The German Woman

by Paul Griner

  The woman had detected Kate’s English roots through her slight accent, which shamed her.

  “Come, Marie,” she said, and returned the doll to its crate. “We’ll be back.”

  “And can we get the doll?”

  “Yes. If everything works out.”

  The damp tiled tunnel to the harbor smelled of urine and the sea and echoed their excited voices—Marie chattering madly, Kate voluble to cover her doubts. Would her mother-in-law understand or be insulted? Kate hoped for the former but feared the latter, yet Marie was ecstatic, and surely that would count for something.

  The blue harbor, flat and cold, was packed with ships but curiously quiet, save for the squeaking of wood rubbing against rubber bumpers; no scurrying dockworkers, no crying gulls, no singing sailors flush with money as they marched off to bars. Instead, armed English marines guarded the entrance to each dock, ensuring that the ongoing blockade was maintained.

  “Aunt Kate,” Marie said. “Do we have to come here again?”

  “Yes, dear.” She squeezed her. “It’s pleasant to look out on the water.”

  “I like the lake more.”

  “Yes, I do too. But we wouldn’t want you to forget the sea.”

  Marie looked puzzled, unable to tell whether Kate was joking. Kate, meanwhile, was balancing as always the need to get exercise against the calories they would consume, though she had even stronger reasons for bringing Marie here.

  The barrels of meat were beginning to rot. A month before, a Turkish ship had braved the blockade and charged into port, only to hit a blockade mine and explode; people had rioted over bits of frozen lamb raining down on the docks. The next day, in the paper, there had been a statement by the British admiral in charge.

  He’d let the ship go by, he said, as a lesson to the many others who were continually trying to run the blockade and thus putting his own sailors at risk. He had wearied of their attempts and grown more fearful for his men as the efforts to run the blockade grew more bold, and so he had let it happen. Let it be a lesson, he said, and it was; no other ship dared try.

  Since then the food stored on the various ships—sent by the Americans, the Dutch, the Swedes, and the Swiss—had remained on board or been stacked on the docks, and Kate refused to allow a single day to pass without the English soldiers and sailors having to see what their government’s inhumane policy was doing to the populace. She knew how she and all the women with her on the docks looked, like corpses risen from their coffins. But to no effect, so far; still, if she could shame just one of them into a lifetime of regret she would have accomplished something.

  They came upon a young soldier standing by a lone barrel, a briny liquid bubbling up through its broken top. Early in the war, when doing so was still something of a lark, Horst had gone all the way up to the front. A shell hit nearby, sending hot liquid pouring down his back, and he’d been convinced he was hurt badly. Luckily, before he could voice his thoughts, another man told him that a pickle barrel had exploded and that he was awash in brine. He told the story on himself often, before his injury, and it had always been undergirded by a spirit of relief that he hadn’t been seriously injured, and yet each time he’d told it, Kate shivered, believing he was tempting fate.

  She stopped now in front of the barrel. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Pickled pig’s feet,” he said, seemingly unsurprised by her English. He glanced behind him and then leaned forward. “Would you like some?”

  “Please don’t joke,” Kate said.

  “I’d love some,” Marie said.

  He plunged his hand in and pulled one out and held it, dripping, toward Marie. “Here you go then.”

  The kindness affected Kate oddly. She noticed many things about him all at once: his health, the pinkish tinge of his nontranslucent skin, his beautiful hair—her own had begun to fall out—the strength and ease of his smooth-jointed movements, which made her see herself suddenly as he must, as she would have when she’d been a nurse in training: weak and slow and unhealthy. He smelled different too, smelled good, a way she’d forgotten people smelled, and because of health, not because he was powdered or perfumed.

  Of a sudden she felt neither gratitude nor relief at his kindness, not even joy, but rather anger, a deepening one with profound roots. She recalled the words of her first head nurse, who’d chastised Kate and the other probationary nurses when they’d been shocked by patients with grotesque steam burns: “Remember that you are British women, not emotional Continentals. Keep your heads.” But Kate didn’t feel British any longer. How could a people so well fed, so well dressed and well shod, so kind individually, be so cruel nationally? She detested the ease of his kindness, the nothing it had cost him. Did he not realize, did those who sent him not realize, that it was luck and nothing else that separated them, that decreed he would be born a hundred miles west and so would live, and not just live but prosper? That her own niece, whose hand she clutched, had had no part in the crime for which she was daily being punished? Worst of all was the thought that except for circumstances, she who had been born English would not have recognized it either.

  “Come, Marie,” she said, turning away. “We can do without.”

  She hurried back through the tunnel to find the sun setting over the city skyline, the church steeples black against it, the low sun like a flaming balloon.

  “Did I do something wrong, Aunt Kate?”

  “Not you,” Kate said, shaking her head. “Him. Them.”

  “But what?”

  “It’s complicated, dear. But if we’d taken it from him, he’d have power over us. Nothing is worth letting someone have that.” It was more important that Marie learn to be right than that she eat. She felt horrible denying her food yet told herself the small amount wouldn’t have mattered.

  “We’re not to go back to the market then?”

  “Right now.” It was a good thing; it would take her mind off her anger.

  Marie at least seemed mollified. Military horses blocked their way, English and therefore beautiful, and she did her best not to look at the riders. One horse dropped a steaming pile of dung on the cobbles, and Kate was shocked to see a man scurry across the street and squat before it, picking out undigested corn kernels and piling them in his hand. When he had several he ate them and then, seeing her, turned away. The appalling thing was that he seemed to do so not from shame but to hide his treasure.

  Their shortest way back was past the St. Nikolaikirche, with its massive steeple and more massive cemetery, its constantly tolling bell. They stepped aside to let a moving van pass, and Kate’s feet were suddenly damp. She was standing in a puddle, and when she looked down she saw her shoes had split, water flooding in. She felt sick. Cotton, not leather, covered with a layer of varnish; she’d be lucky if they lasted till home; she couldn’t trade them now.

  “Oh, Marie,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “What, Aunt Kate?”

  Before she could explain a car backfired in front of them and the horse bolted and the van’s wheels hit the curb, rose partway up, and slipped, the frantic horse in its pulling tipping the van on its side. Bodies spilled from the back, wrapped in white grave clothes that seemed to glow in the darkening air.

  Another proof that time had slipped backward, plunging them into a medieval world, the curious, terrible afterbirth of the war, where the dead were carted to the cemetery by the dozens as in plague times, and corpses were left to rot unburied, slabs of flesh slipping off the bones like damp brown soap, the bodies exposed to wind and weather as criminals’ had been on the gallows, hissing and popping on summer nights as gas escaped them, or trembling and rustling with worms and maggots. Would it never end?

  The walk home was depressing. Only every third streetlight was lit. They used the stairs, afraid of a power outage, and on the way passed Frau Ulm, the porter’s wife.

  “My husband!” she said, obviously distraught. “You have put him in the hospital!”

  “I’m sor
ry,” Kate said, instinctively holding Marie away from her.

  “His hand, it’s infected! How will we pay for his treatment?”

  “We’ll help you with it,” Kate said, and hurried by, not wanting her to bring up the subject of coal when other neighbors could overhear them. “I’ll speak to his doctor myself.”

  Inside, Horst was already at the door.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Kate explained about Frau Ulm, and Horst’s face clouded over.

  “Yes,” Kate said. “It’s not good.” Indeed, it could be deadly; the smallest infections now often were.

  “And that’s it?” he said. “Nothing else?”

  “Yes. Nothing.” She didn’t want to mention the shoes, the dead, the harbor.

  “We didn’t get our doll,” Marie said.

  Kate handed Horst her coat and walked briskly into the room to forestall Marie’s description of their outing, saying she wanted to read from the medical journals again. “Where were we? The incision had been made, I think.”

  “There’s something else,” Horst said, “something you’re not telling me.”

  “The doll,” Marie said. “I already said.”

  Kate ignored her. “No, Horst. I’m fine. A little tired. Did you try billiards?”

  He smiled. “No. Von Hoppe did. One shot, to start with. It was perfect! Three points. He potted the red ball.”

  “Good. Next time it will be your turn.”

  “Now,” he said. “What’s this about the doll?”

  “We were going to trade for it. Aunt Kate’s new shoes. Then we didn’t.”

  “No?” he said. “And how come?”

  “The woman wanted too much,” Kate said. “My shoes! Can you imagine?”

  “But I thought we were going to,” Marie insisted.

  “I know, child,” Kate said. “But we’ll find something for you.”

  “Not a doll.”

  “Perhaps not,” she said, and petted her hair. “But something.”

  Mrs. Zweig stood nearby, an expectant look on her face. The meat. Kate took the money from her bag and handed it over. “I wasn’t able to get any,” she said. “I’m sorry. You must be disappointed.”

  “No,” Mrs. Zweig said. “Even the most crushing disappointments become habit, eventually,” and she affected a smile.

  Her attempt at consolation made Kate feel worse—it would be better if someone yelled at her. She’d been stupid to wear the shoes out at all; she should have kept them in the apartment, at least then her mother-in-law would never know. And she should never have agreed to trade for them.

  “I’ve just the thing to make us all feel better,” Mrs. Zweig said, and bustled off to the kitchen. She came back with a bit of brown bread and marmalade, a mixture of pumpkin, carrot, and apples.

  “Mother,” Kate said. “Not the Christmas can.” Not very good, but it was all they had for the year—a single can, weighing one kilo, given out by the government at Christmas.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Zweig said. “But it’s all right. We’ll get more later.”

  How? Kate wondered. With what? And did she really look so awful that Mrs. Zweig felt she had to be extravagant? She would eat, to show her spirits had revived.

  Mrs. Zweig said, “If we’re not going to read, perhaps some music.”

  Kate flinched. “Oh, not tonight, please.”

  It was her mother-in-law’s constant request, one they rarely gave in to. She seemed not to understand that their musical evenings made Horst feel more keenly the gap between past and present—between blindness and sight—and almost invariably his reaction was the same: angry outbursts about his foolish mother, pouting by her, tears and recriminations and eventual apologies. Kate wanted to avoid the entire predictable sequence.

  “First,” she said, “I must put Marie to bed. She’s had a long day.”

  She felt duplicitous, using Marie as a shield against the approaching storm, but it was for the best; Horst could refuse politely or argue vehemently without Kate present, and if he and his mother had words, they could do so in private. And Marie was tired, worn out by disappointment.

  “Come, child.” She picked her up from the table. “To bed now, before it gets cold.”

  She sang the English lullabies Marie preferred, and just as her eyes fluttered closed, Mrs. Zweig shrieked.

  “The shoes!” She’d found them on the landing, where Kate had hoped they’d be stolen. Stupidity, she’d been planning to say; she’d forgotten that people had become thieves. A weak excuse, but better than the truth. Too late now. Mother was standing over them at the table, Horst sitting beside her.

  “I knew something was wrong,” he said. “But Kate refused to tell me.”

  “Yes,” Kate said. “I shouldn’t have tried to hide it from you. I’m sorry.” She bent and kissed his upturned forehead. “You see so much more than I sometimes realize. And Mother,” she said, turning to her. “I should have told you, but I knew you’d be crushed.”

  “It’s all right, child,” she said. “Hope and age have made me stupid.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “Oh, but it’s true.” She sat down and slumped beside them. “I believed him when he said they were kangaroo leather. I wanted to believe him. I knew the zoo had killed all its kangaroos and that people had eaten the meat, so why not tan their hides?”

  “It wasn’t your regular cobbler?”

  “No.” She blushed and looked down at the ruined shoes. “He hasn’t had leather in four years, and makes shoes only if you bring it to him. This was a street vendor.”

  Kate said nothing.

  “I know.” Mother tried to smile. “I should never trust them. You see, I am a fool. Knowing it was too good to be true, I made myself believe. If nothing else, these last years should have taught me not to. But how long can one go without hope?”

  Kate was surprised when Horst stood and made his way to the piano. Even more surprised when he beckoned to her.

  “I think Mother is right,” he said. “We need some music tonight.”

  She couldn’t refuse him, but she knew that, bitter at the day’s events, she would play poorly. How could she not?

  Horst fingered through the sheet music, talking to himself, “No, no, not this one,” as he flipped past Vivaldi. “Too frothy.” Could he really tell them by feel? He paused at Mozart, said, “That’s better,” before moving on to Beethoven. “Yes. Just this.”

  Why would he choose the poet of darkness? My God, he’ll have us all committing suicide. But it was pointless to argue; he was holding the music up and smiling.

  She sighed and tucked her dress beneath her, sat, spread her fingers, and began to play. The dark ponderous opening notes came out sluggish and dull, and for a few bars she felt herself resisting, but as she went on, Horst’s hand on her shoulder, squeezing now and then to encourage her, the music began to calm her, its slowly increasing tempo causing her through its beauty to play it as it deserved. Almost unwillingly, her fingers spread and quickened, her feet on the pedals grew delicate, her shoulders bent forward or back as necessary, and as the ghost of her past came to inhabit her, she marveled that Beethoven’s grief-haunted notes should be so powerful, that Horst had intuited their power to soothe.

  Nearly done with the first movement, she looked up and found Mrs. Zweig beaming.

  “Here,” Horst said, “that’s wonderful. But it’s time for you to stop.”

  “Oh, Horst, no,” she said, bending away from his restraining hand and plunging forcefully ahead into the next notes. “Mother’s right. This is just what we need.”

  “Yes,” he said, over the music, “but we haven’t heard Mother play in weeks.”

  Kate stopped and Mrs. Zweig blushed. “But Horst! Kate’s so much better.”

  “You’re kind to say so. But really, I want to hear you too. It would please me.”

  His fingers trailed over the keyboard, the first tinkling notes of his favorite waltz
from before the war, the Blue Danube.

  Mrs. Zweig came and took her place, Kate standing on one side and Horst the other, and began to play. Too fast at first, and Horst squeezed her shoulder to slow her down. As her tempo evened out, he said, “That’s better,” and moved his hand like a conductor. “You see? The river’s just starting to flow, nothing quick about it at all.

  “Kate,” he said, and turned toward her, hand still raised.

  Behind Mrs. Zweig, so she couldn’t see them, yet close enough that Kate’s dress brushed against her on each pass, they began to waltz. They hadn’t danced since Berlin, but Horst’s lead was so steady that she knew he was no more likely to steer her into the table and chairs or crush her bare toes than if he could see. The gritty floor, the cold, Horst’s blindness, her own gnawing hunger, the world outside; none of it seemed to matter as she gave herself up to the smoothly elegant three-beat repetition, Horst’s warm narrow chest pressed against hers, his strong comforting fingers fanned across her lower back.

  “Now,” he said. “One request. Close your eyes. So you’ll be dancing blind too. You’ll see. It’s not so bad.”

  She hesitated, guilty at the memory of the condescendingly benevolent pleasure she’d felt dancing with the blind officers in Berlin, then did as he asked. Indeed it wasn’t terrible. At first she seemed to be falling, but after a few seconds of dizziness she began to enjoy it, to anticipate the music with her body and to sense herself twirling in space, her husband’s encircling arms binding her to the ring of the dance, the two spinning together as if they were rising into the cold air.

  PART II

  London, June 14, 1944

  DOGS HOWLED AS the buzz bomb emerged from thick clouds to the south, engine rattling, tail fire turning the night sky a lurid orange. The searchlights found it and yet the buzz bomb flew steadily on, part of what made it so unsettling. Seeking escape, spotlighted planes dove and spun, giving their flight human drama, but the buzz bomb’s impersonal straight-line movement seemed somehow more deadly. One antiaircraft gunner got lucky, sending a bit of flaming tail spinning into the night, and it whizzed by overhead just as the bomb’s engine noise became deafening, the V-1 so low Claus smelled the paraffin scent of its exhaust. The engine cut, and he blew his whistle and threw himself to the ground, praying it would glide farther.