The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  Trudie pouts, pulling a wisp of hair on his chest.

  Why are grown-ups always sleepy, she asks.

  Because we're old, Jack tells her.

  He taps his cheek with a finger. Trudie kisses the spot three times, then smacks the other side of his jaw, his chin, and his forehead.

  Yuck, scratchy, she comments. Now will you get up? Please?

  You go ahead, says Jack. We'll be down soon.

  The girl catapults from the bed.

  Only the gifts Santa has brought, Anna calls. Only those in your stocking, do you hear?

  Yesssssssss, Trudie shouts impatiently.

  Anna sighs and grimaces at her husband as the child runs down the stairs.

  You spoil her, she says.

  I know, replies Jack without a hint of remorse.

  He lifts the pillow and sweeps a palm beneath it. I like to spoil her mother too, he adds. Now where is that darned thing...? Oh.

  He hands Anna a small velvet box.

  Anna frowns. And what is this? she asks her husband.

  A diamond ? says the Obersturmführer. Perfume, perhaps? A string of pearls for that lovely neck?

  You'll see, Jack says.

  Anna turns the box over. On its underside is the imprint of the New Heidelburg jeweler, Ingebretsen's, scrolled in gold script.

  You should not have done this, Jack, she scolds. It must be very expensive.

  Would you just please open it?

  Anna aims a mock scowl in her husband's direction. Jack smiles and lazily scratches his stomach. In the box, on cotton batting, is a silver locket.

  This is very fine, Anna tells him. Such beautiful...

  She fishes for the English word for craftsmanship, but when it doesn't surface, she repeats, It is very fine.

  Look inside.

  Anna does and again feels a nauseating déjà vu. The hinged oval reveals a photograph, inexpertly trimmed with nail scissors, of a family of three. It is not Anna and the child and the Obersturmführer, of course; in this locket she and Trudie are posed sitting with Jack at his HQ in Weimar, shortly before departing Germany. But the similarity is strong enough—down to Jack's dress uniform and ramrod posture—to cause cold sweat to form at Anna's temples and under her arms.

  You don't like it, Jack says, crestfallen. I guess I should have gotten something else.

  Anna daubs her forehead with the sleeve of her nightgown.

  I love it, she says.

  Really?

  Anna hands the locket to him, gathering and lifting her hair.

  Put it on me, please, she says.

  After a few attempts, the fine chain catching on his callused fingers, Jack fastens the clasp. He kisses the nape of Anna's neck, and she shivers at the scrape of stubble on her skin.

  How do I look? she asks, turning to face him.

  Like a dream, says Jack.

  Shyly, he touches her nearest breast through her nightdress, his signal. Anna is startled. He usually prefers such things to take place once a week, on Saturdays, only at night and always in the dark.

  The child—, she protests.

  Don't worry about her, Jack says. She's forgotten all about us. She will love the bicycle, says Anna, stalling.

  But Jack kisses her, his breath thick with sleep. He undoes the ribbon at the throat of the gown and draws the material aside to expose her breasts. As he buries his face between them, Anna stares over his cowlicked head at her curtains. They are not lace but dotted muslin; the walls have been papered, also at her request, with a pattern of violets. They are not dark wood or decaying plaster. There is nothing of Germany here. Except that, whenever Anna blinks, she sees the bakery. Blink: the cold ring of the overhead light in the storefront. Blink: the snow tracked in by the refugees melting in dirty puddles on the floor. Blink: the webbed cracks on the ceiling in Mathilde's bedroom, so similar to the tracery of veins in Anna's lids that they might have been tattooed there. The fleeting images are like cinders in the eyes, a constant irritant.

  Anna screws them shut, but it is no use, it is in fact worse, for she then sees the Obersturmführer's dilated pupils fixed on her. She feels his ersatz grin pressed to her throat, his mouth fastened and sucking on a particular spot between shoulder and neck. Her hips jackknife upward against her husband's and she cries out.

  Jack rolls off her.

  Annie? Did I hurt you? Look at you, you're shaking like a leaf. Are you cold?

  The Obersturmführer drags his pistol down Anna's ribs. Are you cold, Anna? he asks. You must not lie to me, I can tell you are.

  Is it—female trouble again? Jack asks. Let me take you to a doctor, Annie, please. We could go to Iowa City or Rochester. Nobody would have to know.

  He reaches over to smooth Anna's damp hair. Anna ducks her head away.

  I do not need a doctor, she assures him. I am fine.

  In truth she is stiff with fright. This happens every time she and Jack perform the marital act, and Anna fears he suspects well enough what is wrong with her. There is no hiding anything physical from a man who works with animals, who guides lambs from the birth canal and calms skittish horses merely by grazing his weathered fingertips over their quivering hindquarters.

  Anna searches for an excuse not already used.

  I am just thinking of the child, she says. What if she should hear? And, Jack, in the daytime...?

  But Jack is not listening. He is lying on his back, contemplating the ceiling. He runs a hand over his chin, skewing his jaw to one side. Then he sits up so he can see Anna's face.

  I promised myself I wouldn't ask this, he says. I thought I didn't want to know. But it's been driving me crazy.

  He looks down at Anna.

  Anna, I'm only going to ask this once. That thing the woman said, the morning we brought you to the camp, the thing about the SS officer. Was it true?

  Anna turns her head away, toward her curtains.

  Yes, she whispers finally.

  She feels Jack grow still beside her. She dares a glance at him. He has gone white; but for the rise and fall of his chest, he might be made of plaster. Then he turns his back on her.

  Anna closes her eyes.

  Jack, she says.

  She hears him shove the quilts aside. She knows from the bed's sag that he is sitting on its edge, perhaps staring at nothing, perhaps talking silently to himself. Suddenly the mattress springs into place as he jumps up, and Anna is lying alone.

  Please, Jack, she says.

  She props herself on her elbows to watch him dress. He buttons his flannel shirt wrong so that one side hangs lower than the other. He thrusts his feet into his boots without lacing them.

  Jack, please, she repeats. I had to. He—

  Is he Trudie's father? She's a fucking Nazi's kid?

  If you would let me explain—

  Jack whirls on her.

  Did you love him? he shouts.

  Anna stares at her legs, fish-belly white and fully exposed now that Jack has flung away the covers.

  Did you?

  Anna compresses her mouth into a thin line and shakes her head. But her eyes brim with tears, and she knows her face is growing red.

  I'm waiting, Anna. Answer me.

  It was not as you think, Anna mumbles. It ... You see ... With him, I ... We...

  But she cannot choke out the rest of the sentence. Her throat feels as though it has been stuffed full of black bread. She looks miserably at Jack.

  Goddamn you, he says, his voice shaking. Goddamn you to hell.

  He slams out of the room with such force that the doorknob embeds itself in the wall. Anna sits listening to his heavy tread thudding down the stairs. The screen door to the porch bangs below.

  Anna knows that he will be crossing to the barn, head low, breath steaming. She would like to put on her robe and go after him. She would at least like to open the window and call out. But she cannot, for she has seen his face, contorted by hate into that of a stranger. She should have known this would happen even wit
h him; she should have known better than to tell him the truth. She can never tell him what she started to say: that we come to love those who save us. For although Anna does believe this is true, the word that stuck in her throat was not save but shame.

  She reaches to pull down her nightgown, which is still rucked to her waist. Her fingertips brush the dark triangle of hair at her thighs and rest there. She has been unforgivably stupid. She has ruined everything. For how could she have hoped anybody would ever understand? How could her husband, this good and decent man, ever forgive the fact that during their conjoining it is always the Obersturmführer Anna feels, sees, smells; the Obersturmführer's sled-dog eyes glancing up at her face from where he kneels between her legs, dipping his head to lap delicately at her like a cat and then using the pads of his thumbs so she can't tell which is which; ceaselessly gauging her response; measuring, calculating, why can't he leave her alone? but he ignores her enough, please, it's enough, her gasping stop stop stop; he will not be satisfied until he has felt her spasm twice, three times, five; until he has stolen her reactions, taken her from herself, erased her; until she is as empty as the kitchen cupboards below because all Weimar is starving, everyone is starving to death; until she is burning and sore around his fingers and pleads for him to be inside her, begs him to mount her and be inside her in the real way because it is the only way he is ever going to finish.

  Anna snatches her hands from between her thighs and yanks her nightgown down, weeping. She drives her fists into the mattress, pounding it over and over. She kicks it with all her strength, her mouth working in a silent wail, the tears coming hot from her eyes. But she cannot make a sound.

  Of all the things the Obersturmführer has done to her, and they have been many and terrible, this is the worst, the most unfair: he has blighted her ability to love. Everyone is born with it. Anna knows that she herself has been. But because of the Obersturmführer, her heart is now only a sick and limping muscle, and all she has left is her tie to the man, sometimes intense, sometimes not, but pulling at her always like an undertow. It is not fair that he should have afflicted her thus, that thanks to the Obersturmführer Anna cannot truly love her good husband. It is not fair that her dark heart should forever be yoked to such a man. It is not fair and it is not forgivable, and Anna will never speak of it again. To anyone. Ever.

  After a time, when her tears subside, Anna gets up and makes the bed. She pins her hair into a coil and dresses. She ventures downstairs to find the living room a squirrel's nest of shredded paper and discarded boxes. Trudie is shouting outside, so instead of bothering to straighten this mess, Anna shuffles through it to the closet and pulls on her coat. She steps onto the porch. The air sears her raw nostrils.

  Jack is standing on the top riser, having finished attending to the livestock. He ignores Anna as she comes up beside him.

  Lookin' good, Strudel, he calls. Not too fast now.

  Trudie, her parka thrown carelessly over her nightgown, is pedaling her new bicycle in the circle Jack plows clear after every snowfall. The girl's face rosy with cold and excitement, the butter yellow of her disheveled hair, the blue of her coat—these are startling against the landscape, which looks as though it has been painted by an artist whose palette consists solely of whites. Oyster white, gray white, eggshell. The horizon is indiscernible, the sky shading into the ground. They will have more snow by mid-morning. Such a place, this vast blank plain. But at the moment Anna doesn't mind it. It would be very difficult for anyone unfamiliar with these parts to find this farm. A former officer of the Schutzstaffeln bent on reuniting with his mistress, for instance.

  Trudie races back and forth, skinny legs pumping.

  Watch, Mama, she yells. Watch!

  Anna draws her coat tighter at the neck, shivering.

  Careful, she calls. There is ice beneath—

  The girl pays her no mind, lifting her hands from the bicycle grips. Anna inhales sharply: one of Trudie's arms is extended in the Nazi salute. Then Anna blinks and sees only her daughter, showing off.

  Anna turns to Jack, who is watching the child with his fists bunched in the pockets of his sheepskin coat. Please, make her to stop, she says.

  Jack doesn't look at Anna. All she can see of his face, his profile, is stony. He produces a match, ignites it with the flick of a thumbnail, and cups the flame to light his cigarette.

  Please, Jack, tell her. It is dangerous. She could fall.

  Jack chuffs smoke out through his nostrils. Then he calls, Not so fast, Strudel.

  He slits his eyes at Anna.

  Don't worry, he mutters. It's not her fault. I would never take anything out on her.

  Jack, says Anna. Her voice falters. She clears her throat and tries again. Jack, I wish you would call her by her proper name. She is now American. We both are American. We have leaved Germany and everything in it far, far behind ... Do you understand what I am saying?

  Watch! Trudie screams.

  Standing on the pedals, she topples into a drift, from which she emerges powdered head to foot with snow. She brushes herself off, laughing.

  Anna touches Jack's sleeve.

  Jack—?

  Jack moves out of reach and drops his cigarette to the wooden floorboards. He grinds it out beneath the heel of his workboot. He bends to retrieve the stub and bounces it in his palm. Then he throws it into the bushes and goes inside.

  Anna turns to follow.

  Where are you going? Trudie demands of her mother, indignant.

  To make breakfast, Anna tells her. You may stay out for a while. But not too long.

  She finds Jack in the kitchen, head lowered, knocking his knuckles against the table. She catches his hand and raises it to her lips. She presses them to each callus on his palm. Then she leads him upstairs to the bedroom. He comes slowly but willingly enough.

  Although the room is now full of light, Anna disrobes completely. She undresses Jack as well before guiding him to the bed. They are both quiet. There is nothing to say; there is so much to say that Anna will never say it. She will never tell him, although perhaps they both know, that as Anna presses against him, initiating the lovemaking that might bring them a child of their own, it is not her husband she thinks of.

  Trudy, May 1997

  59

  MAY IN MINNEAPOLIS IS LILAC TIME. AS IF TO COMPENSATE for the punitive winter, the city explodes with flowers overnight—making it, if only for a week or two, one of the most beautiful places on earth. First there are sunny starbursts of forsythia; then the cherry and dogwood trees burst into life, showering petals everywhere, pink and cream, drifting thick as snow on the sidewalks. But it is the lilacs that truly herald the coming of spring: lavender and white and blue and sometimes a purple deep as grapes, they bloom in the alleys and over backyard fences and in graveyards. Beauty is everywhere, including the most unexpected places. There is no respite from it. And to Trudy, this abundance seems a personal insult, a trick of nature as cruelly calculated as certain forms of torture to inflict the maximum pain in the minimum time.

  On this glorious Saturday morning, Trudy is in the passenger's seat of Thomas's van, en route to an interview in Minnetonka. She has asked him to drive, saying it is silly that they should take two cars to one destination—a point with which the ever-amenable Thomas instantly agreed. Of course, Thomas is agreeable by nature, but he is being so gracious that Trudy wonders if he suspects her real reason for wanting him to play chauffeur: without him, she might forsake the interview altogether. This is the first Trudy has conducted since Rainer's departure, and not only has she almost forgotten about it—having scheduled it a month in advance—she has lost her taste for the entire business. Despite Rainer's assertion to the contrary, Trudy can't help feeling that her Project must have played some part in his decision. She has done nothing to prepare for today's meeting other than making a halfhearted call to the subject, Mr. pfeffer, to confirm the appointment; she has not done her research into his background nor come up with her usual l
ist of questions, a breach of work ethic that would have been unthinkable in the days before Rainer left. She will have to wing it.

  Thomas is driving past Lake of the Isles, the water throwing light into the cab of the van, and Trudy twists in her seat to watch it go by. Through the trees she sees families picnicking on the shoreline, lovers walking with their arms around each other's waists, the ubiquitous panting joggers. She cranes until it is out of sight, then faces forward again.

  Are you okay? Thomas asks. Forgive me for saying so, but you look a little ragged.

  Trudy is picturing Rainer standing by a man-made lake ringed with palms, its water like a bath; taking his daily constitutional along canals slithering with alligators. He would walk steadily through the simmering heat, his fedora replaced by a white straw Panama. Trudy roots through her briefcase for a Kleenex.

  Allergies, she mumbles. Damned lilacs.

  Thomas leans over, pops the glove compartment, and hands Trudy a somewhat elderly SuperAmerica napkin. She daubs the corners of her eyes.

  Thanks, she says gruffly.

  You're welcome.

  Thomas turns onto Highway 7 and drives for a few minutes in silence. Then he says, I'm sorry to hear about Mr. Goldmann.

  Trudy sits up straighter.

  How on earth did you know about that?

  Ruth told me.

  Ruth! Trudy says, bridling. God in heaven, does everybody have to know everybody else's business around here? You'd think we were all in high school!

  Sorry, Thomas repeats. I guess I shouldn't have brought it up. Clumsy of me. I apologize.

  No, don't, it's fine, Trudy mutters.

  She glares through the side window and applies the napkin again.

  You know, says Thomas after a pause, I lost my wife two years ago. About this time of year. Car accident. I was driving.

  Oh, says Trudy. Oh, Thomas, I didn't know. I'm so sorry.

  Thomas cracks his joints on the steering wheel. It's all right. I mean, it's not, but of course you wouldn't know. It's not exactly something I advertise. And I only bring it up now to let you know I'm in your corner. Life is so often unfair and painful and love is hard to find and you have to take it whenever and wherever you can get it, no matter how brief it is or how it ends. So I understand. That's all.