River's Edge Read Free Page A

that she could begin to serve.
    The meal consisted of three courses and two wines and one birthday cake. I ate my slice of cake with relish and thought with pleasure about what was to come next.
    When the plates were cleared I would finally be allowed to open my gifts. What would I find in those boxes? A bright-eyed Steiff bear? An elegantly dressed doll? One year I received a hand-painted miniature tea set imported from England. What about this year? Uncle Wilhelm and Cousin Peter never failed to give me the perfect gift, and I never needed parental prompting to bestow sincere kisses of thanks on their cheeks. Afterward we would retire to the music room, and the grownups would sip sherry from tiny crystal glasses while I played the piano for the prescribed half-hour, always opening the concert with my favorite, “Für Elise,” and closing with Uncle’s favorite, “The Blue Danube” waltz. When the clock struck nine, Mother would suggest that it was time for me to go to bed. With my bedroom door left slightly ajar, I would fall asleep to the sounds of pleasant, rumbling male voices punctuated by Mother’s tinkling laughter and occasional cough.
    Certainly, my birthday celebrations were quite subdued and predictable compared to many other children’s, yet I liked them just the way they were. Growing up in the shadow of my mother’s illness made me cherish the tradition and regularity of the occasion, as though observing our little rituals with exactness and precision would keep anything from changing. But it didn’t work that year, my eighth. I didn’t realize it yet, but that was the year when everything began to change—for me, for my family, for Germany, for the entire world.
    As I scraped the last bite of icing off the plate and onto my fork, I heard a faint murmur of voices outside that grew in strength and volume as the moments passed, like a distant sound of rushing water that grows and swells when a current carries you to the edge of the falls. I saw a flicker of candlelight that became a glow through the darkness, illuminating the white lace curtains of the windows, bathing them in heat and yellow light. I looked around at the faces of the grownups to see if they’d heard it too. They had. The stiff, uncomfortable set of Father’s jaw and the studied indifference of Uncle’s expression told me that they were as aware that something was happening outside as I was. Mother started making aimless small talk with Cousin Peter about the cake, commenting that she didn’t think it was as moist as it should have been. They were all working so hard to ignore the noises outside that I somehow sensed I should do the same, but when the swelling voices began to sing, I couldn’t help myself. I jumped out of my chair, pushed open the French doors, and ran out onto the dining room balcony. The grownups followed me, slowly, and stood framed in the door behind me.
    The street below was crowded with young people, singing and carrying torches, marching in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate. There were so many of them that the sky glowed orange-red with the light of the torches they carried. The air was electric with their excitement, and, for one silly moment, I was excited too, thinking that the parade was somehow connected with my birthday. The marchers finished singing, and a handsome young boy dressed in a brown shirt with military-looking braid, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, saw me leaning over the balcony railing and grinned at me. Raising his arm at a stiff, sharp angle, he shouted, “Heil Hitler!” and, as if in answer to his call, the other marchers shouted lustily, “Heil Hitler!” They began singing again, even more loudly and enthusiastically than before. The sound was so powerful and the atmosphere so thick with their expectation that I could feel the hair standing up on my neck.
    I spun around to face the grownups, too excited