The German Woman

by Paul Griner

  “And this next race?” she said. “Also three-eighths and also an A?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s bet on him then.”

  “But we haven’t read the other lines.”

  “True. And it’s also true that he’s won at this distance and class before. Why go against him?”

  “All right,” he said, turning toward the barred betting windows where men were leaning against the narrow counters. “It’s your future.”

  “On the contrary,” she said. “You’re paying for everything. I distinctly heard you say so.”

  “Yes.” He had to raise his voice now, to make sure it reached her over the intervening crowd. “But if we lose it all, we won’t have any left for supper.”

  He won by three lengths. For a long time they stood at the rail, elbows touching, as they watched the handlers herd the dogs. At last Claus turned to Kate.

  “Well?” he said. “I’m waiting for you to gloat.”

  “Not an English trait, I’m afraid. Or German.”

  Their luck held for two more races, then deserted them for three. Claus said it was time to go with a new system and studied the program for trends.

  “Look at you,” Kate said. “Like a schoolboy trying to figure out his maths. The tip of your tongue between your lips.”

  He felt himself blushing but she laughed, touched his chin. “Don’t feel bad,” she said. “It’s adorable.” She excused herself and went to the bathroom, and when she returned Claus was talking to an older man and taking notes on the program.

  After he moved away, Kate asked who he was.

  “Nobody,” Claus said. “Just someone who claimed to have inside information on the dogs. Which ones have been off their feed, which not sleeping.”

  “And what did he say?” Kate asked. “Show me.”

  It wasn’t dogs they’d been discussing, it was a V-1 strike on a dog barn. The information was useless except for the date and time, two minutes past noon on the previous Wednesday. The man had been sure because he’d just sat down to his lunch.

  Claus fanned the program out for Kate. Was he showing her the code on purpose? What on earth for? Years of wariness, the fear of being imprisoned. He wouldn’t have believed it of himself, yet he was, and it was too late to stop.

  She looked at the figures scribbled on the blue paper and spent a few minutes trying to puzzle them out. A basic code, the first the Germans had taught him.

  “Wait,” she said. “That’s not the dog line, is it?”

  He felt enormous relief, a bit of guilt; Bertram had him paranoid. She wouldn’t have asked if she were covering something up; she had nothing to hide. “No,” he said at last. “It’s about the damages to the sound stages. Max wanted me to find out.”

  “And why didn’t you just say so?”

  “Didn’t want you to think I was mixing business with pleasure.”

  “But you were.”

  “Yes. Forgive me?”

  She tilted her head to the side and made him wait, teasing. “Only if you give me the winner in the next race.”

  He unfolded the program. Laughing Lackey was running. “Bet against him,” he said. “He’s a terrible dog.”

  “But look.” She tapped his line. “He’s won six of seven races, and finished second in the other.” She smiled, taking evident pride in being so quick to catch on.

  “Yes, and it’s time to bet against him. Too long a winning streak.”

  The sailor next to them muttered, “Balleynennan Moon,” and then moved away.

  “Balleynennan Moon?” Kate asked.

  Claus said, “He won forty races out of forty-eight last year, and finished second seven times. All set to clip the record for consecutive victories when Laughing Lackey beat him.”

  “Ah, and you liked the Irish name, no doubt. All right,” she said. “But remember, I won’t forgive you if you’re wrong. Here,” she said, and bent toward the program. “Let’s pick our winners.”

  In the end they decided to go with a long shot. They’d nearly broken even for the day, so a loss would be relatively painless, and if they won it would put them far ahead. There were two to choose from, one moving up a class after winning one of three races against weaker competition, another that seemed to do well only on Fridays.

  “Let’s choose her,” Kate said of the former.

  “But she has almost no chance,” Claus said. “At least in Redbolt’s case it’s a Friday.”

  “Yes. That’s the point. He might get some late money, but no one’s going to bet on Cursed Woman.”

  “See? You have been corrupted.”

  “Shh,” she said, and tapped his shoulder. “Go put the bet in before we lose our chance.”

  The dogs broke cleanly, Redbolt moving better than Claus and Kate had expected, running third on the rail as they hit the turn, just out of second to Laughing Lackey’s first, a good spot, Claus thought, not in front where he’d tire from setting the pace and not last with too much ground to make up and not too far out so that he’d stumble in the turn. A late-speed dog, he was within striking distance. Cursed Woman he couldn’t make out; he’d put money on them both. As they curled around the infield with its low boxwood he could still see the dogs, and Redbolt seemed to fade, though it was hard to tell because even with his distinctive yellow and black blanket there were other dogs in the race with black or yellow and when they were next to each other it could also have been the four. Down the stretch Laughing Lackey seemed to surge forward in response to the yelling crowd packing the rail, and then, as if he had hit a wire, to drop back all at once, and every other dog rumbled up and passed him in the sudden silence, kicking up clods of dirt that made him turn his head and run an off route. In the end Laughing Lackey finished second to last, Redbolt just in front of him, but Kate was jumping up and down and laughing and tugging at Claus’s arm.

  “She did it,” she said, and pointed to where Cursed Woman was loping out ahead of the others as the handlers made their way onto the track in their blue boilersuits to round up the dogs. “How much did we win?” she said, and they both peered at the scoreboard, waiting for the results to be official, the amounts to be posted. Claus tore Cursed Woman’s line from the program and folded it into his pocket during the interval. Twenty-seven pounds, in the end.

  “My God,” Kate said, linking her arm through his as they shouldered through the disappointed crowd to retrieve their money, trying not to show their happiness. “We’ll be able to order everything on the menu wherever we go. I haven’t been this rich in ages.”

  On the subway, Kate’s head bumped against Claus’s shoulder through the long dark tunnels. The smoky flares in the White City subway had made their eyes tired, and it was if they were coming home after a long night out in the cold. They were headed to Soho, with its cinemas and numerous small Italian restaurants that still had potable red wine, and near Piccadilly she stirred and said, “What’s that?”

  He’d unfolded a piece of paper on his knee. It looked like newsprint.

  “Our lucky numbers, from the track,” he said, looking up at her. “Cursed Woman’s line. Want it?” He held it out.

  “You keep it,” she said. “You have more need of luck.” She was sitting up now. “It was a lovely outing.” He smelled cloves on her as she moved.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” He patted her hand. “But I think you really liked it because your parents would never have approved.”

  “‘Thou shalt not’ has its own charm, but it’s not that, or rather not just that. Outings like that make me feel less estranged.”

  “From what?”

  “From England, from myself. I’ve come to realize these past weeks that the world for me exists as a patchwork of different shades of foreignness. Even England. When I go back to things I’ve been to before, places I loved, I feel . . . an outsider. I find I’m neither English nor German. Sounds dramatic, I know, but almost nothing is as I remember it, which of course makes me feel odd, but the few things
that are are worse—then I feel separated from the girl I was nearly thirty years ago, and for some reason that temporal estrangement is worst of all.”

  He knew exactly what she was speaking of. He’d filmed The Spirit of ’76 in New York, but when he’d passed through the city on his way out of the country, his nostalgia was for a time he’d lost and a person he’d been, not for a place. They fell silent again, and to cheer Kate up, to lift his own spirits, he suggested a movie before dinner.

  “Let’s,” he said. “We’ll make a late night of it. Movie first, dinner, then a club. We’ll spend as much of our winnings as we can.”

  “Oh, Claus,” she said, and, leaning toward him, kissed his ear. “You wicked, wicked man.”

  They decided on a double bill of William Wyler documentaries, The Memphis Belle, about a bomber crew, and The Fighting Lady, about life onboard an aircraft carrier, as even if they watched both of them they’d get out early enough to find a table somewhere. The week before, they’d gone to Lewis Milestone’s The Purple Heart and had left halfway through, finding it jingoistic, a huge comedown from his earlier antiwar classic All Quiet on the Western Front, and they worried the same thing might happen to Wyler, but both Wuthering Heights and Mrs. Miniver were great films and Claus thought he might use some of Wyler’s framing devices for his own film if they were good.

  They arrived just as the newsreel was about to start, the usher leading them to their row with her flashlight, sweeping it across a line of shoes to indicate that their seats were farther along, and Claus let Kate go first, tipped the usher, and slid across murmuring apologies, just in time for “God Save the King.”

  He began humming before he even sat from long years of habit and Kate squeezed his arm. He turned to her. She was neither humming nor singing; he didn’t have to either, and he stopped, feeling oddly conspicuous, but no one had noticed and she squeezed again before removing her hand. The newsreel made Claus wish they’d arrived later. Hamburg again—fleets of bombers, their bomb bays opening, bombs dropping out and wobbling toward their targets; far below, buildings and railroad tracks and bridges disappearing beneath sequential clouds of smoke and debris. He pulled his handkerchief from his jacket pocket and nudged Kate’s wrist, but she shook her head, surprisingly dry-eyed, and he turned back to watch Hamburg’s ongoing destruction. From the shape of the harbor and the river, he recognized the Altona district. Completely burned out, Kate had said. There seemed no way Robert could have survived that.

  Kate shifted beside him and he realized he’d missed the movie’s opening scenes, but soon he was swept up in the drama of a bomber crew about to fly its twenty-fifth and final mission, with all of its original crew still intact. Very rare; it hadn’t taken a single serious hit on any of its flights, and, as the film progressed, it became clear just how lucky they’d been. The Wilhelmshaven raid, where 50 percent of the bombers had suffered serious damage and 20 percent hadn’t returned; Hamm, nearly as bad; Antwerp; Lorient; Kiel; and nineteen others, too numerous to list. The scenes of damaged planes struggling toward the landing field only to crash and burn were heartbreaking.

  The crew would all be able to return to America if they survived, and if the film had none of the deep-focus artistry of Wyler’s earlier films or the technical innovations like his receding-mirror shot, it was nonetheless rife with drama and laced with his signature diagonal compositions, and Claus found himself enjoying it far more than he’d expected. Kate seemed to also, as did the rest of the crowd—there was an excited buzzing as Kate and Claus made their way to the overheated lobby during intermission, stuffy with its red and gold brocade and golden classical lamps, most of which were dim.

  He had just ordered tea when he turned at his name and found Max and the beaming Alina. His face flushed; Max had asked him if he wanted to see the film and Claus had turned him down, complaining of extra warden duties, but now Max shook his hand and made their introductions without seeming the least put out.

  Clearly, from his face, Claus could tell he hadn’t yet read the script, so there was no point in asking about it, and Claus shifted gears quickly, beginning to talk about The Memphis Belle’s long sweeping shots, the way the camera moved in unsteadily, when Kate said, “Oh, you. Every movie is a competition!”

  Alina laughed. “Him too? It’s awful. Max has to beg me to go, and then I spend all night hearing about what was wrong with it. The camera angles are bad, or the dialogue is clichéd, and the pacing and scene selection, ach.” She put her braceleted wrist to her forehead in a parody of bad acting. “So poor!”

  Kate touched her bare arm. “Your accent is so familiar. And so welcome,” she added when Alina’s face fell. “Where in Poland are you from?”

  “L’viv.”

  “I lived there for a while during and after the last war. As a nurse.”

  “Ah, very beautiful.”

  “Yes, it was. Your poor country.” She turned to Max. “Claus has been working for you today, scouting damages.”

  Max looked puzzled. “The sound stages,” Claus said quickly. “Out at White City. But what do you think of the film?” he said.

  “You first,” Max said.

  “Well done, the structure a bit plain, but a riveting narrative.”

  “And free of that boosterish mentality you find so troubling in most war documentaries,” Max said. He smiled.

  “Blessedly so,” Claus said. Wryly, he added, “Must be Wyler’s German roots.”

  Max showed his molars when he laughed.

  The tea came. Claus paid for it while Alina and Kate chatted and Max made his way to the bar. Kate said something about dinner and Claus pinched her elbow.

  Max returned and picked up that Claus didn’t want to join them even as Alina was saying, “We would like this very much.”

  “Here now,” he said, putting away his billfold. “Can we do it another night?”

  Alina looked crestfallen and Claus was about to give in when Max said, “Maybe next weekend? There’s a new Hitchcock coming out. We can make it an evening.”

  “I like her,” Kate said, eyes trailing after Alina’s departing back. “I knew so many Poles in the last war. And I’d have liked to have dinner with them. He seemed nice, and she seemed lonely. I know what that’s like.”

  “Me too.”

  She looked at him. “You wouldn’t have turned them down if you did.”

  “It’s just that I don’t like to mix my private and work lives.”

  “You did earlier.”

  He made a face. “That was different. And I apologized for it.”

  “Were you worried about me?” Kate said. “Your little German woman? Didn’t want them to think you’d hooked up with the enemy and jeopardize your job?”

  “Actually, I was worried, but that you’d tell them something about my past.”

  Her teacup stopped halfway to her mouth. “Claus, please. I’m not a fool.”

  “Of course not. But something might slip.” He shrugged. “An accident.”

  “I can’t believe you’d think that. In fact, I don’t. I think you’re ashamed of me.”

  “Kate, please.”

  “No. Really. Why can’t you let them know about your past? Prison?”

  Her voice was loud enough that an elderly couple at the next table turned their heads; Claus wanted her to speak more quietly but guessed that telling her so would only anger her. He began flipping the spoon under his hand against the marble tabletop.

  “It’s not as if you murdered someone,” she said. “Your government imprisoned you on ridiculous charges! I should think you’d want Max to know that.”

  “It’s not won me many points with people in the past. I didn’t tell him at first, and then there didn’t seem to be a proper time, and then it became too late.”

  She stirred her tea and wiped the spoon clean on the rim and shook her head. There were people around so when she spoke she used his other name. “Charles. You’ve got to stop hiding it. You’ll end up bitter and alon
e.”

  “You didn’t tell Alina that you’d been in Poland for four years.”

  “Why would I? We’d only just met, and it would only have made her sad. But you’ve known Max forever. And what would he care about your time in prison? It wasn’t as if he arranged it.”

  “But I’ve been waiting for this chance to make a film for years. And I’m not sure it would ever have come had he known.”

  The waiter was hovering, no doubt sensing that a fighting couple wasn’t likely to order more, and Claus suggested that since people were waiting for a table they should leave. He took her arm.

  They decided not to stay for the second film. Mistakenly, Claus had thought that the cool evening air would cool her temperature. She began again, pulling away from him when he pulled her close, though she didn’t drop his hand. “Claus, I’m serious. You must.”

  “And why must I? I could lose my job.”

  “Max? He’s not the type. He’s a filmmaker, for God’s sake. He’s not rigid.”

  “You can’t know that. You just met him. You never know,” he said.

  “No, you don’t. You never know until you risk it.”

  “And by then it could be too late.”

  “Oh, really? And what other deep dark secrets are you hiding that make you so afraid of him? Your Hamburg connections?”

  “He knows I have relatives there. We don’t discuss it.”

  “Ah, the private life again.”

  He shrugged.

  “But you don’t have a private life. You’ve said so yourself. Work and warden duties. Between them you have no time left over for other things.”

  “All the more reason not to share what little time I get with you.”