Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

Still Waters

We little disappointed we weren’t the ones who found her. Michael and I arrived after they had already pulled her out of one of the Judenteiche, the Jews’ ponds. We still got to see the vehicles from the fire and police departments, as well as the news reporters, so at least we didn’t miss out on all of it. We stood around and gawked, trying to see as much as we could. We all knew it was Silvana’s mother who had been found there in the water. No one had to tell us. Thorsten had gotten there long before we had. His parents lived in one of the half-timbered houses were a

on St. Annenstrasse, only a stone’s throw from the Judenteich. He was still in his PJs when we walked up, and he claimed to have seen everything from the very start. He said she had looked like Barschel in his bathtub, and he went on to mimic how her head had lolled onto her right shoulder, twisting his arms as if suffering from cramps. We acted like we didn’t care, like we always did when Thorsten was telling one of his dumb horror stories, but I still wondered at that moment what Silvana’s mother had actually looked like when they found her in the pond. I had never seen a real corpse. None of us had. So we kept standing

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