Gerta

by Tučková, Kateřina

  “A little,” said Maria, “but not very well.”

  “No matter, you’ll learn. Gerta, on that paper write down Marie Šrámková.”

  “No, I Maria Schrammek,” Maria corrected him in broken Czech.

  “Do you know what the name Schrammek is going to mean for your kids if you stay here? Do you realize that you’re staying in Czechoslovakia? After a war that was started by the Germans?”

  Maria kept on shaking her head.

  “These days it’s better to have a Czech name, Maria. He’s looking out for you.” Antonia gave her a nudge with her elbow.

  Maria stood silently and hung her head.

  “Does she get it or not?” asked Šenk, whose German was minimal.

  “Write down Šrámková, and Marie, the Czech way, not Maria. It will spare her a lot of trouble.”

  Gerta looked from Maria to Šenk, and finally to Schmidt, who was addressing her.

  “But what about her husband? He won’t have the same last name.”

  “I don’t have husband, dead in war,” said Maria.

  “So you see, you agree. Now, let’s not hold things up. Write down Šrámková, and you, Marie, give us the names of your children.”

  “Just my son. Johann Schrammek, he’s eight years old.”

  “Write down Jan Šrámek. Next.” Šenk motioned to the woman standing next to her.

  “Susanne Bauer.”

  “Keep Susanne; it sounds French. Write down Susanne Bauerová. Children?”

  “Two girls, Hilde und Henriette.”

  “You see, also French,” said Šenk, turning toward Gerta. “Write down Hilde and Henriette Bauerová. Ages?”

  “Eight and six.”

  “Next,” said Schmidt.

  Johanna Polivka gave her name and her children’s names in German. “Johanna Polivka, two children, Anni and Rudi, both four.”

  “Don’t you speak Czech?”

  “I do.”

  “So speak Czech. I don’t want to hear any more German around here, understood?”

  “I understand. But I insist on keeping the name Polivka.”

  “Good God, why? Don’t you understand the situation?”

  “I do. But my husband’s name is Polivka, so my name is Polivka too. I will not change my husband’s name.”

  “Fine, your problem, if you insist. Write down Polivka, if that’s what she wants.”

  Gerta typed Johanna’s surname without the Czech ending even for Anna and Rudi.

  “Next.”

  Gerta recorded the names of all the others, most of them with Czech endings: Hermína Herzigová, Ulrika Pipalová, Antonie Ainingerová, Edeltraud Ressová, along with the names of their children, and then Teresa Bayer and Rosalie Schwarz, who were eager to get to Austria as soon as possible, and finally Gertruda Schnirchová. She didn’t care. She wasn’t hung up on any family traditions, and who knew where these forms, typed up by her, a German, and supervised by the German Schmidt, would end up. Someday, when someone somewhere asked for her name, by saying Gerta, she would give herself away just the same, and whether at that moment she would use Schnirch or Schnirchová, circumstances alone would determine.

  “And once again I repeat: Speak in Czech. Understand?” said Šenk. “And get yourselves back to Zipfelová’s. By now, she’s already waiting.”

  The group of women turned toward the door. Schmidt let them pass, and once Šenk had gone out, he let another group into the office, the ten women who worked for Hrazdíra.

  It was dark by the time Gerta could go home. Schmidt offered to accompany her because of the Russian soldiers, who from time to time would break into one of the wine cellars, on top of which there were the defecting Germans, so it was advisable to take precautions. When they turned off the village square and headed down the sloping street, passing darkened houses and gardens in which dogs barked, it occurred to Gerta that Schmidt might be even more dangerous to her than the Russian sentries or Nazi Werewolves. His proximity between the fenced-in gardens steeped in darkness made her uneasy. What if he was planning to reassert his dwindling authority specifically by using her, someone who had no hope of ever experiencing justice? It wouldn’t be the first time that she had served such a purpose. Schmidt walked slowly, so she slowed down too. He spoke about the machinery they had to make arrangements to borrow, about the Jechs and the additional new arrivals that he was expecting, and he spoke about the Russians in Břeclav and Mikulov. When they arrived at Zipfelová’s house, he wished her a good evening, made an about-face, and disappeared into the night. Startled, she turned to look after him. This was the last thing she had expected.

  She passed quickly through the courtyard, stepped inside the front door, locked it behind her, and announced her return to Zipfelová, who was still sitting up in the kitchen with Ida. Then she raced up the stairs and into the small room where Ula, Dorla, and Teresa were sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for her, Teresa rocking the sleeping Barbora in her arms.

  XIV

  And then the day came.

  A convoy of cars arrived from Mikulov and pulled up in front of the administrative headquarters. Out jumped a band of Russian soldiers accompanied by Schmidt. They marched into his office and stayed there for a whole hour. A few of the soldiers stayed outside, loitering around the threshold under the scorching heat of the midday sun, making friendly small talk and smoking with some of their Perná-stationed comrades. From time to time, one would walk over and tap flirtatiously on the window of Gerta’s office. She would immediately bend lower over her desk and appear to plunge herself deeper into her work.

  Once they left, Schmidt retreated back into his office and didn’t summon Gerta for the rest of the day.

  That same day, she personally transferred a formerly German property to two families that had shown up from Moravian Wallachia, and without waiting for anyone’s orders, ran over to inform Šenk that the combine harvester with the thresher would be arriving from Mikulov the next day. On her own, she made the decision to send the original copies of the forms exempting indispensable persons from the transports back to Mikulov with the Russian soldiers, and on her own locked her office and the front door after herself, not knowing if behind the locked door of Schmidt’s office anyone was still inside. There had been no answer to her knocking.

  The following day, when she arrived at the office, Schmidt was already waiting for her. In front of the Rosenbaum house stood a buggy hitched up to a team of mares. Next to it stood Schmidt holding a whip, with which he motioned to Gerta to get up onto the box seat. Gerta wordlessly climbed up. Schmidt walked around to the other side of the horses, jumped up beside her, cracked his whip, and the horses set off.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Mikulov.”

  “For the machines?”

  “For the machines.”

  The road through the fields smelled of sweet clover. The air was damp with morning dew that was slowly evaporating in the cool sunrise. In the distance, there unfurled a bright yellow strip of rapeseed, cultivated by the residents of Dunajovice, and all around them swayed ripe stalks of barley with kernels like seed pearls clustered around each spike. Zipfelová had lent Gerta her shawl for the morning walks to the office, and now she was glad to be able to pull it closer around her shoulders and wrap the ends around her hands. The buggy jolted along the dirt road toward Klentnice, past the Pálava woods and around the Stolová hora mountain, as the sun rose at their backs.

  In Mikulov, she waited for a long time alone in one of the rooms at the district administrative commission. In the hallway on the other side of the doors, she heard the sounds of passing footsteps in clunking work boots, the brisk tip-tap of boots, and the diminutive clicking of women’s high heels taking hurried steps. After an hour and a half, the doors opened, and Schmidt walked in, accompanied by a short, thickset man with a protruding paunch. His eyes instantly and unerringly went to Gerta’s armband marked with a large N.

  “This is who’s helping you
?”

  “She’s off the very first Brno transport; we recruited about sixty of them for work. But even so, they can’t handle it; most of them are women like her; some even have kids.”

  “Yup, it’s just one of those things.”

  “About another thirty would do it.”

  “Yup.”

  “Come on.”

  Gerta stood up from the bench by the window and walked across the room to the door. The thickset man turned on his heel and led the way out through the door into the hallway, then locked the door behind them. The whole time, he kept rubbing his chin, his low-voiced mumbling punctuated with the occasional distinctly pronounced yup.

  “Yup. That wouldn’t work; we need ’em ourselves. Still, maybe them machines, we’ve got a few we confiscated back in April. Y’know, they didn’t all take off on tractors. Although you wouldn’t believe it, them sons of bitches, how they rob. And they’re still out there, murdering people. Just two days ago, Stránský, the farmer who’s got that strip of a field right by the border, he never came home. Went out harvestin’ with a borrowed tractor and trailer, him and his son stayed out till evenin’, managed to clear half the field, and then the bastards shot ’em. Left ’em lyin’ there. We didn’t find ’em till mornin’. His widow had us out there all night lookin’ for ’em, ’cause it was obvious somethin’ wasn’t right. They shot ’em through the head, not leavin’ a trace of tractor or trailer behind. Poof, across the border.”

  Schmidt listened closely, nodding.

  “Yup. And a few Sundays ago, we had one lyin’ around right here. The Russians finished ’im off. They keep on tryin’. And then them old-timers go bringin’ their families ’cross the border, haulin’ as much as they can away with ’em. We need reinforcements ’round here. At least now we’ve got them Financial Guards along the border and all them Russians, plus about twenty or so National Guard, so shouldn’t even a mouse be able to slip through. ’Course if they get sloshed, they’ll still get out, and when it comes to them Russians, well, who’re we kiddin’?”

  Schmidt nodded.

  “But more often than not, they’re scramblin’ to get back in here rather than tryin’ to get out there, over to Austria. That field hospital near Drasenhofen, just over the border, it’s a nightmare. Ain’t nothin’ to drink, nothin’ to eat, they’re lyin’ all over the meadow, dyin’ by the dozens, ’specially them old geezers, the ones who managed to hobble that far, yup. Here we’ve got some six thousand Germans left, mostly sick ’uns. They’re holdin’ up the workers, the caregivers, and they eat like horses. But they’ve got prospects. The ones who make it through the dysentery, doctor says takes ’bout ten days, they’ve got a future here, yup. They can move in with relatives around these parts, bust their asses, and manage to get by somehow. But them ones on the Austrian side? You tell me, sir, how’re they gonna make a livin’? There’s gonna be a famine over there, unless they croak before they even make it that far. It’s not like over there it’ll just be the ones expelled from ’round here, y’know.”

  “So who do you have working for you right now?” Schmidt asked, still nodding.

  “Germans, yup, them who can. But we’ve got them new folks from the heartlands comin’ to settle ’round here every day, gold diggers, y’know, but so what. We give ’em houses that’ve been abandoned, farms, first come first settled. So them’s already workin’, too, even them whose houses are still bein’ used as pest houses, ’n’ then we keep on askin’ ’em to send us them harvest brigades from Brno.”

  “Us too. But so far nothing. How many times have you asked already?”

  “Well, a few times, y’know.”

  “And?”

  “Like I said, so far nothin’. But it’s clear why. The young’uns are all workin’ as guards in them camps that’re still crawlin’ with German men, and the women are either in hidin’ or scattered all over southern Moravia. Y’know yourself how many they chased out here. And y’know how many of ’em croaked of typhoid fever or dysentery too. Plain and simple, you’re gonna have a hard time findin’ workers ’round here. They’re all either already in use or too sick. And there ain’t gonna be no more slave labor comin’ out of Brno.”

  “But why don’t they send us some students? Some volunteers?”

  “Yup, those they’re sendin’, at least they’re tryin’. But it’s slow goin’, y’know. First come the towns near Brno. They say they’re young folks, y’know. They’ve already got some in places like Modřice, Hrušovany, and they’re movin’ south, supposedly in groups of twenty. Should be our turn soon.”

  “In Perná, we’d need at least those twenty.”

  “Yup, so then you’ve gotta request it from the main office, y’know. Give the main office in Brno a call. They’ve gotta help ya out, and they will, ’cause after all, it’s ’bout the harvest and the money, y’know.”

  Schmidt stood rapping his palm with a sheet of paper rolled up into a tube.

  “Yup, I’ll be sayin’ goodbye, then. Y’all go see Franta. He’ll show you the machines and get you three guys to drive ’em over. Gimme a call when you’re ready to give ’em back, after you’ve figured out your workforce. But make it as quick as possible; I’ve got other villages waitin’. Oh, and go easy with the gasoline. Y’know yourself how hard it is to get yer hands on any these days. Economize—it’s in yer own best interest!”

  “Thank you. I’ll let you know how things go.”

  The man held out his hand over his paunch, extending it a little toward Schmidt, who shook it and turned to leave. Gerta followed him.

  Once outside, they walked around to the rear of the building and entered a courtyard. Inside the sheds and scattered all over the yard were several tractors, seeding machines, combine harvesters, and two threshing machines, while along the edges lay moldboard plows, and piled up in a heap underneath a pergola were dozens of plow points, scythes, sickles, pitchforks, hoes, stacked metal pails, tubs, and barrels.

  Schmidt left Gerta by the gate and stepped inside a door next to one of the sheds. He reemerged shortly with a man who was glancing over Schmidt’s rolled-up piece of paper. Together they threaded their way back through the tractors in the yard and disappeared behind a set of barn doors. Gerta leaned back against the wall, felt the crumbling grout under her fingertips, and raised her face to the morning sun. If at this very moment everything else ceased to exist, everything except the sun on her roughened skin, she would feel content. Everything else, even Barbora. Through her closed eyes, she would continue to look up at the sun’s bright rays that seemed to come closer and closer in golden, crimson, and indigo circles, only to disappear behind the rims of her eyelids into pitch blackness. Nothing more. But then came the roar of an engine being revved up, and from the direction opposite to where Gerta, still blinded by the flood of sunlight, was standing, a tractor emerged from the barn doors. Schmidt, standing out front, shook hands with a man in a hat and then made his way back toward Gerta. He was just as morose as when she had first seen him that morning.

  “Let’s go,” was all he said, and before long, they were heading back to Perná along the same road by which they had come.

  The tractor with the plow attachment and the two combines were to arrive in Perná by way of the main road that led to Brno.

  Gerta was silent, as was Schmidt. She was grateful that he brought her along, even though he hadn’t needed her. She knew he couldn’t have left her alone in the office, but he easily could have told Zipfelka to send her along with the other women to Šenk’s for the day. Instead, he took her along for a quiet drive on a fine August morning.

  “I consider you to be a smart woman,” he said abruptly as they were passing the village of Klentnice.

  Gerta turned to him in surprise.

  “Which is why I’m going to give you a piece of advice.”

  Gerta kept her eyes focused on his nose and tightly compressed lips. What could be going through his head?

  “Do you have any idea what’s in
store for you here?”

  “No idea,” she replied with an uncertain shrug of her shoulders. When Schmidt didn’t continue speaking, she added, “But maybe things will get better. I want to go home, back to Brno. We have an apartment there.”

  “Damn sure you no longer do.”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible that my father is already back from the labor camp. They couldn’t have kept him for too long; he’s not young anymore.”

  “Nobody cares about that. You can be dead sure that by now you’ve got some deserving little Czech family living in your apartment. Or that your neighbor’s grabbed it.”

  “You don’t know that. And if, until things settle down, I could still stay here for a while with Barbora, at Zipfelová’s . . . and help out. After the transports, once it’s clear who’s staying and who’s a Czech, then hopefully things will get better, right? I haven’t done anything wrong, so they’re going to have to show some understanding for my situation.”

  “That’s a naive idea.” Schmidt shook his head indignantly. “But even so, I still consider you to be a smart woman who’ll understand when I tell her that things are going to get worse for the Germans here. You see, every one of them is going to have to pay, even Germans who were in the resistance, do you understand?”

  Was it possible that what she had predicted, and what not long ago he had still reprimanded her for, would come to pass?

  “You mean even like you?”

  “Even like me. And now, I’ll give you that piece of advice. If you’re not a complete numbskull and if you’re prepared to give even a tiny bit of consideration to your daughter’s future, you’ll pack up your things. Tonight, after the women at Zipfelová’s are asleep, you’ll come to the Bavory crossroads, do you understand?”

  “You want me to run away?”

  “It’s the only way to salvage any belongings and maybe even our skins.”

  “You want to run away too?”

  “There’s no other way. And if you’re reasonable, and I think you are, then tonight at one o’clock, an hour past midnight, you’ll be there.”