Fraulein M.

by Caroline Woods

  Berni’s eyes drifted into the parlor, its shelves stocked with books and sheet music. Out on the balcony, the cello waited for someone to pick up its bow. Finally Sonje nodded. “I could show the women how to be music teachers. I could show them how to read and write.”

  Herr Grotte stepped forward and took her hand in both of his. “I speak for the entire bureau when I say we are grateful for your support, ever so grateful.”

  When he’d gone, Sonje turned to Berni. “You liked him, did you? You liked his ideas?” she said. “The Nazis are our enemies, but so is pride, eh?”

  “Oh, yes,” Frau Pelzer said, oblivious to the look that passed between Sonje and Berni. She swirled her brandy, sloshing a bit on the floor. “I thought that was very good.”

  • • •

  That night Berni couldn’t sleep. She lay awake watching shadows move across her ceiling, listening to Sonje tune her cello. Long, resonant notes pulsated the floorboards. After a while the noise stopped, and the light coming under Berni’s curtain was put out.

  She crept out of bed. On blue stationery, she wrote a letter to the commandant of the concentration camp. She described her purifying love for “Otto,” her ambition to become a Hausfrau. Six children, she said she wanted, or seven. Eight. She pushed her words to the point of parody so that if Anita saw it she could at least laugh.

  Before she signed it, she wrote one final line:

  Send my dear friend home to me, so that he may become who he really is.

  • • •

  August cooled into September without word from Anita. Berni’s back began to ache from sleeping in a nervous ball. Sonje seemed to age years in a matter of weeks. Streaks of white hair appeared at her temples, wiry as cats’ whiskers.

  On the night of September 15, 1935, the Reichstag put a new set of laws in place regarding Jews. For Jews and Germans to intermarry or even for young German women to work in Jews’ homes was now verboten. Extramarital relations between Jews and Germans had a new name: Rassenschande, “defilement of blood.” When Berni commented that at least Sonje wouldn’t have to worry about Trommler climbing onto her anymore, Sonje became very still. Berni hadn’t considered what this might mean for their arrangement.

  Frequently now, on her walks to and from work, Berni was stopped for her Ahnenpass, the document St. Luisa’s had made possible, which proved she, her parents, and her grandparents were Aryans. She couldn’t stand looking at the thing, seeing her face surrounded by swastikas. She couldn’t get the words out of her head: Here to prove you’re not a Jew?

  “May I go, please?” she asked one evening after two Brownshirts stopped her at Bahnhof Schöneberg. She’d been staring at the warning sign above the tracks.

  Achtung Germans: Electrified Rail! Jews are Welcome to Jump!

  The man holding her pass had dark brown eyes. His beard grew so dark that it made the skin of his jaw sandpaper-thick. She wanted to shake him. He plucked her cigarette from her lips and ground it under his boot. “Get some proper clothes for a lady, understand? You’re begging to be assaulted in those tight pants. Heil Hitler!”

  “Heil Hitler,” she said, keeping the words down in her throat. The old Berni would have kicked him, or tried to pop out his eyeball. They’d turned her into a milksop.

  At home she found the apartment empty; she ate a stale pretzel roll and sat at the table to wait for Sonje. Finding Sonje out always made her uneasy, even though Sonje ran errands regularly, visiting Trommler in his pied-a-terre, teaching at the Jewish Relief Agency.

  Berni had no idea she’d fallen asleep until someone grabbed her shoulder. She sat up with a gasp and a moan. “You’ve gotten a letter,” Sonje said, holding out an envelope.

  “News of Anita,” Berni said breathlessly.

  Sonje shook her head. She handed Berni the letter, then went into her room.

  Berni, I need to speak to you. Everything has changed, and I see now you were right. Come to the Lustgarten at two in the afternoon on Wednesday. Meet me beside the third tree after the Dom, on the sidewalk. Come alone. We do not have to speak of Helmut Eisler. I just want to see you. Most sincerely yours, Margarete

  Berni’s heart pounded against the edge of the table. Today was Tuesday.

  I see now you were right. Part of her wondered if it would take only a few embraces, some tears, a few days together in mutual confession. They’d be sisters again. In time, perhaps, she could wring the Nazi from Grete like water from a towel.

  • • •

  The following afternoon Berni hurried through Alexanderplatz, peeling off her raincoat. Shallow puddles shone bright yellow. The sky behind the terra cotta tower of the old Rathaus was blue as a songbird’s egg. All of it, painted far more brilliantly than any street artist’s watercolor, gave her a feeling of buoyancy and hope.

  The Spree even looked blue for once, an opaque slate blue, the water level high. It wasn’t until Berni stepped onto Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge that she saw and heard the crowd gathered on the island. The museum island, the navel of the river, held the Lustgarten, which Hitler had converted from a green park to a paved venue for rallies. Thousands of people pressed together on the concrete. Long red banners on spikes bobbed over their heads. Berni could see the speaker clearly, waving his little arms, spitting and stretching his trout’s mouth wider with every word.

  “. . . My brethren, what is meant by the International? ‘International’ means funds from all over the world land in Jewish pockets. ‘League of Nations’ means rule by international banks. The Jews have put nationalism out of fashion. It is time we stand up for ourselves!”

  The crowd roared. Berni turned, pushing against the stream as people scratched and clawed at one another to get closer, to raise their little flags higher. She was back out on the street with her hands on her knees, catching her breath, when a pair of trim gray shoes stepped in front of her and waited. Berni looked up into the face hovering over her, shielding her from frantic passersby, and drew in her breath.

  It had taken distance and time for her to be able to recognize how alike she and her sister were; she was stunned to stare into her own face under a brown nurse’s veil and a crown of dark blonde hair. Berni had the uncanny feeling that she was one of her sister’s patients, looking to her for reassurance. In her trim brown uniform and white collar, she was reassuring, except for the expression in her eyes. They seemed, as ever, alarmed.

  “I have missed you,” Grete said, and Berni reached for her, her hand hovering close to the stiff white collar, fastened at the neck with a black pin. More pins gleamed on the lapels of her jacket. The crowd behind them began chanting Sieg Heil!

  Without a word Berni took Grete’s hand and pulled her over the bridge, back toward the reassuring Marienkirche steeple. She stopped at a railing overlooking the Spree and slumped beside a pair of chained bicycles. “Why would you bring me here?” Her earlier optimism had disintegrated. “Trying to get me to join the Party?”

  “It is safer to disappear in a crowd.” Grete sat beside her, their backs to the stone railing and the sun. She tilted her good ear toward Berni. “It is good to see you, sister.”

  Breathing hard, Berni watched more people running, their faces eager, toward the rally. “You wrote to say I was right.”

  “You were,” Grete said quietly. “More than you know.”

  “More than you know. They’ve taken Anita into custody. For moral turpitude.”

  Grete looked down at her hands. A bit of ink was smudged on her middle finger. They listened to geese honk in the river beneath them. “I never thought any of this would be possible. At the farm I tilled soil. That’s it, Berni! And then, when I returned . . .” She puffed out her cheeks and closed her eyes. When she spoke again her voice sounded high and nasal. “They’ve given me new eye charts, based on color. Not vision. With the new laws I’m supposed to categorize every patient’s race. And the feeble ones . . . a pregnant woman came in. She committed an armed robbery ten years ago and was found to have a low IQ.
The doctors insisted we . . .”

  Across the river, the speaker’s voice was drowned in cheers. Fat tears ran down Grete’s face. Berni imagined her sister handling a tiny fetus, skin translucent, bones like eggshells. “Can’t you refuse to cooperate?” she asked finally, knowing full well this was no option.

  “Nobody can refuse. Especially not me. I’m deficient.” Her voice turned bitter. “I tried to go to St. Luisa’s, to work there, but they wouldn’t take me. I am still worthless.”

  “You aren’t worthless. Look at you, a university student. I serve beer.”

  Grete wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Her feet were splayed on the pavement, her uniform’s skirt getting dusty. People were beginning to notice the pair of them sitting together, the blond, trim nurse, the obvious outsider. “We need to walk,” said Berni.

  They pushed their way back toward the Alex, Grete’s head drooping low. When Berni leaned in to whisper something she realized she’d placed herself on Grete’s good side without even having to think about it. “Sister Maria is afraid,” Berni said into her ear. Their cheeks brushed, Grete’s sticky from tears. “She thinks you’re one of them.”

  “I am one of them,” Grete murmured.

  “No you aren’t, darling. You were misled. Now you must lead yourself out.” She looked around again at the bright sky, the evaporating puddles, the red Rathaus tower. “There are ways to get foreign visas. We could be in a new country by spring.”

  Grete pulled Berni against a store’s glass front. “There’s danger in speaking this way!”

  Berni was breathing quickly. The answer, at least, hadn’t been no. “Just apply for a passport. Say you’re going on holiday.” All the particulars could be sorted out later.

  “Klaus will know.”

  Hearing his name made Berni feel as though she were being dipped, slowly, in ice. So they still saw each other. “I thought we wouldn’t speak of the Eislers. What, does he work in the passport office?”

  “No, worse. He’s in the SD. He looks for emigration requests, transfers to foreign accounts. No one may leave with more than seven percent of his property.”

  Berni felt like stamping, shouting, clawing at the air. “And people.”

  Grete wiped her eye and nodded slowly. “Yes, he looks for traitors to the Reich. I know it’s bad, Berni. But there is more to Klaus. He’s done good for me—”

  “Look,” Berni said, interrupting her; the last thing she wanted to hear was a list of ways Klaus had helped Grete more than she had. “Do you want to go with me, be sisters again? Or do you want to force more abortions?”

  Grete’s hands flew to her face, covering it up, hiding everything. The top of her brown-cloaked head shook hard. Berni leaned in to shield her when a large group pushed past them, flapping their flags, chanting. “We’re leaving. But first you have to promise me: no more Klaus. Request a passport and stay away from him. Kannst du mich hören?”

  “We can’t talk like this! I can’t. It’s dangerous . . .” The ends of Grete’s words blurred. “I have to go, Berni. I’ll—I’ll do all that’s necessary.”

  “When you have your passport, telephone me: Sonje Schmidt in Schöneberg. If Sonje answers, hang up. We’ll need a code so I know for sure it’s you and you know that it’s me. Breathe three times into the receiver, like this, before you speak.” Berni pursed her lips and huffed, three sharp blasts. “I’ll do the same.”

  Grete nodded, her face troubled. “All right,” she whispered. Berni tapped her on the chin, at the center of her dimple, and Grete gave her a sad smile. It took only a second for her to vanish into the crowd.

  Berni, 1935

  By late October, fear of the Nuremberg Laws became too much for Frau Pelzer’s husband. German girls under the age of forty-five were forbidden to work in Jewish homes, but rumor held that any relationship between Jew and gentile provoked suspicion.

  Frau Pelzer lingered at the door, her face red, a large cardboard box in her hands. “I’ve left you the medium stockpot. You’ve three bags of egg noodles in the pantry. It’s not so difficult to boil them. And remember to heat the gravy.”

  Sonje laughed and put her hands on Frau Pelzer’s shoulders. “We’ll be fine! Don’t worry about us. Berni and I may not be domestic, but we can manage.” She tugged one of Frau Pelzer’s faded red curls. “Lucky woman. Your husband must think you look thirty, to be so worried.”

  Frau Pelzer pressed a wet tissue to the underside of her nose. “But who will do the shopping for you, gnädige Frau? You know they don’t allow—you know the nearest groceries aren’t available to you anymore.”

  Sonje’s upper lip lengthened momentarily. “We’ll be fine. Berni will shop for me.”

  “Berni, bah! She’ll waste your money on caramels and English bacon!”

  Berni tried to laugh. “Come, Frau Pelzer, tell us your age, finally. We know it’s more than forty-five.”

  A hint of a smile appeared on Frau Pelzer’s face, and she shook her curls rigorously, tittering nein-nein-nein-nein-nein. Before she left she pulled Berni close. “You’ll tell her I said goodbye?” she whispered.

  Berni didn’t need to ask who she meant. “I will,” she said, trying to sound convincing.

  • • •

  The following week Berni left the door of the icebox ajar all night, leaking water into the kitchen. She and Sonje woke to the odor of spoiled milk. After nearly an hour of cleaning, Sonje threw up her hands. “That’s it! I’m hiring a Jewish girl from the agency.”

  As if on cue, a knock sounded at the door. Berni and Sonje froze, looking at each other.

  “The candy dish?” Sonje murmured.

  “Hidden under towels in the closet. What about the quilts?” The cash was all Berni cared about. Without it, she didn’t stand a chance of leaving the country. She’d heard nothing from the passport office since she’d turned in her application, and she’d heard it might take some greasing of the clerks’ palms.

  Berni gave Sonje a minute to check on their cash-laden blankets before she opened the front door. “Hello,” she said. When the person didn’t respond: “Hello?”

  A boy had arrived at their house. He had very short, almost shorn hair, and he wore an ill-fitting pair of trousers and a yellowed shirt. He didn’t answer Berni, but kept his head down, staring at the worn doormat. He was very thin, his hands long and veined. Berni noticed his lips were purplish and chapped. A bruise drained down from his left nostril.

  The sight of him filled her with fear. “Can I help you?”

  He lifted his heavy lids just high enough for her to see dark liquid pupils. Her hand flew over her mouth. Sonje pushed past her, grabbed the boy by the shoulders, and yanked him inside. She locked them all into the room and shut the black curtains. When she flung herself at the boy, her arms went all the way around him, and he crumpled like paper.

  Sonje brought Anita to the sofa. Her face hadn’t moved, and she hadn’t said a word since she entered. Berni knelt on the floor in front of her, along with Sonje, the two of them as quiet as they’d be kneeling in church. Sonje fell to pull off Anita’s shoes and socks. The bare feet were pale, the bottoms blistered. Sonje began rubbing them vigorously, bringing back the color.

  “You’re safe, my God, you’re back, you’re safe,” Sonje murmured.

  “Anita,” Berni said finally, and when she said the name Anita quivered, trying to keep her battered lip from trembling.

  “What have they done to you,” Sonje murmured.

  Anita’s hand went to her head, to the short hair above her ear, pulling at tufts of it, her face blank and blinking, as if she’d just now realized they’d stolen the brown tresses she’d taken so long to grow. Berni put her face on Anita’s knee. The trousers smelled alien and stale, like urine. Anita’s body seemed to warm, and Berni felt her slacken a little.

  Finally Anita spoke, her voice the same: breathy, soft. “What have they done to you?”

  Sonje’s mouth hung slack for a moment before she
began to laugh, a little too loudly, touching the white parts of her hair. “You mean this old thing?” she said, fanning out the plain dirndl she wore to the Winter Relief Agency. “Can’t even begin to explain, my darling. I’m teaching piano.”

  Anita gazed down at her, eyes twinkling in her sunken face. “Then it’s true what they say. The women of Germany have awoken to the wholesome values.” She looked at Berni. “And you. Splotchy skin, hair every which way. It’s reassuring to see some things haven’t changed.”

  They all ended up on the couch, pressing Anita from both sides. Berni felt like weeping, and laughed to cover it; it was hard to believe this living, pulsing body belonged to Anita and was safe and alive. She did not tolerate their embraces for long. “You haven’t given my room away, have you?” Her walk reminded Berni of a cricket with a bent leg. She hobbled a little, favoring one foot, her joints thrown out at angles.

  Sonje followed close behind her, biting a nail. “When did they let you out?”

  “Five days ago,” Anita said after a pause. Hearing this made Berni feel ill. She watched Sonje wring her hands. Berni opened her mouth to ask where Anita had stayed all that time, and the beginning of a word came out, but Anita flung out her arm. “I need to be alone!”

  Sonje rubbed her eyes, then stalked into the kitchen and began aggressively scrubbing the inside of the icebox. When Berni passed Anita’s room the door was open. The figure in its shirt and pants was curled motionless on the bed, facing the wall, toes pointed.

  • • •

  Within a week, Gerrit came to the apartment to take Anita’s photo for her forged passport. “Thank you for coming at such short notice,” Sonje murmured as the two of them kissed, stiffly, on each cheek. “It’s been too long.”

  “It has,” said Gerrit. He nodded toward Berni, who sat on the sofa’s arm. He’d ended his affair with Sonje when Trommler bought the apartment. Sonje had bashed him a little, said he’d never been a true revolutionary. He’d been born too rich, and his looks had made him too vain. Yet here he was, unpacking a camera from a lunch sack, risking his neck to forge some of the most sought-after documents in the Reich.