Welcome to Is(sue) 15, Kinfolk! Thank you for loyally contributing, reading, and sharing! It is you who make this ezine and you who keep it breathing. The sixteenth regular is(sue) will go live on December 15, 2024. ***Deadlines for each is(sue) have changed - See Sub(missions) in the menu (for more information).*** Announcing the "Come Hell and High Water: Helene" Special Is(sue)! 
This is our tribute to the before-and-after geological and emotional event that Helene proved to be for our beloved Appalachia. It is your opportunity as our Kinfolk to express your emotions around this traumatic time, and for our mountains and people, as they recover. The sub(mission) guidelines for Special Is(sues) are the same as for regular is(sues), with the exception that you must put "HELENE" in the subject line to differentiate from submissions meant for regular is(sues) - this is vital. But Special Is(sues) remain on the website as long as the website exists under the page tab "Special Is(sues)" in the menu. They also have their own unique schedule. For this Special Is(sue), sub(missions) will open on Wednesday, November 6, 2024 and the deadline will be January 15, 2025. The Is(sue) will go live on February 15, 2025.
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"Gossip Whore; Words take a toll, and so do I"
K.B. Silver, California |
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I know you don’t mention
my name I understand I am not the subject of popular debate I am spoken of in hushed tones behind flipped palms on occasional uncomfortable days you whisper about my “mistakes” More fool you I should be well-known I talk about you every day more when I feel your misshapen shadow creep beneath my door Barely concealed whispers can’t hide the disdain dredging your voice, I hear it carrying from miles away, in my cloistered self-imposed healing hangar They echo in a wavering baritone my newly polished tomb reverberates with the haughty call of your vapid gossip and bore I will recline bathing in the candor and glow anonymity brings pacing myself as I spring back to life from the brink of total extinction I can stay lying still as the dead saying nothing except the words I connect in my head a life I led for years on end how will you survive in this world of your own creation? How will you adorn a world devoid of your favorite punching bag with barren mirrored endless halls perfectly proportioned for shuffling, moaning and p*ssing about? Will you go cabin fever mad? I can hear it now the wailing thrown-back detaching head, sending the call that will never produce a reply, because I will only move forward or return to the permanent resting spot I have carved for my own weary head Where will you send the gibbering you pretend is sane conversation? Your hogwash and pig swill will never again take my time or headspace I will glide through the remainder of life on my terms without commentary or generated strife breaking my peace of mind I will continue to bellow the truth from the crenelated fortifications I have created for the emancipation and defense of my final fruitful years Stay behind the designated line one step closer the mortars detonate leaving not a trace of your heckling face I won’t grieve or laugh I will turn and wait for the crows to clean the mess "East vs West: A Synoptic Cultural Comparison"
Yuan Changming, Canada During the great flood
Noah hid himself in the ark While Dayu tried to contain it With his bare hands Prometheus stole fire From Olympian gods While Sui Ren got it By drilling wood hard Smart Daedalus crafted wings To fly away from his prison-tower While Old Fool removed the whole Mountain blocking his way Helios enjoyed driving his chariot All along in the sky While Kuafu chased the sun To take it down & tame it Sisyphus rolls the boulder uphill Because of his deceitfulness, while Wu Gang cuts the laurel as a punishment For distractions in learning "I, You, They, Us, We"
John Paul Caponigro, Maine Why must i capitalize i, when i don’t capitalize you, or they, or we, or us? If i had to capitalize just one of these i’d choose We not i. Or capitalize them all with respect. Maybe it’s better to capitalize none With words we maintain barriers built around ourselves from It’s not that i want you to be me or me to be you. i love the differences. i’d like to really know them; see you and be seen by you truly, hear you and be heard fully, stop building too many walls and build more bridges to beautiful stop building walls and build bridges to beautiful What would happen if we only used we for a day, a week, a month, or a year? My joys and sorrows would be yours. Your joys and sorrows would be mine. We’d share a common past, present, and future. Our time would be ours, not just yours and not just mine. Imagine what really let That’s i’d like to give this gift to you, to them, to us, to we. Will you give this gift to me, to us, to we?
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(Avant)StoriesPlease make sure to address story submissions to Dave Sykes. Thanks!
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"The Barbed Wire Labyrinth"
Barbara Kumari, South Carolina
Barbara Kumari, South Carolina
We walked fast, heads bowed to the cold, as Pete’s new rubber-soled shoes, too cheap for this weather, scuffed against the sidewalk. His hair done in a spiffy combover—with his wife away at night with the Corolla, he'd started doing his own. He was well over six feet, but his uniform forced his arms in front, slouching.
He paused on a street corner in front of a bank whose stone entrance was too fancy by half: Corinthian, and too deep. I almost hit him from behind. As he stood there, one hand tugged down his waist, another gripping tight his gun and cuffs. His jacket was old and long, brown tweed from when such clothes were called wool serge or bearskin or English cavalry, draped
over the shoulders of a country, of God himself. He must've seen them in a window display at the museum: things men didn't have anymore.
We paused as a truck roared past, followed by a car with a smoking hood. Our hands quivering as the cars sped between us, headlights flashing.
"It’s up there," He said.
A drizzle started amid the snow, the world losing its colors as the sun vanished. Brown, gray, and black dominated, earth merging with sky.
We descended the hill, approaching a huddle of buildings blurring together in the fog.
A sign emerged: CALVARY HOME & VOCATIONAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.
Two cottages nestled together, surrounded by cypress and a gravel drive. Beyond, open fields revealed fortress-like structures, wings extending east and west. The larger compound was farther away, on an undulating hill with specks of green. A roofless chapel stood half-sunken, columns arching like shipwrecks. Another structure leaned to one side. The compound forsaken, stripped of grandeur.
Pete pushed the gate, releasing the outer door.
"Here," he said, pulling a rough map from his pocket, indicating the path to the main office. “This way."
On a lower ridge, saplings half concealed a field of wrecked military trucks. More buildings loomed beyond, remote and alien, and then the orphanage the map detailed. This place was never finished, Pete said. Over half the structures appeared deserted, one partly crumbled, others partially dug out, gaping like hollow teeth. The grounds sprawled before us, interrupted by grassy trenches filled with dead leaves. Stone buildings standing in the woods in the back, hidden by ivy, flanked by roads leading nowhere.
The girls' home stood secluded, encircled by towering walls crowned with barbed wire. Gravel paths remained unkempt, stones jutting from weeds. Now and then, a breeze carried the chime of bells from locked doors. Otherwise, the place was dead.
We arrived at a clearing beside the main buildings, where cars lay trapped in tall grass, half-concealed like hidden arsenals.
"How do you know this is where they are?" I asked Pete.
"I found out when I first came here," he said. “But I didn’t go all the way in. Who the hell knows what’s actually in there.”
As we approached, the innards of a crumbling cottage emerged, its wooden siding surrendering to decay. As he pushed the door open, four rooms spread out; one held iron bed frames draped in tattered remnants, the mattresses long gone. Barely discernible, frayed quilts lay beneath. A child's cast-iron wash basin perched atop one frame, a knob missing and a crack
invading the porcelain. A shard of a wooden chair arm hung from the wall, disintegrated at one end, splinters curling from the upholstery. A stovepipe pierced the ceiling in a corner, newspapers bound with twine nailed beside it.
What had I expected? Traces of daily life in the 1940s held no intrigue, no fodder for conversation. The relentless news of slaughtered women and children had become mundane at this point.
My gaze fell upon the irregular shapes in the clearing: wooden platforms connected by a bridge, a catwalk suspended from steel cables linking them to the ancient structures. Enclosures, perhaps meant for lights, had panels wired to towering poles. Now, lifeless copper wires tangled in thriving greenery, their origin and destination blurred. No lamps illuminated the area.
The cages I saw were indeed cells, each fitted with an iron door. The smallest featured a drainpipe affixed to a central spigot.
Pete crouched, sifting the soil, remnants of mold and dead plants clinging to his jeans.
I lingered at the platform's edge, gazing into the neighboring enclosure. Empty. Pete crawled in, sweeping lifeless foliage aside to reveal a brighter yellow spot. A wooden and metal box, resembling an oversized toolbox, with a hinged lid. The metal inside rusted, filthy, chipped, and punctured. A single latch remained, secured to a recessed handle. Peering behind it, I discovered more boxes half-open, at least six feet long, chambers cradling bones. Human remains, mummified.
An empty, rusted oil drum hid under the largest enclosure's slanted roof. A metal flange fastened by a wrought-iron brace pierced the roof and entered the chimney. The pipe disappeared further, ascending the building's innards.
I spotted what seemed to be a length of stout rope coiled around the pipe where the beam met the woodwork. Leaning forward, I yanked it. A noose. Now I understood why Pete chose this spot to dig. Once the structure crumbled or the roof collapsed, any potential discoverer would assume the missing women and children had escaped.
Inside, glass jars contained ghostly, drifting forms. Shelves held small sealed cans, their contents murky, likely tainted by lead. Nearby, blackened torches bore layers of ash. A round tub sunk into the floor harbored another specimen—solid, a human skull, yellowed, dry, speckled, and cracked in places. The bone shimmered, exposed like a sponge dissolving in water, a hint of luminosity beyond the flesh.
Pete lifted the skull, rotating it. "Look at the holes," he whispered. "See how the skin still
sticks?"
The bone was hollowed, its edges frayed, with patches of flesh lingering near the skull's openings. I imagined if I dared to poke my finger into an eye socket, it would feel damp, alive—like a gland opening, a minuscule nerve ending compressed.
I looked at the skull, sensing something, like a heartbeat, inside it. Then I touched it, resting my hand on its forehead, something slick, like flesh, moving over my fingers. It made my own skin crawl, this case alive and ready to spring.
I approached the ladder leading up to the catwalk and grabbed a lantern. Under me was a huge clay bowl hanging from ropes. Little creatures crawling around beneath it, choking on the dust in the air. The catwalk six feet off the ground, with a small platform above the room.
Pete had indeed seen all this before, I suspected.
When I let go of the lantern, it crashed below. I looked down and saw that a hatch had closed, separating us from the rest of the world, chains and a pulley above me. A dark, round dome on the other side of the room. Wind blew through the shutters, and I heard a bell ringing far away. A faint light and a shadow moving toward me. It was Pete, his face lit up, his hat falling off his head.
He grabbed my hands and leaned against me.
Everything went dark again.
I heard another bell, and the room turned from blue to purple with the shifting light. My ears were filled with noises—clicks, scrapes, machines working.
Pete told me to open my eyes, and I did; there was just enough light to see.
"Do you want to see the other side?" he asked.
I nodded and came down.
We passed shelves with glass cases, strange objects, and medical supplies. Pills, powders, tubes, and bloody bandages everywhere. Scissors, scalpels, and syringes. There were also four guns, and some letters.
We stood there, listening to each other breathe.
Pete took off his jacket and put it next to the glass cases, full of bound letters.
I picked up one of the letters and unfolded it. It was filled with black writing and a court stamp in the corner. There was a quote and some extra words added to it.
November 4, 1944
Having determined the following persons are mentally ill and should therefore be detained:
Anna Wierzbicka. Mary Davis. Elizabeth Levine. Margaret Stokes. Roberta Green. Dorothy Coleman. William Wardlaw. Louise Petes. Raymond Landers. Henry Kimball. Otto Hoffman. Adele West. Norman Ross. Fred Smith. Mrs. Joseph Ross. Ralph Wardlaw. Mrs. John Koster. Harald A. Dahl. Arlena Hanerfeld. Henry Schiffer. Frank Esposito. Hermon Spalding.
Edward Bierman. Charlotte Schaefer. Eugene Ostermann. Michael Lane. Henry Clemmons. Agnes Holtzman. James Barber. Norman Browning. Ralph Stone. George Hillerich. Isaac Rubenstein. Albert Passatov. Elwood Miller. Emanuel Gassman. Richard Janiszewski. Laura Levy. Horace Seidman. David Selvin. Benyuh Sandakian. Margaret Paulik. Charles Steinberg. Henry Mancino.
All names and initials have been spelled phonetically for convenience only. These individuals will remain under close observation for a period not to exceed sixty days unless released earlier by appropriate authorities.
Rochelle Remington | Dr. Anne Lapidge
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Steven Logan | Miss Emma Perry
Loretta Carver | Mgr. Frank Chase
Kathryn Belzer | Doctor Marc Blumberg
Kumari/The Barbed Wire Labyrinth/8
Paul Henry Schein | Victor Grebowski
The Court finds by clear and convincing evidence that each of the above-named individuals meets the statutory criteria for mental illness as described in State vs. Ross and State vs. Olsen. Each individual should be immediately taken into custody by court officers pending further disposition. This action is necessary for the protection of public health and safety.
Below this signature were signatures for the presiding judge, Mr. Herbert Rose, Justice of the Peace; Judge Arthur Hartnett, county attorney; and four physicians who would serve as witnesses to the proceedings. At the bottom, we found this admonition:
All persons must submit to physical examinations upon request and are subject to prosecution for refusal. Individuals claiming any additional impairment must file their claims with the town clerk prior to the commencement of said examination.
I looked at the paper, each letter so precise, and yet steeped in forgotten information. It was a language I'd seen before, plain and clear, yet I couldn’t wrap my brain around the meaning.
I tucked the paper in my pocket and grabbed my coat.
When we got back to his place, Pete was pacing the kitchen floor, his hands shaking. He
sat on the couch and closed his eyes. He lit another cigarette.
"So," I said. "What now?"
Pete took a long drag, then stubbed it out. He reached for the bottle on the coffee table and poured the whiskey into the glass, his hand still shaking. His face flushed, sweat trickling down his temple.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I should've never gotten you involved."
He was right. I knew he was right. But I wasn't going to stop now.
"Just tell me what happened," I said. "I won't tell anyone. I swear. You can trust me. You know you can."
He nodded, the muscles in his jaw twitching. He took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose, then rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. He sat there staring at nothing, his shoulders slumped, the look on his face almost a grimace.
"It was all there," he said finally. "Everything you need to know is there. In those letters
and files."
I nodded, waiting for him to go on.
"The story started out last year," Pete said. "I got an assignment from the museum’s records department to investigate the death of a man named Daniel Beller. It seemed like just another job, but as soon as I started digging, I found out things were funnier than I’d thought, not quite what they seemed. So I kept digging until I found a connection to an orphanage that used to
be here. The building was abandoned in the fifties. I was told there had been rumors of the Reich, but nobody could say for sure. Some of the girls were missing."
Pete paused, his expression blank.
"So you went looking for answers," I said.
He nodded. "It wasn't easy. I read all the old shit, newspapers, police reports, medical journals, everything I could find. And then I found out about the fire. There was no mention of it in any of the papers I read. It was as if it had never happened. But I knew it had. I kept digging until I found some old photos from the fire."
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stack of photos of the burnt-out building with fire engines surrounding it.
"The place was damn near destroyed," he said. "But there was one thing that caught me. See that group of children standing by a tree. Look like they've just escaped from hell itself. I couldn't get it out of my head."
The phone rang just once. It went dead, then it rang again—far away and hard to recognize. Then it was only our breathing that filled the room, like waves as I tried to connect what I saw with what I knew. Dust and damp wood, bones, and orifices calcified in bottles of amber. Pete's gray sweatpants. I remembered it all, and then it hit me.
When?
I had documents I’d grabbed, too thick for my backpack. A sealed envelope, like a magazine. The handwriting familiar. FATHER: Leo Dietrich, 8/12/46, it said.
Another had a copy of a court paper about a hospital case from 1946. There was also Dr. Hoffmann's detailed report on Daniel Beller. A second copy of the report sent to Dr. Grüber and others, about Leo Dietrich's big discovery.
I knew these things but hadn't looked close enough. My eyes burned, and I cried.
There was no reason for it.
In the corner, I saw a newspaper article about Daniel Beller, who worked at the ward and had died. It had his full obituary and lots of comments from people. But no personal details I could remember. And a note next to the article.
In big letters:
DANIEL BELLER, THE OLD MASTER, DEAD AT 56.
I remembered the books in the hall closet, lined up neatly. The pointlessness of putting these pieces together, searching for clues, chasing ghosts had come to an end.
I asked Pete, "What do you know about Daniel Beller?"
He thought for a moment. "A little," he said. "Not much to know. Weird guy. Ran the place until he died."
We stood in the dim room, the silence growing a density all its own.
"Your dad helped with the medical report," I said.
"Yeah," he said.
We let the words hang in the air, and I asked Pete to go on.
"His problems, and the children's, weren't physical." He rubbed his chin, thinking. "They used to talk about something tearing them apart, a secret they couldn't share, a riddle they couldn't solve."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He shifted in his chair, hands on his knees. "Something hidden. A problem."
We looked at each other for a moment.
"Maybe they understood each other in a way," I suggested. “All the sh*t that came with
being German and Jews.”
"Yeah," he said. "Maybe that's it. Had to be something between them."
I thought about his words, realizing he was right.
"Why did Daniel die?" I asked at last.
"A weird infection," Pete said. "We never found out where it came from or who caused it.
Not then, not now."
"You think somebody offed him?"
"Might've been the kids," he said. "Nobody's got a clue."
I sucked in a faint trace of cigarette smoke as we stood there, the room dimly lit, our eyes
fixed on each other. Pete's eyebrow raised. "Somethin' off?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said.
The space between us seemed to sharpen. Time ticked by. I needed sleep.
What is this thing that lives beyond death?
Pete took another drag on his cigarette and explained.
Leo Dietrich and Anna Hildebrandt crossed paths in the early days of the orphanage. They connected briefly, barely knowing each other, he told me. Both Germans determined to pose as Jews to infiltrate the Calvary school. Leo managed first, then she took Leo's offer and joined him at the residential school where she would live. Her brother, her only family, left her
with a suitcase of dresses, an old map of Berlin, patent leather shoes, and an oversized Bible. Memories and dreams were all she had left.
She arrived on July 14th, 1937, describing in her diary the view from their windows showing train tracks, concrete yards, and the city below littered with junk. The streets outside empty. Everything happened in a shadowy world that was otherwise unknown.
She learned quickly in the orphanage. In three months, she could navigate the streets in English too, order food, sign forms, write numbers and letters, and haggle with shopkeepers. Sometimes, she took public transport with strangers, answering questions carefully, using her few coins when needed, keeping her body small. It was safer that way. People would forget her if they knew who she really was.
In 1939, German Jews found resistance movements—all but useless. They'd run from Hitler and Vienna in 1933; they had no wish to join the Nazis and fight with them now. Their protests got shrill and messy. Attacks ramped up. In 1938, there was Kristallnacht in Germany. Almost overnight, ugliness ruled. Germans with clubs and whips attacked Jewish shops and synagogues, breaking glass, looting and destroying, kicking women and children, calling the SS for help, and
shouting one word: "Untermensch! (Subhuman)" At times, a thousand were taken in. Shops burned. Dead bodies piled up.
The orphanage weathered storms for nearly twenty years. It stood strong, despite the notion that Jews weren't worth saving. By some twist of fate, many of its adversaries were fervent believers, young zealots with hate burning in their hearts. Orphans. They believed in payback.
In the summer of '43, the local Nazis struck the place. A bomb tossed through the lobby door. Screams echoed, then silence. Their plans were discovered and aided by Leo Dietrich. Later, police and firefighters sifted through the wreckage.
Who had done this?
It took weeks for whispers to cross and reach the school. No one knew the truth. Children lay dead. Odd things had happened, they said. Lights went off. Smoke billowed. Maybe rogue boys with a grenade. Who could know? One boy, maybe just a bit player, had vanished with his folks. Nobody spoke up.
As was customary, they tried to find the culprits by means of information gleaned from the injured. Someone suggested it might have been a warehouse worker across the alley. He always seemed to be hanging around the gate. On a certain morning, he was seen running up and down the walkway. This information soon ran its course.
Some believed an arsonist had actually tried to escape through the emergency exit. When this theory proved unfeasible, an official site survey suggested an explosive device had blown the locks open. These were easy enough to bust. How simple it seemed, these excuses, this rationale for a criminal act.
Later, however, such accounts fell apart. Everything fell apart. In the end, no one stepped forward to account for his or her part. It was some years before Leo Dietrich recovered from this attack. His own life hung by a thread, for a while. A delicate web of lies and half-truths that could unravel. It was dangerous to talk about the incident publicly. After all, Leo Dietrich had
sent an awful lot of Jewish girls to their deaths. No longer an institution, the orphanage ceased to exist as they knew it. For what had followed was unthinkable. A short fall, a long spiral into hell. The new life that lay beyond was impossible to fathom.
Anna Hildebrandt stayed with Leo Dietrich. Later a reporter arrived from Der Tagesspiegel. He wanted to ask the story behind the building that used to stand on Reifferscheidt Straße 3. Was it demolished? Why? Did anyone else die? The article made no mention of the orphanage bombing, of fires. How strange. So much activity going on around this building, but it
never appeared in print. Such discretion. What was the story? Where did Anna Hildebrandt fit into all this?
I sat in the dark, watching as the lights flickered in Pete's eyes and died. My own life lay beside him, useless.
Pete took a phone call in the hallway. We stared at each other in the dim light. Again, he brought his hand to his lips, his forehead creased. Once again, he tried to smile. He looked puzzled, but waited.
I looked at the worn binding of the book in my lap. Through Leo's articles, I saw the dead young ones waiting, hidden behind the brick walls, behind window panes, lost forever. Somewhere out there, the girl's screams, unanswered, unanswered.
I glanced back at Pete's pajama bottoms on the back of the chair. My own state. Still, I sat, thinking about the meaning of nothingness. About endings and beginnings. Whether it was possible to give form to the world. Our faces peering in, asking, Who are you? Why are you here?
In the middle distance, the kitchen lights cast a soft glow. Pete was here, beside me. A chance encounter, we had found each other. A lifetime, standing just inches away. Unbelievable luck, after all this time. A miracle that might never happen again. The prospect tantalizing.
Outside, a truck rattled around the corner. A voice in the darkness. Invisible people, voices and shouts and footsteps echoing.
We were in a different place. The night belonged to us. Only us. Nothing held back. No silences. Not even dreams. All was beginning.
For the first time, I understood. Or maybe I always had. In a way, everything about this moment, this realization that we were right back where we started. Two hours ago. Back in the thicket of words. In the pitiless glare of night. From somewhere else, maybe an hour from now, an ambulance rushed by. Doors slammed shut. A high whine, like bees coming together.
Everything now. We began again, inside and out. Pete and I. Like siblings separated in sleep.
He finally slept with his face buried in my shoulder, his hand clutching my shirt. For the briefest of eternities, I stood looking down at him, watching him breathe. Waiting as the sound of sirens faded and the quiet returned.
I sat, knowing it would last only seconds, then disappear altogether. His breathing shallow. His hand closing over mine.
Outside the walls, there were only empty sounds and void. All those invisible souls. Gone, vanishing. Lost in the wind. Voices we could not hear. In a world suddenly bereft of sense.
My thumb traced circles on the top of his hand over and over until it became something real, deeper than flesh. More than lives are bound together, but on the verge of another second, another hour. Like children learning to move, breathing the same air. Bound in history. Even if it was wrong, it was true. We began anew. touching down, somewhere out there, sailing on ether.
All that was left the faintest glow of light between us, caught in the air between worlds.
He paused on a street corner in front of a bank whose stone entrance was too fancy by half: Corinthian, and too deep. I almost hit him from behind. As he stood there, one hand tugged down his waist, another gripping tight his gun and cuffs. His jacket was old and long, brown tweed from when such clothes were called wool serge or bearskin or English cavalry, draped
over the shoulders of a country, of God himself. He must've seen them in a window display at the museum: things men didn't have anymore.
We paused as a truck roared past, followed by a car with a smoking hood. Our hands quivering as the cars sped between us, headlights flashing.
"It’s up there," He said.
A drizzle started amid the snow, the world losing its colors as the sun vanished. Brown, gray, and black dominated, earth merging with sky.
We descended the hill, approaching a huddle of buildings blurring together in the fog.
A sign emerged: CALVARY HOME & VOCATIONAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.
Two cottages nestled together, surrounded by cypress and a gravel drive. Beyond, open fields revealed fortress-like structures, wings extending east and west. The larger compound was farther away, on an undulating hill with specks of green. A roofless chapel stood half-sunken, columns arching like shipwrecks. Another structure leaned to one side. The compound forsaken, stripped of grandeur.
Pete pushed the gate, releasing the outer door.
"Here," he said, pulling a rough map from his pocket, indicating the path to the main office. “This way."
On a lower ridge, saplings half concealed a field of wrecked military trucks. More buildings loomed beyond, remote and alien, and then the orphanage the map detailed. This place was never finished, Pete said. Over half the structures appeared deserted, one partly crumbled, others partially dug out, gaping like hollow teeth. The grounds sprawled before us, interrupted by grassy trenches filled with dead leaves. Stone buildings standing in the woods in the back, hidden by ivy, flanked by roads leading nowhere.
The girls' home stood secluded, encircled by towering walls crowned with barbed wire. Gravel paths remained unkempt, stones jutting from weeds. Now and then, a breeze carried the chime of bells from locked doors. Otherwise, the place was dead.
We arrived at a clearing beside the main buildings, where cars lay trapped in tall grass, half-concealed like hidden arsenals.
"How do you know this is where they are?" I asked Pete.
"I found out when I first came here," he said. “But I didn’t go all the way in. Who the hell knows what’s actually in there.”
As we approached, the innards of a crumbling cottage emerged, its wooden siding surrendering to decay. As he pushed the door open, four rooms spread out; one held iron bed frames draped in tattered remnants, the mattresses long gone. Barely discernible, frayed quilts lay beneath. A child's cast-iron wash basin perched atop one frame, a knob missing and a crack
invading the porcelain. A shard of a wooden chair arm hung from the wall, disintegrated at one end, splinters curling from the upholstery. A stovepipe pierced the ceiling in a corner, newspapers bound with twine nailed beside it.
What had I expected? Traces of daily life in the 1940s held no intrigue, no fodder for conversation. The relentless news of slaughtered women and children had become mundane at this point.
My gaze fell upon the irregular shapes in the clearing: wooden platforms connected by a bridge, a catwalk suspended from steel cables linking them to the ancient structures. Enclosures, perhaps meant for lights, had panels wired to towering poles. Now, lifeless copper wires tangled in thriving greenery, their origin and destination blurred. No lamps illuminated the area.
The cages I saw were indeed cells, each fitted with an iron door. The smallest featured a drainpipe affixed to a central spigot.
Pete crouched, sifting the soil, remnants of mold and dead plants clinging to his jeans.
I lingered at the platform's edge, gazing into the neighboring enclosure. Empty. Pete crawled in, sweeping lifeless foliage aside to reveal a brighter yellow spot. A wooden and metal box, resembling an oversized toolbox, with a hinged lid. The metal inside rusted, filthy, chipped, and punctured. A single latch remained, secured to a recessed handle. Peering behind it, I discovered more boxes half-open, at least six feet long, chambers cradling bones. Human remains, mummified.
An empty, rusted oil drum hid under the largest enclosure's slanted roof. A metal flange fastened by a wrought-iron brace pierced the roof and entered the chimney. The pipe disappeared further, ascending the building's innards.
I spotted what seemed to be a length of stout rope coiled around the pipe where the beam met the woodwork. Leaning forward, I yanked it. A noose. Now I understood why Pete chose this spot to dig. Once the structure crumbled or the roof collapsed, any potential discoverer would assume the missing women and children had escaped.
Inside, glass jars contained ghostly, drifting forms. Shelves held small sealed cans, their contents murky, likely tainted by lead. Nearby, blackened torches bore layers of ash. A round tub sunk into the floor harbored another specimen—solid, a human skull, yellowed, dry, speckled, and cracked in places. The bone shimmered, exposed like a sponge dissolving in water, a hint of luminosity beyond the flesh.
Pete lifted the skull, rotating it. "Look at the holes," he whispered. "See how the skin still
sticks?"
The bone was hollowed, its edges frayed, with patches of flesh lingering near the skull's openings. I imagined if I dared to poke my finger into an eye socket, it would feel damp, alive—like a gland opening, a minuscule nerve ending compressed.
I looked at the skull, sensing something, like a heartbeat, inside it. Then I touched it, resting my hand on its forehead, something slick, like flesh, moving over my fingers. It made my own skin crawl, this case alive and ready to spring.
I approached the ladder leading up to the catwalk and grabbed a lantern. Under me was a huge clay bowl hanging from ropes. Little creatures crawling around beneath it, choking on the dust in the air. The catwalk six feet off the ground, with a small platform above the room.
Pete had indeed seen all this before, I suspected.
When I let go of the lantern, it crashed below. I looked down and saw that a hatch had closed, separating us from the rest of the world, chains and a pulley above me. A dark, round dome on the other side of the room. Wind blew through the shutters, and I heard a bell ringing far away. A faint light and a shadow moving toward me. It was Pete, his face lit up, his hat falling off his head.
He grabbed my hands and leaned against me.
Everything went dark again.
I heard another bell, and the room turned from blue to purple with the shifting light. My ears were filled with noises—clicks, scrapes, machines working.
Pete told me to open my eyes, and I did; there was just enough light to see.
"Do you want to see the other side?" he asked.
I nodded and came down.
We passed shelves with glass cases, strange objects, and medical supplies. Pills, powders, tubes, and bloody bandages everywhere. Scissors, scalpels, and syringes. There were also four guns, and some letters.
We stood there, listening to each other breathe.
Pete took off his jacket and put it next to the glass cases, full of bound letters.
I picked up one of the letters and unfolded it. It was filled with black writing and a court stamp in the corner. There was a quote and some extra words added to it.
November 4, 1944
Having determined the following persons are mentally ill and should therefore be detained:
Anna Wierzbicka. Mary Davis. Elizabeth Levine. Margaret Stokes. Roberta Green. Dorothy Coleman. William Wardlaw. Louise Petes. Raymond Landers. Henry Kimball. Otto Hoffman. Adele West. Norman Ross. Fred Smith. Mrs. Joseph Ross. Ralph Wardlaw. Mrs. John Koster. Harald A. Dahl. Arlena Hanerfeld. Henry Schiffer. Frank Esposito. Hermon Spalding.
Edward Bierman. Charlotte Schaefer. Eugene Ostermann. Michael Lane. Henry Clemmons. Agnes Holtzman. James Barber. Norman Browning. Ralph Stone. George Hillerich. Isaac Rubenstein. Albert Passatov. Elwood Miller. Emanuel Gassman. Richard Janiszewski. Laura Levy. Horace Seidman. David Selvin. Benyuh Sandakian. Margaret Paulik. Charles Steinberg. Henry Mancino.
All names and initials have been spelled phonetically for convenience only. These individuals will remain under close observation for a period not to exceed sixty days unless released earlier by appropriate authorities.
Rochelle Remington | Dr. Anne Lapidge
---|---
Steven Logan | Miss Emma Perry
Loretta Carver | Mgr. Frank Chase
Kathryn Belzer | Doctor Marc Blumberg
Kumari/The Barbed Wire Labyrinth/8
Paul Henry Schein | Victor Grebowski
The Court finds by clear and convincing evidence that each of the above-named individuals meets the statutory criteria for mental illness as described in State vs. Ross and State vs. Olsen. Each individual should be immediately taken into custody by court officers pending further disposition. This action is necessary for the protection of public health and safety.
Below this signature were signatures for the presiding judge, Mr. Herbert Rose, Justice of the Peace; Judge Arthur Hartnett, county attorney; and four physicians who would serve as witnesses to the proceedings. At the bottom, we found this admonition:
All persons must submit to physical examinations upon request and are subject to prosecution for refusal. Individuals claiming any additional impairment must file their claims with the town clerk prior to the commencement of said examination.
I looked at the paper, each letter so precise, and yet steeped in forgotten information. It was a language I'd seen before, plain and clear, yet I couldn’t wrap my brain around the meaning.
I tucked the paper in my pocket and grabbed my coat.
When we got back to his place, Pete was pacing the kitchen floor, his hands shaking. He
sat on the couch and closed his eyes. He lit another cigarette.
"So," I said. "What now?"
Pete took a long drag, then stubbed it out. He reached for the bottle on the coffee table and poured the whiskey into the glass, his hand still shaking. His face flushed, sweat trickling down his temple.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I should've never gotten you involved."
He was right. I knew he was right. But I wasn't going to stop now.
"Just tell me what happened," I said. "I won't tell anyone. I swear. You can trust me. You know you can."
He nodded, the muscles in his jaw twitching. He took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose, then rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. He sat there staring at nothing, his shoulders slumped, the look on his face almost a grimace.
"It was all there," he said finally. "Everything you need to know is there. In those letters
and files."
I nodded, waiting for him to go on.
"The story started out last year," Pete said. "I got an assignment from the museum’s records department to investigate the death of a man named Daniel Beller. It seemed like just another job, but as soon as I started digging, I found out things were funnier than I’d thought, not quite what they seemed. So I kept digging until I found a connection to an orphanage that used to
be here. The building was abandoned in the fifties. I was told there had been rumors of the Reich, but nobody could say for sure. Some of the girls were missing."
Pete paused, his expression blank.
"So you went looking for answers," I said.
He nodded. "It wasn't easy. I read all the old shit, newspapers, police reports, medical journals, everything I could find. And then I found out about the fire. There was no mention of it in any of the papers I read. It was as if it had never happened. But I knew it had. I kept digging until I found some old photos from the fire."
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stack of photos of the burnt-out building with fire engines surrounding it.
"The place was damn near destroyed," he said. "But there was one thing that caught me. See that group of children standing by a tree. Look like they've just escaped from hell itself. I couldn't get it out of my head."
The phone rang just once. It went dead, then it rang again—far away and hard to recognize. Then it was only our breathing that filled the room, like waves as I tried to connect what I saw with what I knew. Dust and damp wood, bones, and orifices calcified in bottles of amber. Pete's gray sweatpants. I remembered it all, and then it hit me.
When?
I had documents I’d grabbed, too thick for my backpack. A sealed envelope, like a magazine. The handwriting familiar. FATHER: Leo Dietrich, 8/12/46, it said.
Another had a copy of a court paper about a hospital case from 1946. There was also Dr. Hoffmann's detailed report on Daniel Beller. A second copy of the report sent to Dr. Grüber and others, about Leo Dietrich's big discovery.
I knew these things but hadn't looked close enough. My eyes burned, and I cried.
There was no reason for it.
In the corner, I saw a newspaper article about Daniel Beller, who worked at the ward and had died. It had his full obituary and lots of comments from people. But no personal details I could remember. And a note next to the article.
In big letters:
DANIEL BELLER, THE OLD MASTER, DEAD AT 56.
I remembered the books in the hall closet, lined up neatly. The pointlessness of putting these pieces together, searching for clues, chasing ghosts had come to an end.
I asked Pete, "What do you know about Daniel Beller?"
He thought for a moment. "A little," he said. "Not much to know. Weird guy. Ran the place until he died."
We stood in the dim room, the silence growing a density all its own.
"Your dad helped with the medical report," I said.
"Yeah," he said.
We let the words hang in the air, and I asked Pete to go on.
"His problems, and the children's, weren't physical." He rubbed his chin, thinking. "They used to talk about something tearing them apart, a secret they couldn't share, a riddle they couldn't solve."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He shifted in his chair, hands on his knees. "Something hidden. A problem."
We looked at each other for a moment.
"Maybe they understood each other in a way," I suggested. “All the sh*t that came with
being German and Jews.”
"Yeah," he said. "Maybe that's it. Had to be something between them."
I thought about his words, realizing he was right.
"Why did Daniel die?" I asked at last.
"A weird infection," Pete said. "We never found out where it came from or who caused it.
Not then, not now."
"You think somebody offed him?"
"Might've been the kids," he said. "Nobody's got a clue."
I sucked in a faint trace of cigarette smoke as we stood there, the room dimly lit, our eyes
fixed on each other. Pete's eyebrow raised. "Somethin' off?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said.
The space between us seemed to sharpen. Time ticked by. I needed sleep.
What is this thing that lives beyond death?
Pete took another drag on his cigarette and explained.
Leo Dietrich and Anna Hildebrandt crossed paths in the early days of the orphanage. They connected briefly, barely knowing each other, he told me. Both Germans determined to pose as Jews to infiltrate the Calvary school. Leo managed first, then she took Leo's offer and joined him at the residential school where she would live. Her brother, her only family, left her
with a suitcase of dresses, an old map of Berlin, patent leather shoes, and an oversized Bible. Memories and dreams were all she had left.
She arrived on July 14th, 1937, describing in her diary the view from their windows showing train tracks, concrete yards, and the city below littered with junk. The streets outside empty. Everything happened in a shadowy world that was otherwise unknown.
She learned quickly in the orphanage. In three months, she could navigate the streets in English too, order food, sign forms, write numbers and letters, and haggle with shopkeepers. Sometimes, she took public transport with strangers, answering questions carefully, using her few coins when needed, keeping her body small. It was safer that way. People would forget her if they knew who she really was.
In 1939, German Jews found resistance movements—all but useless. They'd run from Hitler and Vienna in 1933; they had no wish to join the Nazis and fight with them now. Their protests got shrill and messy. Attacks ramped up. In 1938, there was Kristallnacht in Germany. Almost overnight, ugliness ruled. Germans with clubs and whips attacked Jewish shops and synagogues, breaking glass, looting and destroying, kicking women and children, calling the SS for help, and
shouting one word: "Untermensch! (Subhuman)" At times, a thousand were taken in. Shops burned. Dead bodies piled up.
The orphanage weathered storms for nearly twenty years. It stood strong, despite the notion that Jews weren't worth saving. By some twist of fate, many of its adversaries were fervent believers, young zealots with hate burning in their hearts. Orphans. They believed in payback.
In the summer of '43, the local Nazis struck the place. A bomb tossed through the lobby door. Screams echoed, then silence. Their plans were discovered and aided by Leo Dietrich. Later, police and firefighters sifted through the wreckage.
Who had done this?
It took weeks for whispers to cross and reach the school. No one knew the truth. Children lay dead. Odd things had happened, they said. Lights went off. Smoke billowed. Maybe rogue boys with a grenade. Who could know? One boy, maybe just a bit player, had vanished with his folks. Nobody spoke up.
As was customary, they tried to find the culprits by means of information gleaned from the injured. Someone suggested it might have been a warehouse worker across the alley. He always seemed to be hanging around the gate. On a certain morning, he was seen running up and down the walkway. This information soon ran its course.
Some believed an arsonist had actually tried to escape through the emergency exit. When this theory proved unfeasible, an official site survey suggested an explosive device had blown the locks open. These were easy enough to bust. How simple it seemed, these excuses, this rationale for a criminal act.
Later, however, such accounts fell apart. Everything fell apart. In the end, no one stepped forward to account for his or her part. It was some years before Leo Dietrich recovered from this attack. His own life hung by a thread, for a while. A delicate web of lies and half-truths that could unravel. It was dangerous to talk about the incident publicly. After all, Leo Dietrich had
sent an awful lot of Jewish girls to their deaths. No longer an institution, the orphanage ceased to exist as they knew it. For what had followed was unthinkable. A short fall, a long spiral into hell. The new life that lay beyond was impossible to fathom.
Anna Hildebrandt stayed with Leo Dietrich. Later a reporter arrived from Der Tagesspiegel. He wanted to ask the story behind the building that used to stand on Reifferscheidt Straße 3. Was it demolished? Why? Did anyone else die? The article made no mention of the orphanage bombing, of fires. How strange. So much activity going on around this building, but it
never appeared in print. Such discretion. What was the story? Where did Anna Hildebrandt fit into all this?
I sat in the dark, watching as the lights flickered in Pete's eyes and died. My own life lay beside him, useless.
Pete took a phone call in the hallway. We stared at each other in the dim light. Again, he brought his hand to his lips, his forehead creased. Once again, he tried to smile. He looked puzzled, but waited.
I looked at the worn binding of the book in my lap. Through Leo's articles, I saw the dead young ones waiting, hidden behind the brick walls, behind window panes, lost forever. Somewhere out there, the girl's screams, unanswered, unanswered.
I glanced back at Pete's pajama bottoms on the back of the chair. My own state. Still, I sat, thinking about the meaning of nothingness. About endings and beginnings. Whether it was possible to give form to the world. Our faces peering in, asking, Who are you? Why are you here?
In the middle distance, the kitchen lights cast a soft glow. Pete was here, beside me. A chance encounter, we had found each other. A lifetime, standing just inches away. Unbelievable luck, after all this time. A miracle that might never happen again. The prospect tantalizing.
Outside, a truck rattled around the corner. A voice in the darkness. Invisible people, voices and shouts and footsteps echoing.
We were in a different place. The night belonged to us. Only us. Nothing held back. No silences. Not even dreams. All was beginning.
For the first time, I understood. Or maybe I always had. In a way, everything about this moment, this realization that we were right back where we started. Two hours ago. Back in the thicket of words. In the pitiless glare of night. From somewhere else, maybe an hour from now, an ambulance rushed by. Doors slammed shut. A high whine, like bees coming together.
Everything now. We began again, inside and out. Pete and I. Like siblings separated in sleep.
He finally slept with his face buried in my shoulder, his hand clutching my shirt. For the briefest of eternities, I stood looking down at him, watching him breathe. Waiting as the sound of sirens faded and the quiet returned.
I sat, knowing it would last only seconds, then disappear altogether. His breathing shallow. His hand closing over mine.
Outside the walls, there were only empty sounds and void. All those invisible souls. Gone, vanishing. Lost in the wind. Voices we could not hear. In a world suddenly bereft of sense.
My thumb traced circles on the top of his hand over and over until it became something real, deeper than flesh. More than lives are bound together, but on the verge of another second, another hour. Like children learning to move, breathing the same air. Bound in history. Even if it was wrong, it was true. We began anew. touching down, somewhere out there, sailing on ether.
All that was left the faintest glow of light between us, caught in the air between worlds.
"It looks like snow, she’d written."
David Patteson, North Carolina
David Patteson, North Carolina
Not, it is snow, white and powdery falling from the sky above the barn. No, she means the sky is silvery gray, the air chill, as she brushes a lock of brown hair from her eyes and looks out her storm door from the kitchen table. It looks like snow—where she is.
And I have to get to her. I have to drop my studies, close my textbooks, throw necessaries in a duffel bag and drive all night and half a day to be with her, under the quilt in her cold house, with the cows lowing outside because she wrote, It looks like
snow.
It’s not like she wrote, I love you, or Please come! Had she written that, I would have stayed put in my dorm room, working on my paper, confident in her affection. But she had written, It looks like snow, and her words beckon. She’s all alone there,
beneath that gray silver sky, that may or may not snow.
So, I drive as another cirrus sky battles the sun, as the road stretches out past the semis and into lonely mountains, as my eyelids droop and the rumble strips waken me. I drive to be with her as she looks out her window, not expecting my arrival, just wondering if it’ll snow again.
She doesn’t even need me. I’m just one in a line of guys she probably flirts with, sends postcards to. She just shared with me one of her mundane observations, took the time to write it down and remembered to mail it. Perhaps one day she will include me in her mundane observations, will remark to one of her friends, Paul wore this or that shirt, or Paul’s favorite ice cream is butter pecan. Oh, just to be noted amongst her clutter of observations! No more than a lover, no less than the snow.
She’ll look shocked when I stand at her door, duffel bag over my shoulder, late afternoon with the first flakes of yet another storm dusting the ground. She’ll make cowboy coffee while I glance around for signs of a man. We’ll drink at her kitchen table, and I’ll laugh about bringing another storm. I’ll dismiss the classes I’ll miss, saying it’s nothing. She’ll complain that I shouldn’t have gone to the trouble of driving all that way and that’ll lead to an argument. “So, am I a bad surprise?” “No. Of course I’m thrilled you’re here. It’s just …” “It’s just what?” “You surprised me, is all.” “Do you want me to leave?” “Of course not! Don’t be a silly.” “If I’m a bother, I’ll go.” I’ll even grab my duffel bag, all the while hoping she’ll stop me, beg me to stay. And she’ll laugh instead and tell me to go then, which will force a bluff betraying smile.
We’ll forgive each other, drink her last bottle of wine, and admit what fools we are. We’ll skip dinner, crawl under her great aunt’s quilt, and hold each other, skin on skin. We’ll wake in timeless night, snow illuminating the windows. Starving, we’ll
stumble into the cold kitchen to make eggs and waffles. We’ll eat like beady-eyed buzzards, chewing and breathing steam into the frigid air then run back to the quilt all covered in goosebumps.
I’ll find reasons to stay. Let Thursday extend into Friday, then the weekend and no classes ‘til Monday. But she’ll tell me to go. I’ll make her promise to be here when I come back, but she’ll only go so far as to say that she “ain’t got nowhere to be but
here.” Then she’ll tell me I’m a silly boy and send me back to school, chastened with an edict to study hard, make up for time lost, to come back with a clean report card. Her schoolboy in shining armor.
And so, I’ll return to my books with heavy heart and no promise. I’ll attend all my classes, scribble notes, decipher Kant, ridicule Rousseau, and focus on a “promising” future that’s not nearly as compelling as the possibility of snow.
And I have to get to her. I have to drop my studies, close my textbooks, throw necessaries in a duffel bag and drive all night and half a day to be with her, under the quilt in her cold house, with the cows lowing outside because she wrote, It looks like
snow.
It’s not like she wrote, I love you, or Please come! Had she written that, I would have stayed put in my dorm room, working on my paper, confident in her affection. But she had written, It looks like snow, and her words beckon. She’s all alone there,
beneath that gray silver sky, that may or may not snow.
So, I drive as another cirrus sky battles the sun, as the road stretches out past the semis and into lonely mountains, as my eyelids droop and the rumble strips waken me. I drive to be with her as she looks out her window, not expecting my arrival, just wondering if it’ll snow again.
She doesn’t even need me. I’m just one in a line of guys she probably flirts with, sends postcards to. She just shared with me one of her mundane observations, took the time to write it down and remembered to mail it. Perhaps one day she will include me in her mundane observations, will remark to one of her friends, Paul wore this or that shirt, or Paul’s favorite ice cream is butter pecan. Oh, just to be noted amongst her clutter of observations! No more than a lover, no less than the snow.
She’ll look shocked when I stand at her door, duffel bag over my shoulder, late afternoon with the first flakes of yet another storm dusting the ground. She’ll make cowboy coffee while I glance around for signs of a man. We’ll drink at her kitchen table, and I’ll laugh about bringing another storm. I’ll dismiss the classes I’ll miss, saying it’s nothing. She’ll complain that I shouldn’t have gone to the trouble of driving all that way and that’ll lead to an argument. “So, am I a bad surprise?” “No. Of course I’m thrilled you’re here. It’s just …” “It’s just what?” “You surprised me, is all.” “Do you want me to leave?” “Of course not! Don’t be a silly.” “If I’m a bother, I’ll go.” I’ll even grab my duffel bag, all the while hoping she’ll stop me, beg me to stay. And she’ll laugh instead and tell me to go then, which will force a bluff betraying smile.
We’ll forgive each other, drink her last bottle of wine, and admit what fools we are. We’ll skip dinner, crawl under her great aunt’s quilt, and hold each other, skin on skin. We’ll wake in timeless night, snow illuminating the windows. Starving, we’ll
stumble into the cold kitchen to make eggs and waffles. We’ll eat like beady-eyed buzzards, chewing and breathing steam into the frigid air then run back to the quilt all covered in goosebumps.
I’ll find reasons to stay. Let Thursday extend into Friday, then the weekend and no classes ‘til Monday. But she’ll tell me to go. I’ll make her promise to be here when I come back, but she’ll only go so far as to say that she “ain’t got nowhere to be but
here.” Then she’ll tell me I’m a silly boy and send me back to school, chastened with an edict to study hard, make up for time lost, to come back with a clean report card. Her schoolboy in shining armor.
And so, I’ll return to my books with heavy heart and no promise. I’ll attend all my classes, scribble notes, decipher Kant, ridicule Rousseau, and focus on a “promising” future that’s not nearly as compelling as the possibility of snow.
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