the Rollei in both hands. Tar-covered debris littering the sand makes her footing clumsy, but she jumps over the pieces of wood, the twisted scraps of metal. She has become a woman, and she doesn’t quite know what this means yet. She runs until her side is pierced by a stitch and her breath comes in short, sharp bursts, and then unexpectedly her foot lands badly and she trips, falling spectacularly, flinging her arms out in front of her.