The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  No, Anna whispers. No.

  She takes another step toward the baker, though some vestigial instinct warns her that this is unwise. The blood is still spreading from the body, and the snow falling into Mathilde's eyes melts and trickles down her cheeks. The execution is recent, then, and whoever has done it is most likely still in the vicinity. Yet Anna doesn't conceal herself until she sees the SS noncom stumble around the side of the van. Then, trapped on her stomach in the undergrowth, she has no choice but to watch him. He is young, and obviously a newcomer to the business of killing, for his greatcoat is spattered with vomit, his expression both horrified and sheepish. But he recovers quickly: when he has finished swabbing his mouth on his sleeve, he walks a slow circle around Mathilde, squatting to peer curiously into her face. He withdraws the truncheon from his belt and uses it to push up the baker's coat and skirt. He prods one of her legs. He lifts the limb and lets it fall. The boot thumps on the paving.

  Forgetting herself in her outrage—is it not enough that he has murdered the baker, he has to play with her too?—Anna reacts before she thinks.

  Stop that! she says.

  The noncom's head jerks up. He fumbles his pistol from its holster. His hands are shaking so hard that any shot he fires will go high and wild.

  Who's there? he yells, his voice cracking. Show yourself!

  He starts toward the thicket in which Anna lies, her hand belatedly clamped over her mouth.

  Then he whips around. From the direction of the camp comes the noise of an approaching convoy: the growl of engines, the waspish buzz of motorbikes. Replacing his pistol, the noncom adjusts his cap and checks his reflection in the van's wing mirror. Thus satisfied, he stands at attention over the corpse, thrusting his chest out, a hunter posing with his kill.

  Anna uses the opportunity to begin wriggling backward, still on her belly, pushing herself along with her hands. Thirty meters into the forest, she jumps up, turns, and runs, heedless of noise. Nor does she make any effort to cover her tracks, though the snow sifting through the pines may soon hide them. It doesn't matter. The SS are thorough. They will know. They will investigate. A long black car will pull up in front of the bakery and officers will emerge and pound on the door. By this evening, Anna will be in a basement cell at Gestapo headquarters. Or, more likely, she and Trudie will have been shot where they stand.

  She crashes through the undergrowth, her breath tearing in her lungs, her eyes stinging with tears not of grief but of rage. Were Mathilde alive, Anna would shake her until the baker's teeth rattle. How dare Mathilde do this? How could she have been so selfish? There are better ways to commit suicide than making a Special Delivery in broad daylight; she could have done it without endangering anyone else. She has left Anna with nothing, not even information as to how to contact other members of the Resistance. There is nowhere for Anna and Trudie to go where the SS will not find them. Anna has no choice but to return to the bakery and change her clothes and give the appearance that everything is normal. She will feed her daughter, who should at least die on a full stomach, and she will keep the child close to her, and she will try not to think of her dead friend. And through all of this she will wait. She will wait until they come for her.

  Trudy, December 1996

  18

  TRUDY IS WAITING FOR THE GERMANS TO COME TO HER. While the rest of Minneapolis throngs the malls and swarms the supermarkets in a pre-Christmas frenzy, while Trudy's colleagues gripe about balancing holiday obligations with grading their final exams, Trudy has been huddled in conference with Ruth, trying to get her German Project off the ground. It is true that the Director of Holocaust Studies has to be prodded out of initial reluctance—stemming more, Trudy suspects, from Ruth's having to share her hard-earned funding than her objections about giving the perpetrators of the Nazi regime as much airtime as its Jewish victims. But Trudy persists, coaxing and wheedling. Put the History Department's needs above your own, she pleads, and finally she sees Ruth kindle.

  I suppose you're right, Ruth says thoughtfully, one dreary December afternoon when, exhausted from wrangling, the pair are picking at dispirited sandwiches in the university cafeteria. There never has been a really extensive study of the reactions of German civilians—not live sources recorded on tape...

  Her sputtering enthusiasm sparks, then catches fire; she begins to wave her small freckled hands about, scattering crumbs. Forget Yale; this double-headed Project would put us on the international map! All right, Trudy, you've got it. I'll give you access to my videographers and equipment and some of the money—with the proviso that you apply for more when we need it. Why should I have to do all the work? Deal?

  Deal, says Trudy, and pats her lips with a napkin to hide a smile of victorious relief.

  But now, as she sits in her office just before Christmas, praying for her prospective subjects to call, Trudy thinks that her triumph may have been a bit premature. She has done all she can to lure the Germans from their foxholes. She has gone to their restaurants, the Black Forest Inn on Nicollet Avenue and the Gasthof zur Gemütlichkeit in North Minneapolis, where pilsner is drunk from life-size glass boots and men in lederhosen wander among the tables, forcing from wheezing accordions nostalgic folk tunes that get stuck in Trudy's head for days. Ich mein Harz in Heidelburg veloren... She has ventured to the local chapter of the German-American Society, where a moth-eaten stag's head presides over the door and polka parties are listed on the bulletin board, where beer-bellied old fellows give her glances of cursory interest before returning to their cards. She has visited Die Bäckerei on Lyndale, where she waited warily for a déjà vu that never came: the lights and appliances too modern, the display case crowded with cupcakes and reindeer-shaped cookies instead of the Lebkuchen and Stollen Trudy had anticipated. And in each of these places, Trudy has posted flyers that say this:

  Wanted: Germans of native descent to participate in study conducted by University of Minnesota history professor. I am seeking any and all recollections you have about living through the war in Germany. Interviews will be filmed on camera but used for university research purposes only. Female subjects of partic ular interest but males also encouraged to apply. You will be reimbursed for your time.

  This is a chance for you to tell your story, which contemporary history has largely ignored. If interested, please contact Dr. Trudy Swenson, Department of History, University of Minnesota, extension...

  Trudy has also run this advertisement in the German papers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, placing them—after some bemused consideration—in the Personals section as well as the Classifieds.

  Because of the holiday tumult, Trudy has anticipated not getting many responses before the turn of the year, but she hasn't expected to receive none. She lurks in her office, gripped by the superstitious conviction that if she stays by the phone her potential subjects will call, in the same way that leaving milk and cookies for Santa guarantees his visit. She grades papers and reads journals and draws up next semester's lesson plans, meanwhile trying to feign unawareness of the silent phone at her elbow as if she were waiting for nothing at all.

  December 20, a day whose blinding sun and hard blue sky provide the illusion of warmth while really signifying that it is too cold to snow. The campus is eerily quiet, the students long since fled to their homes and the professors, after turning final grades in to the registrar, having followed suit. Trudy has nothing to do. She sits canted back in her desk chair, gazing through the windows at the empty pathways of the quad, noting without conscious thought the sharp contrast of light and lengthening shadow. In one hand she holds the little gold case that contains the incriminating photograph. She runs her thumb over the swastika and art deco design.

  Come on, Trudy thinks. Come on, Germans. I know you're out there.

  The only reply is snow falling, with a gentle whump, from an overhead cornice to the ground.

  Trudy sighs and gets to her feet. She reminds herself that her subjects have othe
r things to do right now—gifts to buy and wrap, Christmas dinners to cook, arriving grandchildren to spoil. All Trudy has to do is be patient. But as she pulls on her coat, she worries that this entire endeavor is doomed, a waste of money and energy and hope. Anna has never talked. Why should her compatriots be any different?

  Trudy is in the hallway, sorting through her keys to find the one that locks the door, when her phone rings.

  She steps back into her office and stares at the blinking red light on the console. It's probably just Ruth, Trudy tells herself, checking in to see if there has been any progress—or to boast, in the subtlest of fashions, about the number of Jewish subjects' testimonies she has already recorded.

  Professor Swenson, Trudy says into the phone.

  Hello?

  It is a woman's voice. Not Ruth's. Containing the quaver of the elderly.

  Ja, und with whom am I speaking? Have I reached the Department of History?

  Trudy's pulse quickens and flutters in her throat. The woman's accent is more Bavarian than Anna's, but some similarities exist: the broadening of the vowels, the clipped consonants, the emphasis on the ff's in of. Department uff History.

  Yes, ma'am, this is the History Department, Trudy says. Are you calling about the advertisement? The German Project?

  There is a clunk, as if the caller has dropped the receiver, and some scuffling in the background. Trudy braces herself for the buzz of a severed connection, but then she hears the woman breathing.

  What is your name, ma'am? Trudy asks. Are you still with me?

  Kluge. Frau Kluge. First name Petra.

  Trudy grabs a pen.

  Danke, Frau Kluge, she says. Now, I assume you're volunteering for—

  You want to know about the war, the woman says.

  Yes, that's right.

  Why is this?

  Well, says Trudy, as I said in my ad, I'm doing some research—

  What kind of research? You will not make me look bad?

  You vill nutt mekk me look bett?

  Of course not, says Trudy. I'm just trying to collect some stories—

  Gut, the woman says. Because I can tell you a little something ... But! You said volunteer?

  What's that? says Trudy.

  Volunteer, you have said this. But your advertisement said I will be paid. How much, exactly?

  Um, says Trudy, annoyed with herself; she has forgotten to ask Ruth the amount of the stipend she is offering her own subjects. Fif—A hundred dollars?

  Gut. That is agreeable.

  I'm glad, Trudy says. So, when would you—

  I live at 1043 North Thirtieth Street, apartment B. You will come tomorrow.

  Oh, says Trudy, scribbling madly. Well, thank you, Frau Kluge, but are you sure you want to do it so soon? We won't have much time to prep—

  Three o'clock, the woman says.

  Okay then, says Trudy. Now, there are a few other things you should know, Frau Kluge: I'll have a cameraman with me to record the interview, and—

  But Frau Kluge has hung up.

  Trudy removes the receiver from between shoulder and ear and regards it for a moment. Then she wedges it back into place and sifts through her German Project paperwork for the number of Ruth's videographer. It seems too much to hope that he will be available this close to Christmas. But if he is not, Trudy is prepared to beg.

  Her luck holds, at least until the following afternoon, when it seems to abruptly run out: the cameraman, while cheerfully acquiescent on the phone, is late. Trudy waits for him in her car on Frau Kluge's street, feeling like a burglar. This would be nothing new in this neighborhood, she thinks; the residents here are probably on perpetual alert for thieves. Frau Kluge lives in a two-story brick building in a grid of five identical others, all surrounded by chain-link fencing into which garbage has blown. In the parking lot, a few old cars are nosed up to dirty drifts of snow. Somehow this surprises Trudy. She doesn't know what she has expected, but it was certainly not to find her first subject in the projects.

  She is trying to focus on the questions she has spent all night preparing when a white truck turns the corner, cruises slowly down the street, and parks at the curb a few yards away. A man in an army jacket jumps from the driver's side and jogs around to the tailgate, which he yanks up with a rattle. Thank God, Trudy thinks. She grabs the bakery box of cookies she has bought for Frau Kluge and gets out of her car to greet him, her boots gritting on the sanded ice.

  Hello in there, she calls, for the man has disappeared inside his truck, from which a ramp protrudes like a corrugated steel tongue. Are you my videographer?

  The man pokes his head out, and Trudy sees that his eyes are so light as to be nearly colorless. Her stomach drops. She has always been uneasy around light-eyed men.

  She reaches up to shake his proffered hand.

  Trudy Swenson, she says.

  Thomas Kroger, replies the man. Sorry to have kept you waiting, the damned tailgate was frozen shut ... Just give me one more minute.

  Again he vanishes from view, and a cart loaded with bulky equipment in padded blankets begins descending the ramp. The man follows, clinging to its handle. As more and more of him emerges, it becomes apparent that he is very tall, perhaps six-five. Once on solid ground, he smiles down at Trudy; he is about her age, a throwback to the hippie era. His face is so round that it is unlined except for the eyes, but he wears a red bandanna around his forehead beneath his shaggy graying hair.

  Trudy imagines Anna's disdain over the bandanna and wishes she could ask him to take it off. Instead, she looks doubtfully at the cart.

  I didn't expect you to bring all this, she says. This Project is a relatively modest operation—

  Thomas laughs.

  You did want this interview filmed, right? he says. I'm a professional, you know, Dr. Swenson, not a tourist. I don't work with a handheld camcorder.

  Oh, I guess not, says Trudy, though she is a bit startled by the protruding tripods and sound booms after all Ruth's talk about operating on a shoestring budget. Forgive me; I didn't mean to offend. And please, call me Trudy.

  Thomas shuts the tailgate and secures it with a padlock.

  No offense taken, he says. Okay, Trudy, I'm all set. Lead the way.

  Trudy does, Thomas and his cart trailing her through the chain-link fence to the proper building. The outer door is heavy steel and covered with graffiti; next to it is a security panel. Trudy presses B and waits. Nothing happens. Thomas reaches past her and pushes the door open.

  It's broken, he says.

  Trudy ventures into a hallway so dimly lit that she has to pause to let her eyes adjust. The building smells of mildew and urine and industrial-strength floor cleaner. Trudy approaches the nearest apartment, squinting to make out its number, and leaps away from the ferocious barking and snarling inside.

  God in heaven, she says, putting a hand over her galloping heart.

  Thomas chuckles again.

  Somebody's got a rottweiler, he says. But not the somebody we want, thank goodness. Over here, Trudy.

  She follows his voice down a few steps to a basement apartment near a stairwell and knocks on the door. No response. Trudy tries again, more emphatically this time.

  Ja, ja, calls a voice, somewhat peevishly, from within.

  Trudy hears a chair being scraped back and the scuff of slippers, but the door doesn't open. She gives Thomas a pained smile.

  Sorry about all this, she says. I had no idea—

  I've worked in worse places, Thomas says.

  Well, I appreciate it. Especially that you were able to do this so close to Christmas.

  Thomas shrugs, as best he is able. He is hunched in the triangulated space beneath the stairwell, his head bent so as not to bang it on the risers.

  Christmas doesn't mean much to me, he says. I'm Jewish.

  Trudy cranes to discern his expression, but it is impossible in the hallway's jaundiced gloom.

  Ruth did tell you I'm interviewing Germans? she asks. />
  Of course, says Thomas. That's why I'm here. I'm dying to hear how these people could possibly justify what they did.

  Trudy's queasiness increases. She should have known that Ruth's videographer would be Jewish. But this is the last thing Trudy needs, a cameraman who is not impartial. What if he disrupts the interview, interjects indignant questions or snorts in disbelief?

  She has no time to envision how to handle this, though, for she hears a series of bolts being drawn and then Frau Kluge opens the door. An inch, anyway.

  What do you want, she says.

  Vhat do you vant. Trudy steps to the side so Frau Kluge can see her, trying her best to produce an ingratiating smile.

  Frau Kluge? she says. I'm Trudy Swenson—

  I am not interested in anything you are peddling, the woman says.

  No, no, I'm from the university. We spoke yesterday on the phone, remember? About the German Project. You agreed to let me interview you? About the war?

  There is a pause, and then the woman says, Ach, ja. This slipped from my mind.

  The door opens halfway.

  Trudy squares her shoulders and steps into Frau Kluge's studio, a little box of an apartment redolent of mothballs and tomato soup. The blinds are half-drawn, and beneath them through the window Trudy sees the fender of a car. Frau Kluge is lowering herself, with some difficulty, into a chair at a Formica table, the only place, with the exception of a second chair and a sagging daybed, where it is possible to sit.

  You have a, um, a cozy home here, Trudy says.

  Frau Kluge dismisses this with the wave of an arthritis-bunched hand.

  It is a dump, she says.

  Trudy looks somewhat desperately at Thomas, who is inspecting the room with narrow-eyed concentration.