The German Woman

by Paul Griner

  It was midnight, church bells were ringing; the few illuminated gas lamps hissed in the snow. An enormous crowd milled on the street and it was almost possible to believe that the people were truly gay, their laughter real; she took Horst’s arm, feeling like a giddy child leaving Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Even the uncleared pavement appeared in a new light. Perhaps today had been a workmen’s holiday, and tomorrow Berlin’s traditional order and famed cleanliness would return. She tightened her coat, wanting to believe it.

  Horst shouldered a path through the crowd and Kate understood his rudeness; slower, they would have to make their apologies, which might lead to further trouble. Better to anger people and move on than to give them a chance to size them up. Their good fortune might show in their faces.

  “Surprising, isn’t it?” Horst said once they’d reached the Wilhelmstrasse. “How many people are still out?”

  It was. Lights were hit-and-miss and entire sections of the city were dark. She’d have expected that the hunger and cold would drive people indoors, but it was as if a communal sense of expectancy had gripped the crowd; whatever was going to happen they were determined to witness. Up a side street the crowd thinned.

  “Look,” Horst said. They were in front of Kubiat’s again, with its Dresden china.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “We were here earlier.”

  He smiled. “You seemed entranced by it.”

  “I was. I am.” She leaned into his shoulder. “Thank you.” She wouldn’t ruin the moment by telling him why, what it had reminded her of when she’d first seen it.

  “Good,” he said. “Let’s go in.”

  “We shouldn’t,” Kate said. “We don’t have much money, and who knows what we’ll find in Hamburg?”

  “Kate,” he said, taking her hand. “We can’t put everything off. We’ve done that long enough. Besides, we’ll spend only a small part of our fortune.”

  They went in and he put the box on the counter. “We haven’t money, but we have this,” he said, and unwrapped the butter. The waiters clustered around it, staring as if it were the infant Jesus in his crèche. “One-quarter for you, yes?” Horst said. “Some dessert then, and some real coffee? Is it possible?”

  Before the waiter answered, shouting arose outside, a blue flare popped open above the street on a parachute, and everyone drifted to the window. The crowd had thickened and was filled now with torches, angry faces and raised voices, and seemed to rock like boat passengers in the swinging, painfully bright light from above. A bedraggled army of supplicants, they were marching toward the granary at the far end of the street, where a mass of soldiers stood with rifles ready. Kate shivered, sensing disaster.

  A gray horse burst from the royal stables, coat shiny, leather saddle polished, rider holding aloft a long red banner that whipped behind him, and the crowd roared its approval, but before he reached them a soldier gunned him down. The crowd surged forward, not to help him but to get at the horse; though it was still alive and struggling to stand, they began cutting it with knives, tearing out chunks of flesh.

  “Oh, Horst,” Kate said.

  The soldiers fired again, en masse, and dozens fell. One man held his ruined arm toward the window, the stump flattened and rounded like a mushroom head, and Horst pushed Kate toward the wooden counter just as return fire sounded, an enormous roaring. The soldiers collapsed and the café windows exploded inward.

  She didn’t know how long she was unconscious but when she opened her eyes the room was filled with dust and smoke. She struggled up and the air cleared enough for her to see the man with the injured arm lying half in the window, head blown open, Horst lying beside him, seeming to study his empty skull. Horst wasn’t moving, and his blood-speckled face looked as though it had been zested.

  She must have been screaming; her throat hurt though she heard no sound, deaf in the cannon’s percussive aftermath, but at last Horst turned, looking past her, his lips moving. Kate, they seemed to be saying, Kate, where are you? She crawled toward him over the shattered glass.

  Hamburg, March 25, 1919

  KATE WAS CAREFUL to keep the wash bucket from scraping on the terrazzo stairs so they wouldn’t wake their covetous neighbors. Burning shoulders, panting breath, another three steps and she asked her mother-in-law if she could rest.

  “Yes, of course,” her mother-in-law said, her face a pale blur in the dark. They rested the bucket on a landing and tried unsuccessfully to straighten their fingers. The porter had gone ahead with his load of coal.

  “Fruit soup,” Mrs. Zweig said, continuing their game of imaginary meals. From the moment they awoke, food was always on their minds, though usually they discussed what they might be able to get that day and how they would cook it. The game was a pleasant respite and made their hauling go more quickly. “You must learn to make that. One of Horst’s favorites. A Danish recipe, this one. Sour cream, nutmeg, and fresh raspberries. The height of summer.”

  “I can just remember them,” Kate said, imagining the tart sweetness of raspberries on her tongue, the humid heat when she picked them.

  “Or meatballs with bay leaf and peppercorns and caper gravy, and whitefish with apples and onion cream. Though those are really fall dishes.”

  “It’s all right,” Kate said. “We can get our seasons out of order.” Until then they’d been rigidly adhering to the calendar. “My favorite fall dish is roast lamb with apricot stuffing. I do love it,” she said, feeling a rush of happiness at the same time her stomach became even more hollow. “You would too. A bit of parsley and some dark bread crumbs, and the apricots so tender after a night of soaking. Oh, the way the house smells while it’s cooking!” She breathed deeply, as if she could detect the aromas now. “And I’d serve it with potato soup. Amorosas, of course, though it’s really the other ingredients that give it flavor, leeks and buttermilk and chives.”

  Her mother-in-law was silent at first, and then said, “If you were in England you could probably have that meal now.”

  The dig at the English made Kate’s throat close. As if she’d read Kate’s thoughts, her mother-in-law touched Kate’s apron and said, “But I’m glad you’re not.”

  They were still breathing heavily. At last Kate said, “We should be off.”

  “Yes,” Mother said, resting yet. After another minute she stood and they each hefted a side and climbed. Four flights, from the basement to her apartment, then through the hallway and living room to the veranda, where they had to have it all piled up by 6:00 A.M. If their neighbors reported them to the landswehr, they would lose their coal and be fined; as it was, the landswehr were coming to inspect the basement later in the day, and to help them move and hide it all the porter was taking 10 percent. That would leave them nearly half a ton—almost enough to last the winter, if they were parsimonious. A good trade, really, and possible only because the porter had known the family for so long.

  “You will see,” Mrs. Zweig had said to Kate. “A good porter means the difference between life and death.”

  Halfway up they heard him coming down, the rasp of shoes on stair treads filmed with coal dust, and when he turned the corner above them his white tuxedo shirt glowed in the dark stairway. One of Horst’s old ones, which the porter was rich enough now not to care if he dirtied. They shuffled aside to let him pass.

  “Only one more load for me, I’m afraid,” he said.

  Kate thought that their bucket grew instantly heavier. Mrs. Zweig must have thought that too.

  “What?” she said, leaning forward and struggling to keep her voice quiet. Even so, it echoed between the narrow walls. “You were to help us move it all!”

  “I know.” He apologized. “I’ve cut my hand.” It was wrapped in a dirty towel.

  Though he’d hurt his hand helping them, Kate’s first thought was that he was no longer entitled to a full share, yet she said, “You must be careful.” She didn’t dare touch his hand; her fingers were black with coal dust. “Have you any soap?”

 
“A bit. Our last cake.”

  An entire cake! If he had that much, he was rich. Kate tried to remember when she’d last seen one. “Wash thoroughly as soon as you’re done.”

  He thanked her and said he would, and they listened to his steps going down. When he reached the bottom the door thunked closed behind him.

  They listened until the echoes died out. Then Kate sighed and shifted her grip on the handle. “Shall we?” she said.

  “We must.” But Mrs. Zweig waited and said, “I never thought it would happen.”

  “What’s that?”

  “This. This thievery.”

  “You’re not a thief, Mother. It’s your own coal. You must defend each ounce as you would a piece of land.”

  “Yes, and to keep it, I’m breaking the law. War blinded my son and made me hungry, but peace has made me a criminal.”

  Kate looked away from the white despair of her mother-in-law’s face. What was there to say? Lawlessness and suicide seemed the only two choices now, yet she didn’t like to voice the thought, as doing so seemed an admission of failure. Instead, she hefted her side of the bucket and counted the stairs as they rose.

  In honor of having successfully moved all the coal, they had a larger fire than normal. Kate stood warming herself by the iron cookstove while she bathed from a bowl.

  “We must, occasionally,” Mother whispered about the extra coal. “We won’t miss a few chunks, and our mood will improve. That’s important.”

  “Mother,” Horst said. “Are you talking about me again?”

  They sometimes forgot how sharp his hearing had grown since the accident.

  “No, Horst,” Kate said. “For once she wasn’t.”

  “Then would she be so kind as to share her thoughts?”

  “Yes. It’s good news. Boiled eggs, for all of us, to go with our dried plums.”

  “That is good news. Eggs twice in one week. And why are we so lucky?”

  “The porter,” Mrs. Zweig said. And to Kate, “You see? He’s crucial. They were a gift in return for the coal. He didn’t have to give us any. The coal was his fee. But he looks out for us.”

  Or himself, Kate thought. And why shouldn’t he? The eggs were probably from his brother in the country, where things were plentiful as long as the hamsterers didn’t find them, and if the gift of a few eggs meant the porter would continue to receive coal or other worthy items in return, his generosity was a good investment. Besides, he’d given them before Mrs. Zweig had bargained for a reduced price, but she let her mother-in-law think as she pleased. Why rob her of her faith in human kindness?

  Mrs. Zweig read aloud from a paper she’d found in the entryway. “Two days ago, but still,” she said. Wilson was in Rome. “Golden sand shoveled on the streets before him,” she said. “He deserves it.”

  Wilson disgusted Kate. A man who claimed to want peace allowing others to strew sand before him, as if he were a conquering king and they his prostrated vassals. And those poor laborers who had to shovel all that sand for him to tread on and then go back hours later to remove it, most likely without benefit of a meal. She rinsed the rag in the warm water and wrung it dry. “I’ll get Marie up, if we’re ready.”

  Marie lay tangled in the sheets, which they’d made of old tablecloths.

  “Marie, it’s time,” she said.

  Marie smiled and held up her thin arms to be carried.

  “Can you walk this morning?”

  Marie shook her head.

  “Well then, tomorrow,” Kate said, keeping her tone happy. “You’ll want to be strong when your mother comes back.”

  “That’s months still.”

  “Yes. A few.” A victim of softening bones, Marie’s mother was at a Red Cross sanatorium, a coveted place arranged through other doctors who’d worked with Horst’s father. She wasn’t scheduled to come home again until summer, but the reports were good. She’d gained five pounds and was no longer considered in danger. “I’ll just bring you out.”

  If the news about her mother was good, Marie’s symptoms were not. The pigeon chest, the growing weakness, the teeth so small they looked like buds. As Kate bathed her she tapped Marie’s cheek, and the facial muscles spasmed, an alarming sign that the rickets was pro gressing.

  “Marie will come with us today on our outing, Horst,” Kate said.

  “Again?” Mrs. Zweig said, hovering. “That can’t be good for her. It’s so cold.”

  “She needs the vitamin D,” Kate said. “She’s not getting enough.”

  “But surely another day won’t matter. Or at least a few hours. You should go only with Horst. Then you could get some time to yourself.”

  “The child needs it,” Kate said. But small things were important, as Mrs. Zweig knew, and if they hadn’t given up, it was largely thanks to her. She took pride in getting all of them to “dress up,” even if it was in the same clothes as always, and in keeping all of their clothes clean, and she wanted Kate to take care of herself.

  “Later,” Kate said, seeking to be conciliatory, “perhaps I’ll walk on my own.”

  “It will do you good, child,” Mrs. Zweig said, and went back to preparing breakfast, feeding paper into the fire to make it flare.

  “Mother!” Kate said, surprised. “Not those!”

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “I’m sorry. I must burn something.”

  When she saw that they were old letters, Kate laughed with relief. “Oh. I thought they were pages from the medical texts. The yellow paper, you see.”

  She read to Horst from the medical journals. He was especially interested in eye surgeries, and he wanted to stay up on those.

  “For when my eyes are better,” he always said. Kate and Mother kept up the fiction, as hope was not a bad thing to lie about having. Horst’s doctor agreed. He, too, kept telling Horst to wait. Reduced swelling and pressure, better procedures on the way, who knew what would happen? They might well be able to repair the optic nerve.

  “No, not the journals. Never. But your letters from Silesia, I’m afraid,” Kate’s mother-in-law said.

  “That’s fine. It’s not a time I choose especially to remember.”

  She had written to Horst’s mother while they were in Poland, and when the diseases they were fighting were especially contagious, she’d baked the letters before sending them off. Handling their crisp pages recalled to her the sunken eyes and cyanotic lips of the cholera victims, the lilting babble of typhus sufferers, who moved their heads constantly and for whom champagne was often the best medicine, soothing the sores on their tongues and mouths.

  Curiously, it had also been the best of times for them; they’d been stationed in a nobleman’s house in western Poland and they’d used the ballroom as a ward, its doors and windows opening onto a courtyard, sunlight streaming in, and there were violoncello concertos on Sundays after Mass. They’d posted regulations—sufficiently ambulatory patients had to make their own beds, patients who contracted venereal diseases would be tried by summary court—and one evening a week had held a regular scientific meeting during which an officer read a paper and other officers discussed it.

  Sent ahead, she’d been the first to arrive at that house and had been scared by the unusual ticking stillness of its vast interior, spooked to hear footsteps upstairs—there were rumors of murders by partisans—then relieved to find out it was only an old servant whose sole job was to go from room to room, over a hundred of them, winding all the clocks.

  Horst joked that he’d probably been a young man when he’d started on the first room and that when he reached the last it would mark the end of time. They’d all found it amusing, but now it seemed a dreadful metaphor for what they’d turned the world into: a waste of silver and gold and human ingenuity, an emptiness filled with ruined bodies, most of them young, time ticking away. No, burning such letters was for the better; she’d already burned all the ones that had been waiting for her in Hamburg, though her mother-in-law hadn’t wanted her to, letters detailing the deaths of her
brothers in the war, of her mother shortly after. All of it could burn, as far as she was concerned; the past was not a time she wished to re-inhabit. She sat Marie in her chair.

  “Horst,” Mrs. Zweig said, bringing an egg to the table. “This is yours.”

  Horst felt for his spoon, and then his fingers strayed over the boards. “Salt?”

  “I’ve already done that,” his mother said.

  “Don’t worry, Mother,” he said. “I won’t be overly generous with it.” But he was smiling—a good sign. The first hour of the day usually foretold his day’s mood.

  “You won’t need to be,” she said, “because I have been.” She turned to Kate. “You’re next.”

  “Oh, no. Let Marie have mine.”

  “But Kate.” Horst put down the spoon. “The egg won’t help the rickets, and not having it will only hurt you.”

  “I don’t need the egg. Better to keep it for another day or two, when someone else might. I’m fine,” she said. “Besides, I’ve had one already this week.”

  “That’s not true,” Mrs. Zweig said. She took her food journal from its hiding place inside a hollowed-out dictionary where she also stashed the extra food, keeping both from the prying eyes of the landswehr. “You see, here,” she said, pointing to the week’s entry. “You didn’t take one earlier either. Come. It must be equitable.”

  “Yes.” Horst pushed his plate away. “If you won’t eat yours, I can’t eat mine.”

  There was no sense arguing. Horst was as stubborn as she, and she was hungry. Despite her protestations, she felt relieved.

  “Fine,” she said, and sat. “If you insist.”

  From the doorway, Mrs. Zweig called Kate back. “You go ahead, Horst. I’ll only keep her a minute.”

  He paused on the step, raised his hand, then regripped the banister and started down. Over his shoulder, Marie waved to them. Kate hovered, watching, and Mrs. Zweig called her again.