At the Wolf's Table

by Rosella Postorino

  We fell silent for sixty consecutive beats of his heart, then I tried to go back to our conversation. “I had excellent teachers. I was in love with my high school math teacher. His name was Adam Wortmann. I often wonder what happened to him.”

  “Well, my teacher died. And not long afterward, her sister, who lived with her, died too. Her sister always wore funny hats.”

  “They arrested Mr. Wortmann. They came into the classroom to take him away. He was a Jew.”

  Albert said nothing, nor did I.

  Then he slipped his wrist out of my grasp and picked up his jacket, which lay on the firewood.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  “I must.” He stood up.

  His chest was furrowed in the center. I loved to run my finger down that gully, but he didn’t give me time. He buttoned his uniform, pulled on his boots, mechanically checked the gun in his holster. “’Bye,” he said, straightening his hat without waiting for me to leave too.

  26

  Since the arrival of summer, the baroness had often invited me to the castle. I would go there in the afternoon after work, before the bus returned to pick me up again. We would stay out in the garden, just she and I, like two adolescent girls who need exclusivity in order to consider it friendship. In the shade of the oak trees, amid the carnations, peonies, and cornflowers, which Joseph had planted in clusters instead of rows—After all, nature isn’t orderly, Maria said—we would talk about music, theater, film, and books. She would lend me novels to read, and I would bring them back after having formed an opinion of them, knowing that she would want to discuss them for hours. She asked me about my life in Berlin, and I wondered what she found interesting in my former everyday petit bourgeois existence, but she seemed passionate about everything, and everything piqued her curiosity.

  The servants now greeted me as a regular guest, would open the gates to me with a Welcome, Frau Sauer, would accompany me to the gazebo and go to call her if need be, if Maria wasn’t there already, sipping a drink while reading a book and fluttering her fan. She said that inside the house there was too much furniture, it stifled her. I found her excessive, ostentatiously over-the-top, but her delight in nature was sincere. “When I grow up,” she joked one day, “I want to be a gardener so I can plant whatever I like!” She laughed. “Don’t get me wrong: Joseph is an excellent gardener and I’m lucky to have him here, but I’ve asked him to try to grow an olive tree and he says the weather isn’t the best. I’m not giving up, though! Ever since I visited Italy I’ve dreamed of having an olive grove behind the house. Olive groves are delightful, don’t you think, Rosa?”

  I wasn’t thinking. I was just letting her enthusiasm wash over me.

  * * *

  ONE EVENING, AS she opened the gate, a maid told me the baroness was in the stables with her children—they had just returned from a ride on their horses—and wanted me to join her there.

  From the dirt path leading to the stable I saw all three of them, each standing beside a horse. Maria stroked the mane of hers, the tight vest around her trim torso flattering her figure. She was a petite woman but the jodhpurs made her hips rounder. Still, from the looks of her it seemed impossible that she had given birth to two children.

  “Rosa!” cried Michael and Jörg, running over to me.

  I knelt down to hug them. “How adorable you look in these hats.”

  “I have a riding crop too,” Michael said. He showed it to me.

  “I have one as well, but I don’t use mine,” the elder brother said, “because just the sight of it will make the horse be good.” Jörg was nine. The rules of submission were learned at a young age.

  Maria’s shadow stretched out over us.

  “Here’s your mother,” I said, standing up. “Hello.”

  “Hello, dear. How are you?” A smile spread out like the mark of a finger over her creamy complexion. “Forgive us, we’re late.” She was always kind. “I thought it would be worse, going riding on such a sunny day, but the children insisted and I indulged them. It turns out they were right. We had a lovely ride, didn’t we?”

  Her children nodded, bouncing up and down around her.

  “I must look a fright, though,” she went on, running a hand over her head. She wore her hair up, copper-colored locks escaping the combs. “Would you care to go for a ride, Rosa?” The idea suddenly seemed irresistible to her—I could see it in her eyes.

  “Oh, yes! Do!” the children said, lighting up.

  “Thank you,” I replied, “but I’ve never even been on a horse before.”

  “Try it, Rosa! It’s fun!” Michael and Jörg came over to bounce up and down around me.

  “I have no doubt it’s fun, but I don’t know how.”

  In their world it was probably absurd, someone not knowing how to ride a horse.

  “Please, Rosa. It would mean so much to the children. Our groom will help you.”

  That was what happened with her: the possibility of disappointing her became out of the question.

  And so I went into the stable just as I had begun to sing at the party—only because the baroness wanted me to. The smell of dung, hooves, and sweat was soothing. That the smell of animals was soothing was something I had discovered at Gross-Partsch.

  When I drew near, the horse snorted, jerking its head back. Maria rested her arm on its neck. “Easy,” she said.

  The groom pointed to the stirrup and told me, “Slip your foot in there, Frau Sauer. No, the left one. That’s it. Now, gently pull yourself up. Lean on me.” I tried but fell back. He held me up. Michael and Jörg burst out laughing.

  Maria frowned at them. “Does that seem kind to our friend?”

  Regretful, Michael said, “Would you like to ride my pony? He’s shorter.”

  Jörg immediately joined in. “We’ll help you get on!” With this he came over and pushed on my calves. “Up you go!” His brother stepped to his side and also began to push.

  Now it was Maria who was laughing, a childish laugh, her tiny teeth showing. I was already perspiring, though I didn’t back out of their moment of amusement. The horse continued to snort.

  The groom lifted me up by the waist and finally I was in the saddle. He told me to sit up straight and not to pull on the reins—he would guide the animal for me. We made our way out of the stable, the horse trotting along, me bouncing slightly, clinging on with my legs to avoid losing my balance.

  It was a short ride just outside the stable, the horse being led by the halter, and I atop it, also being dragged along.

  “Do you like it, Rosa?” the baroness asked.

  I felt ridiculous. An excessive sentiment I couldn’t help feeling. Inviting me to ride their horse had been a gesture of hospitality, but it made the difference between those people and me plain to see. “Thank you,” I replied. “The children were right. It’s lots of fun.”

  “Wait!” Michael cried out to the groom.

  The boy shot over to me and handed me his riding crop. What was I supposed to do with it? The horse was docile, just like me. I took it from him all the same, then asked the groom to help me down.

  * * *

  IN THE GAZEBO we sipped cool lemonade. The children had been entrusted to the governess, had changed clothes, and had come back to greet their mother, who was still in her riding outfit. Her slightly disheveled hair didn’t tarnish her elegance. Maria was aware of it. “Go off and play, now,” she told them.

  I was taciturn, and the baroness didn’t understand why. She took my hands in hers, as she had done with Joseph. “He’s missing,” she told me, “he isn’t dead. Don’t be discouraged.”

  She had taken it for granted that it was Gregor I was brooding over. Whenever she or anyone else reminded me of what condition they all expected me to be in—that of a worried wife—I scared myself.

  I hadn’t pushed Gregor out of my mind—it wasn’t that. He was as much a part of me as were my legs or my arms. Quite simply, you don’t walk while thinking constantly about the movement of
your legs, you don’t do the laundry while concentrating on your arms. My life went on and he was oblivious to it, like my mother when she would leave me at school and go home without me, like my mother when I lost the new fountain pen she had given me. Someone might have stolen it, someone might have put it in their pencil case by accident—I couldn’t search my classmates’ book bags. A new fountain pen, a brass one, which my mother had bought for me, and I had lost it, but she had no idea, she made my bed and folded my sweaters in a state of complete innocence. My pain at the wrong I had done to her was so great that the only way to bear it was to love my mother less, to say nothing, to keep it a secret. The only way to survive my love for my mother was to betray that love.

  “Everything’s going to work out, you know. Even if one loses hope,” Maria said. “Just think of poor Stauffenberg. We thought he would end up blind last year, when his car drove through that mine field in Tunisia. Instead, thank heavens, he lost an eye but he’s fine.”

  “Not only an eye.…”

  “Yes, he lost his right hand as well. And the pinkie and ring finger on his left hand. But he didn’t lose his charm. I’ve always told his wife, Nina, ‘You married the handsomest one.’”

  I was struck by her liberty in speaking like that about a man who wasn’t her husband. It wasn’t brazenness, though—there was no malice in Maria—just enthusiasm.

  “With Claus I can talk about music and literature, like I can with you,” she said. “As a child he wanted to be either a musician or an architect, but then at age nineteen he joined the army. Such a shame, he had talent. I’ve heard him many times objecting that this war has gone on for too long. He believes we’re going to lose it. Nevertheless he’s always fought, and with a great sense of duty. Perhaps it’s also because he’s quite devout. One day he quoted to me Stefan George, his favorite poet: ‘A silent artist who surpassed himself, and waits bemused for God to do his own.’ They’re the final lines of The Knight of Bamberg. But Claus doesn’t wait for help from anyone. He takes the initiative, believe me, and he’s not afraid of anything.”

  She let go of my hands and drank until her glass was empty. All that rattling on must have made her thirsty. The maid arrived with a cake topped with cream and fruit, and Maria thumped her chest. “Poor me, I’m such a glutton! I eat sweets every single day. To compensate, I never eat meat. That will work in my favor, don’t you think?”

  It was an unusual custom in those days. I didn’t know anyone who voluntarily went without meat, except the Führer. Actually, I didn’t know the Führer. I worked for him but had never met him.

  Once again, Maria misinterpreted my silence. “Rosa, you really are feeling down today.” There was no point denying it. “We must do something to cheer you up.”

  She invited me upstairs to her room, where I had never been before. Soft light came in through a giant, open picture window, which took up almost the entire wall. In the middle of the room was a round table in dark wood, cluttered with books. Everywhere, vases filled with flowers. Nestled in one corner was the piano, and pages of sheet music had fallen onto the bench and rug. Maria picked them up and sat down. “Come, now.”

  I stood behind her. Over the piano hung a picture of Hitler.

  It was a three-quarters portrait, with him looking straight ahead. His eyes indignant, weighed down by the bags beneath them, cheeks flaccid. He wore a long gray overcoat opened just enough to reveal the Iron Crosses he had earned in the Great War. His arm was bent, his fist planted on his hip, making him look far from a fighting man, more like a mother scolding her child, a housewife resting for a moment after scrubbing the floors with lye. There was something feminine about him, so feminine that his mustache looked fake, as though it were glued on for an imminent cabaret act. I had never noticed that before.

  Maria turned and saw I was staring at the photo. “That man is going to save Germany.”

  If my father had heard her.

  “Whenever I see him it feels like I’m talking to a prophet. He has magnetic, almost violet eyes, and when he speaks it’s as if the air moves. I’ve never met a more charismatic person.”

  What did I have in common with this woman? Why was I there in her bedroom? Why, for some time now, had I found myself in places I didn’t want to be in and acquiesced and didn’t rebel and continued to survive whenever someone was taken from me? The ability to adapt is human beings’ greatest resource, but the more I adapted, the less human I felt.

  “It isn’t hard to believe he receives piles of letters from his female admirers every day! Over dinner with him I was so excited that I didn’t touch my food. And later on, when we were saying goodbye, he kissed my hand and said”—she tried to imitate his voice—“‘Dear child, do try to eat more. Can’t you see you’re too thin?’”

  “You aren’t too thin,” I objected, as though that were the point.

  “I don’t think so either. No thinner than Eva Braun, at least. And I’m even taller than she is.”

  Ziegler had also mentioned her, the Führer’s secret girlfriend. It was strange to think about him with the baroness right there in front of me. Who knew if she had noticed something, if at the thought of Ziegler my expression had changed?

  “But Hitler also made me laugh a lot, you know. At one point he notices me taking a hand mirror out of my purse and tells me that as a boy he’d had one just like it. Silence falls. ‘Mein Führer, what were you doing with a lady’s hand mirror?’ Clemens asks. Such cheek! And Hitler says, ‘I used it to reflect sunlight into my teacher’s eyes to blind her.’ Everyone bursts out laughing.” Maria was laughing herself just then, thinking it would make me laugh too. “One day, though, the teacher makes a note in her register when he does it, so between lessons he and his classmates go to peek at what she’s written. As soon as the bell rings again, they return to their desks and begin to chant, all together, ‘Hitler likes to bully me, he plays with light so I can’t see.’ That’s what was written in the register.… It sounded like a children’s rhyme! The teacher was right: Hitler was a bully, and in some ways he still is.”

  “Is that why he’s going to save Germany?”

  Maria frowned. “Don’t treat me like a fool, Rosa. I won’t abide it from anyone.”

  “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful,” I said sincerely.

  “We need him, you know that. It’s a question of choosing between Hitler and Stalin, and anyone would choose Hitler. Wouldn’t you?”

  I knew nothing about Stalin or the Soviet Union except for what Gregor had told me: the Bolshevik paradise was a pile of hovels inhabited by beggars. My anger toward Hitler was personal. He had taken my husband from me, and because of him day after day I risked dying. My very existence was in his hands—that was what I detested. Hitler nourished me, and that nourishment could kill me. But then again, as Gregor would say, giving life to someone always means condemning them to die. Before creation, God contemplates annihilation.

  “Wouldn’t you, Rosa?” Maria repeated.

  I had the urge to tell her about the Krausendorf barracks, about how the SS had treated us when they believed we had been poisoned. Instead, I nodded mechanically. Why should my experience as a food taster move her? Maybe she already knew. The baroness dined with the Führer and invited Ziegler to her parties. Were they friends, she and the lieutenant? Suddenly I wanted to talk about him instead of Hitler, wanted to see him through her eyes. My experience as a food taster had lost interest even to me.

  “Change always comes at a cost, unfortunately. The new Germany, though, will be a place where we’ll all live a better life. Even you.”

  She raised the piano lid, the German cause momentarily set aside. She had other things to focus her attention on. Because Maria was passionate about everything with equal intensity. We could go on about the Führer or the cake with cream and fruit, she could recite a poem by Stefan George or sing a tune by the Comedian Harmonists, whom her beloved Führer had forced to split up. Everything had equal importance to her.

/>   I didn’t blame her. I couldn’t blame anyone anymore. In fact, I had grown to love the way she swayed her head to the music, her eyebrows raised as she coaxed me to sing.

  27

  I asked Albert if he had ever met Adolf Hitler in person. Yes, of course he had met him, what a silly question. I begged him to describe what it felt like to be next to him. He, too, mentioned Hitler’s magnetic eyes.

  “Why do you all talk about his eyes? Is the rest of him so unbearable?”

  He gave me a little slap on the thigh. “Such insolence!”

  “Ooh, so defensive! Well? What’s he like?”

  “I don’t feel like talking about the Führer’s physical appearance.”

  “Then show him to me! Take me to the Wolfsschanze.”

  “Right. Sure.”

  “Hide me in your jeep, in the trunk.”

  “Have you really never seen him? Not even at a parade?”

  “Will you take me?”

  “Where do you think you’d be going, to a party? In case you haven’t heard, there are barbed-wire barriers with electric currents running through them. And land mines. You can’t imagine how many rabbits they’ve blown up.”

  “How horrible.”

  “Now do you understand?”

  “But I’ll be going in with you.”

  “No, you don’t understand. To get into the last ring, which is where Hitler lives, you need a pass, but he needs to invite you first, and besides that you’d be searched. Not everyone is welcome into the Führer’s home.”

  “An inhospitable man.”

  “Cut it out.” My joking was bothering him, as though I were belittling his position. “He didn’t have headquarters built in the forest just so he could let in anyone.”

  “You told me two thousand people live there, and four thousand people work there! It’s practically a city. Who’s going to notice if I go in too?”