Resistance Women

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  He reached across the table for the paper, but took her hand instead. “Greta, you told me to call you when I was single. I’m not.”

  Her heart sank. “When you wrote to me, I hoped that meant your situation had changed.”

  “If I divorce Gertrud, Marie will never let me see my son again.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “Gertrud and I have an understanding.”

  “I’m not like you and Gertrud and Marie and Otto. You may call me bourgeoise or old-fashioned, but I could never be happy in such an arrangement. I don’t have to be married, but I need to know that my man is mine and mine alone.”

  His hand tightened around hers. “I would be. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I swear to you, I would be yours, no one else’s.”

  Reluctantly, she slipped her hand from his grasp. “Think it over—deeply, honestly. When you’re certain, only then make me a promise I can believe.”

  “Greta—”

  “Think it over, Adam.” Quickly she rose and left the café before her resolve crumbled and she took back every word rather than risk losing him forever.

  Two blocks from the café, she heard a man call her name, and at first she was torn between elation and dismay that Adam had not taken more time to consider her ultimatum. Then she turned and spotted a tall, slender man with blond hair and round wire-rimmed glasses raising a hand in greeting as he hurried to catch up with her.

  “Arvid?” she gasped. “Arvid Harnack?”

  “Greta Lorke. It is you.” Astonished, he seized her hand and shook it. “I hardly believe it. You haven’t changed a bit.”

  She laughed a bit shakily. “Oh, but I have.”

  “What have you been doing all these years? When did you leave Wisconsin?” He shook his head and smiled. “So many questions, but Mildred will want to hear the answers too. Come home with me and dine with us. It isn’t far.”

  Mildred. At the sound of her old friend’s name, Greta felt a pang of fondness and yearning so acute that her breath caught in her throat. “I’d love to see Mildred,” she said. “Should we call ahead and let her know I’m coming?”

  “No, no, let it be a surprise.” Smiling, he offered her his arm, and after the barest hesitation, she took it. “Where there’s enough for two, there’s enough for three.”

  Considering the number of advanced degrees Arvid had accumulated and his family connections, Greta was astonished to learn that he and Mildred resided in Neukölln, the grim lower-class neighborhood Greta remembered well from her student work-study job at the orphanage. “Darling?” Arvid called out as he unlocked the door to the Harnacks’ flat on the fifth floor of 61 Hasenheide and motioned for Greta to proceed him inside. “Come see whom I found walking around Gendarmenmarkt.”

  Smiling, Mildred entered from an adjacent room. She was even slimmer than Greta remembered, her clothes neat and flattering though a trifle faded and discreetly made over, but her golden blond hair, kind smile, and open, welcoming gaze were exactly as Greta remembered.

  “Greta!” Mildred cried, hurrying to embrace her old friend, kissing her on both cheeks. “I can’t believe it. It’s been too long.”

  “Much too long,” said Greta. “I’ve missed you terribly.”

  Over a hearty cabbage, potato, and sausage soup, they shared stories of where life had taken them since they had parted company four years earlier. The frugal meal and the location of the flat had raised Greta’s suspicions that the couple was not particularly well off, and yet she was taken aback to learn that Arvid had been unable to get a university appointment.

  “At least you completed your degree,” said Greta, chagrined to admit failure to her former rival. “Despite all my time and study, I still haven’t earned my doctorate.”

  “Neither have I,” said Mildred ruefully. “I’m still toiling away on my dissertation.”

  “My student days are over,” said Greta. “I hope to find work in theater or journalism instead.”

  “Journalism is a dangerous profession these days,” said Arvid, “unless you’re willing to hold your nose and write for the Nazi press.”

  “Never,” Greta retorted.

  “In the meantime, you should join our literary salon,” said Mildred. “We’ve put together a lively crowd of writers, editors, publishers, journalists, and intellectuals for discussing literature and publishing. It’s an artistic group, not political. You could join our progressive study group for something closer to the Friday Niters.”

  “I do miss the Friday Niters.” Greta sighed, wistful. “And sodas at Rennebohm’s, and Bascom Hill, and walking the path along Lake Mendota in autumn.”

  As twilight descended, they reminisced about their favorite places in Madison and mutual friends—John Commons, William Ellery Leonard, Clara Leiser, Rudolf and Franziska Heberle, and others. The time flew by until Greta realized with a start that it was quite late.

  “Promise you’ll come to our next salon,” Mildred said as she and Arvid saw her to the door.

  “I will.” Greta embraced her friend once more before hurrying away, grateful for their reunion, an interlude of joy in a bleak season.

  It was after midnight when she finally reached Pichelswerder, but she felt perfectly safe. Her unexpected reunion with the Harnacks had diminished the pain of her bittersweet meeting with Adam. The streetlights illuminated the way ahead, and other couples and groups of friends were strolling the sidewalks, their quiet conversations and occasional bursts of laughter reminding her that there was much to cherish in life even in those uncertain times. Only when she reached the boathouse and saw a shadow shift near the front entrance did she halt, instantly wary, and wish that she were not alone.

  Then the figure stepped into the light, and she recognized Adam, his hat pushed back, hands thrust into his pockets, mouth set determinedly. “You told me to come when I was certain,” he said, drawing closer. “I told Gertrud I want a divorce. She swore that she would never consent.”

  Her hopes plummeted just as they had begun to rise. “I see.”

  “I’ll keep trying. Maybe someday she’ll fall in love with someone and release me.” He took her hands. “You deserve better, but if you can accept this wretched situation, and accept me with all my imperfections, you’ll be the only woman I’ll ever love for the rest of my life. I promise.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She wanted more, but in such ugly, uncertain times, she would be a fool to let any chance of happiness with the man she loved slip through her fingers.

  “I believe you,” she said, and she kissed him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  June 1933

  Sara

  Sara offered to accompany Dieter when he asked her parents for their blessing, but he preferred to speak to them alone. She waited in the garden while they met in the parlor, imagining their joyful surprise, her father’s proud smiles, her mother’s happy tears. But as the minutes dragged by, she become increasingly nervous, pacing beneath the linden trees, absently chewing on a thumbnail, a childhood habit that unfortunately reappeared at particularly anxious moments. Exasperated with herself, she thrust her hands into the pockets of her dress and kept them there until she heard the sunroom door open and voices murmur. She hurried back to the house, her heart racing with anticipation, but her parents’ expressions brought her to an abrupt halt. Dieter beamed happily, but her father’s face was curiously stoic, her mother’s in constant motion as it shifted between distress and a tearful smile.

  They congratulated her, kissed her, and wished her and Dieter every happiness. And yet in the days that followed, they did not ask when she and Dieter planned to marry, nor did they announce the engagement to their friends. Sara tried not to take offense. Several years before, although her parents had been very fond of Wilhelm, Amalie’s engagement had rendered them more regretful than happy. Their reluctance had eased after Amalie convinced them that she would not convert, Wilhelm would respect their traditions, and their children would be raised in
the Jewish faith. Even so, the gossip provoked by the unusual intermarriage had annoyed them greatly, and sometimes Sara’s mother had wept alone, unaware that afterward her red eyes and pale face betrayed her secret grief.

  Several years had passed. The gossip had faded, the blissfully happy newlyweds had become devoted parents, and Wilhelm had become part of the family. Sara had assumed that her sister’s happiness would make it easier for her parents to accept her own marriage to a Christian. Instead, they seemed to have greater misgivings about her engagement than they had ever shown for Amalie’s.

  Could something else be troubling them, something that had nothing to do with religion or their dismay at the prospect of becoming the subjects of pity and gossip again?

  One day in mid-June, Sara packed a basket with sandwiches, fruit, and a large flask of strong coffee and went to see her brother at the Berliner Tageblatt. He could not spare the time for a picnic in the Tiergarten, so they shared lunch in his office instead, clearing a space on his cluttered desk for a table, closing the door to keep harried copy clerks from rushing in and out.

  Natan sat back, propped his feet up on a stack of books, took a bite of sandwich, and raised his eyebrows at her in a silent, good-humored inquiry.

  “I don’t think Mama and Papa want me to marry Dieter,” Sara began, recognizing her cue. “I don’t know if they object because Dieter isn’t Jewish or some other reason.” She sighed and picked a bit of bread crust from her sandwich. “Do you like Dieter?”

  “I don’t dislike him. How old are you, nineteen? Amalie didn’t get married until she was twenty-four. What’s your rush?”

  “There’s no rush. Dieter and I agreed not to marry until I finish my education.”

  “Good. I strongly endorse any plan that involves a long engagement—the longer, the better.”

  “If you think I’m making a terrible mistake, I wish you would just tell me.”

  He took another bite of sandwich and eyed her thoughtfully as he chewed and swallowed, stalling for time. “Maybe Dieter isn’t the man I would have chosen for you, but as long as you’re happy and he’s good to you, I’m satisfied.”

  “Why wouldn’t you have chosen him?”

  “You don’t seem to have much in common. I know he’s good-looking, especially if you like Aryan features—”

  “I wouldn’t marry someone just because he’s handsome.” Then understanding dawned. “Aryan features. So that is the problem. Dieter isn’t Jewish.”

  “It isn’t a problem for me, but it might eventually become a problem for Dieter that you aren’t Christian.”

  “Amalie and Wilhelm—”

  “Wilhelm is a man of integrity and honor, a rare example of an aristocrat whose wealth and power haven’t corrupted him. Dieter, on the other hand—” Natan gestured as if trying to grasp a handful of smoke. “He seems . . . insubstantial. He’s one of the most amiable, inoffensive men I know, but that’s because he shapes himself to his companions. Who is he, on his own? What does he stand for?”

  “Would you rather have him argumentative and disagreeable?”

  “If he disagrees with me, yes, I would. I’d rather have a good, honest argument than empty pleasantries any day.” Natan drained the last of his coffee. “But that may just be me. Occupational hazard.”

  “Maybe Dieter’s occupation has hazards too. A businessman has to know how to get along pleasantly with all sorts of people, regardless of his personal opinions. When you get to know him better, I’m sure you’ll find many things to argue about.”

  “I’d almost welcome that. Listen, if you love him and he’s good to you, I can’t complain.”

  “But I want you to like him. I want you to be friends, the way you and Wilhelm are friends.”

  “I haven’t ruled it out.”

  Sara knew she could not ask more than that. “Do you think Mutti and Papa feel as you do about Dieter?”

  “We haven’t discussed it,” said Natan. “Maybe they believe no man is good enough for their daughter. They’d hardly be the first parents in history to feel that way about their daughter’s fiancé.”

  Sara managed a wan smile, appreciating his attempt to reassure her, although it fell short.

  The next day, Sara’s mother suggested that they invite Dieter and his mother for supper so the parents could become better acquainted. Sara suspected that Natan was behind it; she had not sworn him to secrecy and the timing fit too well to be a coincidence. Even so, she agreed, and after some back-and-forth with Dieter, they settled on the following Sunday.

  Sara scarcely knew Frau Koch, having met her only once. One spring afternoon a few months after she and Dieter began dating, Frau Koch had invited Sara to their small flat for Kaffee und Kuchen. She was a quiet, unsmiling woman, thin but with squared shoulders and a ramrod spine, her hands and face aged a decade beyond her forty-some years. Sara knew from Dieter’s stories that his mother had had a difficult life even before his father was killed in the Great War, and that he attributed all his success to her unrelenting devotion.

  Sara brought her flowers in a cut-glass vase, did her utmost to be pleasant and polite, and complimented her on the butter cake, which truly was excellent. In return Frau Koch offered faint smiles and courteous murmurs, but aside from a few hard, appraising looks she gave Sara when she thought herself unnoticed, the focus of her attention was Dieter, who carried the burden of conversation as if unaware how uncomfortable his companions seemed.

  Now that Sara and Dieter were engaged, she could only hope that her future mother-in-law had a warm, friendly side she had not revealed in their first meeting.

  Dieter and his mother arrived promptly at six o’clock, and as Sara’s parents escorted their guests to the parlor, Frau Koch’s gaze darted this way and that, taking in the crystal chandelier in the foyer, the Renoir and the Monet in the gallery, the tastefully elegant furnishings, the warmth of ample light. “You have a lovely home,” she said as she seated herself in the chair Sara’s father offered. “They say your kind is prosperous, and I see that it’s so.”

  Sara stiffened, but her mother only raised her eyebrows in polite inquiry.

  “Mother wanted me to go into banking,” Dieter quickly added, “but my apprenticeship led me elsewhere.”

  Sara smiled, relieved. Frau Koch meant bankers, not Jews. Given the political climate, the Weitzes could be forgiven for assuming the worst.

  Frau Koch declined a cocktail, but Dieter accepted. The parents’ conversation turned to Sara and Dieter, who offered faint protests as amusing, sometimes embarrassing stories from their childhoods were shared. Over dinner, after the first course was cleared and the second was placed before them, Sara’s mother turned to Frau Koch and said, “I must say we’re pleased that Dieter and Sara are going to be married. Your son is a fine young man and we trust they’ll be very happy together.”

  Frau Koch’s face took on a pinched look. “I hope so, but they haven’t chosen an easy path, have they?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” said Sara’s mother, no less pleasantly than before.

  “I’ve raised Dieter to love the Lord.” Frau Koch’s brow furrowed as if the hazards were so evident they needed no explanation. “I gather Sara has no plans to convert, but I hope my son can change her mind.”

  “I told you, Mutti,” said Dieter amiably, “we’re planning on a civil ceremony.”

  “A marriage that isn’t blessed by the church isn’t a true marriage.” Frau Koch’s gaze darted to Sara’s parents. “No offense intended.”

  Sara’s father inclined his head, expressionless.

  Frau Koch turned back to her son. “And what about the children? Will they be baptized? Will they know the scriptures?” Her gaze lit upon Sara for a moment before returning to Dieter. “Have you given that any thought at all?”

  Sara’s throat constricted. In what she now realized was a glaring oversight, she and Dieter had never discussed whose religion they would pass on to their children. Sara had never
posed the question because to her, the answer was obvious; in her tradition, children born of a Jewish mother were Jewish. But perhaps Dieter had different traditions that were equally obvious to him.

  “It’s true Sara and I have much to discuss before the wedding.” Dieter reached for Sara’s hand, and squeezed it once in a private message of reassurance. Looking around the table, he added, “We’ll come to you often for advice. We’ll respect your opinions. However, in the end, all decisions about our children will be ours alone.”

  He spoke so reasonably that he disarmed any argument before it could be raised. Overwhelmed, Sara lowered her eyes and pressed her napkin to her lips to hide her distress. What if her own parents objected as strongly as Frau Koch, and for similar reasons, but were keeping silent out of respect for her right to make her own decisions?

  The rest of the evening passed without incident, but when Dieter bade Sara good night, he left her with a kiss and the unsettled feeling that more objections were likely to appear before the first were resolved. Pleading a headache, she thanked her parents for hosting the dinner, kissed them good night, and hurried upstairs to her room.

  She prepared for bed and settled down with a well-worn copy of The Call of the Wild that Mildred Harnack had lent her, which Sara dared not read anywhere but at home since Jack London’s works were among those burned and banned in the Verbrennungstakt of May 10. Always before, his evocative prose had swiftly transported her into the vast Yukon wilderness, but on that night she brooded over the concerns raised at dinner and those yet unspoken. She set the book aside and turned off the light, but sleep eluded her. Eventually she flung off the covers, drew on her dressing gown, and went to make herself a cup of chamomile tea to calm her churning thoughts. She moved quietly to avoid waking her parents, but from the top of the staircase she glimpsed light coming from the parlor and realized they were still awake.

  A good, honest conversation would ease her mind better than any cup of tea, so she descended the stairs and went to meet them. Just as she was about to rap gently on the open door, she heard her father say, “Everything will be fine. He’s not an unpleasant young man, or cruel, or in any way objectionable.”