The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  She takes a bite of cake and evades Rose-Grete's lopsided appraisal by looking around the woman's kitchen. it is small but cheerful, the walls yellow, the table cluttered with the detritus of widowhood: a wicker basket containing fruit and prescription bottles, a magnifying glass, a litter of Social Security check stubs on the sunflowered oilcloth. The heat from the radiator beneath the window creates a shimmering distortion through which Trudy sees birds hopping around a backyard feeder.

  She glances at the refrigerator, anticipating the ubiquitous family photographs, but there is only a stainless steel sheet with a few dents in the center.

  Do you have children? Trudy asks—one of the best questions, she has discovered, for fostering rapport.

  But Rose-Grete has turned her head so as to be able to see the yard.

  You like my little friends? she says. Look there, that cardinal, the big fat fellow. He is my favorite. He is greedy to a fault, pushing aside the others to get the seed. But every morning he visits, without fail. Often he comes to the windowsill and sits there, like so. I sometimes think he knows what I am thinking.

  She leans over and taps the pane. The birds scatter, with a flurry of wings, into the air.

  Oop-la! says Rose-Grete, laughing. Then she turns to Trudy.

  You must think me foolish, she says. But they are good company, my little friends, if fickle. It is not easy to grow old alone.

  She draws a napkin toward her and smoothes it with the flat of her palm. Trudy waits.

  I do have children, Rose-Grete says to the napkin. Two sons. But they live far away, and they cannot be bothered to come and see their old mother anymore.

  That's a shame, says Trudy, thinking guiltily of Anna, whom she has not visited since the Christmas ordeal at the Good Samaritan center two weeks ago.

  Yes, it is, isn't it?...Rose-Grete sighs and begins folding the napkin into squares. My firstborn son telephones every so often: Mother, how are you feeling? Have you been to the doctor? What does the doctor say? But I know he does this only out of duty. And the other, Friedrich—Freddy—lives now in England, and I do not hear much from him at all.

  I'm sorry.

  Rose-Grete looks shyly at Trudy and smiles.

  I always wished I had a girl, she says softly. It is different with mothers and daughters, yes? There is a closeness that is not possible with sons. You and your mother, you are close, I am sure.

  Trudy busies herself with the remains of her cake, using the tines of her fork to push the crumbs into a pile.

  Um, she says.

  She can feel Rose-Grete's eye fixed upon her. After a moment the older woman touches Trudy's hand. It is like being brushed with a small bundle of sticks.

  I have embarrassed you, Rose-Grete says. But there is no need to answer. I can tell you are a good daughter. You will take more cake?

  Trudy shakes her head.

  I couldn't eat another thing, she says—truthfully, as her throat is suddenly tight.

  Rose-Grete nudges the pan of Kaffeekuchen toward Trudy.

  Please, she says. It will only go to waste otherwise.

  Please, she repeats.

  Trudy obediently cuts a second slice of cake.

  THE GERMAN PROJECT Interview 7

  SUBJECT: Mrs. Rose-Grete Fischer (née Rosalinde Margarethe Guertner)

  DATE/LOCATION: January 11, 1997; Edina, MN

  Q: Rose-Grete, I'm going to start by asking you a few simple questions, all right?

  A: Yes, fine.

  Q: Where and when were you born?

  A: I was born in 1928, in a town called Lübben. Although to call it a town is to give it high praise, since really it was a village, a tiny speck of a place near the Polish border. Located in the Spreewald, with perhaps only five hundred population, very poor. Farmers and lumbermen mostly, though my parents owned a small shop, what Americans would call a general store ... You have said your own father was a farmer?

  Q: Yes, that's right ... Rose-Grete, were you and your family living in Lübben when the war began?

  A: Yes, we were there for the duration. I stayed in Lübben until I came to this country.

  Q: Can you tell me what you remember about the start of the war?

  A: Well, it was not for us how it was for the rest of Europe. Or at least in the big cities. For us there was no immediate—how do you say it, impact? it trickled through to us in bits and pieces. Some of the young men were called up to serve, of course. And the Jews of the village ... But most of what was happening, because we were such a small place, we found out from newspapers brought in from other towns, sometimes a week or two old. And rumors.

  Q: Rose-Grete, you mentioned the Jews of your village. What happened to them?

  A: In the beginning—Well, I was only eleven when the war began, you know; I didn't understand much of anything. Most of what I know was learned from listening at doors.

  Q: Do you remember anything you heard, specifically?

  A: Only that my parents were always fighting during this time. Quietly, and when they thought we children were asleep, but still we knew what they were quarreling about. They had heard the rumors too, about the Nazis and especially the Einsatzgruppen, the special units whose job it was to come and take away all the Jews. Nobody knew what would happen to them after, and nobody asked questions. Everyone was scared, you see. But we knew it could not be anything good. So some of the people in the town hid the Jews or helped them escape to the forest, where there were Partisan bands.

  My father wanted to help in this fashion. He was a religious man and he thought it was a sin, what the Nazis were doing. But my mother begged him not to get involved. No, Peder, please, the children, you must think of them—that is what I remember her saying.

  Q: So he didn't hide any Jews or help them escape.

  A: If he could have seen what would happen when the Einsatzgruppen came, I am sure he would have—But no. In the end he did not.

  Q: When did the Einsatzgruppen come to Lübben?

  A: In...1944, I believe. I was sixteen years then, so it must have been 1944.

  Q: Can you tell me what you remember about that?

  A: I—One moment, please. It is not so easy for me to talk about this.

  Q: Take your time. All the time you need. A: Thank you. You are very kind. [ long pause1]

  A: What I remember first is that many people rejoiced when the Einsatzgruppen came. I remember them standing by the main road and cheering and giving the Nazi salute, like so! I think this is because there were plenty of native Poles in Lübben, and the Poles hate Jews as much or more than we Germans did. Not many people know this, but it is true.

  In any case, come they did, and a few days later I ... Well, my parents sent me on an errand. It was very hot, that I remember; it was then late June, a beautiful summer day. I remember the heat especially well because I had to walk many kilometers to a farm to barter some of our eggs for raspberries. For my mother. She was pregnant, and craving them, and we did not stock any fruit in our grocery. But we did keep hens, and so I went to trade eggs for the berries and some fresh bread. And I...

  On the way back I decided to take a shortcut through the forest. Because it was cooler. I didn't know it was forbidden to be there. I didn't know what they were doing. I wanted only to get out of the sun, the road was so hot and so dusty.

  So I was walking through the woods with the berries and the bread for my mother, and all of the sudden I heard pop-pop-pop-pop-pop, just like ... like firecrackers. But it was not firecrackers, it was gunshots. And I was so young and so stupid, I followed the sound to a clearing, and there I saw them. The Jews and the Einsatzgruppen. The Jews had been made to undress and were standing at the edge of a pit. And the Einsatzgruppen were shooting them in groups of four or five.

  Well, I was absolutely horrified. I remember being more shocked at first that they were naked than that they were being ... slaughtered in this way. I had never before seen anyone naked except my mother, and I was ... I was just so shocke
d and so confused. I remember thinking, Why don't they run? Better to be shot in the back while running than waiting for it, and perhaps one or two could get away to the Partisans ... And the shame of it, the women and the children naked with the men, I had never seen such a thing. How I wanted to hide my face. But I could not. I stood and watched while they prayed, some of them, and held hands and begged and cried and were shot. The women and babies along with the men. Nobody was spared.

  And then I saw a girl I knew. Oh, I didn't know her very well, but when we were little we had played together. Rebecca was her name, and although I had not spoken to her in some time I recognized her by this gesture she had. She had very curly hair, beautiful dark curls, and when she was nervous she would twirl one curl, like so, around her finger. I remembered this from school, how when she was called on and didn't know the answer she would twist her curl around her finger in just this way.

  She was standing a little apart from the rest, close to me and very calm, although tears were running down her face and she was twirling her hair. And I remember thinking, oh, you think such stupid things at times like that, thinking something like, I should have played with her more or gotten to know her better and now it's too late, or something like this, I don't know what I was thinking. But then she turned and looked at me, just as if she had heard me, and I was so stupid, I don't know what came over me, but I was thinking, It is so hot, so hot to be standing there like that with no clothes, no hat, nothing, and I held out the basket of berries. As if, I don't know, I could give them to her and they would ease her thirst a bit before—I don't know what I was thinking.

  But she started walking toward me, very slowly, so as not to be seen.

  But she was seen. One of the Einsatzgruppen, this officer, saw her and yelled, Halt! And she did. Just froze there. Everybody did, for this officer called, Halt! again and held up his hand. The rest of them stopped shooting and the officer looked at Rebecca and saw what she was looking at and he came walking toward me. Strolling, really, as if he were on a city street or had all the time in the world.

  Well, I would have turned and ran, but I was frozen too. I had no feeling in my legs or the rest of me either. I remember that I dropped the basket and that the bread fell out on the ground and the berries too, and they rolled to a stop next to his feet in front of me, and that his boots were very shiny like mirrors so I could almost see my face in them.

  What is your name? he asked.

  Well, of course I could not say a word.

  What is your name? he asked again.

  I looked up at him then. He was very big and tall with eyes like a wolf, and very fine he thought he was too. While the rest of them were in their shirtsleeves, he was wearing his full uniform, even his hat, and it was cocked at a certain angle, like so. But I could see him sweating, big big drops rolling down the side of his face.

  What are you doing here, little girl? he asked me. Don't you know you're not supposed to be here? Or are you on a mission of mercy, a little Jew-loving Rotkäppchen, Red Riding Hood bringing food to the Jews?

  Some of the other Einsatzgruppen laughed then, ha ha ha ha ha, like this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. And this didn't please the officer at all. He was not a man who was used to being laughed at, I suppose, even if he invited it. He took his pistol from his belt and yelled, Shut up! and fired it into the air. Some of the women screamed, I remember. But still they did not try to run away.

  The officer put his gun under my chin—I still remember how it felt there, how cold it was when everything else was so hot.

  What is your name, little Jew-lover? he asked a third time.

  And when I still could not answer, he made a disgusted sound and waved over one of his men who was standing near the car. He called something to him that I to this day do not remember, he said it maybe too fast or I was not thinking clearly. But he must have said something like, Bring the medical kit, for that is what the man brought over and the officer took something from it and I couldn't see what it was except that it was shiny, and he did it so quickly I didn't have time to react.

  But anyway, what he took from the kit was a pin, and before I could do anything he pushed it into my right eye. Which popped just like a grape, except that unlike a grape it deflated and there was all this liquid running down my face, blood and whatnot. And of course there was pain, the worst pain you can imagine, and I threw my hands over my eye and screamed. And the officer turned to Rebecca and shot her, and some other women too, bang bang bang bang bang, except I didn't realize it until a minute later because all I felt was the pain and I couldn't believe this had happened to me—it was so quick—that in one second this strange man had blinded me and destroyed my face.

  Ja, I heard him say, there, that will teach you not to be so nosy, my little Jew-lover. Now run along home. And I heard his feet gritting in the dust as he turned and walked back to the car.

  So I did. I ran and ran and didn't stop until I got home, where as you can imagine my mother screamed at the sight of me and she and my father cried and sent my younger brother Günter for the doctor ... But of course it was too late. There was nothing he could do. And you know, this is strange, but after this day we never referred to what had happened. We were still so scared. Even more than before. Scared of what the Nazis could do, for no rhyme or reason, whenever they wanted.

  So now you know what happened to my eye. This is something I have never told anyone ... Because I am still so ashamed, you see. I often think it is fitting punishment for all the times I could have helped that girl before that terrible day, or helped others get into the woods, or hidden them in the barn without my parents knowing. But I did not. I turned a blind eye, yes? And as the Bible says ... Well, I just think it is appropriate.

  27

  LATER THAT EVENING TRUDY IS IN THE SHOWER, WITH THE hot water turned up as high as it can go. She scrubs herself all over with a stiff-bristled brush, then stands letting the spray needle her skin. This routine has become her post-interview necessity—this, and the consumption of a large snifter of brandy. Maybe tonight she will permit herself two, Trudy thinks, for Rose-Grete's tale has been an especially grim one. Perhaps the combination of liquor and a pill will finally have the desired effect.

  Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, Trudy mumbles as she wrenches the faucets off and climbs from the tub. She wishes it would come and knit her up. She is feeling distinctly unraveled.

  She whisks a towel from the rack and begins to briskly rub herself dry. Then she catches sight of movement in her peripheral vision, the pumping of her elbows in the full-length mirror hung on the door. She turns to it; she reaches out and wipes a clear swath in the steam. Then she lets the towel drop.

  She has not seen her naked body in its entirety for some time—nor has anybody else, for that matter. She is used to seeing herself in bits and pieces, those demanding the most attention: her face, when she cold-creams it. Her calves, when she bothers to shave. Her hair, which she wears in a short no-nonsense style that requires only a cursory combing before she leaves the house. It's true that Trudy has never had to watch her weight, that people have always told her, I bet you're one of those who can eat whatever she wants and not gain an ounce. She has escaped the hammock of soft flesh that wobbles from the undersides of her contemporaries' arms, the fat bulging over their waistbands and the bra straps bisecting their backs. Trudy rarely bothers with a bra at all. But there is a downside to this: she is starting, Trudy thinks, to get the tendony look particular to thin women of a certain age. Stringy. Like an underfed chicken. And Trudy has always thought of herself as a poor, skinny excuse for a woman. Women are meant to be soft. Like Anna. Like Anna in the bath, the gleaming white skin and floating freckled breasts. Anna rolling a stocking up one sturdy thigh. Anna in her slip, the deep generous curves of hip and bosom. Verboten images, gleaned by a younger Trudy from behind various doors, of enduring femininity.

  These memories still induce in Trudy, as does her nudity,
a distinct shame. For Anna has schooled her—by implication, as she would never speak directly of such things—that nice people are not supposed to loiter about in states of undress. Baths should be taken solely for the sake of cleanliness and washcloths always used, to prevent skin touching skin. Once out of the tub, clothes should be donned as quickly as possible. Lovemaking should occur for procreative purposes only and always in the dark, and one's female functions must be referred to only when necessary, for medical reasons, and then in code: The Monthly Visitor. The Curse. The Change. It is a messy, humiliating, secretive business, this being a woman. Slippery creams and sanitary pads, rituals conducted in closets and behind bathroom doors and never, God forbid, mentioned in front of one's husband. Trudy can't imagine Anna ever lingering before a mirror for this length of time. Or letting anyone else see her nude. The shame of it.

  The shame of it, the women and the children naked with the men, I had never seen such a thing.

  Trudy looks at herself and tries to imagine her various imperfections exposed in broad daylight, in front of all those others. Those men. But of course, Trudy would not have been in this position. She would have been safely home in the village with the rest of the Germans, moving quietly behind shuttered windows and locked doors.

  A mottled flush rises on her chest and neck, on skin already pink from vigorous scrubbing.

  Her pale flesh. Her father's flesh. Her milk-white, translucent, Aryan skin.

  Trudy makes a little noise in her throat.

  Then from down the hall the phone shrills, and Trudy starts and grabs her robe. God in heaven, what is she doing, standing around staring at herself? She is even more unraveled than she thought. Trudy pictures Anna's reaction to this foolishness, and then Ruth's, and then her students', and she is still smiling over this last as she runs toward her bedroom, leaving evaporating footprints.

  She scoops up the receiver on the fifth ring; it is probably Rose-Grete, whom Trudy has asked to call and check in if the aftermath of her interview proves traumatic.