Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook

by Celia Rees

“Andy gave me a lift back from the mess. He’s such a sweetie.” She fitted the cigarette into an ivory holder. Lorna leaned over to light it for her. “I say, the path is most awfully slippy. I thought Stephan was supposed to clear it?” She extended an elegantly shod foot. “I could have snagged my nylons.” She looked up from studying her shapely, neatly seamed leg and her gaze fell on Edith. “And who is this?”

  “This is Edith,” Angela supplied. “She arrived this afternoon.”

  “Did she?” Molly’s look was both appraising and shrewd. Although she showed no hint of recognition, Edith knew her immediately as the girl from the train with the film-star looks and the metallic-blond hair set in shingled waves. “Well, Edith,” she drawled. “Welcome to our lowly abode.” Molly turned back to the others. “Now, you’ll never guess . . .”

  With that, Edith was dismissed. Molly gathered in her audience. When Edith left the table, they hardly seemed to notice, too busy paying Molly eager court. It had been like that at school. There was always one who held sway, the others offering up their ordinariness to her as if presenting bouquets.

  “Shut the bloody door, will you!” A voice called after her, and Edith heard distinct sniggers. “And goodnight to you, too!”

  If the job looked well-nigh impossible, the billet was going to be purgatory. What was she doing here? She hauled herself up the stairs. Had she made the most dreadful mistake?

  She blamed the oncoming migraine for her sudden, plummeting mood. She barely made it to her room before vomiting what little she’d eaten. She lay down, no longer able to fend off the feelings that were taking hold of her. When she closed her eyes she saw ribbons of scarlet and black.

  March, 1933. Nazi Party banners rippled down the front of Heidelberg station. Kurt was supposed to meet her there. She’d expected him on the platform, at the barrier, but there had been no sign of him. She’d moved heaven and earth to get here, arranging an exchange between her school and a Lyzeum in Heidelberg through her friend, Stella Snelling, who was working there as an assistant. Stella was leaving to take up a post back in England. A teacher from the Lyzeum, a Fraulein Rolf, would take Edith’s place at the girl’s grammar school. The Head had been all for it. “Admirable initiative,” she’d called it.

  Kurt had initially been overjoyed at the news. His letters had been full of passion and plans. The walks they would take, the places they would visit, all the other wonders he wanted to show her, share with her. His voice came through his writing so clearly that he might have been whispering to her. His English rushed and slightly stumbling, the words tumbling in his eagerness, with occasional lapses into German when he could find no other way to express what he wanted to say. Then his letters became less frequent, shorter, the English more careful and correct. He had been busy at the University with his work and various societies and organizations he’d joined.

  It all made sense now, but at the time she’d agonized over the difference in his letters. She’d read and reread them on that awful train journey to Germany, wanting to keep alive the dreams he’d woven, but deep down knowing that he had changed, just as brilliance in the early morning brings with it the promise of rain.

  She waited and waited at the station, at a loss for what else to do. She watched people coming and going, arriving and leaving, the fear she’d felt on the train slowly congealing into dread. When he finally appeared, he kissed her on the cheeks, as if she were a cousin, some female acquaintance. His smile was as ready as ever but he seemed distant, preoccupied. He was sorry not to meet her train but the recent elections had made things difficult. He had to be somewhere right now, but he would see her later. He hailed a cab for her and disappeared back into the crowds. Still, she grasped at some small rags of hope. She’d arrived at a bad time. There was trouble in the city. There had been elections, fighting in the streets. The evidence was everywhere: slogans daubed on walls, posters defaced or torn, Adolf Hitler glaring down from every lamppost with his chopped-off mustache.

  When she saw Kurt later, it would be different.

  But it wasn’t. They met at a café down by the river. The place was crowded with SD men in brown uniforms, swastika armbands, and kepi caps, drinking beer, eating wurst and sauerkraut, which was all they seemed to serve. Kurt was sitting at a table under linden trees, the dapple of the delicate, pale-green leaves playing on his blue shirt. The girl who came to take their order was in traditional dress, smocked white blouse, embroidered waistcoat, her black dirndl skirt trimmed with red rickrack. Kurt ordered beer, bockwurst, and kraut.

  “There is a thing you must know,” he started. He had a certain expression when he had something awkward to say, a rictus of the mouth, the lips drawn back into not quite a smile. He had that look now. Edith put down her knife and fork. “There is no easy way to say it.” He swept his fair hair back from his forehead, another thing he did when he was nervous. “The thing is . . .” He paused again, her silence increasing his unease. “I have to tell you. It would not be fair otherwise to you, or Elisabeth. I’m engaged.”

  “Who’s Elisabeth?” Edith asked. It was the only thing she could think of to say.

  “My fiancée.” He twisted the heavy gold signet ring on his middle finger. It was set with a carnelian intaglio; it looked old—and valuable. She’d never seen it before.

  “I see.” The s sounded thick, as if her mouth was stuffed with cotton.

  “I hope we may still be friends, Edith.” His rictus smile widened. “I value your friendship so much.” He looked down at the ring he was turning and turning on his finger. “You will never know—”

  Edith was no longer listening. The sound around her, the men laughing and shouting, was turning into an impossible roaring. She looked down at the pale length of flaccid boiled sausage, the green and yellow heap of fermented cabbage, breathing in the sour stench of it. Her mouth flooded with saliva. “Excuse me,” she managed to say and barely made it to the roadside, bent double, heaving, with the SD men laughing, banging their steins on the table, chanting zu viel bier. He did not come to her. When she recovered, he had already left; the girl was collecting the money and the untouched plates.

  Edith walked, blinded, the sunlight suddenly dazzlingly bright. The red, white, and black banners ribboning down the buildings flapped and flared at the edges, the crooked crosses flexing and twisting. The rotten onion smell gusting from the crowds around her was overpowering. This was the beginning of her migraines. She would grow to know the signs. She had to stop several times to heave into the gutter, much to the disgust of passersby. Some blind instinct found her at the Lyzeum. Luckily, there was nobody about. She staggered up to her small room at the top of a twisting staircase, drew the curtains tightly against the stabbing of the light, and collected the washing bowl from its stand. Ragged surges of nausea lurched through her. She lay down on the narrow bed, grateful for the pain. It stopped her from thinking about Kurt.

  A tentative knocking, hours later. The black tide had receded. She struggled to get up and fell back again.

  “Are you all right?” A narrow-faced, anxious-looking young woman with dark, curly hair came into the room. She approached the bed, concern in her fine dark eyes. “I looked in earlier, but you were sleeping. Are you unwell?”

  “It’s a migraine, I think.” Edith glanced helplessly at the sour-smelling basin of vomit at the side of the bed. “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Oh, you poor thing!” The young woman whisked the basin away. She came back with fresh water. “Drink this, then I’ll get you some linden tea. It is good for headaches and stomach upsets.” She sat on the side of the narrow, iron-framed bed. “I am Sarah, by the way, Sarah Weill. I have the room next door.”

  Sarah made the Lyzeum slightly more bearable. There was no question of going home. Edith would have to stick it out for the term even though she didn’t like it. Not at all. It wasn’t just what had happened with Kurt, there was an unpleasant atmosphere in the school. The Head, Fraulein Weber, was near retirement; her deputy,
Fraulein Grafstadt, was helping her out of the door. Fraulein Grafstadt was a thoroughgoing Nazi, proud of being an early member of the Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft. She had taken to wearing her swastika armband to school and was followed by others, particularly Fraulein Wilhelm, Head of P.E., an amazonian of a woman with huge breasts and a pinhead who put the girls through endless drills and bouts of vigorous gymnastic ribbon dancing. These two ruled the school. They insisted on the Hitler salute at the beginning and end of lessons; they encouraged the girls to join the Bund Deutscher Mädel and to inform on any girls, their families, or teachers who expressed disloyalty to Hitler and the National Socialists. The one or two Jewish students had a particularly hard time. Fraulein Weill came off worst of all.

  “I’m leaving,” Sarah said finally. “It’s only a matter of time before they get rid of me anyway. There are new laws all the time. I won’t give them the satisfaction.” She paused, fighting the tears back, biting her lip. “Daniel and I have plans.” Daniel was Sarah’s boyfriend; a young communist and Jewish, he was in even more danger than she was. “We will go to Amsterdam. He has family there. Then we will go to America. Daniel says there is no future for us in the whole of Europe. I don’t like to impose on you, but . . .”

  “Will I help? You don’t have to ask.” Edith took her hand. She smiled although tears threatened, whether for Sarah and her kind, or for herself, she couldn’t tell.

  Sarah went after lessons on a Saturday. Edith took her suitcase to the station. If anyone asked, she was taking English books to a friend at the University. Nobody asked. Sarah left the school as if she was just going out for the evening. She would not be missed until Monday when Edith reported that she was sick with a fever and keeping to her room. That gained her a day or two. The staff lived in mortal fear of infection spreading through the school. Her absence wasn’t noticed until the Wednesday. By then, Edith profoundly hoped that Sarah and her fiancé were far away.

  She claimed ignorance, but no one believed her. She was told to pack her bags. She’d never been so glad to leave anywhere, even though she dreaded what would happen on her premature return. The Head’s reaction had been unexpected. “You poor girl! It must have been hideous! That Herr Hitler. Dreadful man. I was just about to send Fraulein Rolf packing.” She’d sniffed. “Filling the girls’ heads with all sorts of rubbish. I won’t have those kinds of views peddled here.” Edith had burst into tears at her unexpected sympathy. Miss Jameson had patted her shoulder, suggested a few days off. The days had turned into weeks. “Nervous Exhaustion” Dr. Elliot had called it. A convenient cover for a broken heart.

  She must have slept. She woke to a tentative knocking.

  “Gnädige Frau Graham?”

  A face peered round the door, thin and dark, framed with black curls. For a moment, Edith thought that it was her Lyzeum friend, Sarah.

  “I am Seraphina.” The girl entered carrying a heavy ewer. She was more roughly dressed than the other girls, her hair half-hidden by a kerchief, her faded wraparound overall far too big for her, the sleeves of her blouse rolled up above the elbows. “I bring hot water.”

  Her eyes widened as they went from the washstand to the basin now by Edith’s bed.

  “I’m sorry, I . . .”

  “No, no.” The girl put the ewer down. “I will take away. I’ll tell Frau Schmidt you are not well.”

  “No, no.” Edith put out a hand. “Please don’t.”

  She couldn’t bear a fuss, and something told her that Frau Schmidt would make one.

  “I tell no one, if you don’t want.” She dipped Edith’s washcloth in the ewer, squeezed it out, and came over to the bed. She pressed the flannel to Edith’s forehead with light, gentle touches. Her cracked, reddened hands smelled of lye. “Tell me what I can do.”

  She looked down at Edith, her tiny face puckered with concern. She was smaller than the others, slightly built, and appeared younger, scarcely into her teens, although she was probably older than that. There were deep shadows, like brown thumb marks, under her eyes, and her skin was the color of cheap paper.

  “Water. I’d like some water.”

  “I bring.”

  She glanced back from the door. With her large, dark eyes and delicate bone structure, the girl must have been very pretty. Would be pretty again one day. Edith hoped so, anyway. She left as quietly as she came. Edith lay back. Who was she? Not German. Czech perhaps? Jewish certainly. As she’d leaned over to apply the flannel, Edith had seen the blue numerals tattooed on her bare arm. What had her life been before all that horror engulfed her? Edith had no idea. Every indication had been stripped away.

  12

  CCG Mess, Lübeck

  17th January 1946

  Dinner Menu

  Mock Turtle Soup

  Fried Sole in butter

  Dutch Steak with Espagnole Sauce

  Castle Potatoes

  Carrots

  Raspberry Cream

  Cheese & Biscuits

  Coffee

  Menu doesn’t quite deliver on its pretension. Dutch Steak should be real steak but this is a fried hashed-beef pattie, served with gravy and roast potatoes. The food in the mess is plentiful, filling, and reassuringly British. A contrast to the want all too evident in the world outside.

  Edith’s trunk was taking ages to arrive, and she was running out of things to wear. Every day, when she got back from the office, she expected to find it waiting, but there was no sign. Finally, she asked Roz to look into it.

  “I don’t understand,” Roz said as she got off the phone. “They say it was delivered days ago!”

  Edith hurried home to find it standing in the hall.

  “When did this come?” she asked.

  Frau Schmidt shrugged her ample shoulders. “When I was out of the house.”

  Edith turned to the two girls, Grete and Hilde, who stared at the floor.

  “Never mind.” Edith sighed. “It’s here now.”

  “Grete and Hilde will take it up for you,” Frau Schmidt offered brightly.

  Edith looked at her. “Not Stephan?”

  “He has bad back from war injuries.” Frau Schmidt put a hand to the small of her own back to demonstrate.

  Edith caught a look passing between the two girls as they lugged the heavy trunk up the stairs. “What does Stephan do?” Edith asked as they carried the trunk into her room. Sandy-haired and sullen, Stephan strolled about the place with an arrogant swagger and was rarely glimpsed doing anything. Again, that look. Edith dismissed the girls to examine her trunk. Everything seemed to be there, but someone had tampered with the lock. It could have happened anywhere, she reasoned, on its way from Coventry, but she had a feeling that it had happened somewhere pretty close to where she was now.

  There was snow that night. The next day, Jack crunched up the path to collect her. Stephan was supposed to be outside clearing. There was no sign of him, but when they left the house, he was leaning against the wing of the Humber, lighting a cigarette.

  “Get off the car, you lazy fucker!” Jack shouted. Stephan looked back at Jack with scarcely veiled insolence as he slowly transferred his weight to his snow shovel. “He’s a wrong ’un,” Jack said as they drove away. “You get a nose for it. Where to this morning, ma’am?”

  Edith had responsibility for a group of schools in the Lübeck area. The Brigadier had outlined her task on the first morning, but out in the schools, or what passed for schools, Edith found his briefing very short of the mark. She didn’t blame him. It was how he dealt with a job that was beyond him.

  Beyond anyone, she thought, as they crawled churned streets carved through ruins and rubble. Everywhere was crowded with people. So many people. The bridges choked with men and women, old and young, children and old people, pushing prams, pulling carts mounded with belongings.

  “DPs from the east,” Jack said as he crawled forward sounding his horn.

  The streams parted reluctantly then surged back around them at a steady trudge, moving w
ith the dogged weariness of people who had walked a long way and had no idea where they could stop. As the car slowed, there was a rapping on the window. A grinning face peered in, grimy as a miner. Another appeared and another, soon children were running alongside them, hands outstretched for cigarettes, gum, chocolate, whatever they could get. There were children everywhere. If she stopped the car and asked why they weren’t in school, they would just laugh and run off to range over the ruins, pick over the bombsites, pulling their own little carts behind them, scavenging for what they could find. How on earth was she going to get them into a classroom? It was hard not to despair at the impossibility of it all. She felt like a Trümmerfrau removing the debris of a ruined city, one brick at a time; as if she’d been set one of those impossible tasks: reaping a field with a sickle of leather, plaiting a halter with a rope of sand.

  “Where to, ma’am?” Jack asked again.

  “Oh, Herr Hecht. Then Frau Holstein.”

  “Frau Graham.” Herr Hecht was there to greet them. “We are honored. So good to see you again.”

  His smile was warm with welcome, and Edith felt a lift in her spirits. He was probably no more than middle-aged but looked much older, his face grooved with deep lines, his hair and neatly trimmed pointed beard a pure white. He waved with a bony hand for them to follow him into the ruins of his school. He walked slowly, leaning heavily on a thin cane.

  Lessons were conducted in the only room fit for habitation; the only room with any heating. An old iron stove stood in the corner; a small pile of fuel next to it, a few cobs of coke and coal, the scattering of sticks little more than kindling. The room had no ceiling. What little heat there was went up into the rafters. The children and staff worked bundled in coats and scarves. Steam rose from a large pot on the top of the stove, adding a vegetable tang to the sour smell of unwashed clothes and bodies.

  The children were divided according to age, boys and girls together, four or five to a desk. They all stood as she entered. She motioned for them to sit down, get on with what they had been doing. Math. The teachers had to teach without benefit of textbooks, which had all been confiscated. More were being rewritten in London by committee, so goodness knew how long that would take. There was a general shortage of paper, so the children were using slates and the margins of newspaper pages for their work.