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Irina Korschunow
Das Luftkind
(The Wraith Child)
Hoffmann und Campe, August 2002. 272 pp. So many ways of treating the Nazi period in German fiction have already been tried, but this thoughtful and eminently readable novel takes a path all its own. The story begins in 1923 when Freda, the heroine, only seventeen, is seduced by an artist who promptly disappears and is forced by her father, a Prussian aristocrat, to give her child up for adoption. Ten years later Hitler comes to power, and soon after World War II has broken out Freda, now a teacher and still traumatised by her loss, becomes involved through business with a respected lawyer and his wife. Pillars of the local Protestant community, the couple are in fact Jewish, their parents having fled from Poland during the pogroms there. Knowing their fate to be sealed they commit suicide, but not before the father has left a note for Harro, his son, urging him to seek refuge with the mysterious and withdrawn Fräulein von Rützow, whom his instincts have led him to trust. The essence of this tale is that Freda shelters Harro out of simple humanity. She is not consciously defying the Nazis at all. The active political personality is Harro, in youth an ardent supporter of the Nazis who question his identity as a Jew before he is even aware of it. Now, ironically, he will owe his safety to a woman entirely indifferent to the both, Nazis and Jews. The end of the story is equally surprising. Freda and Harro, have had an affair, which brings healing to their emotional needs and wounds. But as the Russian tanks roll in she realises that their relationship will not survive the peace. Though pregnant with his child she goes forward to a new life, freed at last from the shadow of the child from her sad past.
Das Luftkind is a fine piece of storytelling, with beautiful descriptions of the Brandenburg landscape - the rye and turnip fields, cherry trees and wide, sandy lanes - which all readers will enjoy. It also captures, with intelligence and sensitivity, the insecurity of the German nation at a crucial time in their affairs.
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