Mona feels a tightening at her throat, and then tears in her eyes, but she forces herself to say: “Well, she’s not the only mother who has lost a son. People who make wars must expect to suffer for them.”
Oskar looks at her for a moment and then goes off without speaking again. At the next moment she catches herself looking after him through the window just as he turns his head and looks back.
“Oh God, forgive me! Forgive me!” she thinks and feels as if she would like to beat herself.
A week later when Oskar comes as usual he is carrying a small wooden box, which he sets down inside the dairy door. It is from Ludwig’s mother, and contains one of the little glass domes of artificial flowers which the Germans lay on the graves of their dead.
“She asks me to lay them on Ludwig’s, but how can I, not being allowed to go out of the gates?”
The lid of the box has been loosened, and lifting it, he shows the glass dome with an inscription attached. Mona allows herself to stoop and look at it. It is in German.
“What does it say?” she asks.
“‘With Mother’s everlasting love.’”
Mona feels as if a knife has gone to her heart, but she rises hastily and says sharply: “You may take it away. I’ll have nothing to do with it,” and Oskar goes off, but he leaves the box behind him.