Nuremberg

by William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Laundering by hand was a job given to junior employees, and Teresa had now risen to washing-machine seniority. But she wasn’t as satisfied as she thought she would be, merely moving up from the laundry’s hand-washing section. The reason for it was frustration with the preset cycle speed of the Miele model machine. It required fourteen minutes to do a ration of washing. After two days of experimentation, she approached the chief and asked if she might be given an additional machine. She explained that she would then fill one machine and, five minutes later, the second, so that they could alternately disgorge their laundered loads, giving her time to press one lot while a stock of fresh laundering was being done.

  “What you are saying, Teresa,” the chief commented, “is that you are eager to undertake exactly twice the load that you would otherwise undertake.”

  Teresa, strong, blue-eyed, full-bodied, her corn-colored hair held back by the hair net, acknowledged the point. “ Ja . But I was not asking for double pay.”

  “And you wouldn’t get it, no matter how much you accomplished.”

  “I was thinking perhaps fifty percent more? Fifteen marks a day? Herr Chief, I have been here almost six weeks, and I have climbed from number eighteen to number ten. That means that you have hired eight people in eight weeks. That’s, then, one every week. If I do double work, and you pay me only two marks more, you have saved two marks.”

  “And if your work isn’t up to standard?”

  Teresa smiled urbanely. “You know that would never be the case.”

  “I’ll think about it. Of course, I would need to clear it with Clara.” Clara was the head laundress.

  “Thank you, Herr Chief.”

  *

  Teresa got the extra two marks and for the first week was frazzled by the workload. That Friday, at the desk in her mother’s old room, she scratched out a note and enclosed the money order for thirty marks.

  “The living room, Mama,” she wrote, “is being worked on. I pay the carpenter, who works when off duty from his American army job, by letting him and his Fraulein use it — the big holes are gone, so the couple are protected from the rain. I hope he completes it before he is gone. He told me on Wednesday that in one week, perhaps two, he will be eligible for discharge. He is thinking of marrying the girl and taking her home with him. But there is the problem that he is breaking regulations by being with her in the first place! He speaks some French, which is how we talk. I was hoping after he was finished with that room that he’d do some fixing in the cellar, so that I could move there and have two rooms to rent out. Food is very dear and the Stadtverwaltung has informed me that I must pay taxes! Taxes on 301 Musikerstrasse! I will protest, et cetera, et cetera. What are they going to do? Send another bomber to punish me? Perhaps the pilot who dropped the bomb in the March raid has been punished for failing to completely destroy your old house. There are none left standing in the block which are in any better condition than...ours.”

  She licked the envelope shut and wondered idly who, in the religious asylum for the blind in Wiesbaden, would read the letter to her mother. Somebody. One of the faithful sisters. But the faithful sisters also demanded from the blind lady’s daughter the monthly contribution to expenses.

  The American carpenter was now at work, and repairs to the ceiling and side wall of what he had been using as a bedroom were completed. He was now replacing what had been the window, boarded up until now to guard against the cold.

  “You know,” he said in schoolboy French, “your window very broken and must now have glass. At my base they have glass, but it is very difficult to get out a section.”

  Teresa sat on the workbench and sighed. “Could you not perhaps take glass from one of the bombed buildings?”

  Red Wolford thought about it.

  “Yeah. That’s an idea. I’ll take Erika with me after work tomorrow and she’ll help me carry it back.”

  “That is very fine of you, Herr Red.”

  Sergeant Wolford beamed. “You are a nice lady. I will be sorry to say good-bye.” He took her hand and, as in the movie with Charles Boyer at the base on Sunday, raised it to his lips.

  *

  Two weeks later Sergeant Wolford and his Fraulein were gone, after a tearful good-bye at which Red Wolford gave Teresa a bottle of sherry he had purchased at the PX and two packages of cigarettes, highly prized on the street. “I wanted to get for you something more — ” he struggled with the French — “more...memorable. But with the expenses of Erika coming to America...”

  “I understand, Sergeant Red.”

  “What did you used to do — before the war?”

  Teresa, her hair let down, her lips marked with a trace of lipstick, answered, “Before the war, Sergeant Red, I was a girl.”

  “ Mais naturellement . But were you married to Herr Cadonau — I mean, Lieutenant Cadonau — right after school?”

  Teresa knew what he was asking — had she always been a laundress? “We married in 1943. I worked as an assistant to the mother superior at Our Lady of Sorrows convent here. It was destroyed in the bombing. That was where I went to school. The nuns spoke to us in French. I wish they had taught me English instead. My mother then went to live there, in Wiesbaden, after the splinters destroyed her eyes. The nuns looked after her. She was — is — blind. And where did you learn such excellent French?”

  “I’m from New Orleans, ma’am. Tout le monde down there speaks — a mountain of French.”

  “A mountain of French.” She smiled at him, and at the pretty, chubby Erika, and emptied her little glass of sherry. She was glad they hadn’t asked for a second glass. She could save it now. For a special occasion.

  What special occasion? She wondered about the life she was living. A day when the soldiers at Camp Wilson stopped dirtying their socks, underwear, shirts, and pants? That would be a special occasion, but then she would not receive her daily wages, and that would be a very special occasion, without food, and without the pittance pledged to the nuns to look after her mother.

  But her immediate task was to rent out the room. The room in the cellar now had a mattress and an electrical connection. If she moved herself there, she would have two rooms to rent, but the tenants would have to let her use the bathroom. The next day she would bring Clara to see it.

  Clara was the senior laundress, a Nuremberg native, about fifty. She showed abundantly the managerial talent expected of her by the U.S. Army, but also a concern, however detached her manner of expressing it, for the women at work. Last week it was the problem of Karen, whose pregnancy was becoming obvious. After work on Monday, Clara left the laundry with Karen in tow. The next day, Karen wasn’t there. Others chipped in to take on her load. But the following day she was back, unsmiling, at work. The pregnancy was gone.

  Clara and Teresa walked down Speizstrasse, past the rubble they had become so accustomed to. “So you want to rent out a room. Maybe two, is that right, Teresa?”

  “Yes, I need the income.”

  “You are already earning 150 percent at work.”

  “I am so grateful to you, Clara, and of course to the Chief, for permitting that.”

  “You do good work,” Clara acknowledged, then pointed to what had been a large building in the block ahead.

  “Do you know what that was?”

  “Yes. That was the boys’ military school, the Hindenburg Academy.”

  “I worked there. I was the matron! I would inspect the little boys before bedtime. See that their teeth had been brushed and that they were properly scrubbed. Every now and then,” she smiled, making her way around a pile of stones on the sidewalk, “I would spank a boy — right there in the bathroom — if I found he had been dirty two times or more in a row. Just pull down his little shorts, put him over my knee, and slap him hard till he cried. That told the boys the matron meant business.”

  Teresa withheld comment, but only for a moment. “Clara, my Gustav, my husband, was a student there.”

  “You don’t say, Teresa? When would t
hat have been?”

  “Gustav left Hindenburg when he was fourteen. He went to the Prussian military academy outside Munich. They accelerated the program, of course, and he finished in three years — 1942. We married in 1943, when he was nineteen. So I guess he was being spanked by you before then!7’ She giggled. “He must have been in the class of 1939.”

  “Eastern front?”

  “Yes. We had one month together.”

  Clara went up the four stone steps. Teresa opened the door for her, eager for her reaction.

  Clara inspected the bedroom on the left, where Teresa now slept but was prepared to abandon. Then, walking through the bathroom, she went into the room on the right, freshly repaired by Sergeant Wolford. She sat on the chair in the corner and shook her head.

  Teresa had brought in a glass of sherry.

  “Teresa, dear Teresa. You would have to find people truly desperate to rent these two rooms, large though they are. And they would not be able to pay you anything.”

  Teresa was crestfallen.

  “You need — decoration! Life! Each room has a bed and a table and a chair, yes. But they compare unfavorably with the prisoners’ cells at the Palace. You saw the picture of Goering in his cell?”

  Teresa stiffened. “I do not remember that the Reichsmarschall’s cell was...decorated.”

  “No. But the walls were painted. The table and the bed were...Were what?” She stopped. “Who do you think would rent this?”

  “American military, Clara.”

  She was a worldly woman. “The only person you could get was someone who wished to keep a woman.”

  Teresa’s response was less than immediate. Then: “I would not forbid that.”

  “You ask for my opinion. It is that you will need curtains, painting or wallpaper, some pictures on the walls, an upholstered cushion or two.”

  “What would you guess it would take, to furnish — decorate — the rooms?”

  “You can get everything except food very cheap these days. I would guess perhaps 550 marks.”

  “That would be six weeks’ pay.”

  Clara finished her sherry and rose. “I trust your arithmetic, dear Teresa.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  January 1946

  Marta’s was especially crowded on Saturday night and the music seemed ever louder, though the customers didn’t complain, accepting contentedly the background jazz from recordings of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and Stan Kenton. Those who wanted to hear the music had to resign themselves to competing human voices, which rose in volume as the room filled. Patrons, fueled by high spirits and by the intoxicants that served their purpose, struggled to be heard. Harry Albright, having made a friend of the owner, sat with her at the far end of the bar, chatting. The veterans called it Marta’s Corner.

  “Where’s your buddy Sebastian?” she wanted to know.

  Albright told her that he had begged off. “He’s finishing a book he’s reading. It’s called U . S . Foreign Policy , and it’s by Walter Lippmann. Did you like that book when you read it, Marta?” he teased.

  “Fuck you, Harry.” They both laughed and Marta turned to welcome the girl she had just glimpsed coming in.

  Marta hadn’t seen her before. A shapely blond who was wearing a dark blue suit, obviously prewar — but then practically all good clothing was prewar — and fake diamond earrings. Marta could see through jewelry as if it had a price tag printed on it. Marta liked it when attractive, unescorted single women came in. Good for business. “Hi ya, honey. Welcome to Marta’s. Guess what, I’m Marta.”

  Teresa smiled. The smile was warm, but there was a trepidation in the eyes that Marta resolved instantly to dissipate. “How’s about a glass of beer, the first one is on the house — ”

  Teresa leaned forward to hear.

  “I said, on the house. ” Marta had to fight, like everybody else, to be heard. The bartender, heeding the summons, placed the large glass on the counter and Teresa reached over for it.

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Teresa.”

  “Teresa, this is Harry. Harry’s a first lieutenant, and he’s so bright and talented they’re going to make him a general. Like when, Harry?”

  He grinned and turned to Teresa. “Would you like to be a general’s aide?”

  She smiled back. “You are American. But you speak like a German.”

  Harry had heard the same thing ever since coming back to what had been his homeland. Might just as well get it said, he thought: “I was born in Nuremberg, and lived here until I was fourteen.” This time Teresa’s smile really lit up and for a half hour their conversation was animated by cross-queries: Did you ever know...Herr Schmidt, Frau Heinrich, anyone who went to school at Hindenburg? Our Lady of Sorrows? Finally Harry said, “Next thing you’re going to ask is: Did I ever know Adolf Hitler? Let’s sit down.” Marta kept RESERVED notices on two tables for two, and three tables for four. She caught Harry’s request and motioned them to a table for two, whisking away the RESERVED sign.

  They drank beer and Harry ordered the sausage and sauerkraut. The stripper performed for twenty minutes and after that the little stage was cleared for dancing. Harry found Teresa wonderfully light of step, and though not trained in the jitterbug, responsive to his lead. After dancing, they returned to the table for more beer and talk. She knew that he worked at the Palace and had something to do with translation devices, exactly what, he didn’t say. And he knew that she was a war widow in straitened circumstances.

  An hour later they saw the stripper perform again. Then more dancing. Then more beer. Harry was in high spirits and at two in the morning he complained in a quiet tone of voice of the army regulations and their proctorial hold over life and manners at the Grand Hotel. He took a deep breath and said, looking straight into her astonishingly blue eyes, “I would like to take you to my room, but there’d be an antifraternization MP there in the lobby...”

  “I have a room. Two rooms. But they are very simple.”

  It was done! Harry celebrated.

  *

  He scarcely took notice of decorations. He kissed her as soon as the door closed behind them. “You are the best thing that’s happened to me since I was — the best thing ever. ”

  He ran his fingers down to her breasts. They kissed again and Teresa panted, and between kisses said, “I’ve never done this since my husband — ”

  Harry said, “It’s time to make peace.”

  She led him into Sergeant Red’s room and went into the bathroom, closing the door. Harry’s excitement brought a craving to mind and body. He took off his shirt and pants, and lay down on the bed. He looked up at the bed lamp. He’d get a dimmer for that. She came to him in a coarse bathrobe. He eased her out of it, tenderly but firmly, put her down on the bed, and kissed her under him, avidly, hungrily, and soon reached down to make his pleasure whole, delirious, endless, it seemed.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  January 1946

  Albright didn’t show up at the Grand Hotel’s bar on Sunday. Sebastian waited a half hour, went alone into the dining room, and sat at a corner table with his book, nodding back at two or three officers and officials who greeted him as they passed by. He thought to check the message desk on the way back to his room. There was a note from Harry. “I checked in at HQ this afternoon before going to my room to get some fresh clothes. — Sebby, I have found a lady who will do my laundry!!! Won’t be with you tonight but IMPORTANT, late Saturday the tribunal overruled the defense objection, so Justice Jackson’s movie — documentary — whatever you call it — will be shown at 1000 sharp Monday. Be there, kid. Will reserve your usual throne. Harry.”

  From his own room, Sebastian called Carver’s number.

  “It’s Sebastian, Captain. I’m told they’re going to show the war movies — ”

  “The concentration camp movies?”

  “Yes. Monday, 1000. And I got word just when I left this afternoon that Amadeus wanted to see me. This’ll be t
he first time since Justice Jackson’s clearance for us to meet. I’ve got two questions. Is it a good idea to go see him at 0800, before the...documentary?”

  Carver deliberated. Then, “I think maybe not. But you might find him in a state of shock after he’s seen the documentary. If there is such a thing as a state of shock for Kurt Amadeus. That wouldn’t suit our purposes.”

  “Okay. Then the other thing is: If, when I do see him, he starts asking how his other requests are being treated — the business about coming in after Speer — am I supposed to know anything about those requests?”

  “No. You’re not even supposed to have any knowledge that he’s made them. Maybe the kid brother will leak that to you. But theoretically you haven’t heard. All you’ve heard is that Justice Jackson has permitted you to visit with him to ‘get the whole story.’ That’s all. The afternoon session in the courtroom should be over at 1600. After that, you can go to Amadeus in his cell.”

  “Am I supposed to stay in there till he’s tired of talking?”

  Again Carver paused. “Yes. I think so. He’ll be called to supper at 1830, if he hasn’t called off your session with him before then. I kind of like the idea of letting him blow on and on. By the way, careful about taking notes every second when he’s talking. Better to put it all down when you’re back at your desk.”

  Sebastian wondered whether the prosecution intended furtively to bug his meeting. Carver hadn’t said this would be done, but Sebastian knew him well enough: If the eavesdropping was intended, Carver would not necessarily tip Sebastian off. Sebastian rather hoped there would be no bug. But it would be easy enough to find out. Harry would know... Harry ! What the hell was going on with Harry and his need for clothes from his room? Sebastian was eager to talk with him about the Grand Hotel room-doubling order. That was important. Maybe tomorrow, during boring stretches of the courthouse session. During...boring moments in the documentary? Hardly possible.