The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  First, however, there is the reception to be endured, so Trudy pulls into the farmhouse drive. As they pass through the windbreak of pines, fingers of sun pierce the clouds, transforming the spindrift in the fields into glittering sheets and highlighting the outbuildings in what seems to Trudy a shamelessly dramatic, ecclesiastical way. She parks and helps Anna from the car but paces around the dooryard long after Anna has gone inside. It is here, reportedly, that Jack had his fatal heart attack; the coroner has assured Trudy that Jack was dead before he hit the ground. Yet Trudy wonders: Did Jack pause, bewildered by the pain ripping through his left arm, his chest? Did he have time to realize what was happening to him? Trudy hopes not; it would ease her mind to know for certain, but Anna, the only witness, is as usual not talking.

  Trudy spends another minute peering at the tamped-down snow, trying to discern beneath it the path Jack followed so consistently from barn to porch that his boots wore ruts in the grass. But she can see nothing, and the sun fades behind a gauzy cataract of cloud, and finally Trudy sighs and climbs the steps into her mother's house.

  For the house has always been Anna's, really. Jack and Trudy might as well have been boarders whose untidy but necessary presence Anna has patiently tolerated. After all, it is Anna who has scrubbed the floors, laundered the curtains, polished the windows with newspaper and vinegar, vacuumed the tops of doorways with a special attachment. It is Anna who has combated the farmwife's enemies of soil and excrement, chaff and blood. This is ultimately a losing battle, since it is an axiom of agricultural life that whatever is outside must come in, sooner or later. But Anna has managed, through great and stubborn effort, to enforce some measure of Teutonic cleanliness here.

  After hanging her coat, Trudy joins her mother in the kitchen. The two women work in silent and hurried concentration, ferrying the food Anna has cooked during the past forty-eight hours into the dining room. This is a dim and cavernous space of which Anna is inordinately proud, with dark wainscoting and fleur-de-lis wallpaper and a high ceiling that seems to float in the gloom. The mirror over the buffet is a milky glim mer; the heavy drapes filter out what little natural light there is. Trudy can't recall the last time she was in this room. Sliding doors close it off from the rest of the house, protecting the prized oak furniture from the whips and scorns of everyday life. It has been reserved solely for company, which means that for the past several years it has not been used at all.

  But it is the perfect setting for the occasion at hand, which demands the utmost in formality, and with this in mind Anna has been busy in here. The rug is striped from a vehement brushing. The sideboard and table are slippery with lemon oil. Soon their gleaming surfaces are hidden beneath trivets and Pyrex casseroles containing not the Sauerbraten and Kartoffeln of Anna's native country but the recipes she has learned to make: noodle hot dish, ambrosia topped with a fluffy mound of Cool Whip, Jello ring with fruit. An exercise in excess, since the neighbors will arrive any minute bearing more of the same. Yet protocol requires that Anna provide for them nonetheless.

  Trudy sets a wicker basket of rolls on the table and turns to her mother.

  Did you make coffee? she asks, the first thing she has said to Anna since entering the house.

  Anna waves a distracted hand.

  I will do it, she says. You go make sure I have not overlooked anything.

  Jawohl, Trudy thinks.

  She prowls from living room to kitchen and back again in a familiar circuit, even as she did as a girl, trailing Anna and asking questions to which Anna gave no answers. Naturally, everything is in perfect order. Upstairs, while checking for fresh hand towels in the bathroom, Trudy notices that Jack's shaving gear is missing; in its place are Anna's perfume bottles, each aligned a precise centimeter from the edge of the glass shelf. Trudy looks into her parents' bedroom next: the bed is neatly made, but the floor is covered with labeled garbage bags. Jack's clothes, ready for donation to the church. Trudy frowns and rubs her arms. She returns to the living room, takes her coat from the closet, and escapes to the porch, where she stands huddled and shaking.

  She strains her eyes toward the road. A heavy blue dusk has fallen over the land, compressing the sky into the ground. By now there should be headlights moving in somber procession up the drive, beneath the black branches of the pines that border it. But there are none, and the only sound is the wind whistling over the fields.

  Trudy waits until it is too dark to see. Then she walks back inside, switching on lamps as she goes. She finds Anna still in the dining room, sitting at the head of the table. Trudy can barely distinguish Anna from the shadows around her; she is merely another black solid shape, like the furniture.

  Trudy fumbles for the wall switch and the frosted cups of the chandelier shed a sallow light. One of its bulbs has burned out.

  I don't think anyone's coming, she tells Anna.

  Anna appears not to have heard her. She is toying with a placemat, combing its tassels into straight lines. She looks tired, Trudy thinks. She is, perhaps, more pale than usual. But the loss of her husband will not leave any visible mark on her. Anna's beauty is sunk in the bone. Although this is not Anna's fault, Trudy finds it almost a personal affront that her mother should continue to be so composed and resplendent even now, even at seventy-three, in widow's black.

  Trudy starts to say something else—she has no idea whether it will be I'm sorry or What did you expect?—but Anna precludes this by nodding and getting to her feet. Without so much as a glance at Trudy or the untouched food, she proceeds through the double doors. Trudy hears nothing for a minute as Anna crosses the living room carpet; then there is the clocking of Anna's heels on the stairs and in the hallway overhead. After this, a creak of springs as Anna settles onto the bed she has shared with Jack for over four decades. Then, again, silence.

  Trudy remains where she is for a while, listening. When there is no further noise, she wanders into the kitchen and pours herself some of the coffee Anna has brewed in an industrial-sized urn. Trudy stands by the sink, not drinking but letting the cup warm her fingers, which are still stiff from being outside. She gazes through the window in the direction of what she knows is New Heidelburg, though she can't see even the faint bruise of its lights on the horizon from here.

  Trudy takes a sip of coffee. Why should she be surprised? she asks herself. Truth be told, she isn't. The townsfolk have already paid their respects to Jack in the church. And now that he is gone, they no longer have any reason to be nice to his widow or her daughter. As they have wanted to do for years, ever since Jack first brought Anna to this country, the New Heidelburgers have washed their hands of her.

  Anna and Max, Weimar, 1939–1940

  1

  THE EVENING IS TYPICAL ENOUGH UNTIL THE DOG BEGINS to choke. And even then, at first, Anna doesn't bother to turn from the Rouladen she is stuffing for the dinner that she and her father, Gerhard, will share, for the dachshund's energetic gagging doesn't strike her as anything unusual. The dog, Spaetzle, is forever eating something he shouldn't, savaging chicken carcasses and consuming heels of bread without chewing, and such greed is inevitably followed by retching. Privately, Anna thinks him a horrid little creature and has ever since he was first presented to her five years ago on her fourteenth birthday, a gift from her father just after her mother's death, as if in compensation. It is perhaps unfair to resent Spaetzle for this, but he is also chronically ill-tempered, snapping with his yellowed fangs at everyone except Gerhard; he is really her father's pet. And grossly fat, as Gerhard is always slipping him tidbits, despite his bellowed admonitions to Anna of Do not! Feed! The dog! From! The table!

  Now Anna ignores Spaetzle, wishing her hands were not otherwise engaged in the mixing bowl so she could bring them to her ears, but when the choking continues she looks at him with some alarm. He is gasping for breath between rounds of rmmmp rmmmp rmmmp noises, foam flecking his long muzzle. Anna abandons the Rouladen and bends over him, forcing his jaws open to get at whatever is blocking
his windpipe, but her fingers, already meat-slick, find no purchase in the dog's slippery throat. He seems to be succeeding in his struggle to swallow the object, yet Anna is not willing to leave the outcome to chance. What if what he has eaten is poisonous? What if the dog should die? With a fearful glance in the direction of her father's study, Anna throws on her coat, seizes the dachshund, and races from the house without even removing her grimy apron.

  There being no time to bring Spaetzle to her regular doctor in the heart of Weimar, Anna decides to try a closer clinic she has never visited but often passed during her daily errands, on the shabby outskirts of town. She runs the entire quarter kilometer, fighting to retain her hold on the dog, who writhes indignantly in her arms, a slippery tube of muscle. Beneath guttering gas-lamps, over rotting October leaves and sidewalks heaved by decades' worth of freeze and thaw: finally Anna rounds a corner into a row of narrow neglected houses still pockmarked with scars from the last war, and there is the bronze nameplate: Herr Doktor Maximilian Stern. Anna bumps the door open with a hip and rushes through the reception area to the examining room.

  She finds the Herr Doktor pressing a stethoscope to the chest of a woman whose flesh ripples like lard from her muslin brassiere. The patient catches sight of Anna before the practitioner: she points and emits a small breathy scream. The Doktor jumps and straightens, startled, and the woman grabs her bosom and moans.

  Have a seat in the waiting room, whoever you are, Herr Doktor Stern snaps. i'll be with you shortly.

  Please, Anna gasps. My father's dog—he's eaten something poisonous—I think he's dying—

  The Doktor turns, raising an eyebrow.

  You may dress, Frau Rosenberg, he tells his patient. Your bronchitis is very mild, nothing to be alarmed about. I'll write you the usual prescription. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must attend to this poor animal.

  Well! says the woman, pulling on her shirtwaist. Well! I never expected—to be forsaken for a dog.

  She grabs her coat and pushes past Anna with a dramatic wheeze.

  As the door slams the Doktor comes quickly to Anna and relieves her of her burden, and she imagines that he shares with her the faintest smile of complicity over his spectacles. She lowers her head, anticipating the second, startled glance of appreciation that men invariably give her. But instead she hears him walking away, and when she looks up again his back is to her, bent over the dachshund on the table.

  Well, what have we here, he murmurs.

  Anna watches anxiously as he reaches into the dog's mouth, then turns to prepare a syringe. She takes some comfort from the deft movement of his hands, the play of muscles beneath his thin shirt. He is a tall, slender fellow, bordering on gaunt. He also seems oddly familiar, though Anna certainly has not been here before.

  As grateful as I am to you for rescuing me from Frau Rosenberg, I must point out that this is a most unorthodox visit, Fräulein, says the Doktor as he works. Are you perhaps under the impression that I'm a veterinarian? Or did you think a Jewish practitioner would be grateful to treat even a dog?

  Jewish? Anna blinks at the Doktor's blond hair, which, though straight, stands up in whorls and spikes. She remembers belatedly the Star of David painted on the clinic door. Of course, she has known this is the Jewish Quarter, but in her panic she has not given it a thought.

  No, no, Anna protests. Of course not. I brought him here because you were closest—

  She realizes how this sounds and winces.

  I'm sorry, she says. I didn't mean to offend.

  The Doktor smiles at her over one shoulder.

  No, it's I who should apologize, he says. It was meant as a joke, but it was a crude one. In these times I'm indeed grateful for any patients, whether they're fellow Jews or dachshunds. You are Aryan, yes, Fräulein? You do know you have broken the law by coming here at all.

  Anna nods, although this too she has not considered. The Doktor returns his attention to the dog.

  Almost done, almost done, he mutters. Ah, here's the culprit.

  He holds something up for Anna's inspection: part of one of her sanitary napkins, slick with spit and spotted with blood.

  Anna claps her palms to her face, mortified.

  Oh, God in heaven, she says. That wretched dog!

  Herr Doktor Stern laughs and dispenses the napkin in a rubbish bin.

  It could have been worse, he says.

  I can't imagine how—

  He could have eaten something truly poisonous. Chocolate, for instance.

  Chocolate is poisonous?

  For dogs it is, Fräulein.

  I didn't know that.

  Well, now you do.

  Anna fans her flaming cheeks.

  I'm not sure that I wouldn't have preferred that, she says, given the circumstances.

  The Doktor laughs, a short bark, and moves to lather his hands at the sink.

  You mustn't be embarrassed, Fräulein, he says. Nihil humanum mihi alienum est—nothing human is alien to me. Nor canine, for that matter. But you should be more careful what you feed that little fellow—for meals, that is. He is far too fat.

  That's my father's doing, Anna tells him. He is constantly slipping the dog scraps from the table.

  Now Herr Doktor Stern does give her another, longer look.

  Your father—that's Herr Brandt, yes?

  That's right.

  Ah, says the Doktor, and lifts Spaetzle from the examining table. He settles the dog in Anna's arms. The dachshund's eyes are glazed; limp, he seems to weigh as much as a paving stone.

  A mild sedative, the Doktor explains, and muscle relaxant. So I could extract the ... In any case, he'll be up to his old tricks in no time, provided you keep him away from sweets and other, shall we say, indigestibles?

  He lowers his spectacles and smiles at Anna, who stands returning it longer than she should. Then she remembers herself and shifts the dog to fumble awkwardly in her coat pocket for her money purse.

  How much do I owe you? she asks.

  The Doktor waves a hand.

  No charge, he says. It is the least I can do, considering my last ill-fated interaction with your family.

  He turns away, and Anna thinks, Of course. Now she knows where she has seen him before. He attended Anna's mother in the final days of her illness, the only physician in Weimar who would come to the house. Anna recalls Herr Doktor Stern hurrying past her in the upstairs hallway, vials clinking in his bag; that, upon spying the woebegone Anna in a corner, he stopped and chucked her under the chin and said, It'll be all right, little one. She recalls, too, that Gerhard's first reaction to his wife's death was to rant, It's all his fault she didn't recover. What else can one expect from a Jew? I should never have let him touch her.

  You used to have a beard, Anna says now, a red beard.

  The Doktor scrapes a hand over his jaw, producing a small rasping sound.

  Ah, yes, so I did, he says. I shaved it off last year in an attempt to look younger. Vain in both senses of the word.

  Anna smiles again. How old is he? No more than his mid-thirties, she is sure. He wears no wedding ring.

  He opens the door for her with a polite little flourish. Anna remains near the apothecary cabinet, fishing about for something else to ask him, wondering whether she can possibly pretend interest in the jars of medicines and tongue depressors or the skeleton propped in one corner of the room, wearing a fedora. But the Doktor has an air of impatience now, so Anna gives a small sigh and takes a firmer grasp on the dog.

  Thank you very much, Herr Doktor, she murmurs as she brushes past him, noticing, beneath the odor of disinfectant, the smell of spiced soap on his skin.

  My pleasure, Fräulein.

  The Doktor flashes Anna a distracted half-smile and calls into the waiting room: Maizel!

  A small boy with long curls bobbing over his ears scurries toward Anna, his arm in a sling. He is followed by an older Jewish man in a threadbare black coat. Their forelocks remind Anna of wood shavings. She presses herself ag
ainst the wall to let the pair pass.

  As she emerges into the chilly night, Anna casts a wistful look back at the clinic. Then, with unease, she remembers her father. It is late, and Gerhard will be furious that his dinner has been delayed; he insists his meals be served with military precision. On sudden impulse, Anna turns and hastens toward the bakery a few streets away. A Sachertorte, Gerhard's favorite dessert, will provide an excuse as to why Anna has been out at this hour—she is certainly not going to tell him about the debacle with the dog—and may act as a sop to his temper.

  Like everything else in this forlorn neighborhood, the bakery is nothing to look at. It does not even have a name. Anna wonders why its owner, Frau Staudt, doesn't choose to relocate outside the Jewish Quarter, since she is as Aryan as Anna herself. No matter; however run-down the shop, its pastries are the best Weimar has to offer. Anna arrives just as the baker is flipping the sign from Open to Closed. Anna taps on the window and makes a desperate face, and Frau Staudt, whose substantial girth is trussed as tightly as a turkey into her apron, throws up her hands.