The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  Every face is uptilted toward Trudy, attentive, even rapt. In the front row, a pale boy is nodding.

  In her excitement at having snared their attention, Trudy continues: Now, let's take our hypothetical situation a step further. You're still the same young woman, but the tide of the war is starting to turn. There's no fuel. You're cold. Rations are increasingly scarce. Your child is starving before your eyes. You're bombed every night by the British. The enemy is advancing, and all anyone talks about is how the Russians will rape and kill you when they arrive. But then, suddenly, you have a chance to be protected. By a, a high-ranking officer. An SS officer, even. What do you do? Do you use what you've got, as a woman, in the time-honored fashion, and become his ... his mistress, say?

  Somebody snorts. No, she says.

  Not even if it means a better life for you and your child?

  No, the student repeats. That's just wrong.

  Yeah, says another student.

  But—

  All you have to do is hang on until the war is over. Most of them survived, didn't they?

  Well, you know that in hindsight, says Trudy. It's easy enough to say now, but—

  Being the guy's mistress, that's, like, proactive evil. It's as bad as turning in the Jews.

  But you're not thinking, says Trudy, thumping the lectern in frustration. Or rather, you're not putting yourself in that woman's shoes. Aren't there some situations in which the ends justify the means...?

  She falters and puts a hand to her throat, which is suddenly tight. The key to being an effective teacher, Trudy has always thought, is to believe in what one is saying. Now she can't look the student who has challenged her in the face.

  Trudy shuffles her notes, coughs into her fist.

  Excuse me, she says hoarsely. Long day.

  Professor Swenson? somebody asks.

  What now? Trudy thinks.

  It's five-fifteen.

  Oh, says Trudy. Thank you. Sorry about that, folks ... All right, get out of here.

  The room erupts with activity as the students begin shoving their binders into their backpacks and pulling on their parkas. Trudy claps her hands.

  Don't forget to read the Goldhagen for next time, she calls.

  As they file out, abruptly boisterous, Trudy turns to erase the board, scolding herself under her breath. What on earth was she thinking, bringing personal material into the classroom? She has broken one of her own cardinal rules: unlike many of her colleagues, who lace lectures with anecdotes of their families, travels, weekends, Trudy believes that a certain distance is necessary to maintain proper authority. She brushes in irritation at the chalk dust sifting onto her shoulders—teacher's dandruff—but succeeds only in leaving a wide white swath on the dark wool. Trudy swears anew. She almost always wears black, and she shouldn't.

  Professor Swenson?

  Trudy looks to the ceiling, praying for patience, then turns. Yes, she says.

  There is a girl waiting on the other side of the lectern, cracking fluorescent gum. She is a freshman, Trudy knows, but she can never remember this student's name and therefore mentally refers to her as the Pretty Girl. And she is, with her wide blue eyes and pink cheeks and long blond hair, a combination that should be a cliché but instead adds up to simple perfection. Trudy has sometimes resented the Pretty Girl, not for her looks per se but because they have led Trudy to form precisely the subjective opinions a good teacher should never harbor: the student is so pretty she must be dumb; she is spoiled, used to getting what she wants because of her appearance; she would make an excellent poster child for the Bund deutscher Mädel, the League of German Girls. She is the last person Trudy wants to talk to just now.

  What can I do for you? Trudy asks.

  The girl braves a quick glance at Trudy. She wears glitter makeup, Trudy sees, a constellation of sparkles scattered across her rosy face.

  I just wanted to tell you? the girl says to her sneakers. That I'm finding this class, like, really fascinating?

  Why, thank you, says Trudy. That's the best thing a professor can hear.

  She gives the Pretty Girl a cursory smile and makes a show of gathering her notes, tapping their edges against the podium to align them before putting them away. Her longing for the safety of her own home, to be in a hot bath washing off the residue of this afternoon's embarrassment, is so acute that her skin itches.

  But the Pretty Girl persists, keeping pace with Trudy as she walks from the classroom.

  My grandmother was in the war? she says. She was hidden by a Catholic family, passing as a Christian? She was a—a whatchamacallit, a submarine?

  A U-boat, Trudy supplies.

  Yeah, a U-boat, the girl says, popping a small neon-green bubble.

  Trudy looks sideways at her.

  You're Jewish? she asks.

  Half, says the Pretty Girl. My grandparents were Hungarian Jews? I'm half-Jewish.

  I see, says Trudy. Well, please give your grandmother my best regards.

  I would, says the girl, but she's dead.

  Oh. I'm sorry.

  But I wanted to ask you? I'm still not getting something. Like, it makes sense when you explain it, you know, historically, but I don't get how those women could have done all those things. Like what you said about the SS officer. Or just not helping, pretending nothing was happening. How do they, you know, live with themselves afterwards?

  That's a good question, Trudy says. Denial, I suppose. Or...

  She stops walking. She is thinking of the kitchen of the farmhouse, filling with black smoke. Where was Anna? Making a desperate grab with a dish towel for the pot forgotten on the stove? Or lying on her marital bed upstairs, eyes closed? Waiting for the heat to tighten her skin, letting her know that flames had claimed this room as well?

  Professor Swenson, are you all right?

  The girl's quick touch on her arm, light as a cat's paw.

  Trudy gives her head a brusque shake.

  Yes, she says. I'm fine. Thank you.

  They are standing in the hallway now, next to a radiator that hisses and clanks. Somewhere overhead a janitor whistles a popular tune. Other than this, the building is quiet in the forlorn way busy places are when the people who normally occupy them have gone.

  I haven't been particularly helpful, have I, says Trudy. Was there anything else you wanted to ask?

  I guess not, the Pretty Girl says.

  She hoists her backpack more firmly onto her shoulder and trots off, breaking into a run a few meters away. At the door leading to the parking lot, she turns and yells, Have a good weekend!

  You too, says Trudy.

  The door wheezes shut after letting in a few whirling flakes of snow. Though now free to leave, Trudy stands in the fruity synthetic wake of the girl's shampoo, looking thoughtfully after her. How she envies the young woman, not for the obvious reasons but because she has a family history she can talk about and be proud of. A history somebody has related to her firsthand. A history she knows.

  A nebulae of instincts coalesce, and from the brilliant vapor of their collision an idea emerges. Takes cogent shape. Grows. For another minute Trudy is paralyzed by its logic, its persuasive simplicity—why hasn't she thought of this before? Then she pivots and jogs up the nearest stairwell. She has to find Ruth before her sudden conviction deserts her.

  Ruth is not in her office nor in the teachers' lounge, but Trudy finally spots her in the cafeteria. She is sitting alone at a long wooden table, picking withered blueberries out of a muffin and wiping them on a napkin with a child's scowl of distaste.

  What are you doing here? she asks Trudy.

  Looking for you, Trudy says.

  Well, that's flattering, but I don't get it. I'd have thought you'd be home in a hot bath by now.

  Trudy pulls out a chair and sits next to her.

  Listen, she says rapidly. I need to pick your brains about your Remembrance Project. How you organized it, exactly how you're going to find subjects, where you're going to get you
r videographers—

  Does this mean I'm going to have a shiksa interviewer? Ruth interrupts.

  Trudy laughs. She is shaking all over with excitement.

  No, she says. I'm afraid not. But I have a proposal for you, and I'm going to need your help. Because I've got my own Project to do.

  Anna and Mathilde, Weimar, 1940–1942

  "Backe, backe Kuchen!"

  der Bäcker hat gerufen.

  "Wer will guten Kuchen backen,

  Der muss haben sieben Sachen:

  Butter und Salz,

  Zucker und Schmalz,

  Milch und Mehl,

  und Eier machen den Kuchen gel'."

  "Bake, bake a cake!"

  the baker called out.

  "Whoever wants to make a good cake,

  He must have seven things:

  Butter and salt,

  Sugar and lard,

  Milk and flour,

  and eggs to make the cake gold."

  12

  ANNA HAS BEEN AT THE BAKERY FOR A WEEK BEFORE SHE ventures upstairs. Or perhaps it is more than a week. She doesn't know for certain; she has lost track of time. As she lies on the pallet in the bakery cellar, she stares at the ragged black marks on the damp wall next to her head. Somebody hidden here before her has obviously charted the duration of his stay with a lump of coal: about a month, all told. Anna could do the same. But she rejects the idea as involving too much effort, and in any case, the passage of time means little to her.

  She curls on the cot like the embryo within her, drifting in and out of sleep. Sometimes when she wakes, she hears the wooden soles of the bakery's patrons clocking overhead, the meaningless snippets of their conversations. At other times, she opens her eyes to a darkness so complete that it seems to press on her with the weight of a mattress. It is only then that Anna can bring herself to choke down the food Mathilde has left for her, in a covered tray at the foot of the treacherous wooden staircase.

  Since Anna's arrival, mindful of Anna's delicate condition and the cellar's lack of amenities, the baker has implored Anna to move into her own living quarters above the storefront. But Anna cannot stomach the thought of lying beneath a braid of Mathilde's long-dead mother's hair, surrounded by dried flower arrangements and gay photographs of Mathilde's deceased husband Fritzi. The claustrophobia of the basement suits Anna much better; it is as close as she can come to the conditions Max must be enduring. Cupping her swollen breasts, Anna relishes the ropy rasp of rat tails across the floor with a penitent's zeal. She is grateful to cough in the fine black dust that the delivery of coal into the nearby chute raises each morning. The rank smell of fear from the others Mathilde has concealed here comforts Anna; with her eyes closed, she might be in the maid's staircase in the Elternhaus.

  One evening, however, when Anna wakes from her doze, she bolts upright as if in response to an interior command: Enough. The movement is too abrupt; minnows of light dart across her vision. Anna waits for them to disperse, then climbs from the pallet and up the steps to the kitchen. Even this simple act requires enormous will; her limbs are filled with wet cement rather than blood. Anna recalls this same sensation from the days after her mother's death. Grief is heavy. Perhaps a new anguish invokes the physical symptoms of an older one.

  She sways in the doorway of the kitchen, shading her eyes with a hand.

  Mathilde, she says, her voice a croak. What day is it?

  The baker doesn't hear her. She is attacking the vast wooden worktable with a butter knife, dislodging flour paste from its cracks. Merely watching her makes Anna tired.

  Mathilde, she says again.

  The baker starts, breathing hard.

  Well, well, she says. Sleeping Beauty awakes.

  Is tomorrow Sunday? I haven't heard churchbells. Have I been here longer than a week?

  It's August, Mathilde says.

  She continues her task. Her buzzing voice, trapped in layers of fat like a fly in a bottle, is punctuated with small gasps of effort when she asks, And how is our princess this evening?

  Wunderbar, Anna says.

  She makes her way to the sink, which is enormous and double-sided, like the laundry basin in the Elternhaus. She pumps water into it, then drinks some from her cupped hands. It tastes of the iron in the pipes. Her hair, hanging over her shoulders, has separated into oily ropes, and she is suddenly aware of how she must smell. She sniffs the crook of her elbow: a bit sour, salty and creamy, like buttermilk. Since conceiving the baby, Anna's own scent is strange to her.

  I hope I've not been too much of a burden, she says.

  Mathilde snorts. Hardly. Hardly even knew you were down there.

  Anna sizes up the baker as she bustles about: the bulk constrained by an apron; the tiny doll's head, its thin dark hair combed in such severe lines that it appears painted on; the scalp shining between the furrows; the suspicious black eyes embedded in flesh.

  I'm no princess, Anna tells her. I'm ready to start earning my keep.

  Mathilde gives Anna an incredulous look.

  Shit, she mutters, brushing past Anna to soak a rag with water. Returning to the worktable, she says as she scrubs: Your papers are still good, you know. You could still go to Switzerland, have your baby there.

  No, says Anna. I'm not leaving Weimar.

  Oh, you're a princess all right, used to getting your own way. Have you thought about what it'll be like for you here? Your father alone could make your life miserable.

  I don't intend to have any contact with him, Anna says. He doesn't know where I am, and if he finds out, I don't care. He turned Max in to the Gestapo himself.

  Of course he did. Who else? I'm surprised he didn't turn you in too. No father likes to think of his daughter rutting with anyone, let alone a Jew. But I suppose he spared you on account of the baby.

  I didn't tell him about the baby, Anna says.

  This earns Anna a second startled glance.

  Hiding a Jew he could forgive, if he could still keep me in the house until he marries me off, Anna explains. But my condition will show soon enough, and he couldn't turn a blind eye to that. Not only would I be worthless goods, it would make him a laughingstock among his friends. They might even accuse him of condoning Rassenschande under his own roof. He would have to turn me in.

  Mathilde gives the table a sweeping stroke.

  Don't you have a nice auntie in some other city, she asks, somewhere else you could go, away from this mess?

  No. And I wouldn't go if I did. I must be where I can get news of Max. Have you heard anything? Have they—taken him to the camp?

  The baker nods, rubbing at a floury patch with a fingernail.

  He won't last long up there, she says, skinny as he is.

  Tears spring to Anna's eyes at this blunt statement. She longs so to slap Mathilde that she can see the reddening mark her hand would leave on the older woman's face. By nature, Anna is not given to anger, and the fury that has paralyzed her for days frightens her. There is an irony in it: having finally escaped Gerhard's rage, she is now enslaved by his emotional legacy. Like father, like daughter. But the feeling is now useful, steeling her spine to deal with Mathilde. If there is any belated lesson that Gerhard has taught Anna, it is that the only way to earn a bully's respect is to respond in kind.

  She walks over to the table. Then I'll carry on the work Max was doing, she tells Mathilde. I'll take his place.

  Mathilde doesn't bother to look up. A princess like you? she scoffs. Please! You have no idea what you're talking about.

  Then tell me.

  Mathilde tosses the rag into the sink and waddles into the storefront. Anna hears the ding! as the register is opened, the sound of the baker removing the cash drawer. She folds her arms and waits.

  Upon her return Mathilde lowers herself onto a stool and scrapes it over to the table. She separates Reichsmarks, change, and ration coupons. Counting under her breath, she enters numbers into a ledger, tongue lodged in the corner of her mouth.

  You're
still here? she asks, looking up in feigned surprise. Not back to bed yet? You should go. A woman in your condition needs rest.

  Anna reaches over and slams the ledger shut, nearly catching the baker's stubby fingers.

  Listen to me, you, she says. Don't you forget that I hid Max in my own house, right under my father's nose. I couriered information back and forth for you. I've got as much nerve as you or anyone else.

  Mathilde examines Anna for a moment.

  Sit, she commands.

  Anna obeys.

  The baker gets up and walks to the cuckoo clock on the wall. Opening one of its tiny decorative doors, she retrieves something that she sets on the worktable.

  You know what this is? she asks. You should have used a couple of these.

  Anna picks up the condom, gingerly.

  Go on, says Mathilde, unroll it.

  Inside the prophylactic Anna finds a slip of paper no longer than a finger, covered with writing the size of ants. She brings it to her eyes, squinting to decipher the minuscule code. One line in particular catches her attention: The Good Doktor sends best regards.

  Max, Anna murmurs. She glances at Mathilde. You got this from him?

  The baker nods, sitting back down. Not directly, she says. But we have our ways of communicating.

  How?

  If your lover didn't trust you enough to tell you, why should I?

  Anna says nothing, but the look she bends on the baker makes the older woman suddenly fall to inspecting her hands.

  All right, I'll tell you how it works, since you obviously won't give me a moment's peace otherwise, Mathilde mutters. Well ... We have a deal, the SS and me. They provide me with supplies, I deliver whatever goods they order. Since 1937 I've been doing this, since that hellhole was just a muddy pit in the ground. Koch, the Kommandant, came to me himself. He said he'd heard about the quality of my pastries.

  Mathilde preens a bit, then flushes at Anna's arched brows.

  Well, they are the best, she says defensively. And if I didn't supply them, somebody else would. Why should another baker get the business? Besides, I could see the other advantages to the arrangement, ways to use it for the Resistance. Oh, yes, the network existed even then. You wouldn't know it, but there are plenty of people in this city who hate what the Nazis are doing. And what I could see during my deliveries to the camp would be priceless information to them. So I accepted Koch's contract. And I'll tell you, did I ever see some things.