Lore Read Free Page A

the gently running tap, and the alkaline smell of the chemicals. He has the light on only when he is cleaning, likes to mix and load in the red of the safelight or the deep, rich dark. The portraits taken with the big studio camera are Gladigau’s forte, and neither Papi nor Helmut are allowed to touch the sheets once they have been exposed. However, Gladigau also experiments with the new cameras and their long spools of film, and because Helmut is thorough and methodical in his work, he is allowed to process these negatives. He winds the long rolls off patiently, fingers working skillfully without the aid of eyes. He times the baths well, after discussing the exposures with Gladigau, and the old man is pleased and proud of his apprentice’s understanding of the work. Although his employer always makes the prints himself, he does allow Helmut to do experiments of his own with leftover chemicals and discarded negatives. On slow afternoons, when the darkroom is free, Helmut teaches himself to printon scraps of thick photographic paper, which he seeks out of the darkroom shelves and drawers.
    In the cupboard in the small back toilet, under the bottles of developer and fixer, Helmut uncovers the American magazines that Gladigau has kept neatly folded in brown paper. The bolt has a screw missing, so Helmut sits with his boot wedged tight against the door. Black-and-white photos of women, draped in veils, in half-light. Helmut does not understand English, but he does understand the references to films, to f-stops, cameras, and lenses. German film and German cameras are the best, he knows, but these American women are very good, too. Rounded stomachs, small breasts, long, wide thighs. Some of the photos have been taken outside, and the women are swimming, their bodies rippling water and light.
    When he is not working, Helmut daydreams about his job. The subdued lighting, the running water, his rigid right leg. The white skin of the American women and the loose bolt on the toilet door. At night he conjures the images against his bedroom ceiling as the long, slow freight trains clatter below, a soothing rhythm of sleep.
    To the east, new land is found; old land is found again. So many things are better now: brighter, healthier, cleaner. Helmut sees it in his parents’ faces, knows it is enshrined in law. He feels it in his legs as he strides to the station; the freshness of spring and promise of summer tell him: larger, wider, stronger.
    He could be called and carried by it, and perhaps even cured.
    At eighteen, Helmut goes with three of the neighbors’ boys to the draft board. All of their faces tight, and eyes bright with the adventure that lies ahead. Despite his flushed cheeks, Helmut has a cloud in his belly which he cannot shift. The doctor is not unkind, and Helmut is glad of the private room, the two minutes’ grace he isgiven to blink back his boy’s tears. The other boys slap him hard on the back, tell him he’ll be in with them next time round. Perfect officer material. They don’t ask him to come and share a schnapps.
    He walks home, fast and by the back routes. Imagines each man he sees is on his way to the front, while he is going home to his mother. Helmut locks himself in his box room, stares out of the window, up at the sky over Berlin. He musn’t cry; that would be further humiliation. He knows Mutti is sitting tight and still in the next room, listening, guessing. His fists are balled tight in his blankets, and the windowpane swims shapes before his eyes.
    His father is silent for a long time. Helmut listens at the door and hears no sound from either of his parents, hands growing clammy in the dark. When Papi finally speaks, it is a relief. No more wasting time at the station, in daydreams. He is not a child now, not a girl, he needs to start earning his place in the world. Helmut’s father stopped exercising with his son a couple of years ago, and now he tells his wife to stop, too. The ritual has become