Rungholt, so near that when the wind breaks off, you may hear the bells in its church towers beneath the surface of the Nordsee where the sunken island lies intact—people and animals and houses and cisterns and windmills—awaiting the next time it will rise in its entirety. Most claim you cannot reach Rungholt, that it’s lost forever, and that you, too, will be lost if you set out for Rungholt. Yet, some believe it rises once every spring just long enough to let you enter.
3
Before the Age of Knowledge
Out on the tidal flats Lotte Jansen kisses the top of Wilhelm’s head and beseeches God to tell her what she’s done wrong. “Because if there’s a reason you took them, my children, took them, there must be something I can do to get them back from you.”
But God, he is silent—as silent as the darkening shapes of the boats on the sea; and when the boats return without her children and her husband steps ashore, it’s up to her to barter with God.
She draws the cross where she knows Wilhelm’s heart to be, kisses his lips and his belly. Whispers, “Forgive me forgive me” against his damp skin.
He coos. Pats her cheeks—
—oh—
—and she—
—howling—
—howling and praying and howling and praying, casts him into the sea. “Take him, God, in return for my other three—”
The crowd pitches forward as if one body, but gives way to Kalle who hauls his lastborn from the sea, reclaims his son who smells of salt and of water, of salt and of earth. When he refuses to hand Wilhelm to his wife, people speculate he’ll never forgive her. But the Old Women understand the measure of Lotte’s sacrifice, understand the courage it takes to offer your child to God, understand they’ve witnessed the collapse of her faith. They know what that’s like. Not everyone finds the path back to God.
The Old Women have seen many misfortunes, learned to survive the most terrible heartbreaks, and sleep with the fear of forgetting the faces of those they lost. They feel ashamed of their gratitude that their grandchildren and great-grandchildren have been spared. To ward off fate and to honor tradition, they draw close and coordinate what each will cook for the Jansen family in the weeks to come.
“Losing one husband to the sea is not as terrible as losing three children.”
“Losing one husband and one son to the war is not as terrible as losing three children.”
“Losing one daughter to childbirth…”
“… one son to influenza.”
Winning land and losing land again. Losing lives.
Losing—
The Nordsee has a great appetite for sacrifice. Today it seized three lives because the people raised the dikes again to hinder the flooding of Neuland—new land. In ditches they trapped the sea, isolated it in long solitary fingers until it could no longer gather force but fizzled out its rage, stagnant while sediment accumulated on the Meeresboden—sea floor. They consider it their birthright to defend what they’ve preserved. But the Nordsee remembers. Retaliates. Swells once again. To keep Hochwasser—high water—from invading their houses, people fill burlap sacks with sand and heap them outside their doors where they slump like new kittens.
* * *
After dark and after the islanders scrub off the gray-black sludge that clogs the wheels of their carriages, the priest holds a Mass for the Jansen children. But their parents are not in church. I nudge Heike into a pew, follow her.
“I want to play with Hannelore,” she cries.
Parishioners turn. “Ssshhhh…”
Sobbing, the priest is sobbing as he clambers up to the gold and black pulpit to recount the freak wave that launched the children into heaven. “Hannelore Jansen six years old—”
“I want to play—”
I press one finger across my daughter’s lips.
The priest’s chin quivers. “Bärbel Jansen two years old.”
“I want to play with Hannelore’s baby.”
“Tilli’s baby?”
“Ssshhhh … Ssshhhh…”
“Martin Jansen four years old—”
A child is a child till you are dead. You. Not your child. Especially a child who’s not safe in the world. Who doesn’t understand why she can’t take what she likes; why she’s forbidden to sit on the laps of strangers. She’ll be up half the night, exuberant with ideas of what she wants to do, and as her voice revs up, I can predict the fall when she’s motionless in bed or by the window, barely speaking or eating. Once again I straddle the chasm, feet dug into both rims, to keep myself from going down and up with Heike’s moods, help her find the way back to herself. To me.
“Three children before the age of knowledge,” says the priest. “A sign how precious their lives are to God. That’s why He sent the immense wave.”
Today I’ve witnessed how quickly you can lose a child, three children, and I’m terrified more than ever. At least Lotte and Kalle have each other. But Heike only has me. Even if I live to be old, I must find a husband for her, a kind husband to keep her from harm. Since she is without fear, I carry it for both of us, her fear and mine. He, too, didn’t know fear, Heike’s father. Or remorse. The Sensational Sebastian was a dazzling man with long arms and an easy laugh, a trapeze artist who was convinced he must keep moving to prevent his body from turning to stone.
“And we have proof,” says the priest, “that the wave delivered the Jansen children directly to God. Because once the sun set, the clouds grew darker, but not solid, revealing flashes of heaven that streaked the sky crimson and yellow.”
What will become of my daughter if I die tomorrow? Or ten years from now? It’s inside your fear where a child who’s not safe without you will nest, mistaking it for love. Even I mistake it for love. Heike bounces between impulses, between bliss and desolation. Himmelhoch jauchzend, zu Tode betrübt. In her bliss, she gets too affectionate. Men sniff around the big tent, rattled when the Ludwigs and I chase them off. I must be with her every moment, but of course she gets away. One already scraped from her womb before she turned fifteen. Blood, so much blood I feared she was dying. Six months later another pregnancy. When the nurse whispered she could fix Heike, I let her. Because I need my strength for my daughter alone. If Heike had a child, she’d forget to feed it. Forget it’s there.
“And purple,” adds the priest. “Purple the color of remorse, the color of forgiveness. Purple is in the sky often enough with yellow to make it true for today.”
* * *
Still in their mud-caked clothes, the children’s parents sit in their kitchen where the smell of applesauce is thicker than this morning when Lotte boiled apples with water and cinnamon. Too hot to taste, she warned her children who clamored for a spoonful. After we get home from the Zirkus, she promised.
But they didn’t come home.
A promise broken.
Wilhelm’s mouth tugs at her breast. Dry, she’s gone dry. Her body has forgotten how to keep children alive, the same body that used to make plenty of milk, so much that she needed the nursing as much as her babies. If she waits too long, her breasts swell, harden, a pain so urgent that Kalle has to relieve her. He adores her milk. Once, she pulled him into the church, into the empty confessional, and let him. Lighten her. Push himself inside her as they braced against the latticework.