The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert Read Free Book Online

close, they follow Helmut’s bare and bobbing head as he runs.
    He takes a zigzag course through the pitch-black streets to escape them, can feel himself screaming, but can hear nothing save the roar of fire and bombs and planes.
    The impacts resurface from deep underground, kicking into his hips, his spine. It rains tile and brick and glass, and Helmut cannot see where he runs, the flat pounding of antiaircraft guns in his ears,noise blackening sight. He is blind but not out of breath. His throat is raw and his face is wet, and he runs in the darkness while the street shudders under him, buildings reeling, each footfall as heavy as a bomb.
    A body runs in front of him, black shape toward him. Helmut hears the curses, feels the hands on his coat and the man’s breath in his ear. Torn off course, swung off his feet. A bomb. Two arms. The grip. Helmut twists and screams and is pulled underground. From outside dark to dark inside, but just as loud.
    He spends the rest of the raid in a cellar full of strangers. They are silent and still while he lies on the floor and cries. The adrenaline makes him shake, involuntary shudders, uncontrollable, and he is afraid and ashamed, feeling the people stare.
    After the noise subsides they are all cold. The man who pulled Helmut down with him says this is good. The fires have not reached this part of Berlin at least. After that they are quiet again. Wet eyes, small movements in the black.
    Helmut leaves the cellar without saying goodbye. He has come a long way from home in his flight, at least two or three miles. He doesn’t know where he is, and everything looks different. Bricks where there shouldn’t be, gaps where there should be walls. Helmut feels his way down the first street, to the first corner and on, finds his route blocked by chairs, glass and window frames, an empty, unmade bed. Picks his way around the rubble and onto cobblestones again, toward what he hopes is home. It takes him some time to find his way back. The streets are deserted and deathly silent. His eyes get used to the dark, but the quiet is unsettling, and he feels dizzy and sick. Helmut’s footsteps echo loud against the tenement walls and he regrets leaving the wordless company of the cellar.
    Slowly people emerge, tiny gray shapes against the black walls. More and more, until the streets are swarming. People fleeing from torn buildings, lost and searching through the dark, new mountains of stone. The sky above the roofs is brilliant with fire, and the streets have become progressively brighter as Helmut nears home. Hehears the clattering of the fire brigade bells and walks through streets alive with disoriented people, their clothing ripped and sometimes charred, many of them walking barefoot through the rubble. No matter where he turns, Helmut cannot escape the sound of children crying. He is sweating now in his coat and pyjamas; blinking against the hot air and the soot, thinking, Berlin is full again. Full of children.
    His tenement building is still standing, but it is on fire. He watches the firemen working for an hour or so, waiting. No Mutti, no Papi. The skin on his cheeks and on his earlobes prickles, itchy and sore in the heat. No familiar faces at all.
    He waits, doesn’t know how much time passes, but still his parents don’t come home. Afraid to ask, he stands stock-still, staring up at his former home, only moving when he is pushed aside. He is not allowed into the back court to see if his bedroom is on fire, so he walks instead down to Gladigau’s.
    The windows in all of the shops are broken, and there are people running from the grocer’s on the corner, arms full, coat pockets bulging. Gladigau’s shop is a mess and the lights are not working, so Helmut finds candles and secures the window as best he can with scraps of wood and cardboard. He searches through the contents of the drawers scattered on the floor and finds that not much is missing. Gladigau’s display camera is gone from the