the walls. But the hall was empty, as was the living room and kitchen. Where is my wife? I said, or perhaps I shouted, though I am hardly the shouting type. She’s fine, this nurse, Alexandra, or Alexa, I can’t remember, assured me. A very nice woman called, a magistrate if I’m not mistaken. She’s bringing Lotte home right now. I don’t understand, I shouted, for surely by this point I’d lost my temper and had begun to shout, How did she wander off with you sitting right next to her? Actually, said the nurse, I wasn’t sitting right next to her. She was watching television, it was a program I didn’t care much for myself, and so I decided to wait in the other room until she was finished. And after that program she watched another of the same kind, so I called a friend of mine and we chatted for a while, and then when she decided to watch a third program, one of those really awful ones where they have snakes devouring helpless animals, snakes and alligators, I believe, though I think the third one was about piranhas, well after that I went in to see if she wanted anything, and she was gone. Luckily they called from the court a few minutes later to say that they had Ms. Berg, and she was perfectly fine.
By this point I was in such a rage that I could barely speak. The court? I shouted. THE COURT? and if a car hadn’t pulled up in front of the house just then I might have lunged at her. The driver, a woman in her late fifties, got out and went around to open the door for Lotte. She led her patiently up the path long since cleared of brambles, planted on either side with purple irises and grape hyacinths, purple being Lotte’s favorite color. Here we are, Ms. Berg, home at last, the woman said, leading her along on her arm as if Lotte were her own mother. Home at last, Lotte repeated, and beamed. Hello Arthur, she said, smoothing her trousers, and walked past me into the house.
Afterwards the woman, who was indeed a magistrate, told me the following story: At around three o’clock she’d gone down the hallway to speak to a colleague, and when she came back there was Lotte, sitting with her handbag on her lap, staring straight ahead as if she were riding in a car and unknown landscapes were unfolding before her, or as if she were in a movie acting as if she were riding in a car while in truth she was sitting perfectly still. Can I help you? the magistrate asked, though normally they buzzed her when she had a visitor, and as far as she knew she didn’t have any meetings scheduled. Later it was a mystery to her how Lotte had got past the security guard and her secretary. Slowly Lotte turned to look at her. I’ve come to report a crime, she said. All right, the magistrate said, taking her seat across from Lotte, because the only other option would have been to ask her to leave, which she didn’t have the heart to do. What is the crime? she asked. I gave up my child, Lotte announced. Your child? she asked, and at that moment she began to sense that Lotte, who was seventy-five by then, was perhaps disoriented or not altogether in her senses. On July 20, 1948, five weeks after he was born, she said. To whom did you give him? the magistrate asked. He was adopted by a couple from Liverpool, Lotte said. In that case no one committed a crime, Madame, said the magistrate.
At this point Lotte became silent. First silent and then confused. Confused and then frightened. She stood abruptly and asked to be taken home. Stood and didn’t know which way to turn, as if she had forgotten where even the door was, as if the exit had gone the way of the rest. When the magistrate asked her address, Lotte gave her the name of a German street. From down the hallway came the sound of a gavel and Lotte jumped. At last she agreed to let the magistrate look in her handbag to find her address and telephone number. The magistrate phoned the house and spoke to the nurse, and then she told her secretary that she would be back soon. As they were leaving the building, Lotte looked