The German Woman

by Paul Griner

  Paula Schreffrette played with the pearls at her throat as she sorted records for her next song. Remembering his manners but also gathering information, he asked, “And where are you from?” after they’d spun silently around the room.

  “London. St. Pancras Hospital.”

  “Yes. Of course. And before that?”

  “Guernsey. Nanny for a family.”

  “And you never got home. Where was that?”

  She glanced over at Kate for guidance, but he spun her away. “Leipzig,” she said, reluctantly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t pry. It probably makes you unhappy.”

  She said nothing.

  “I’m from abroad too, and I know what it’s like to be an exile. Haven’t been back since ’31” Not allowed back, though he didn’t tell her that.

  He talked a bit more but her answers were monosyllabic and they lapsed into silence for the rest of the number, sitting just as a raucous group of American officers burst through the front door. Unusual here, as they tended to stick to the clubs farther down Piccadilly or over in Charing Cross.

  “Oh, good,” Greta said. “Americans.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “Yes. They’re more friendly than the English. I do hope they sit near us.”

  Kate smiled over her glass. “Don’t worry,” she said, and touched his knee. “I’ll talk to you, even if you disguise your nationality.”

  “You’re American?” Greta said.

  “Yes,” Kate said. “And a filmmaker.”

  “Oh!” Greta looked at him again. “I would not have guessed this.”

  Kate laughed.

  “And what films have you made?”

  “None you’d know of, probably. The Beer Bottlers of Manchester wasn’t much of a hit outside of trade groups, but I did help write Intolerance.” In response to her blank face, he said, “D. W. Griffith? Birth of a Nation?”

  “Oh, yes” She brightened. “I know that. It was silent though”

  “Yes, Intolerance too, but I still had to write some of the scenes.” He regretted instantly the note of insecurity behind his boasting.

  Two Americans approached, the shorter and younger asking Greta to dance.

  “Yes!” she said, and stood. “I’d love to.”

  Claus was about to ask Kate to dance when the major, ignoring Claus, asked first.

  “Thank you.” She smiled with what looked like genuine pleasure. “But I’m going to sit this one out. Been on my feet all day.”

  “Another one, then?” he said.

  “Yes. I’d like that.”

  He nodded, his black, brilliantined hair flashing in the light, and walked away.

  Kate waited until he was out of hearing. “You see,” she said. “I’m all yours.”

  “For now,” Claus said. “But he’ll be back. And you should be happy.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You still have admirers.”

  “Do I appear too old for them?”

  “No, I. . .” He stopped, realizing how he’d sounded. He’d simply meant that it was a compliment that the major had come to her first. He would have himself, though now he couldn’t say so. Why was he being so awkward? “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I’m sure. But to tell you the truth, I never wanted admirers at my age.” She put her glass down. “I wanted to be old and married.”

  She smiled, to remove the taint of self-pity, but they fell silent, Claus unsure how to begin again, Kate blowing blue smoke rings over her drink and watching waiters bring food to other tables.

  “How long did you live in France?”

  “A few years.”

  “Caught there when the war started?”

  “No, I went there after it had begun.”

  “From London?” He couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.

  “Hamburg.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “You needn’t be confused. I was married to a German doctor and we lived in Hamburg.”

  “And from Hamburg to France? How did that happen?”

  “My husband’s family was Alsatian. Both parents. His father had moved to Hamburg to practice medicine. Through them I had a kind of international citizenship, and by 1939 I preferred France to Hamburg.”

  He studied her elegant fingers, which were wrapped around a jam jar. She still wore a silver wedding ring. “And your husband?” he said. “Did he go with you?”

  She didn’t answer, her eyes were on Paula Schreffrette and her flaming red hair as she spun a record between her fingers to catch the light. Then Kate pulled out another cigarette and waited for Claus to produce a lighter.

  “A nasty habit,” she said, when he had. “I picked it up after the last war, quit, and started again in France”

  “Nerves?”

  “Hunger. It makes one forget.” She sat back. “But to answer your question, no. I had to leave him behind.”

  She’d taken a while to answer, and he thought it best not to push along those lines just yet. “And eventually you came back,” he said.

  “Not entirely by choice. A few of us from a Parisian hospital were having a party and one of the doctors, drunk, decided to dye his dog the colors of the French flag. It got loose on the street, and since there had been a lot of recent anti-German propaganda appearing at the BBC’s urging, it infuriated the Germans.

  “They demanded names of everyone at the party. Along with my other problems, it meant it was time for me to go. Of course, there was some choice in my coming back, and that part was easy. Hitler, the Nazis.”

  “Hitler and the Nazis were there for many years.”

  “So we’ve discussed, I believe.” With her pinkie and thumb she picked a bit of tobacco off her tongue, then quickly changed the subject. “You have a tattoo!” she said.

  Claus’s pant leg had ridden up, showing the red and blue Spirit of ’76 just above his right ankle. She leaned down to study it. “The only people with tattoos I knew as a child were criminals or in the navy,” she said. “Which were you, navy?”

  “Yes.” Not true, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. It surprised him that lying to her felt wrong. He’d grown so used to it over the years. He dropped his leg so his pants covered the tattoo, not wanting her to see how crudely it was done. “A long time ago.”

  She raised an eyebrow, but he turned his glance to Greta. “She looks happy.”

  Kate watched her twirling around the room. “You’ve no idea how good this is for her,” she said. “Only a few of the other nurses will even speak to her, and only one has brought her out. To a gramophone record concert: Bach, Beethoven, Chopin. Each record was introduced by a master of ceremonies and followed by polite applause. Very highbrow, as you can imagine, and therefore very dull, the women in matching hats and gloves and she not even able to buy stockings, so of course they snubbed her.”

  “Her situation’s improved,” he said, and nodded at her legs. “Stockings.”

  “Yes.” She laughed. “Much better.” Then she turned serious. “But I think people don’t understand how hard it is for Greta. She’s afraid to be in public.”

  “Her accent?” He thought of his mother. “People will get past that. She should speak up for herself.”

  “Ah,” Kate said. She was looking closely at Claus now. “Be brave, in other words, and tough it out.” She moved her drink aside and sat forward. “Tell me,” she said. “Do you read the obituaries?”

  “Not as a habit, no.”

  “I do. Always have. It’s a marvelous way to learn about whatever area you’re living in. And in France, they’re no less informative. For instance, if Germans take hostages in a town and say they’ll be re-leased if the murderer of a German soldier is turned in, and those hostages are shot, their obituaries read, ‘Who died on Friday . . .’ No mention of them being executed.”

  “Murdered, you mean. Convenient for the Germans, not to have it broadcast.”

  “Precisely. But of course it’s not as simp
le as cowardice. If you’re an editor and offend the Germans, it might not be you they imprison or select as the next hostage, it might be your wife or son. So tell me, if each time you put a few words down on paper, you had to worry they might lead to your wife’s death, or your child’s, would you be so quick to speak out?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have either.”

  “Come,” she said, her voice scolding, a teacher faced with a willfully obtuse child. “Use your imagination. If this is collaboration, is it really a form you can abhor?”

  How had this happened? He wanted to get back to the easy banter of a few minutes before. “All right,” he said. “Perhaps there are levels.”

  “Ah, levels.” She finished her drink and sat back. “You see, already it has become tricky, and at last you have some doubts. But I’ll bet that no matter where you draw your line, I would have crossed it.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I don’t. In fact I’m sure of it. And I wasn’t alone. Everyone collaborates.”

  “Really.” It was not a question.

  “Yes. Really. Buying something in a French store when the Germans provide supplies is collaboration. Obeying a German police officer at a stoplight is collaboration. Even shooting a German and dying for it is a form of collaboration. When someone else scripts the play, controls the scenery, the hiring, and the lighting, everything you do is controlled by them, even the desire to strike out at them. It’s a type of movie you seem never to have been part of.”

  The air was suddenly stifling, the music too loud. “Besame Mucho.” Not likely. He spoke up to make himself heard, curiously determined not to appear weak. “That’s rather simple, isn’t it? To declare Jean Moulin and Pétain one and the same?”

  “They’re not the same, but both are reacting to the same situation, one forced upon them.”

  “Which they’re not obliged to accept.”

  “Please. One can’t pretend the Germans aren’t there.”

  “No. But one can fight against them.”

  “Yes. But tell me, if you were a nurse in a hospital, do you do more for the French by running down a stray German when out for a drive, or by letting one flirt with you who will then procure necessary drugs, drugs that you can give to French patients?”

  “Flirt? And what about kiss?”

  “What about it?”

  “So, everything is acceptable? A few days ago you were arguing that even in a just war, not everything was justifiable.”

  “On a governmental scale, certainly. But on a human scale nothing is out of bounds, not if you mean to help the wounded, or the sick, or the old.”

  “You forgot the young.”

  “No. Not for a moment. Never.” Her cheeks were burning; he hadn’t realized how angry she’d grown. Why was he being so stupid? He hadn’t meant to antagonize her, but it had been years since he’d really talked with anyone this passionately; all his other conversations were designed to elicit information. And really, he was saying these things because he wanted her attention. Anger was better than indifference.

  She stood and caught the eye of the American major, who was smoking and leaning against the wooden wainscoting. As he made his way toward them between the mass of dancing couples, she leaned over the table to make sure Claus heard her.

  “You know, I hope as devoutly as you—perhaps more devoutly, since I’ve seen what the occupation is doing—that the Germans lose. But in the meantime, thousands of Frenchmen must try to survive. Heroism doesn’t consist solely of shooting soldiers. It’s a different type of courage to survive a disaster you had no part in bringing about.”

  It was foolish to argue. He wondered what had caused him to. The V-1s, his impotence in the face of ongoing destruction, but neither was Kate’s fault. After a few excruciating minutes of watching her dance with the major—a bit too closely—he stood and cut in on Greta, and when the song ended he intercepted Kate and the major before they made their way back to the table.

  “May I?” He took her hand and led her back to the floor, where he purposely kept his conversation neutral, alluding to his time as a warden, his apartment near Charing Cross. She didn’t respond. As soon as the dance was over he asked Greta to dance once more, then Kate once again when they were done.

  “So you’re a warden,” Kate finally said on their second outing.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, what’s the strangest thing you’ve seen on duty?”

  “The strangest?” He thought. “Burning chickens, perhaps.”

  She held herself away, back from his shoulder. “How gruesome.”

  “Yes. But you asked.”

  “So I did. And what’s the most beautiful thing you’ve seen?”

  “That’s an unusual question.”

  “A very wise woman once told me to look for beauty in the midst of disaster, a means of survival. My mother-in-law.”

  The marriage again; he decided not to touch it. “A burning paper warehouse, probably. Enormous sheets of flaming paper sailing into the night, floating above buildings on fire-created winds like burning magic carpets and then, all at once, darkening to cinders and embers and cascading to the streets below like flocks of glowing birds.”

  “That is beautiful. I would have liked to see it.”

  Over her shoulder, he saw Greta making her way back to the table.

  “Looks like your charge is about done.”

  “I was so glad you asked her,” Kate said. “She’s been dying to dance.”

  “Well, I haven’t.”

  “Oh.” She pulled back and looked at him. “A duty rather than a pleasure?”

  “No.” He pressed his hand to the small of her back, bringing her closer and inhaling her blackberry perfume. “Not at all. I simply meant that, before tonight, it wasn’t something I was sitting at home wishing I could do.”

  “Well, I was. A way to soothe the tensions of work. You can’t imagine how difficult it was to dance in France. Outlawed, unless you went to clubs with German officers, so you had to go to private homes, but the trick was you had to be invited.”

  He squeezed her hand, feeling hot and happy.

  “I’m sure you were, often.”

  “Not enough to save me.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  She leaned closer. “I’ll tell you later. Another part of my French troubles.”

  Through two more dances they remained on the floor. After the third one he said, “May I ask you something? Do you always dance with your eyes closed?”

  “Yes,” she said and rested her warm head against his shoulder. “Old habit.”

  Kate was dancing with the major again, Greta glassy-eyed and hiccupping. One of her garters popped, and her stocking twirled down her leg like a corkscrew. She fumbled with Kate’s bag and knocked it to the floor and sat blinking at it until the song finished. Kate made her way back through the applauding crowd, and Claus stood to meet her.

  “Shall we?” he said.

  “Dance?”

  “Go.” He nodded at Greta. “I think she’s had enough excitement for one night.”

  Kate gathered both their bags. “Trying to cram in a year’s worth. Never a good idea, but understandable. You know, normally she’s quite tough. Earlier this year, one of the other nurses hid in a dark room draped in a white sheet, trying to scare her, and Greta conked her on the head with an oxygen bottle and knocked her out. Caused quite a bit of troble, I can tell you. Dark rumors of Nazi spies undermining our health care.”

  “Yes,” he said. “They show up in the strangest places.”

  It was always disorienting to emerge from lit clubs into full dark with the blackout in effect. They clustered on the sidewalk, letting their eyes adjust, Greta bumping first against Claus’s shoulder and then Kate’s, a stone pushed by an invisible current. The AA had started up with a distant crackle of explosions, and the outside air was noticeably cooler than the fevered atmosphere of the club, which spilled out onto the stre
et suddenly when the door opened behind them and a group of sailors, boisterously drunk, tumbled into them.

  “Fuck,” one said. “Dropped my peanuts.”

  “Let ‘em go,” another said. “We’ll get some after we shag.”

  Kate stepped aside to let them pass just as two MPs strolled by in their white helmets and gloves; Claus was glad for female company, as they never stopped men with women, knowledge he’d used more than once.

  “Where do you live?” Claus asked Greta. “Nearby? We’ll walk you home.”

  “No. I want to have a cab.”

  “Please,” Claus said, taking her elbow. “It would be best for us to walk you. You’ll feel better in the morning if you get a bit of air.”

  “No,” she said, and pushed him away. “I’ll be fine.”

  The snowdrops had stopped to listen. Claus turned to Kate and sensed her shrug. “All right,” he said. “Stay here.”

  A few others were hailing cabs, but his American voice got one quicker, the London cabbies knowing the accent usually meant money. This one, though, sounded unhappy to have to cart a drunk.

  “It’s all right,” Claus told him. “She’s a nurse, not a commando.” To make sure she got safely home, he overtipped. They watched the cab drive off and Kate shifted aside, treading on the spilled peanuts. “She misses home,” she said. “Your questions, evidently.”

  “I didn’t intend to depress her.”

  “No, I’m sure. It happens with her relatively easily, I’m afraid. Often at night I find her listening to the BBC accounts of where we’ve bombed that day, and if it’s anywhere near home, she’s desolate.”

  “And I’m sorry about earlier,” Claus said. “I’m not usually so quick to fight, or so obtuse. Can I make it up to you?”

  He waited during the long intake of her breath as she rocked back and forth, deciding, the peanut shells cracking beneath her shoes. When she said, “Yes, all right, walk me home,” his chest filled.

  She took his arm. “You don’t mind, do you?” From the sound of her voice she was looking ahead, rather than at him. “It’s just that I hate the dark.”