Motherland
Maria Hummel
Language: English
Pages: 400
ISBN: 1619022370
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This page-turning novel focuses on the Kappus family: Frank is a reconstructive surgeon who lost his beloved wife in childbirth and two months later married a young woman who must look after the baby and his two grieving sons when he is drafted into medical military service. Alone in the house, Liesl must attempt to keep the children fed with dwindling food supplies, safe from the constant Allied air attacks, and protected against the swell of desperate refugees flooding their town. When one child begins to mentally unravel, Liesl must discover the source of the boy’s infirmity or lose him forever to Hadamar, the infamous hospital for “unfit” children. The novel bears witness to the shame and courage of Third Reich families during the devastating last days of the war, as each family member’s fateful choices lead them deeper into questions of complicity and innocence, to the novel’s heartbreaking and unforgettable conclusion.
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Finished it. The rabbits hid in the corner, out of sight, as if all along they’d been waiting to disappear. The living room was empty except for the coop, and it smelled like sawdust and fur. The walls of the coop were also done, but it still needed a roof and ledges for nests. Jürgen reached for an edge of the wall, gripping it with his fat fingers. Frank appeared from the Icebox, drying his hands. “Where are the boys?” he said. “They’re picking grass in the yard,” said Liesl. “They’re in.
In the Reichsluftschutzbund extend our deepest regrets,” Herr Geiss said, his stoic expression collapsing. “There was a piece of unexploded ordnance on the brewery grounds . . .” He trailed off. A tiny blade of green drifted from beneath the blanket and fell to the floor. Frank shoved past Liesl and took the bundle from Herr Geiss’s arms. He made a wordless sound, clutching the blanket tight to him, revealing the shape of a small head and shoulders. Their old neighbor stepped back and bowed his.
Red and white stripes. She blinked with the flicker, her eyes sore and dry. Her throat convulsed. What do you want me to say? You know everything. You must have it in your reports. My baby is hungry. His brother wants to die. My husband came home from your prisoner-of-war camp looking almost as thin as the Jews. Maybe we believed the lies about them. Maybe we didn’t look when they were taken away. We didn’t know where they were going. Now we can’t look at all. I can’t look at him and he can’t.
Dropped the pencil and pretended to be reading. “What book is that?” she would ask, and if it wasn’t a title she recognized, she would smile and let it go. His father wouldn’t have let it go. Vati didn’t like the boys touching Grossvater’s books. He treated them like statues, rare and precious, insisting on dusting them himself. “Get out of there. Let them be,” he said whenever he saw Hans in the room. “But I’m supposed to read,” Hans objected once. “Or I won’t grow up.” “You don’t need books.
Americans had not destroyed Hannesburg, merely jabbed wounds in it everywhere. This wound was the biggest. Three lines of women worked the rubble. One searched for whole bricks; one stacked the bricks neatly in piles; one shoveled useless debris into carts. Scarves shrouded their hair and faces. They wore heavy aprons and housedresses, and dust streaked their stockings and skirts. They had the preoccupied air of ants after their mound has been disturbed. Liesl searched for Frau Hefter, for any.