The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  Between us, says the Obersturmführer, this sort of thing is rampant within the higher levels of the Reich, this ... corrosive decadence. It troubles me. It corrupted Koch, you know.

  The Obersturmführer flexes his arms backward. His spine cracks. I myself am no angel, he says; at the front, I ... In any case, some adolescent behavior is to be expected, given our demanding work. One seeks spiritual release in the physical. But one would think the Kommandant, at least, to be above such behavior—More on the left shoulder, please.

  Anna obliges. The Obersturmführer groans: Koch, what a Dummkopf! That he contracted syphilis—stupid, but understandable. To want to hide it—who wouldn't, in his shoes? Ha! Frau Koch would have had his head on a platter had she known. To order the extermination of the doctors who treated him—just covering his tracks. But to record the whole business in writing! Unpardonable stupidity! The decadence dimmed his thought processes, you see. The incessant parties, the orgies; exactly the sort of degenerate behavior that riddled the Weimar Republic, which one was led to believe the Reich would stamp out.

  Anna tries to picture the Obersturmführer participating in an orgy and fails. It seems more likely that he has learned his dexterity from whores. In a group activity, she imagines, he would have stood to one side, watching.

  The Obersturmführer sighs. Kommandant Pister runs a tighter ship, which is a relief. But he has given me Section II duties, whereas Koch never would have wasted a deputy Kommandant's time with paperwork! I haven't much nostalgia for the early days, but ... without Koch, you see, I'll never be ... more than a small cog in a big machine. I don't have the ... the stand-out quality; I do my job well, but ... I don't possess the ... the requisite...

  As he struggles for the words to express his inadequacies, a man unacquainted with introspection, Anna thinks she can almost hear the dirt gritting between the gears of his own strange clockwork. She has never seen him this preoccupied, vulnerable, dreamy. How many camp inmates, how many members of the Resistance, would give their lives to catch the Obersturmführer in such a state? Anna's hands tremble on the whorl of moles between his shoulderblades. How many people could she save by shooting him in the center of this natural target? His pistol lies within reach, on the bureau with his dagger. All she has to do is cross the room.

  Instantly, Anna thinks of all the reasons why this is impossible. She would be arrested. There would be reprisals, not only her own death and Trudie's but within the camp. And even if, as in a fairy tale, she could escape undetected, another officer would take the Obersturmführer's place. The rations and provisions for bread, the lifeline upon which she and her daughter depend, would be cut off. On a simpler, pragmatic level, Anna has never fired a gun, nor so much as held one.

  Yet beneath these concerns exists another. It revolts Anna to feel any understanding for this creature. How is it possible? But that morning, the Obersturmführer hesitated in the doorway of the breakfast room. He must have heard, as Anna did, the sarcastic stage whisper of the officer who applauded his actions the night before: Look, it's the hero with his little ... wife. For a moment, watching the Obersturmführer's face sag, Anna glimpsed him as a small boy: wary, ridiculed by his peers, never quite comprehending why. Then, nodding icily, he guided her to a table on the opposite side of the room.

  The despair within Anna over her own cowardice, her instant of fellow feeling for this man, is so great that it seems to have an accompanying sound, a desolate internal whistle. She lowers her forehead and touches it briefly to the blotch of dark spots on the Obersturmführer's back.

  The Obersturmführer heaves galvanically beneath her, turning over. He takes her hands in his.

  My masseuse, he says. Such strong hands, like those of a pianist, or a farm girl.

  It's from working with bread, Anna tells him.

  He catches one of her fingers between his teeth and nibbles.

  And what astounding things you do with these demure little hands, he murmurs, mouth full. You—

  Without any forethought whatsoever, shocking herself, Anna asks, Do you have a wife?

  The Obersturmführer thrusts her hand aside and swears. He frowns in the direction of the sampler. Anna doesn't dare look at him. She stares instead at her lap, split in a Y because she is still straddling his waist.

  After a time he snaps, Yes, I have a wife. She's a spoiled, fat, wretched woman who suffers agoraphobia; she hasn't left the house in years. She lives with her mother in Wartburg. Does that answer your question?

  Yes, Anna whispers.

  She senses rather than sees the Obersturmführer's gaze on her. Then his index finger is on her chin, forcing her to look at him. He has mistaken her surprise for heartbreak, for he bestows a smile upon her, rich and reassuring.

  But I never expected to meet somebody like you, the Obersturmführer says. Do you know, you alone save me. Your purity, your values—our shared values—they elevate me above the filth that surrounds me every day.

  He grasps Anna's hands again and gives them a small shake.

  You are my savior, he says. After all, if not for you, I might have been pulled into Koch's decadence, and then I too would have been removed from my post. We might never have met, Anna! I often think of that.

  As do I, says Anna. As do I.

  34

  THE OBERSTURMFÜHRER DEPOSITS ANNA AT THE BAKERY late Sunday afternoon. She stands watching his car pull away, realizing belatedly that she could have asked for transport to collect Trudie. The thought never so much as crossed her mind; the less people know about her arrangement with the Obersturmführer, the better for all concerned.

  No matter; it is a fine, mild evening, and the sun now holds some warmth even as it sets. Yet Anna wants to grizzle like a child as she trudges along. She is exhausted from the Obersturmführer's revelations and nocturnal demands. How much faster this journey could be in the Obersturmführer's car! Anna finds that she would like to slap herself for such a thought, but it persists nonetheless. She vows not to look away if she encounters a labor detachment; she will give the pastries in her handbag to anyone wearing the yellow star. But the streets are deserted. And no wonder: it is dinner hour on Easter Sunday.

  Indeed, when Anna knocks on the door of the butcher shop, Mother Buchholtz and her flock are just sitting down to eat. The butcher's widow leads Anna behind the store into the kitchen, where her children are gathered around the table. All sounds of slurping and chewing cease as Anna enters; the children inspect her traveling suit, its warm nubbly tweed, with awe.

  Mama! Trudie calls. She has been stuffed into a highchair far too small for her, and she struggles to escape.

  Just a minute, little one, Anna says.

  She makes a face of chagrin at Frau Buchholtz. I'm sorry to have interrupted your meal, she says.

  Frau Buchholtz averts her eyes.

  That's all right, she says to the corner.

  Her hands wander to the Mother's Cross pinned to her shirtwaist, her reward for having produced six children for the Reich. Its silver glints as though she polishes it every day. Perhaps she does.

  Anna unfastens Trudie from the chair, planting a kiss on the child's head where the parting divides into the fair braids. In preparation for Trudie's stay here, Anna has carefully selected the child's shabbiest clothes, only those of the Obersturmführer's gifts that have stood the most wear. Even so, the difference between Anna's daughter and the Buchholtz children is all too evident: Trudie, though spindly for a girl of two and a half, has good color and a shine to her hair, while the wrist bones of the Buchholtz brood look as if they will soon break the skin. Their eyes, staring at Anna over plates of bread spread with lard, appear simultaneously sunken and too large.

  Anna hoists Trudie on her hip. What do you say to Frau Buchholtz? Anna prompts her.

  Thank you, says the child, uncharacteristically dutiful.

  Frau Buchholtz smiles and sticks out her tongue. Leaning from Anna's arms, Trudie touches it with the tip of her own.

 
I hope she's been no trouble, Anna says.

  No, not at all, says Frau Buchholtz. As she guides Anna back through the hallway, the widow's hands are again drawn to her decoration, caressing it.

  And did you have a good journey? she asks.

  Oh, yes, says Anna, brightly reeling out the tale she has rehearsed all the way from Berchtesgaden. My Tante Hilde was in fine spirits, though she complained about the lack of food. I thought in Leipzig one might be able to procure more rations, but apparently it's the same as here. Too much to die, too little to live, as they say.

  Frau Buchholtz shakes her head in commiseration.

  Anna, knowing she is embroidering too much but helpless to stop, continues, And the train! A hellish journey. Though I was lucky to get a spot at all, since it's all Wehrmacht these days. It would have been impossible with the child. I stood the entire time, crammed in with the others like sardines...

  She trails off. It is peculiar: in the Obersturmführer's presence Anna lies with impunity; yet in front of this woman, she flushes. Does Frau Buchholtz, who has provided meat to Anna's family for years, know that Anna has no Tante Hilde? Anna wonders how many others have seen the Obersturmführer's car idling in front of the bakery. Frau Buchholtz continues to finger the Mother's Cross. Her fidgeting suddenly irritates Anna beyond endurance. She stands as tall as she can and squares her jaw.

  But when Frau Buchholtz, perhaps perplexed by Anna's silence, looks directly at Anna for the first time, Anna understands that not only does the woman know, she is terrified. There is no condemnation in Frau Buchholtz's glance, only the fear that Anna might have spied some infraction that she will certainly report, well connected as she is. Apparently disdain is a luxury, like sugar or real coffee, that one cannot afford in wartime.

  Anna wonders what small crimes this good mother might have committed: trading on the black market, perhaps, to feed that multitude of hungry mouths, or listening to the BBC broadcasts. She puts a hand on the other woman's arm. Frau Buchholtz's flesh wobbles loosely from the bone, like chicken skin.

  Thank you for watching Trudie, Anna says. There will be extra bread for you this week.

  My pleasure, truly, Frau Buchholtz replies. She is again looking anywhere but at Anna. She opens the door, her relief at Anna's imminent exit as palpable as sweat.

  As Anna, feeling much the same, steps over the jamb, Trudie uncorks her thumb from her mouth.

  Mama, she pipes, did you see Saint Nikolaus? What did he bring for us?

  Shush, says Anna. If you're a good quiet girl, you'll get a story before bed.

  I don't want a story, insists the child. I want a rabbit. Saint Nikolaus said I could have a rabbit.

  Quiet now, Anna says. Shhh.

  She glances back at Frau Buchholtz, who has withdrawn into the shadowy interior of her shop. Though she can no longer see the butcher's widow, Anna can feel her watching, listening.

  Mama, let go, you're hurting me, Trudie says, pushing against Anna. She drums her feet on Anna's thighs.

  I want Saint Nikolaus, she wails.

  Anna presses the child's face into her shoulder. She has often told herself that she is not so badly off, really. Men of power have had mistresses since time out of mind, and it doesn't matter that none of the gaunt women who visit the bakery will look directly at Anna. At least she and Trudie are safe in a warm place with access to food, and she is earning her keep in ways both legal and illicit while at this very moment others are dead, dying, starving, having their eyeballs lanced and toenails pulled by the Gestapo, laboring with heavy machinery that crushes their fingers to nubs, standing naked in the rain, their children wrenched shrieking from their arms, being shorn, shot, tumbling into pits. It is really very enviable, Anna's prosaic little arrangement with the Obersturmführer.

  But Anna has overlooked something. She has not foreseen that his contamination of her would spread to the child.

  Saint Nikolaus won't come if you're bad, she whispers to Trudie. Remember?

  She embraces the girl more tightly. The door to the butcher shop slams behind them.

  Trudy, February 1997

  35

  ONE MORNING IN MID-FEBRUARY TRUDY JERKS AWAKE TO FIND the reek of meat and something more acrid filling her room. Anna, she thinks. Anna is at it again, up since dawn, cooking and cleaning. Today, from the smell of it, Anna has fried sausages and is now wiping down the windows with vinegar, which she insists is more effective on glass than store-bought solutions. Trudy pulls the sheets over her face and lies quietly, waiting for her dream to release her. It is dissolving now in the matter-of-fact light of day, but a shard remains: Anna standing in the bakery storefront, polishing—how strange, Trudy thinks—a boot sitting atop the display case, her eyes dark as they always are when she is wary or sorrowful.

  After a time Trudy swings her legs over the side of the mattress and sits up, blinking dully at nothing, stomach roiling from the smell wafting up the stairs. To the outside observer, it might seem that this arrangement of having Anna in the house isn't so bad. Anna has taken great pains to stay out of Trudy's way. She goes for walks each afternoon, trudging a determined circuit around Lake Harriet even in the most dismal weather. Sometimes she makes longer trips and returns with groceries for dinner, purchased with her widow's pension checks. And she keeps to herself when Trudy is home, sequestered in her room most of the time, reading or looking out the window or listening to the small radio Trudy has bought her. Passing with an armful of laundry or en route to her own bedroom, Trudy hears nothing from behind Anna's door but the constant, mellifluous murmur of the announcers on MPR.

  Yet if Anna has rendered herself largely invisible, her presence is felt in other ways. The odors of the cooking and cleaning she does when Trudy is out, for instance: they pervade the house like a contagion, subtle and stealthy as gas, and Trudy is often mortified to find, once in the open air, that they have contaminated her hair and clothes too. She now reflects with weary resignation that, given how Anna has infiltrated her home, it is little surprise she should have invaded Trudy's dreams as well.

  But there is nothing to be done about it, since the local nursing homes are all still full—which puzzles Trudy; aren't the elderly more prone to going to their Great Reward during this dreary winter season? She gets up, makes the bed, dresses, and washes her face in a bathroom so strongly redolent of bleach that she succumbs to a sneezing fit. She has no time for a shower, much as she longs for one; she is running late, slated to meet Thomas in half an hour for an interview. And she has a class to teach after that. But Trudy is in dire need of coffee, so she runs down to the kitchen and starts rummaging through the cupboards. Of course, the canister is not in its usual place on the shelf. Anna, of the firm opinion that too much caffeine erodes the intestines, has hidden it somewhere and replaced it, rather pointedly, with a box of chamomile tea.

  Trudy searches the lower cabinets—this being where Anna concealed the coffee last week—and bangs her head in the process. Ow, she mutters, standing and casting a baleful eye at the sausages, which lie fatly in congealed grease on the stove.

  Mama, she yells. Where did you put the coffee?

  When there is no answer, Trudy bangs through the swinging door into the dining room. No Anna there. Nor in the living room. Has she already gone for her walk? But Anna's boots are neatly aligned on a rectangle of newspaper near the coat closet, toes facing the wall.

  Trudy checks the pantry, the downstairs bathroom. Where is she?

  Mama? she calls.

  She cocks her head, listening. There are voices, but they are coming from the wrong direction. Trudy marches down the hall to her study.

  Ah ha, she says, flinging open the door.

  Anna jumps, flustered and guilty. She is holding a can of Pledge and a rag—one of Trudy's favorite T-shirts, Trudy sees, scissored into a square—with which she has been ostensibly dusting Trudy's desk. And perhaps Anna did start out doing this, for Trudy's books have been piled on the carpet, and the leather blotter
is streaked with cleaning fluid, and the air is syrupy with synthetic lemon. But somewhere along the way Anna has gotten distracted, and then curious enough to brave the complicated mechanism of the VCR, for behind her on the television Rose-Grete is reciting the tale of her encounter with the Einsatzgruppen.

  Trudy is astonished.

  What are you doing, Mama? she asks, so flabbergasted that she can think of nothing else to say.

  Anna fumbles for the remote control, pointing it toward the set and pressing buttons and shaking it when nothing happens.

  Here, let me, says Trudy, and takes it from her. She hits Pause, and Rose-Grete freezes in the midst of saying, And the officer turned to Rebecca and shot her, and some other women too.

  Anna gives Trudy a sheepish look.

  I am sorry, Trudy, she says. I know I am not meant to be in here. I was just—

  Cleaning? says Trudy.

  Anna tucks the rag into a pocket with trembling little jabs. Trudy watches her, heart pounding, her mind suddenly crystal sharp. She would never in a million years have anticipated this opportunity, and now that it is here she is not going to let it pass. But she must be very careful; she must approach Anna with as much caution as any hunter who has sighted unexpected prize prey at a watering hole.

  She kneels and makes a show of going through the books on the floor for her portfolio.

  So you've seen one of my subjects, she says. What do you think?

  Subjects? Anna repeats.

  Trudy extracts the binder from the middle of the stack.

  For my Project, she explains. I'm interviewing Germans of your generation as to what they did during the war. And how they feel about it now. Here are the questions—you see?

  She opens the portfolio and holds it out to show Anna the list penned on the legal pad.

  Anna takes a step backward and bumps up against the desk.

  This Project is for your class? she asks.

  No, it was my own idea. I put up flyers and ran newspaper ads, and all these people came forth to tell their stories. It's amazing, how many of them want to talk about it.