Those Who Save Us Read online

  She curls on the cot like the embryo within her, drifting in and out of sleep. Sometimes when she wakes, she hears the wooden soles of the bakery’s patrons clocking overhead, the meaningless snippets of their conversations. At other times, she opens her eyes to a darkness so complete that it seems to press on her with the weight of a mattress. It is only then that Anna can bring herself to choke down the food Mathilde has left for her, in a covered tray at the foot of the treacherous wooden staircase.

  Since Anna’s arrival, mindful of Anna’s delicate condition and the cellar’s lack of amenities, the baker has implored Anna to move into her own living quarters above the storefront. But Anna cannot stomach the thought of lying beneath a braid of Mathilde’s long-dead mother’s hair, surrounded by dried flower arrangements and gay photographs of Mathilde’s deceased husband Fritzi. The claustrophobia of the basement suits Anna much better; it is as close as she can come to the conditions Max must be enduring. Cupping her swollen breasts, Anna relishes the ropy rasp of rat tails across the floor with a penitent’s zeal. She is grateful to cough in the fine black dust that the delivery of coal into the nearby chute raises each morning. The rank smell of fear from the others Mathilde has concealed here comforts Anna; with her eyes closed, she might be in the maid’s staircase in the Elternhaus.

  One evening, however, when Anna wakes from her doze, she bolts upright as if in response to an interior command: Enough. The movement is too abrupt; minnows of light dart across her vision. Anna waits for them to disperse, then climbs from the pallet and up the steps to the kitchen. Even this simple act requires enormous will; her limbs are filled with wet cement rather than blood. Anna recalls this same sensation from the days after her mother’s death. Grief is heavy. Perhaps a new anguish invokes the physical symptoms of an older one.

  She sways in the doorway of the kitchen, shading her eyes with a hand.

  Mathilde, she says, her voice a croak. What day is it?

  The baker doesn’t hear her. She is attacking the vast wooden worktable with a butter knife, dislodging flour paste from its cracks. Merely watching her makes Anna tired.

  Mathilde, she says again.

  The baker starts, breathing hard.

  Well, well, she says. Sleeping Beauty awakes.

  Is tomorrow Sunday? I haven’t heard churchbells. Have I been here longer than a week?

  It’s August, Mathilde says.

  She continues her task. Her buzzing voice, trapped in layers of fat like a fly in a bottle, is punctuated with small gasps of effort when she asks, And how is our princess this evening?

  Wunderbar, Anna says.

  She makes her way to the sink, which is enormous and double-sided, like the laundry basin in the Elternhaus. She pumps water into it, then drinks some from her cupped hands. It tastes of the iron in the pipes. Her hair, hanging over her shoulders, has separated into oily ropes, and she is suddenly aware of how she must smell. She sniffs the crook of her elbow: a bit sour, salty and creamy, like buttermilk. Since conceiving the baby, Anna’s own scent is strange to her.

  I hope I’ve not been too much of a burden, she says.

  Mathilde snorts. Hardly. Hardly even knew you were down there.

  Anna sizes up the baker as she bustles about: the bulk constrained by an apron; the tiny doll’s head, its thin dark hair combed in such severe lines that it appears painted on; the scalp shining between the furrows; the suspicious black eyes embedded in flesh.

  I’m no princess, Anna tells her. I’m ready to start earning my keep.

  Mathilde gives Anna an incredulous look.

  Shit, she mutters, brushing past Anna to soak a rag with water. Returning to the worktable, she says as she scrubs: Your papers are still good, you know. You could still go to Switzerland, have your baby there.

  No, says Anna. I’m not leaving Weimar.

  Oh, you’re a princess all right, used to getting your own way. Have you thought about what it’ll be like for you here? Your father alone could make your life miserable.

  I don’t intend to have any contact with him, Anna says. He doesn’t know where I am, and if he finds out, I don’t care. He turned Max in to the Gestapo himself.

  Of course he did. Who else? I’m surprised he didn’t turn you in too. No father likes to think of his daughter rutting with anyone, let alone a Jew. But I suppose he spared you on account of the baby.

  I didn’t tell him about the baby, Anna says.

  This earns Anna a second startled glance.

  Hiding a Jew he could forgive, if he could still keep me in the house until he marries me off, Anna explains. But my condition will show soon enough, and he couldn’t turn a blind eye to that. Not only would I be worthless goods, it would make him a laughingstock among his friends. They might even accuse him of condoning Rassenschande under his own roof. He would have to turn me in.

  Mathilde gives the table a sweeping stroke.

  Don’t you have a nice auntie in some other city, she asks, somewhere else you could go, away from this mess?

  No. And I wouldn’t go if I did. I must be where I can get news of Max. Have you heard anything? Have they— taken him to the camp?

  The baker nods, rubbing at a floury patch with a fingernail.

  He won’t last long up there, she says, skinny as he is.

  Tears spring to Anna’s eyes at this blunt statement. She longs so to slap Mathilde that she can see the reddening mark her hand would leave on the older woman’s face. By nature, Anna is not given to anger, and the fury that has paralyzed her for days frightens her. There is an irony in it: having finally escaped Gerhard’s rage, she is now enslaved by his emotional legacy. Like father, like daughter. But the feeling is now useful, steeling her spine to deal with Mathilde. If there is any belated lesson that Gerhard has taught Anna, it is that the only way to earn a bully’s respect is to respond in kind.

  She walks over to the table. Then I’ll carry on the work Max was doing, she tells Mathilde. I’ll take his place.

  Mathilde doesn’t bother to look up. A princess like you? she scoffs. Please! You have no idea what you’re talking about.

  Then tell me.

  Mathilde tosses the rag into the sink and waddles into the storefront. Anna hears the ding! as the register is opened, the sound of the baker removing the cash drawer. She folds her arms and waits.

  Upon her return Mathilde lowers herself onto a stool and scrapes it over to the table. She separates Reichsmarks, change, and ration coupons. Counting under her breath, she enters numbers into a ledger, tongue lodged in the corner of her mouth.

  You’re still here? she asks, looking up in feigned surprise. Not back to bed yet? You should go. A woman in your condition needs rest.

  Anna reaches over and slams the ledger shut, nearly catching the baker’s stubby fingers.

  Listen to me, you, she says. Don’t you forget that I hid Max in my own house, right under my father’s nose. I couriered information back and forth for you. I’ve got as much nerve as you or anyone else.

  Mathilde examines Anna for a moment.

  Sit, she commands.

  Anna obeys.

  The baker gets up and walks to the cuckoo clock on the wall. Opening one of its tiny decorative doors, she retrieves something that she sets on the worktable.

  You know what this is? she asks. You should have used a couple of these.

  Anna picks up the condom, gingerly.

  Go on, says Mathilde, unroll it.

  Inside the prophylactic Anna finds a slip of paper no longer than a finger, covered with writing the size of ants. She brings it to her eyes, squinting to decipher the minuscule code. One line in particular catches her attention: The Good Doktor sends best regards.

  Max, Anna murmurs. She glances at Mathilde. You got this from him?

  The baker nods, sitting back down. Not directly, she says. But we have our ways of communicating.

  How?

  If your lover didn’t trust you enough to tell you, why should I?

 
Anna says nothing, but the look she bends on the baker makes the older woman suddenly fall to inspecting her hands.

  All right, I’ll tell you how it works, since you obviously won’t give me a moment’s peace otherwise, Mathilde mutters. Well . . . We have a deal, the SS and me. They provide me with supplies, I deliver whatever goods they order. Since 1937 I’ve been doing this, since that hellhole was just a muddy pit in the ground. Koch, the Kommandant, came to me himself. He said he’d heard about the quality of my pastries.

  Mathilde preens a bit, then flushes at Anna’s arched brows.

  Well, they are the best, she says defensively. And if I didn’t supply them, somebody else would. Why should another baker get the business? Besides, I could see the other advantages to the arrangement, ways to use it for the Resistance. Oh, yes, the network existed even then. You wouldn’t know it, but there are plenty of people in this city who hate what the Nazis are doing. And what I could see during my deliveries to the camp would be priceless information to them. So I accepted Koch’s contract. And I’ll tell you, did I ever see some things.

  She leans closer to Anna, lowering her voice to a reedy whisper.

  Every week the SS have Comradeship Evenings at the Bismarck Tower, she says. You know where it is, on the hill there? Such goings-on, you wouldn’t believe. Prostitutes, male and female, little boys. Orgies. Those fine officers will fuck anything that moves, don’t let anybody tell you different. They wash each other in champagne afterwards. Some comradeship, don’t you think?

  Anna manufactures a worldly expression.

  Mathilde gives Anna a caustic little smile. You won’t understand, a pretty young thing like you, but when you get older, men don’t really see you. To the SS, I’m just a fat old widow. That’s what they call me—die Dicke, Fatty. But the advantage is that I’m invisible. When I’m bringing pastries to the Tower, when I deliver bread to the officers’ fine Eickestrasse houses or to their mess, I might as well be a chair for how much attention they pay me. As if being fat makes you deaf and blind too. So I see everything, hear everything. And after my regular deliveries, I make a special one to the prisoners. I leave bread for them. The poor bastards, they— Where? Anna interrupts.

  What?

  Where do you leave the bread?

  In the forest, by the quarry the SS have them working in. There’s a hollow tree where I can put the rolls and any Resistance information I can give them. And they pass camp information to me—this way.

  She indicates the condom.

  It’s not much, what I’m doing, she says, but it gives them some hope.

  Anna slips the paper back inside the rubber. Its surface is greasy and foul, and Anna can imagine all too well where a prisoner would have had to conceal it.

  I want to go, she tells Mathilde. Next time you go, I go.

  Mathilde takes the condom from Anna and hides it back in the clock. Then she removes an embroidered pouch from her apron. From this she produces papers and a pinch of tobacco and proceeds, with maddening slowness, to roll a cigarette.

  Did you hear me? Anna shouts. I want to help, I want to leave the bread, I’m going with you!

  Mathilde scrapes a match on the side of the oven and lights her cigarette. Exhaling, she watches Anna through a drifting blue membrane. Anna glares.

  You’ve got more balls than anybody’d think just to look at you, says the baker, but no. Do you have any idea how long it took us to set up this system? One false move and we’re all in the camp. You’re acting from the heart, not the head. Too risky.

  I’m perfectly clearheaded. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.

  And the baby, Mathilde continues, tapping ashes into a tin that once, Anna observes, held corned beef. Think of the baby.

  Anna waves a hand at both this argument and the smoke, which has condensed in layers.

  You shouldn’t smoke, she says with venom.

  Suddenly I have the Reichsminister of Propaganda Goebbels in my kitchen? A good German woman never smokes, right, princess?

  Anna wants to say, No, because it’s making me sick. Instead, she beckons for the cigarette.

  Give me that, she says.

  Shrugging, Mathilde hands it to her.

  Anna inhales. As she fights not to choke, she tries to come up with a statement that will persuade Mathilde she is hardy enough to be included in this venture. She thinks of Unterschar-führer Wagner, who comes from the same social class as the baker, whose crude language Mathilde speaks and appreciates. What would he say to sway her?

  If I could, Anna tells Mathilde, eyes watering, I’d blow this smoke right up the Führer ’s ass.

  Mathilde quakes with silent laughter.

  All right, she says, with a wet, ashy cough. You don’t have to try so hard to convince me. But no Special Deliveries for a while. You stay here, work for me, we’ll see how you do. Then—

  When? Anna says. When can I go with you?

  Maybe after the baby, says Mathilde. She turns and spits into the sink.

  But that won’t be for months! Until nearly Christmas—

  That’s soon enough, Mathilde says, and remains implacable.

  13

  GINGER.

  Yes, ginger, Anna. Fresh if you can get it, but I’ve found candied ginger to be effective too.

  Why are you giving the poor child such useless advice? Ginger is for morning sickness, and Fräulein Brandt is obviously well past that stage.

  But it also eases heartburn, Hilde—

  Besides, where do you expect her to find ginger nowadays? It’s hard enough to get the essentials, what with the rations they allow us!

  Shhhhh, Hilde, watch yourself. You’ve always been too outspoken for your own good—

  Pssht.

  Garlic, then. Or onions. Those you can still get, and they’ll clean your blood, increase your stamina—Which you’ll need for the birth, Fräulein Brandt, especially with the first child—hoo hoo!

  (Ssst! No need to frighten her more than she already must be, poor thing.) Yes, onions, Anna—

  Onions, yes—

  Onions. And raspberry leaf tea, to increase and sweeten your milk.

  Yes, raspberry leaf tea.

  Anna, wrapping and ringing up purchases at the register, smiles politely. These fragments of advice sound to her much like the endless propaganda from the bakery’s radio, which Mathilde calls the Goebbels’ Snout; the women’s solicitude seems as ersatz as the coffee they must all drink now, brewed from beechnuts and tasting to Anna of pencil shavings.

  She hands a loaf of black bread to Monika Allendorf, who takes it without letting her fingertips touch Anna’s own. As girls, Anna and Monika were particular friends, arms slung around each other’s waists in the schoolyard. They were merciless, Anna recalls, in their pursuit of a boy named Geoff, with whom they were both infatuated; they circled the poor thing on their bicycles, chanting, Chicken Legs, yoo-hoo, Chicken Legs! Now Monika has a skinny boy of her own. She flashes Anna an over-bright smile.

  Can I get anyone something else? Anna asks, sliding her hands to the small of her back. Because if not, I think we’re going to close a little early.

  No, no, we’re all settled. Thank you.

  You get some rest. That’s the most important thing.

  Yes, rest, Anna. It shouldn’t be long now?

  Another month, Anna says.

  That long! I’d expect it to be tomorrow. Not that you don’t look the picture of health—

  Yes, you’re positively glowing with it. You’ll have no trouble, no trouble at all, a young healthy girl like you.

  As the women leave, Anna follows them to the door to lock up. She is indeed exhausted; the fantasies that once featured Max now center around sleep, endless sleep on a soft bed. But at night, rest eludes her. She hoists her nightgown to stare in horrified fascination at her belly, which seems an entity quite separate from herself, as round and hard as a moon. By day, dressed and draped in an apron, she is as large as Mathilde.


  Anna throws the bolt and draws the lace curtains across the bakery’s storefront window; the blackout shade will be pulled later. Thus concealed from view, she lingers in the chilly zone of air near the pane. As she suspected they would, the women have congregated in a loose knot on the street. Their faint voices reach her through the glass.

  I always thought Mathilde Staudt a kind woman, but to work that poor girl so hard in her eighth month—

  Come now, don’t bad-mouth Mathilde. Who else would take her in? Would you, Bettina?

  I don’t care what you say, I never saw a pregnant woman look more peaked. Anyone can see she’s inches away from collapse.

  She wouldn’t be if she’d get the proper rest. The way Mathilde works her is a sin.

  Sin, ha! That’s an appropriate word, isn’t it, considering the way this baby was conceived!

  For shame, Monika. I’m surprised at you. I thought you were her friend.

  Well, I was, but— That was a long time ago, when I was just a girl. How could I have known what kind of person she is?

  But it’s not Anna’s fault, you know that. She couldn’t help what happened to her.

  Don’t tell me you believe that fish story Frau Staudt fed us.

  Well, I . . . Not really.

  Nor I.

  I certainly don’t.

  However you want to look at it, it’s broken her father’s heart, I can tell you that much. Did you know he’s left town?

  No!

  No.

  Yes, I did hear something along those lines—

  It’s true. The last time Grete Hortschaft went out there to clean his house, she found it locked up and dark. And have you seen him going into his office lately?

  Well, no, now that you mention it . . .

  I heard he’s gone to Berlin, to act as legal counsel to the Reich. Drowning his sorrows in his work, I’ll wager.

  Pah! Herr Brandt’s not that sentimental a fellow. He’s escaping the scandal, that’s all.