Those Who Save Us Page 6

  If you’ll be seated, dinner is ready, says Anna. Unless you’d care for a drink first?

  Gerhard laughs.

  No, my dear, we’re quite lubricated enough already, he says. Gentlemen, this way.

  With an expansive gesture that falls just short of a bow, he ushers the officers into the dining room. Anna escapes to the kitchen. As she does, she hears Wagner say, Well, Gerhard, I’d heard you were hiding a little treasure here, but I never expected anything like this. She has the face of an angel! and Gerhard’s modest reply: Yes, she is rather fetching, if I do say so myself . . . But hiding her, Gustav? Such a dramatic accusation! I’m merely keeping her safe until the right fellow comes along. She’ll make some lucky man a good wife . . .

  Anna, fighting another swell of nausea, lets the door swing shut behind her. When she re-emerges, carrying the tureen of soup, the three men have seated themselves in the dining room, Gerhard at the head of the table, the other two to either side. Wagner lounges in his chair, but von Schoener sits upright, a mismatched bookend. He presses his handkerchief to his lips, watching Anna’s every movement as she serves him.

  Is this watercress? Wagner asks, dipping his spoon into his bowl.

  Cucumber, Anna tells him. An antidote to the warm weather.

  It’s nice, Fräulein. A local recipe? They have nothing like this where I’m from.

  And where would that be? Anna asks, taking her seat opposite Gerhard.

  A small town in East Prussia. You probably haven’t heard of it.

  Anna revamps her image of the pre-war Wagner: he would have been a farmhand, then, tormenting the animals and perhaps the younger, weaker boys.

  Wagner laughs nastily.

  I’ve never understood why everybody considers East Prussia so backwards, he says. I see you now think I’m a hayseed, Fräulein.

  Of course not, Anna murmurs.

  Let’s hope the Führer never asks you to be a spy, says Wagner. He slides the spoon over his lower lip, tonguing the silver concavity. You’d make a very bad one. I can see your every thought on your face.

  Anna prays this isn’t true. She forces herself to take some soup. Though she is normally fond of cucumber, the liquid coats her mouth, slimy as algae.

  And have you left your family behind to fulfill your duties here? she asks, looking pointedly at Wagner’s left hand, where a slim silver ring glints on his wedding finger.

  Wagner’s grin fades.

  Yes, my whole family. This ring is— It belonged to my grandmother.

  Really, says Anna.

  Wagner applies himself to his soup.

  We must all make sacrifices for the Reich, Gerhard says. His voice, sonorous from years of courtroom appearances, is modulated, but Anna knows that he is furious with her, as he has been ever since she told him that Spaetzle ran away. He conceals his anger well, even as his silver mustache hides a harelip; like many of his imperfections, it is invisible to the casual observer. But can’t even these officers, acquaintances of a few months, see Gerhard’s conceit, his sycophancy, the foppishness of his cravat and handmade shoes?

  Apparently not, for Wagner tells Gerhard, I like your waistcoat.

  Gerhard looks modestly down at the garment, which, embroidered with a hunting scene, would be more appropriate hung on a wall.

  And this room—! Wagner waves his spoon, scattering green droplets. That chandelier is magnificent. Did you kill the deer yourself ?

  Of course, Gerhard says of the configuration of antlers above the table. He reaches for the decanter. I am an avid hunter, he adds carelessly, though Anna knows he has never so much as held a rifle.

  The acrid smell of the officers’ boot polish is suddenly overwhelming. Swallowing bile, Anna collects the empty bowls, sets her own full one atop the rest, and excuses herself to attend to the main course. She arranges the slices of venison on a silver platter with distaste: the flesh glistens, the pink of a healing burn, causing her stomach to perform an even more lively set of calisthenics. Averting her eyes, holding her breath, Anna brings the meat out to the men.

  Do you know, she says to Hauptsturmführer von Schoener, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you what brings you to Weimar. What is it you do here, specifically?

  The Hauptsturmführer blinks. Tears trickle down his face, which otherwise remains immobile.

  Desk work— mostly— he gasps. He coughs into his handkerchief, inspects the contents, then folds it into a small square. I’m really— no more than— a bureaucrat— I wouldn’t dream— of boring you— with a detailed— description—

  He again brings the handkerchief to his mouth, gazing at Anna over the linen.

  False modesty is a bad habit, Joachim, Gerhard booms. He spears a slice of venison and sends Anna a significant look from eyes as small and greedy as a bear’s. Translated, his glance means: This one is good husband material; his lineage is impeccable and his valor demonstrated, but because of his injuries, he will never leave you to be summoned to the front!

  Anna doesn’t return her father’s smile. Having fulfilled her duties as a hostess, she is now free to eat without participating in the conversation. She focuses on cutting her meat and dropping it into the napkin on her lap, listening for useful tidbits that Frau Staudt might pass on to others in the Resistance. But the men don’t oblige her. Rather than discussing the camp—with which, as SS, they are obviously affiliated—they analyze the Führer ’s brilliance during the recent offensive into France. Anna would glean more information from the Völkischer Beobachter, the local paper.

  Suddenly Hauptsturmführer von Schoener breaks off mid-gasp.

  What is it, Herr Hauptsturmführer, Anna asks. Would you like more wine?

  I thought— I heard— something— he says.

  The group freezes, Wagner’s fork halfway to his fleshy lips. From near the ceiling, from the direction of the hidden maid’s staircase, there is a muffled thump—the sort of sound produced, for instance, by a person sneezing so violently that he has knocked his head against the wall.

  Immediately Anna bends over her plate, coughing. The men turn in her direction, Gerhard annoyed, Wagner startled, von Schoener concerned. And Anna meanwhile finds that her act has become real: there is no morsel of food lodged in her throat, of course, but she can’t catch her breath. In his consternation von Schoener starts to cough too, and the table begins to sound like the percussive section of a human orchestra.

  Then Wagner is behind Anna, seizing her arms and raising them above her head.

  Breathe, he commands. Deeply. That’s it.

  He reaches over her shoulder for a glass.

  Drink this.

  Anna obeys. A last convulsion forces some of the wine into her nose, but she is finally able to draw a shallow breath. As Wagner releases her and resumes his seat, she nods her thanks and daubs her tearstained face on her sleeve.

  That’s how we East Prussian hayseeds stop choking fits, Wagner says.

  The men chuckle. Anna laughs weakly along with them. Her energetic charade has expelled Max’s fluids, and she feels them sliding like egg whites between her thighs.

  Anyone for seconds? Gerhard asks. He crooks a finger at Anna.

  Anna doesn’t move. The officers will have to wait or serve themselves. She fears she has stained her dress.

  I couldn’t—eat—another bite—says von Schoener. My—compliments, Fräulein—Again, from behind the wall, there is a bump.

  What is that? Wagner asks.

  Mice, perhaps, suggests Gerhard. I suppose this house has its share of them, like all old houses. This one was built in 1767, you know, as a summer home for the Kaiser.

  Anna closes her eyes. Even she hasn’t heard this tale before.

  Wagner chews mechanically, his fat lips bunching.

  That’s impressive, he says. But you really do need an exterminator, even so. To get rid of the vermin.

  7

  BY JULY 1940, CONVERSATION AMONG THE CITIZENS OF Weimar is limited to one topic: the phenomenal suc
cess of the Blitzkrieg on London. No more whispered complaints of how hard it is to find a decent leg of lamb, a pair of real stockings, a good cognac; no mourning once-voluptuous figures or lamenting husbands absent at the front. Instead, the Volk go about with their chests thrust forward, heads high, greeting one another with smiles: Did you hear? Four thousand killed in a single air raid! Those Messerschmitts are a miracle, a marvel. That fat sausage Churchill must be cowering in his bunker. Our boys will be home by Christmas yet!

  Yes, it’s wonderful, murmurs Anna, shouldering her way through the cheerful throng in Frau Staudt’s bakery. Yes, yes, I couldn’t agree more; it’s splendid news.

  Once outside, she takes a deep breath, relieved to be free of the pungent stink caused by the rationing of bathwater and her own hypocrisy. Anna has always been impatient with the gloating over Reich triumphs, and never more so than today, when she has quite different news to impart to Max. She sets off for home at a trot, ignoring the Rathaus bells tolling yet another Luftwaffe victory behind her. How will she tell him? Not an hour ago, Anna will say, Frau Staudt informed me that the new identity cards and passes are ready—two sets, not one. You and I, my dear Max, will cease to exist, but Stefan and Emilie Mitter-hauser will be traveling to Switzerland, where they can make their paper marriage real in a quiet ceremony.

  No warm beach or fried seafood, then: instead and more appealing at the moment, the breezes of Interlaken. A simple suite of rooms, perhaps overlooking the deep quiet lake, the mountains ringing it with their snowcapped peaks. Cool and sweet and quite a contrast with the afternoon through which Anna walks, more slowly now. To move through this air is like fighting one’s way through a dream: all Weimar gasps for breath in heat heavy as cotton wadding, the motionless atmosphere that precedes a thunderstorm.

  Gerhard’s car is not in the drive when Anna reaches the Elternhaus, so she goes straight to the Christmas closet.

  Hello, Herr Mitterhauser, she calls, shutting the outer door behind her. How do you feel about a holiday in the mountains?

  Her attempt at gaiety is muffled in the cramped space, as though the stagnant air has swallowed it. Without warning, the dizziness and attendant nausea attacks her. Anna puts a hand on the wall and waits.

  When it has passed, she flicks sweat from her forehead and opens the inner door. You’d better start packing, she says. We leave tonight—Then the feeble light from the high window penetrates the stairwell, and the strength runs from her legs like water.

  For there are no sheets, with which Anna has replaced Max’s blankets when the days grew hot. There are no scraps of verse pinned to the walls. No empty plates. No chamber pot. There is nothing, in fact, to indicate that anyone has ever been in the hiding space at all, except for the olfactory ghost of Max’s perspiration and their lovemaking, a salty smell curiously reminiscent of onions.

  WHEN ANNA HEARS THE SCRATCH OF GERHARD’S KEY IN the front door, it is nearly eight o’clock. She sits in his study, in his chair behind his desk, a position forbidden to her. She toys with Gerhard’s letter opener as she waits for him, turning it over and over in her hands. The instrument is embossed with a family crest—not the Brandts’, though Gerhard claims it is. Anna runs her forefinger over the curving blade, which is sharp enough to draw blood. The weather has broken; thunder rolls overhead, and as Anna has not bothered with the lamps the fading light that trickles into the room is wet and green.

  Eventually Gerhard throws open the door to his study.

  There you are, he says. Haven’t you heard me calling you? Isn’t it about time for dinner?

  He fumbles for his pocket watch and makes a great show of checking the hour. Anna watches him. His pores ooze whiskey; his thinning hair has escaped its pomade and hangs in strands over his forehead. Under the influences of his new friends, Gerhard, once a teetotaler, has taken to emptying a bottle nightly. To the casual observer, he would appear a harmless buffoon.

  Yet of course Anna knows Gerhard is anything but, and despite her current resolution to remain calm, her hand clenches on the letter opener. The blade slips, slicing the tender meat beneath her fingernail.

  She sets the knife down and inspects the welling bead of blood.

  I didn’t make dinner, she says. And you know why.

  Then she flinches, steeling herself for the tirade she knows will follow. But Gerhard—predictable only in his unpredictability—surprises her by saying nothing as he sinks into one the armchairs usually reserved for his clients.

  How did you know? Anna asks.

  Gerhard smothers a belch.

  How?

  The whiskers in the shaving basin, Gerhard says, were blond.

  You took him to the Gestapo. To be exterminated, as Wagner suggested. Like any other vermin—isn’t that right?

  Gerhard’s mouth drops open as if he is shocked and aggrieved by this accusation.

  I did it for you, Anchen, he says.

  At his use of her childhood name, Anna feels another surge of nausea. Her blouse and the roots of her hair are instantly soaked with perspiration. She stands and paces with one hand cupped over her nose, hoping that the comforting smell of her own skin will assuage the sickness. Behind her, Gerhard reclaims his throne.

  How much did they pay you, your friends? Anna asks, rounding on him. Or did it merely increase your cache in their eyes? Did it cement your social position, bringing him into Gestapo headquarters? Did they award you a Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords?

  She starts to weep, and her tears, coming at such an inappropriate time, make her even angrier.

  You’ve killed him, she says, killed him as surely as if you put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger yourself—Gerhard crashes a fist down on the desk blotter.

  Enough! he bellows. Stop sniveling, you repulsive slut. You stupid, stupid girl! You’re not only a whore, you’re a stupid whore. Of all the men you could have spread your legs for, you chose a Jew?

  Anna tries to defend herself but produces only a squeak. Ah, here is the tempest, no less powerful for being belated.

  And to hide him here, here of all places, Gerhard shouts. While all along I was thinking only of you! Your safety. Your future. I should let you rot. Better yet, I should turn you in as well. In fact, I think I will. We’ll go to the Gestapo right now—

  He lunges from behind his desk and clamps a hand on Anna’s shoulder.

  Come along, he says; we’ll go this instant. Is that what you want? Is that what you want, Anna?

  The muscles in Anna’s neck seize as her father’s fingers dig into them.

  No, Vati, she gasps. Please—

  Gerhard puts his face an inch from hers. It is what you deserve, whore, he says. His spittle, smelling of liquor and herring, peppers Anna’s cheeks. He pushes her away.

  Did you ever once stop to think? he demands. Did you ever once consider the consequences for me? When you were discovered—and it was only a matter of time, believe me—you would have been taken into protective custody along with that filthy Jew, and what would happen to your old father then? Living alone with nobody to care for him, afflicted by chronic ulcers?

  Anna braves a look at her father, a tall man running to fat, his head lowered bullishly as he glares. Max would have been no match for him. She feels in her stomach, as if it were Max’s, the lift of anticipation when the door to the stairwell opened and then, when it revealed Gerhard instead of her, the catapult of dread. She grasps an end table and screws her eyes shut, trying not to vomit.

  All right, says Gerhard. All right, that’s enough.

  Having assured himself of his victory, he can now afford to be magnanimous; his voice drops into the confiding register he uses when, having cowed a jury with the forceful oratorical tactics he has borrowed from the Führer, he wishes to befriend them.

  You’re damaged goods now, he tells Anna, tainted by that Jew, but nobody need know, thank God. We’ll put the best face on things. Yes, we must think only of the future. Hauptsturm-führer von Schoener—
he is your future. He may be a weakling, but he is a kind man. Think of all he has already done for you! Who but Joachim spared you being assigned Land Service in some Godforsaken place? He knows the value of family, of keeping a family together. He would marry you tomorrow.

  Anna opens her eyes and stares at Gerhard. Can he be serious? Will he never see her as anything but child or chattel? For the past few weeks, Anna has never been more aware of her own body: her swollen breasts chafing against her brassieres; the weariness that dogs her every step; the tiny aches and pains in her joints, as though she is a house settling; the constant nausea accompanied by the copper taste of Pfennigs. She is not yet that thick in the waist, and she wears dresses without belts. But can Gerhard truly have not noticed that she is four months pregnant?

  But of course, he is the very definition of a selfish man. Anna moves to the chessboard by the window and turns on a lamp. The ivory and onyx squares glow. Perhaps Gerhard never really saw Max either, not as a human being, a fellow man with whom he might bend his head over these handsome pieces and engage in the strategies of small-scale, harmless warfare.

  She touches the crown of the white king. Thunder mutters, distant now.

  Think only of the future, she repeats. I suppose you’re right.

  Gerhard nods.

  I’m so sorry, Vati, for the trouble I’ve caused you. I will make Hauptsturmführer von Schoener a fine wife.

  That’s my Anchen, says Gerhard.

  I’m tired now, Anna tells him. I’d like to lie down. Forgive me, but would you mind getting your own dinner? There is a pigeon pie in the icebox.

  Yes, yes, Gerhard says. He smiles, exuding an oily mixture of schnapps and forgiveness.

  Anna puts her cheek up to be pinched and leaves the study without looking back.

  In her bedroom, she switches on the lamp. Its shade is a globe of frosted glass, bumpy with little nodules. Her mother’s choice, as are the flowered coverlet, the extravagant armoire. Nothing in the room is really Anna’s. It is the impersonal chamber of somebody perpetually asleep.