Those Who Save Us Read online

  She finds the Herr Doktor pressing a stethoscope to the chest of a woman whose flesh ripples like lard from her muslin brassiere. The patient catches sight of Anna before the practitioner: she points and emits a small breathy scream. The Doktor jumps and straightens, startled, and the woman grabs her bosom and moans.

  Have a seat in the waiting room, whoever you are, Herr Doktor Stern snaps. I’ll be with you shortly.

  Please, Anna gasps. My father’s dog— he’s eaten something poisonous— I think he’s dying—

  The Doktor turns, raising an eyebrow.

  You may dress, Frau Rosenberg, he tells his patient. Your bronchitis is very mild, nothing to be alarmed about. I’ll write you the usual prescription. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must attend to this poor animal.

  Well! says the woman, pulling on her shirtwaist. Well! I never expected— to be forsaken for a dog.

  She grabs her coat and pushes past Anna with a dramatic wheeze.

  As the door slams the Doktor comes quickly to Anna and relieves her of her burden, and she imagines that he shares with her the faintest smile of complicity over his spectacles. She lowers her head, anticipating the second, startled glance of appreciation that men invariably give her. But instead she hears him walking away, and when she looks up again his back is to her, bent over the dachshund on the table.

  Well, what have we here, he murmurs.

  Anna watches anxiously as he reaches into the dog’s mouth, then turns to prepare a syringe. She takes some comfort from the deft movement of his hands, the play of muscles beneath his thin shirt. He is a tall, slender fellow, bordering on gaunt. He also seems oddly familiar, though Anna certainly has not been here before.

  As grateful as I am to you for rescuing me from Frau Rosen-berg, I must point out that this is a most unorthodox visit, Fräulein, says the Doktor as he works. Are you perhaps under the impression that I’m a veterinarian? Or did you think a Jewish practitioner would be grateful to treat even a dog?

  Jewish? Anna blinks at the Doktor’s blond hair, which, though straight, stands up in whorls and spikes. She remembers belatedly the Star of David painted on the clinic door. Of course, she has known this is the Jewish Quarter, but in her panic she has not given it a thought.

  No, no, Anna protests. Of course not. I brought him here because you were closest—

  She realizes how this sounds and winces.

  I’m sorry, she says. I didn’t mean to offend.

  The Doktor smiles at her over one shoulder.

  No, it’s I who should apologize, he says. It was meant as a joke, but it was a crude one. In these times I’m indeed grateful for any patients, whether they’re fellow Jews or dachshunds. You are Aryan, yes, Fräulein? You do know you have broken the law by coming here at all.

  Anna nods, although this too she has not considered. The Doktor returns his attention to the dog.

  Almost done, almost done, he mutters. Ah, here’s the culprit.

  He holds something up for Anna’s inspection: part of one of her sanitary napkins, slick with spit and spotted with blood.

  Anna claps her palms to her face, mortified.

  Oh, God in heaven, she says. That wretched dog!

  Herr Doktor Stern laughs and dispenses the napkin in a rubbish bin.

  It could have been worse, he says.

  I can’t imagine how—He could have eaten something truly poisonous. Chocolate, for instance.

  Chocolate is poisonous?

  For dogs it is, Fräulein.

  I didn’t know that.

  Well, now you do.

  Anna fans her flaming cheeks.

  I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have preferred that, she says, given the circumstances.

  The Doktor laughs, a short bark, and moves to lather his hands at the sink.

  You mustn’t be embarrassed, Fräulein, he says. Nihil humanum mihialienum est—nothing human is alien to me. Nor canine, for that matter. But you should be more careful what you feed that little fellow—for meals, that is. He is far too fat.

  That’s my father’s doing, Anna tells him. He is constantly slipping the dog scraps from the table.

  Now Herr Doktor Stern does give her another, longer look.

  Your father—that’s Herr Brandt, yes?

  That’s right.

  Ah, says the Doktor, and lifts Spaetzle from the examining table. He settles the dog in Anna’s arms. The dachshund’s eyes are glazed; limp, he seems to weigh as much as a paving stone.

  A mild sedative, the Doktor explains, and muscle relaxant. So I could extract the . . . In any case, he’ll be up to his old tricks in no time, provided you keep him away from sweets and other, shall we say, indigestibles?

  He lowers his spectacles and smiles at Anna, who stands returning it longer than she should. Then she remembers herself and shifts the dog to fumble awkwardly in her coat pocket for her money purse.

  How much do I owe you? she asks.

  The Doktor waves a hand.

  No charge, he says. It is the least I can do, considering my last ill-fated interaction with your family.

  He turns away, and Anna thinks, Of course. Now she knows where she has seen him before. He attended Anna’s mother in the final days of her illness, the only physician in Weimar who would come to the house. Anna recalls Herr Doktor Stern hurrying past her in the upstairs hallway, vials clinking in his bag; that, upon spying the woebegone Anna in a corner, he stopped and chucked her under the chin and said, It’ll be all right, little one. She recalls, too, that Gerhard’s first reaction to his wife’s death was to rant, It’s all his fault she didn’t recover. What else can one expect from a Jew? I should never have let him touch her.

  You used to have a beard, Anna says now, a red beard.

  The Doktor scrapes a hand over his jaw, producing a small rasping sound.

  Ah, yes, so I did, he says. I shaved it off last year in an attempt to look younger. Vain in both senses of the word.

  Anna smiles again. How old is he? No more than his mid-thirties, she is sure. He wears no wedding ring.

  He opens the door for her with a polite little flourish. Anna remains near the apothecary cabinet, fishing about for something else to ask him, wondering whether she can possibly pretend interest in the jars of medicines and tongue depressors or the skeleton propped in one corner of the room, wearing a fedora. But the Doktor has an air of impatience now, so Anna gives a small sigh and takes a firmer grasp on the dog.

  Thank you very much, Herr Doktor, she murmurs as she brushes past him, noticing, beneath the odor of disinfectant, the smell of spiced soap on his skin.

  My pleasure, Fräulein.

  The Doktor flashes Anna a distracted half-smile and calls into the waiting room: Maizel!

  A small boy with long curls bobbing over his ears scurries toward Anna, his arm in a sling. He is followed by an older Jewish man in a threadbare black coat. Their forelocks remind Anna of wood shavings. She presses herself against the wall to let the pair pass.

  As she emerges into the chilly night, Anna casts a wistful look back at the clinic. Then, with unease, she remembers her father. It is late, and Gerhard will be furious that his dinner has been delayed; he insists his meals be served with military precision. On sudden impulse, Anna turns and hastens toward the bakery a few streets away. A Sachertorte, Gerhard’s favorite dessert, will provide an excuse as to why Anna has been out at this hour—she is certainly not going to tell him about the debacle with the dog—and may act as a sop to his temper.

  Like everything else in this forlorn neighborhood, the bakery is nothing to look at. It does not even have a name. Anna wonders why its owner, Frau Staudt, doesn’t choose to relocate outside the Jewish Quarter, since she is as Aryan as Anna herself. No matter; however run-down the shop, its pastries are the best Weimar has to offer. Anna arrives just as the baker is flipping the sign from Open to Closed. Anna taps on the window and makes a desperate face, and Frau Staudt, whose substantial girth is trussed as tightly as a turkey into her
apron, throws up her hands.

  She unlocks the door, grumbling in her waspish little voice, And what is it you want now? A Linzertorte? The moon?

  A Sachertorte? says Anna, trying her most winning smile.

  ASachertorte ! Sachertorte, the princess wants . . . I don’t suppose you have the proper ration coupons, either.

  Well . . .

  I thought not.

  But the widowed and childless baker has long adopted a maternal attitude toward the motherless Anna, and there is indeed a precious Sachertorte in the back, and Anna manages, by looking suitably pitiable, to beg half of it on credit.

  This accomplished, she returns home as quickly as she is able, given that she is holding the pastry box under one arm and the dachshund, who is starting to squirm, in the other. And again Anna is in luck: when she sneaks in through the maid’s entrance, she hears a rising Wagnerian chorus from her father’s study. Gerhard is in a decent mood, then. Perhaps he has not noticed what time it is. Anna deposits the dog in his basket and frowns at the sideboard. The Rouladen, left out of the icebox this long, has probably spoiled. Anna will have to concoct an Eintopf from last night’s dinner instead.

  As she hastily assembles the ingredients for the casserole, she pinches bits from the cake and eats them. The cold night air has given her an appetite. It has done wonders for Spaetzle too, apparently, for he makes the quick recovery the Doktor has promised. He waddles from his bed to lurk underfoot; he stares with beady interest at Anna’s hand, following the progress of Sachertorte from box to mouth. As Anna does not appear to be about to offer him any, he lets out a volley of yaps.

  Quiet, Anna says.

  She cuts herself a sliver of cake and eats it slowly, savoring the bitter Swiss chocolate and sieving her memory for more details of Herr Doktor Stern’s house call five years earlier. She recalls that the red beard made him look like the Dutch painter van Gogh, whose self-portraits were once exhibited in Weimar’s Schlossmuseum. Even now without it, the resemblance is striking, Anna reflects: the narrow face, the sad blue brilliance of the eyes, the weary lines etched about the mouth, not without humor. The artist in his final tortured days.

  Anna sighs. In the time before the Reich, she would have been able to revisit the Doktor with some conjured malady. She might even, with careful planning, have encountered him socially. But now? Anna has no excuse whatever to visit a Jewish physician; in fact it is, as the Doktor himself has reminded her, forbidden. Not that Anna has ever paid much attention to such things.

  She takes a disheartened bite of cake, and Spaetzle barks again.

  Shut up, Anna tells him absently.

  Then she looks down at the dog. Encouraged by Anna’s thoughtful expression, he begins to wriggle and whine. Anna smiles at him and slices another piece off the cake, somewhat larger this time. She hesitates for a moment, the chocolate softening in her palm. Then she says, Here, boy, and drops it to the floor.

  2

  CHECK, THE DOKTOR SAYS.

  Anna frowns at the chessboard, at the constellation of battered pieces on their cream and oak squares. This set, Max has told her, belonged to his father, and his father before him. One of the original black pawns has vanished, replaced by a stub of charcoal, and Anna’s queen is missing her crown. She is also boxed into a corner.

  Anna is not a complete novice at the game; she learned its rudiments as a girl, on the knees of her maternal grandfather. But Max’s tutelage during the past four months has enabled her to better understand the logical ways in which the pieces move together, the clever geometric mesh. He has reintroduced her, too, to the keen joy of unadulterated learning, which Anna hasn’t experienced since studying languages at Gymnasium. Now, as Anna falls asleep at night, she sees the board tattooed on her eyelids, rearranges the pieces into endless configurations. And she is improving.

  But Max is so much better than she! Each match is still an exercise in humiliation. As, Anna is coming to feel, are her clandestine evenings here. Max is more complicated than the games they share. It is true that whenever Anna appears uninvited on his back doorstep, Max seems pleased to see her, invariably exclaiming, Anna, isn’t it funny? I had a feeling you might stop by. And Anna has caught him assessing her with the healthy masculine admiration to which she is accustomed. But Max confines his compliments to sartorial observations, commenting on a new dress Anna is wearing or a silk scarf that brings out the blue of her eyes. His behavior is that of a fond uncle. It is maddening.

  He watches her now over the rims of his spectacles, amused.

  Are you willing to concede? he asks.

  Not yet, Anna tells him.

  She studies the board. Her hand hovers over one of her knights. Then she gets up and goes to the stove, which exudes tired whiffs of gas.

  May I make more tea? she asks, reaching for the canister on the top shelf. The movement causes her skirt to rise a good three inches above the knee. It is an outdated garment, the Pencil silhouette long since out of fashion, but it is also the shortest she owns.

  You’re still in check, Anna, says Max. You wouldn’t by any chance be trying to distract me with that fetching skirt, would you?

  Anna glances back at him.

  Is it working?

  Max laughs.

  That reminds me of a joke my father’s rabbi used to tell, he says. Why does a Jew always answer a question with a question?

  I don’t know, says Anna, busying herself with the tea. Why?

  Why not?

  Anna makes a face at Max and looks around his kitchen while she waits for the water to boil. Like the rest of his rooms behind the clinic, it is small but neat, each cup hanging from its proper hook, the spices alphabetized in the cupboard, the floor swept. There are even plants on a step-laddered rack against one wall, yearning toward a strange lamp that emits a cold purple-white light. But there are some housekeeping tasks that Max has either neglected or hasn’t spied at all: the diamond-shaped panes in the mullioned windows could use a good cleaning with newspaper and vinegar, and a finger run over the sill would come up furred with dust. Things only a woman would notice; this is definitely a bachelor establishment, Anna thinks, and she smiles fondly at her chipped teacup.

  As the teakettle stubbornly refuses to sing, adhering to the maxim about the watched pot, Anna turns her back on the stove and wanders to the plants.

  What is this one called? she asks, bending over a dark green leaf.

  She hears the scrape of Max’s chair as he comes from the table to stand behind her.

  That’s Monstera deliciosa, he tells her, the Swiss cheese plant.

  Ah. And to think I thought cheese came from dairy farms. And this one?

  Max puts a casual hand on Anna’s shoulder as they lean forward together. Anna catches her breath and looks sidelong at it, the long dexterous fingers with their square clipped nails.

  An asparagus fern, says Max. A. densiflorus sprengerii.

  Anna stares at a single frond questing toward the light, blind and sensitive and quivering under the onslaught of their mingled breath. When Max takes his hand away she fancies she can still feel its warmth, as though it has left a radiating imprint.

  He points to another specimen with striped leaves.

  Now this one, he says, glancing at Anna over the wire rims of his spectacles, is Zebrina pendula, otherwise known as a Wandering Jew. A donation from a former patient who is now, I believe, in Canada. Aptly named, don’t you think?

  Anna retreats a few steps.

  I suppose, she says.

  She resumes her position at the chessboard. Is Max smiling as he does the same? Anna moves her rook quickly, without forethought.

  Max pushes his spectacles up onto his forehead as though he has another set of eyes there.

  That’s done it, he says, sighing. You’ve completely foiled my plan, young lady.

  Anna watches him covertly as he canvasses the board, holding his head, hands plunged into his undisciplined light hair. He puts a forefinger on his rook. r />
  Tell me something, he says. Your father. Is he a member of the Partei ?

  He has leanings in that direction, yes, says Anna carefully.

  Max rubs his chin.

  As I thought, he says. He impressed me as being the sort who would. He’s an—opinionated fellow, yes?

  You could say that.

  Mmmm. And tell me something else, dear Anna. I’ve been wondering. Has it been very difficult for you, living alone with him these past five years? You seem so very . . . isolated.

  The room is quiet enough that Anna can hear the bubble of the water in the pot. Despite the astonishing ease of these evening conversations, which Anna reviews each night as she lies in her childhood bed, this is the first time Max has asked her something this personal. She would like to answer. But her response remains bottled in her throat.

  Max strokes the rook.

  The death of a parent, he says to it, is a profoundly life-altering experience, isn’t it? When I was a child, I often had this feeling of God’s in his Heaven: All’s right with the world—that’s Robert Browning. An English poet. But ever since my father died in the last war, I’ve awakened each morning knowing that I’ll never again feel that absolute security. Nothing is ever quite right, is it, after a parent dies? No matter how well things go, something always feels slightly off . . .

  As Max talks, Anna is paralyzed by simultaneous realizations, the first being that nobody, since her mother’s death, has ever spoken of it. At first, neighbors came bearing platitudes and platters of food, and there were well-meaning invitations from distant relatives to spend holidays in their homes, summers at their country houses. But nobody has ever had the courage, the simple human kindness, to ask her how she feels in the wake of the loss. To approach the matter directly.

  And the accuracy of Max’s comment about her isolation: how can he know this? Anna looks across the table at his narrow face. Although quiet by nature and an object of some envy because of the attention her looks drew from boys, Anna did have girlfriends for a time, school chums with whom she linked arms at recess, acquaintances whose classroom gossip she shared. But the rise of the Reich, coinciding with her mother’s death, soon put an end to this. The activities of the Bund deutscher Mädel, which Anna joined with all the other girls, seemed insipid and made her vaguely uncomfortable; during patriotic bonfires in the Ettersberg forest or swimming parties with the boys of the Hitlerjugend, Anna would watch the happy singing faces and think of what awaited her at home: the cooking and cleaning, her mother’s dark and empty bed. She began participating less and less, citing housework and her father’s needs as the reason, and eventually her friends stopped coming up the drive to the house, their invitations too dwindling into a puzzled silence.