“I don’t understand.” Ada wasn’t sure who he was talking about or what he was saying.
Herr Weiss appeared not to hear. “Why should we keep them alive? A waste of time and money.”
He squeezed her hand, laid it gently to the side, and patted it. “Perhaps not this week, my dear,” he said, as if all of this had been her idea. “I’m not in the mood, it seems.” He smiled and leant back in his chair. “But you see, don’t you? While I am vigorous, no one will put me on the list.”
Ada withdrew her hand and tucked it away. “List?” she said.
“In a manner of speaking,” he said. “Those whose life is not worth living. The retarded. The deformed. What life do they have? Better to put them out of their misery. A merciful death.”
“You kill them?”
“I like to think of it as horticulture. That’s what I told my boys.” He pointed his stick at the window, though no guards were in view. “You want a tree to grow strong and tall? Then you concentrate on the strongest boughs, and cut off the deadweight. You have to be scientific, not sentimental. Eugenics. That is the future.”
Ada tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry and her tongue balled in her throat. She thought she would choke. She coughed, a painful spasm that clawed through her body.
“The German people are like a tree,” Herr Weiss went on, “which must be freed of parasites and weaklings. Sickly babies. The old and infirm. The vile scum that saps our vigor.”
“Babies?” Ada said. “What babies?”
“Puny ones,” he said, stamping his stick on the ground.
“Incurables. Orphans. Delinquents. Unwanted. All of them.”
Thomas. A shard of fear, sharp as glass. She had to know. Father Friedel, he would tell her. He must. Under oath, in the confessional. Despite what Sister Brigitte had said, she needed to ask him. But she hadn’t seen him, not for a while.
“Father Friedel?” she said, panic in her voice. “Where is Father Friedel?”
“Friedel?” Herr Weiss snorted. “What do you want with him? He’s dead, didn’t you know?”
“No,” Ada said. She couldn’t stop herself. She wanted to cry. “No.”
Herr Weiss faced her, his body coiled for action, pale blue eyes narrowed, aiming for her. “What’s he to you?”
Thomas’s feeble body, once pink with life, lay blue and marbled in her mind.
“Nothing,” she said. She shut her eyes. Pull yourself together. Act normal. “Just you talking about people dying. I thought, naturally, of the Last Sacrament. Father Friedel. He used to be here all the time.”
Ada could see Herr Weiss relax. “He was beheaded,” he said.
Ada gagged. She slapped her hand across her mouth.
“A few weeks ago,” Herr Weiss said. “For preaching against it. Called it murder. How can we abandon it? Why should we? Aktion T4. It makes perfect sense.” He leant back in the chair and shut his eyes, a smile of satisfaction stretched across his face. He waved his hand in dismissal.
Her Thomas, her beautiful, innocent Thomas, slaughtered. Had Father Friedel been caught? She thought he was senile, but he must have guessed. If so, he must have kept quiet about where he found the baby. Had died to save her baby. Little Thomas was small, and frail. He was placid, too, hadn’t cried once or made a sound, just lain on the mattress with closed eyes. Perhaps he was simple. Would that be so bad, if he didn’t live to see the horrors of this world?
And Stanislaus. Sitting pretty somewhere, Hungary, Austria, Germany. He wasn’t suffering. Not like her. Not like Thomas, his son. How could he have abandoned her? Did he have no heart, no feelings? He must have known she’d be caught, how she’d be treated. Ada had never been a bitter person, never rancorous. But Stanislaus had been her lover. She felt rage burn deep inside, like lava in the belly of the earth, suffocating reason with its fumes. She’d never felt like that before.
Sister Brigitte was leading night prayers. Ada slipped silently past her and knelt down by her bunk in the twilight. Perhaps Thomas was alive. Perhaps Father Friedel had given him to a family, a good family, who didn’t believe in all this Aktion T4, or whatever it was called. That family loved him, they were caring for him. She buried her face in her hands, and for once was grateful for the nuns’ soft mantras, which she could mumble without thought. Blessed are they who mourn…
“SIE.” THE GUARD poked her with his baton. “Herkommen. Folgen.” He marched ahead, through the doors. He walked fast, and Ada had to trot to keep up. She had no idea where he was taking her. Along the corridor, out of the building, into the January morning. It was almost dawn. It was the first time she had left the building since she had arrived here. It was 1942. They’d been here for over eighteen months, and it was almost a year since she’d given birth to Thomas. There was snow on the ground, and the sky hung heavy and jaundiced. She must have been seen with Herr Weiss at one of their nightly meetings. One of the guards had spotted her touching him. It was forbidden. Or perhaps he had tired of her, told the guards to get rid of her, to make her disappear like they did with the Poles.
There was a truck ahead of them, and the guard ordered her to sit in the back. She was alone. She wasn’t sure if it was the cold or fear that made her shiver, sharp judders that rocked her bones and set her teeth on edge. Two soldiers emerged from behind one of the buildings, smoking and laughing. One climbed into the cab, the other into the back of the truck with Ada, pulling his greatcoat around him and pushing his fingers into thick, leather gloves. The truck jerked into motion and drove out of the gates into the city.
They were in the center of Munich, Herr Weiss had told her. They passed along streets with tall buildings on either side, past large, spacious squares and the cathedral, with its towering spires. In time, the houses thinned and gave way to fields and trees. Ada wrapped Sister Jeanne’s outsize habit round her twice, grateful for the spare swags of thick serge, folded the scapular over her hands, curled and uncurled her toes to keep them from freezing. They passed through villages with squawking chickens and coils of smoke unfurling from the chimneys. A dog began to bark, broke free from its leash, followed them for a while, then fell back, cocking his leg against a tree, urine steaming in a steady flow that melted and yellowed the snow.
Where were they taking her? She was alone. She wanted to be with the other nuns. Strength in numbers. They held hands sometimes, she and Sister Brigitte and Sister Agatha. Took care of each other. No need to say a word. We understand. What would Ada do now, by herself ? In a prison, or worse?
Ahead there was what looked like a factory. Long, low buildings and a tall chimney belching acrid, black smoke. They passed some gates. ARBEIT MACHT FREI. She wondered what they made there. Work makes free. Not for her, not here, not now. Lucky them. The road skirted the factory, and entered the outskirts of a town. They passed a road sign pointing in its direction. “Dachau,” Ada read, as they pulled up at a large house with high walls and double gates on the edge of the compound.
The soldier opened the tail flap and jumped down. “Runter!”
Ada lowered herself onto the tarmac. He grabbed her arm and pushed her towards the gates that enclosed the house. Another soldier opened them and marched her into a vestibule. He turned, shut the doors behind him, and locked them. The room was lit only by a small, circular window, through which sickly shafts of light limped to the floor. There was a low shelf with boots of various sizes and shapes. Black knee-high army boots, shiny and polished, two pairs of ladies’ boots, one pair neat and brown, the other suede with fur trimming and crepe rubber soles. There was a pair of galoshes, and a small pair of child’s boots. The walls were painted a cheerless gray, and the room was unheated. It was cold and damp, and Ada could see her breath.
The door to the interior opened, and an emaciated man entered the vestibule. His jacket was filthy and striped, with a large yellow star sewn on the front. He looked like he hadn’t shaved for days.
“Komm her,” he said, his voice flat and dead. He led her i
nto the main hall of the house, a vast, square room paneled in dark wood, lit by a large stained-glass window over the staircase. A striking, slender woman leant against the newel post, a long cigarette holder in her hand. Her day dress, Ada could see, was wool crepe, the color of ruby port, with a white poplin sailor’s collar trimmed in lace. It had been a long time since Ada had seen such elegance. For one moment Ada floated free on a gossamer of beauty and yearning, and she smiled. The woman pushed herself away from the post and sauntered towards her, the heels of her shoes tapping softly on the polished parquet floor.
“I am told you are a ladies’ tailor,” she said in German, eyeing Ada in her shabby habit, adding with a sneer, “though it seems unlikely.”
“I am,” Ada said. It was Herr Weiss. That was why she was here. He was the only person who knew.
“You speak German?”
“A little.”
“You only need to understand it. Come.”
Ada followed her into a small room off the scullery. A large table filling most of the space held a piece of paper, a pair of scissors, some tailor’s chalk, a pincushion, a tape measure, and some black fabric, moiré, Ada guessed, from its sheen. Underneath the window was a sewing machine, a hand-turned one, not a treadle. In another corner there was an ironing board and an electric iron. These people were rich. In the far corner was an old easy chair.
The woman lifted the piece of paper off the table and waved it in front of Ada. It was a photograph, torn from a newspaper, of a woman in evening dress.
“You will make me that dress,” she said, “by this evening.”
“This evening? Madame, it’s—” She was about to say “impossible,” but the woman interrupted her, her tone sharp as a bayonet.
“This is the house of the commandant, the Obersturmbannführer Weiss. You do not argue with me.”
She must be Frau Weiss. Her husband had to be related to Herr Professor Weiss. Herr Weiss had told them who she was, what she did. Ada wondered what else they knew about her.
“Those are my measurements,” the woman said, pointing to a dressmaker’s dummy in the far corner of the room. “If the clothes fit that, they fit me. I do not try them on until they are finished.”
Ada wanted to say that clothes could not be made on a stiff wooden dummy. They had to be tuned to ripple with the body as it moved, to drape when it stood in repose. She wanted to ask if there was a pattern, or another photograph of the dress. This was too grainy to see the detail.
“The squat little Jew who was here before failed to understand that,” the woman was saying. “I will not have you touch me.” Ada had thought this woman was beautiful at first, but now she saw that her mouth was hard and her flawless skin too brittle for kindness. The woman turned, paused by the door. “Six o’clock, sharp,” she said. “Everything you need is there.”
Ada heard the key turn in the lock behind her.
—
EVEN WITH A pattern and a willing customer, Ada would find it hard to complete a formal gown in a day. She stared at the photograph. The dress was tight, with a cowl neck set proud from the shoulders, and three-quarter-length sleeves. It wasn’t a complicated design, though those necks could be tricky, with the fabric cut on the cross and rolled, and shoulders were always awkward. The bodice and skirt needed to fit perfectly. It was the sort of dress that, in the right hands, with the right dressmaker, could look a hundred pounds. Badly made, it would look like an off-the-peg number. Frau Weiss, Ada could see, would never buy a ready-made.
She laid out the moiré on the table, running her finger over the soft watered marks that shimmered in the light, radiating subtle shades of black. People thought black was a dead, dull color, but it had as many hues and lusters as blue or red. The moiré wasn’t silk but rayon, an unhappy fabric, she could hear Isidore say, that sheds its fibers like a weeping widow. There were at least five yards, more than enough to make the dress. Enough, even, for a cocktail hat or headpiece. Ada lifted the cloth and draped it over the dummy. There was no muslin to make a toile first. She’d have to do without it.
She rolled up her sleeves, placed the tape measure round her neck, stuck pins from the cushion down her scapular, and set to work. Perhaps she should be grateful. Perhaps this had been a gift from Herr Weiss.
—
BY THREE O’CLOCK the dress hung lifeless on the dummy. Frau Weiss hadn’t appeared all day. Even if the measurements were exact, Ada knew the dummy was no substitute for the real thing. You had to walk in the dress, breathe life into its empty form, so the fabric was at one with the flesh and skin.
Ada paused. It was quiet outside. She slipped the scapular over her head, pulled off the heavy tunic and the underskirt and shift, stood shivering in her calico drawers. Silence. She stepped out of her drawers and into the dress, twisting as she pulled it up and over her body so the neck lay obliquely on her shoulders and the bodice snug round her breasts. The rayon was smooth as balm against her skin, like brushed silk against her thighs. Ada stood on tiptoes, as if on heels, pirouetted once, twice. There was no mirror, but she saw herself with long, wavy hair, the moiré shining light and dark against the evening sun, her skin pale and innocent against its sheen. It was a brief glimpse of her old life, of elegance and beauty and freedom, what her life could still have been if she hadn’t met Stanislaus.
A dart needed taking in, and the seam could pucker if the tension wasn’t right. She felt the collar, which lay proud and even, touched her shoulders where the sleeves would go. Tighten the seam there. She held the back together with her hand. Fasten the hooks here, and here. There were voices outside. Ada froze.
She eased herself as fast as she could out of the dress, stepped back into her shift and drawers. Men’s voices, indistinct. She tugged up her underskirts and pulled down her tunic, wrapping the belt twice round her waist. She left the scapular off. It only got in the way. She picked the dress up from the floor and took it over to the sewing machine as the voices drifted into the distance.
Her hands shook as she adjusted the pins and threaded the machine. Pin, tack, and sew. If she had been caught wearing the dress, she knew the punishment would have been serious. She pressed the seams and whipped them, put the dress back on the dummy, fitted the sleeves so they didn’t pucker, adjusted the length. She had no organza to line the hem and turn it so it draped soft as a breeze. Then herringbone, Ada, herringbone. Hooks and eyes, fifteen should do it. The natural light was fading. There was a single bulb over the table, which Ada switched on from the plug on the wall. It gave out a dim glow, but if she held the work close she could see. Final press, not too hard at the hem. There was a box of hangers under the table, and Ada selected one and hung the dress from the picture rail.
Even in the poor light of the room, Ada knew it was a masterpiece. When this war is over, she thought, the House of Vaughan will live.
She eyed the remnant of fabric. There was some interfacing left, and the moiré was firm. Perhaps a rose. It wouldn’t take long, fitted to a small skullcap that would grip snug and that Frau Weiss could pin to her hair with a kirby grip, if they had them in Germany.
For the first time since he was born, nearly a year ago, Ada had not thought of Thomas. He’d be one year old in a few weeks. February 19, 1942. Happy Birthday, Tomichen.
—
THE MAN IN the jacket with the yellow star collected the dress in the evening, held it by the hanger at arm’s length.
“Excuse me,” Ada said. “The lavatory?”
He pointed to a bucket by the door, switched off the light, and turned the lock behind him. The room was pitch-black. She heard his footsteps fade. A baby was wailing in the distance. Ada remembered the child’s boots in the vestibule. The cry was faint, but now that Ada had heard it, it did not go away. The child must be in the room above hers. How long had the little thing been crying? Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and moonlight filtered through the window bars, casting shadows across the table. She could hear doors opening and shutting, footsteps
, a woman’s voice—Frau Weiss—calling out. The doorbell rang, a deep sonorous clang, more voices, laughter, the doorbell again. A party. Her room was close to the kitchen, and the doors let in gobbets of noise as people entered and left. She could hear glasses, the hollow pung of popping champagne corks, laughter growing louder and louder, while above her the child yelled.
Ada relieved herself in the bucket and sat on the stool by the sewing machine. She’d had no food since yesterday, and nothing to drink except a swig of water since this morning. Had they told Sister Brigitte where she was? She’d worry otherwise, fret that Ada had done something silly, had run away. Herr Weiss would be kept waiting, too. He wouldn’t tolerate that, he lost his temper easily. He’d be in the dayroom, stomping his stick on the floor, demanding. The guards wouldn’t be pleased.
Except that Herr Weiss must know. He must have given permission for her to leave for one day. The voices were growing thinner, and the child was silent. Must have cried itself to sleep, poor little mite. They would come to get her soon. There were noises from the scullery, cutlery and plates being washed, glasses tinkling in soapy water. The party was over. They would collect her now, take her back to Munich.
But the house grew silent and the room cold and no one came. Ada moved to the old easy chair in the corner. The seat cushions were lumpy and the springs broken, but it was softer than the stool and she could lean back. It smelled musty. She was tired and hungry. She missed Sister Brigitte and the other nuns, their warmth and the soft put-put of their breath as they slept. She wanted to talk to them. Not that she liked them very much, but they shared what she shared, feared what she feared, and for all that Ada didn’t believe in God, she knew they prayed for the same thing. They were on the same side, and they had each other.
—
IN THE MORNING the man in the striped jacket unlocked the door and pointed to the bucket.
“Follow me.”
The Dressmaker's War Page 11