Then, suddenly, the bombardier was me. I was the one moving the controls, and the very instant I realized it I remembered I didn’t know how to maneuver those controls. I was going to crash. The fighter plane began to plummet, air pockets spun around in my chest, and the city came closer and closer. It was Berlin, or maybe Nuremberg, and the plane’s pointy nose was aimed straight at it, about to smash into the first wall it encountered, plunge into the ground. My vocal cords were anesthetized, I couldn’t call out for Franz to tear me out of the grip of the Abduction.
“Help me!”
I awoke, my limbs covered with a film of ice-cold sweat.
“Help me, Rosa.”
It was Leni, and she was crying. Elfriede also woke up. She switched on the flashlight she kept under her pillow. The SS guards hadn’t thought of furnishing the classrooms with bedside tables and lamps, but she had thought ahead. She saw that little slip of a girl kneeling beside my bed and asked, “What happened?”
I pulled myself up to put my arms around Leni but she wouldn’t let me. She touched herself between the legs.
“Tell me what happened!” Elfriede insisted.
Leni opened her hand: the palm was pale, its lines jagged and deep. They formed a grid of barbed wire; who knew what Beate would have read in it? Her fingertips were bloody. “He hurt me,” she said, crumpling onto the floor. She curled up into a ball, becoming so tiny I thought she might disappear.
Elfriede ran barefoot into the hall—her heels thudding fiercely, with rage—and stopped by the only open window. Leaning out, she saw the rails of a ladder propped against the wall and, in the vanishing point where the two lines converged, Ernst’s silhouette. He had just rested his feet on the ground.
“You’ll pay for this,” she promised him, her fingers gripping the windowsill. The guards might hear her. She didn’t care. Where had they been while a soldier from the army had snuck into the barracks? Had they been distracted? Had they turned a blind eye? Had they been hitting the bottle? Go ahead and run, my friend, but tomorrow it’s my move.
Ernst looked up, didn’t reply, ran off.
* * *
WHEN HE ASKED her to meet him at midnight at the third window in the hallway on the left, Leni agreed. You’re an adult, she told herself, you can’t back out of it. Besides, Ernst liked Leni that way, never knowing what to say, frugal with her words, an eternal beginner. He seemed amused by precisely that—the constant need to coax her out into the open from where she’d hidden herself away, the light touch of a finger on her shoulder to bring her back without making her jump out of her skin.
Leni couldn’t disappoint him, couldn’t risk losing him, that was why she had said, Yes, I’ll be there, and at the stroke of midnight, despite the darkness, despite the guards, she had appeared at the window, which she had left open a crack before dinner so it could be opened without making noise when Ernst scrambled up the ladder. The moment he crawled in through the window they joyfully embraced, united by their secret, conspiring romantically, excited by the need to elude the security, and looked for a classroom where they could hide away and be together. Unfortunately the classrooms were all occupied because in the only one without cots SS guards were playing cards to kill the boredom of their nighttime shift.
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Ernst suggested. “The guards certainly won’t include it in their rounds.”
Leni shook her head. “We’d need to go downstairs, they would discover us!”
Ernst held her tight. “Do you trust me?” And without realizing it Leni was already going down the steps, and no one heard them, no one stopped them. Holding the sergeant by the hand, Leni guided him to the kitchen. What a disappointment to learn that Krümel had bolted it shut. It came as no surprise, though; the Führer’s food supplies were stored there. Give Krümel the respect he’s due, or there will be no cake for you, the chef would say. Leni didn’t want to disrespect him and felt ashamed. Perhaps noticing how sorry she was, Ernst stroked her cheeks, ears, neck, nape, back, sides, thighs, in a moment had pulled her against him, closer than ever before, the protrusions of her body pressing against his, his lips on hers in a long kiss, and, walking backward, slowly, maintaining contact the whole time, he led her through the first unlocked door he found.
It was the lunchroom, though only when he bumped into a chair in the dim light coming through the windows did Leni realize it. But then, how could she ask for anything better? The room was familiar to her, the crude table made of heavy wood, the unadorned chairs, the bare walls—for almost a year now she had spent several hours a day in this room, it was a second home, there was no need for her to be afraid, she wasn’t anymore, she could do it, Slow your breathing, Leni, or better yet, take a deep breath, you’re grown up now, you can’t back out of it. As a child Ernst would throw paper airplanes out the window of his classroom in Lübeck and dream of flying while you were learning to read, held your finger beneath each printed letter, moved it mechanically across the page, saying aloud one syllable at a time until pronouncing the entire word, and you dreamed of becoming very good at it one day, better than the classmates who didn’t need to use their finger, could already read so quickly that they got fed up waiting for you. And you didn’t know you two would meet years and years later, you and that boy who wanted to become a pilot—this is the astonishing thing about love, all the years when neither of you knew the other even existed, and you lived far away, hundreds of kilometers apart, and you grew up and grew tall, him more than you, and you filled out and he was shaving already and you both came down with fevers and got better and school ended and it was Christmas and you learned to cook and one day he was conscripted and it all happened without you having met each other, you might never have met each other, what a risk you both ran, the very thought tugs at your heart—it would have taken nothing, the slightest deviation, a slower footstep, a poorly wound watch, a more attractive woman met a moment before seeing you, just one moment before, Leni, or simply Hitler not invading Poland.
Ernst slowly moves the chairs aside, takes Leni in his arms, and rests her on the table, the same one at which we food tasters eat, the same one Leni moved away from to vomit on her first day, and because of that patent weakness of hers I chose her as a friend, or she chose me. When she finds herself lying on the wood—her nightgown too thin not to feel her backbone pressing against the hard surface—Leni doesn’t resist, this time doesn’t ask to leave.
Ernst stretches out on top of her. At first it’s his shadow that engulfs her, then the muscles of a young soldier rejected by the Luftwaffe that weigh heavier and heavier on her hips, on the knees that Leni doesn’t know to spread.
She’ll have to learn—all girls do, and she will too. You can get used to anything, to eating on command, gulping it all down, holding back waves of nausea, braving poison, death, oatmeal, Heike, you have to taste it, otherwise Ziegler will be angry, we don’t need women who don’t obey, here people do what I want, which is what the Führer wants, which is what God wants.
“Ernst!” His name escapes her all at once, as a sob.
“Darling,” he moans.
“Ernst, I need to go. I can’t do it in here, I can’t be here, I don’t want to be.”
It was then, as I slept and the Abduction returned, as Elfriede slept and breathed hard through her nose, in our shared bedroom upstairs, three beds, one empty, as the other women tried to fall asleep despite their concern for their children, whom they had been forced to entrust to their grandparents, to a sister, a friend, they certainly couldn’t bring them along to the barracks, couldn’t escape by jumping out the window—if only they knew there was a ladder—it was then that Ernst tried the kind way to persuade Leni, and since that didn’t work, since she was struggling and making noise, he covered her mouth with his hand and did as he pleased. After all, she had shown up for the rendezvous. She knew it was going to happen. That was the only reason he was there that night.
37
Elfriede stood up from the tab
le and walked toward the Beanpole. Leni saw the feisty bounce in her step and understood—she, who was so unintuitive. “Wait!” she cried. Elfriede didn’t wait. “It’s none of your business,” Leni said, also getting up. “It’s none of your concern.”
“You think you don’t have any rights?”
The question disoriented Leni, who was already blue in the face.
“A right is a responsibility,” Elfriede added.
“And so?”
“If you can’t assume it, someone will have to do it for you.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Leni’s voice was breaking.
“I’m doing something to you? Me?” Elfriede sniffed, drew a breath. “Do you enjoy victimhood?”
“It’s not your problem.”
“It’s everyone’s problem, don’t you see?” Elfriede shouted.
The Beanpole shouted even louder. He pulled away from the corner, ordering them both to be quiet and sit down.
“I need to talk to you,” Elfriede told him.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Leni made one last attempt. “Please…,” but Elfriede pushed her out of the way and I went to her aid. I wasn’t trying to take Leni’s side, it was just that she was the weaker one, she always had been.
“I need to inform Lieutenant Ziegler of an event that occurred in the barracks,” Elfriede explained, “an event that is an offense to the barracks itself.”
The grimace on the Beanpole’s face might have been astonishment. No one had ever demanded an audience with Ziegler, not even the Fanatics. He probably didn’t know if such a request was legitimate, but what Elfriede said confused him. Besides, that argument between two food tasters, it must have had some significance.
“Out in the courtyard, all of you,” he ordered with a certain satisfaction over his own prompt response.
I dragged Leni with me.
“It’s my business,” she murmured, “why does she have to make it public? Why does she have to humiliate me?”
The others walked out a few at a time.
“You stay here,” the Beanpole told Elfriede, and she pressed her back against the wall.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked her softly, so as not to be overheard by the guard as he left the room.
Elfriede replied with an assertive nod of her chin, then closed her eyes.
* * *
LENI SLUMPED TO the ground. Though I don’t think it was intentional, she had sat down in the exact center of the faded hopscotch court, the magic perimeter that hadn’t protected her from anything. I plopped down at her side. The others swarmed around her, bombarding her with questions, especially Augustine. “Enough,” I said. “Can’t you see she’s beside herself?”
Out of the corner of my eye I peeked at the lunchroom but couldn’t see Elfriede. As soon as the crowd around Leni had dispersed, I walked over to the door. The sound of footsteps on the floor made me back up. “Let’s go.” It was the Beanpole’s voice. The footsteps doubled. Only when the asynchronous, differently paced noises had faded into the distance did I peer inside. Elfriede was walking down the hall with the guard.
Against all expectations the lieutenant had agreed to receive her. It must have been because of the boredom of the weeks following the assassination attempt, which he had missed. He was looking for a distraction. Or maybe it was his bitterness about the new arrangements. Nothing was to happen without his knowing about it. I felt in danger, almost as if by entering his room Elfriede might see in Albert what I saw in him, might see me deep in his eyes and discover everything.
Elfriede appeared before Ziegler to report Ernst Koch, a noncommissioned officer of the Heer. She said the night before, though entry was forbidden, the sergeant had sneaked into the barracks, where the food tasters slept, German women employed by the Führer, and despite his being a representative of the Reich, an army man with the duty to defend us from the enemy, he had raped one of the women, a German, just like him.
* * *
ZIEGLER FOUND OUT the names of the guards on duty that night and summoned each of them, along with Ernst and Leni. He couldn’t wait to inflict punishment—that must have been it.
In response to the Obersturmführer’s questions in the dimly lit principal’s office, at first Leni—she told me later—reacted by clamming up, then mumbled that it was her fault, Sergeant Koch had misunderstood, she hadn’t been clear, had agreed to meet him in the barracks but had instantly regretted it. Had there been intercourse or hadn’t there? Leni didn’t deny Elfriede’s account. Ziegler asked her if she had consented. Leni quickly shook her head, stammering that no, she hadn’t.
Despite her incoherent statements, Ziegler didn’t let the question drop. He reported Ernst Koch to the Wehrmacht authorities, which after a series of questions and verifications would determine whether to send the young man before a military court.
When Leni went to see Heiner and asked for news about Ernst, he was courteous yet cold, almost as if he was afraid that meeting with the victim—that is, the accuser—was unwise. He didn’t justify his friend, but he didn’t open up to her either. I’ve ruined his life, Leni said.
I didn’t talk about it with Elfriede because I was afraid I would give myself away, like I had with the honey. I’m sorry, she had told me that Sunday afternoon as we returned to the barracks, it’s just that I get nervous when I remember the day they poisoned us—that is, when we were sickened by the honey, from what you said. I shook my head. Don’t worry, who knows if it really was the honey after all?
I was a coward. That was why I couldn’t understand why she would involve herself in a situation that had nothing to do with her, against the wishes of the person directly affected. That chivalrous attitude was ridiculous. For years every heroic act had seemed ridiculous to me. I was embarrassed by any form of initiative, any trust, especially in justice—a remnant of romantic idealism, a naïve, false sentiment detached from reality.
* * *
THE NEWS SPREAD among the tasters. The Fanatics didn’t spare us their comments: First you sneak him into the barracks and then you say it was his fault? No, no, dear, that’s no excuse.
Augustine tried to comfort Leni, to tell her how admirable Elfriede’s gesture had been, she should be grateful. Leni wasn’t persuaded. Would they summon her to testify in court? She had never even managed to utter a word at the blackboard. Why had her friend inflicted this torture on her?
I gathered my courage and went to Elfriede, who was surly even with me.
Annoyed, I told her, “Protecting someone who doesn’t want to be protected is an act of aggression.”
“Oh, really?” She pulled the unlit cigarette out of her lips. “Would you think that about a child?”
“Leni isn’t a child.”
“She can’t defend herself,” she shot back, “just like a child.”
“Who among us can defend ourselves here? Be objective! We’ve had to put up with all kinds of oppression here. It’s not always a question of choice.”
“You’re right.” As though it needed to be extinguished, she smashed the cigarette against the wall until the tobacco burst out of the torn paper. Then she walked away. The conversation was over.
“Where are you going?”
“There’s no escaping destiny,” she said without turning around. “That’s the point.”
I could have followed her but didn’t. She wasn’t listening to anyone anyway. Suit yourself, I thought.
Whether Elfriede had been right to report Ernst against Leni’s wishes I couldn’t say, but there was something about the whole thing that made me uncomfortable, something that left me with a dark feeling of foreboding.
38
I spotted Ziegler in the hallway and twisted my ankle on purpose. My foot slipped out of my shoe, my knee buckled, I fell to the floor. He walked over and held out his hand. I took it. He helped me up. The guard had also come over. “Everything all right, Lieutenant?”
“She’s hurt her ank
le,” Ziegler replied. I didn’t say a word. “I’ll take you to the washroom. You can run cold water over it.”
“Don’t bother, Lieutenant. I can take her mysel—”
“It’s no problem.” Ziegler walked off. I followed him, pretending to hobble.
When we were in the principal’s office he locked the door, grabbed my face in his hands furiously, squeezing my cheeks, and kissed me. All I had to do was touch his chest with my finger to relapse.
“Thank you for what you did.”
He had decided to protect one of us rather than cover for a noncommissioned officer. He seemed to be on our side, on mine.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, pulling up my skirt and baring my thighs.
I had never touched him in broad daylight before, had never seen so clearly his brow furrowed with desire, the gaze of someone who fears everything might dissolve from one moment to the next, an adolescent impulse. We had never made love in a place that wasn’t mine—no, a place that wasn’t Gregor’s family’s. I had desecrated the barn and now we were desecrating the barracks. That place was Hitler’s. It was ours.
Someone knocked. Ziegler quickly did up his trousers, I slid off the desk, trying to smooth my skirt with my palms, neaten my hair. I stood there as he spoke with the SS man, who glanced in my direction. I lowered my head, then turned three-quarters away, slicked down my hair again, and looked at the paperwork on the desk to escape his interest. It was then that I saw the dossier.
On the first page was written: ELFRIEDE KUHN / EDNA KOPFSTEIN.
My blood ran cold.
“Where were we?” Ziegler whispered, embracing me from behind. I hadn’t noticed he had dismissed the guard. He spun me around, pulled me close, kissed my lips, teeth, gums, the corners of my mouth. “What’s wrong?” he said.
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