by Jenny Lecoat
It had been a fractious, difficult evening at her apartment last week, resulting in the closest they had come to an argument since their first date. Kurt had spotted the homemade wedding invitation propped up on Hedy’s dressing table, and questioned her deliberate avoidance of the whole topic. Surely, he argued, this was the ideal day to meet everyone? Wouldn’t it be rude to refuse? Hedy, who was frying up some chicken livers he’d brought her on the little electric ring, and had been in a splendid mood till that moment, immediately went on the defensive. They’d had this discussion a hundred times! Secrecy was paramount, as Kurt knew, so why was he even contemplating the idea? It was such an overreaction that Kurt became instantly irritated, and got hold of the argument like a puppy with a slipper.
“I understand you wouldn’t want me at the ceremony,” he protested, scattering cutlery on the table with unnecessary force. “But if the reception literally consists of the happy couple, you and your doctor friend, in a private house, I really don’t see the problem.”
“Someone might see you coming in.”
“Someone might see me coming here! You know I’m always careful. And Anton will be a Wehrmacht soldier himself in a few weeks’ time.”
“Exactly. They’ve got enough problems with Dorothea’s family boycotting the whole day, without us adding to it.”
“Surely that would make them even keener to see a friendly face! Are you ashamed of me or something?”
“Of course not.” She sounded genuine, but he noticed she kept her attention on the chicken livers.
“Then what’s this really about?”
But he never did get a satisfactory answer, and later he’d found the invitation torn up in her rubbish bin. Lying awake later that night, listening to Hedy’s soft snores beside him, Kurt decided that it was some kind of psychological block she had developed. She’d overthought this meeting with her friends, building it up in her mind until it became an unassailable mountain. As soon as the wedding was over, Kurt decided to confront it. After all, some day in the not-too-distant future, it would be him and Hedy toasting their future together. They’d never actually discussed it, but given their mutual feelings it seemed inevitable. What kind of wedding would they have, if she couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he’d been forcibly conscripted into this damn army?
The thin afternoon light seeped through the landing window as he plodded up the stairs toward his room, his lumpen feet feeling like sacks of coal on the treads. In his mind, he struck bargains with some imagined deity, promising all kinds of generous behavior in the week ahead, if he could just get a few hours to himself. But as he pushed the door open, the first thing he saw was Fischer sitting at the little writing desk, files and papers piled in front of him. Kurt did little to hide his frustration, and by the look on Fischer’s face the disappointment was mutual. Pulling off his boots with a sigh of relief, Kurt hurled himself onto his bed without speaking for several minutes, wondering whether he had the energy to fill the china bowl on the washstand, but eventually he felt compelled to be polite.
“Are they making you take the office home with you now?”
“Idiots in there don’t even know how to calculate a percentage,” Fischer snapped back. Kurt suppressed a smirk. Fischer had been transferred from agriculture to one of the internal security departments a fortnight earlier, a change Kurt assumed would suit him perfectly, but the man had been in a filthy mood ever since.
“Percentages of what?”
“Payments from Jew undertakings, as laid out in the fifth order. Ninety percent of proceeds to the Jersey Department of Finance and Economics, ten percent to the General Commissioner for the Jewish Question. I mean, how hard is that?”
Kurt hauled himself to his feet and shuffled over to the washstand. Yes, there was water in the jug—it was cold, but the thought of going downstairs to heat it up was too grueling. He poured some into the bowl and shuffled back to his bed.
“There can’t be many cases to check, though, surely? I mean, there’s only a handful of Jews on the island?”
“Quite enough,” Fischer spat from the side of his mouth, “to cause problems. All have to be accounted for, whether they own businesses or not. Little rats get everywhere. You know they’ve even got one of them working for us?”
Kurt pulled off his socks, noting with some glee Fischer’s wrinkling nose as the pungent smell reached his nostrils, and plunged his feet into the water. Immediately he wished he’d made the journey downstairs for hot—this was not the sensation he wanted at all. “Who’s that, then?” He was barely listening. Since his conversation with Manfred a few weeks back, Kurt had decided to let Fischer’s regular rants go in one ear and out the other.
“Some Jew bitch in your compound, working as a translator. Bercu?” He flipped a sheaf of paper. “Yes, Hedwig Bercu. Good job the other employees don’t know what she is, there’d be a riot. I mean what kind of message does that send, putting one of them on our own payroll?”
Kurt sat very still. The sensation of the icy water around his feet seemed to be spreading, as if the cold was moving up through his legs and into his chest. “Did you say Hedwig Bercu?”
Fischer nodded. “Why? You know her?”
Kurt felt his head shaking, though he didn’t recall trying to move it. “No... Heard the name perhaps.” Fischer’s eyes were on his face, curious, searching. “Are you sure she’s a Jew?”
“It’s on her identity card, signed off at the local Aliens Office!” Fischer sniffed with irritation and turned back to his papers, though Kurt sensed he was still being watched. “Too bloody soft, this administration. I’d have had the lot of them on a boat the first week...” His voice became fainter, turned into white noise.
Very slowly Kurt removed one foot, then the other, from the bowl of water. Two foot-shaped dark patches formed on the rug next to his bed. His feet were no longer painful, but his heart was banging in his chest and he felt a little queasy. After what he hoped was an acceptable pause, he stood up.
“I’ll leave you in peace. Got something I need to do.”
* * *
It was a sweet little house, Hedy thought, as the four of them trooped up West Park Avenue, self-conscious in their best clothes, chattering gaily to keep embarrassment at bay. Not a fancy property, but a good location, and you could see the blue of St. Aubin’s bay from the end of the road. It formed part of a terrace, a well-kept row of Victorian villas on the western edge of town, with bays at the front and attractive arched windows on the upper floors, highlighted with decorative stones in contrasting colors. Anton had done well to find a place like this, and on a private’s wages; no wonder Dorothea was so excited about it.
Anton opened the door with a flourish, and made a big comedic fuss about lifting Dorothea over the threshold, even though he could probably have lifted her tiny frame one-handed.
Giggling like a child, Dorothea beckoned Hedy and Doctor Maine inside from the hallway. “Come in, come in. My grandmother gave us a bottle of sherry that’s almost three-quarters full! Anton, we can get to use those new glasses Hedy gave us!”
Hedy winced, thinking of the two uninspiring glasses she had found in the exchange adverts in the Post, which were certainly not designed for sherry. But she and the doctor trooped in behind them, both making the requisite oohs and aahs as they entered the small formal sitting room at the front of the house. Hedy’s first impression was that it was remarkably tidy, but she quickly realized that it was, in fact, just very empty. There was nothing on the walls but a patterned paper from the turn of the century; the only seats were two simple wooden chairs and a green baize foldaway table designed for playing cards. Doctor Maine offered one seat to Dorothea, and Hedy insisted the doctor take the other, making herself as comfortable as she could on the bare floorboards and trying to look as if this was the most natural position in the world, while praying that the rough wood beneath her legs would
n’t make runs in her precious new nylons.
Anton came in carrying the bottle of sherry, the new glasses and two chipped teacups Hedy recognized from his old apartment, and proceeded to pour everyone a drink. Dorothea apologized for the cold and promised that it would warm up once they got a fire going. The little group leaned in to clink their vessels together.
“To the happy couple,” Doctor Maine volunteered. “May your life together be long and joyful.” Hedy took a sip and threw Dorothea a nervous look, hoping that the irony of the toast, indeed the entire day, wouldn’t tip her into tears. But the bride was grinning from ear to ear, her head perpetually tipping against Anton’s jacket and her fingers constantly wiggling to touch some part of him. She was thoroughly relishing every second of the occasion.
“I just wish we could have taken some photographs,” she burbled, “but we plan to go to Scott’s and have some taken in the next few days. I mean, you must have a reminder of the happiest day of your life, mustn’t you?”
“And guess what?” Anton volunteered. “Mr. Reis’s family saved some of their ration for us. We’ve got some delicious Pont-l’Evêque cheese with enough bread to make toast. And Dory’s grandmother has made us a delicious caraway seed cake. So we can celebrate in style.”
“I’ll get some plates from the kitchen,” said Dorothea, draining her sherry glass.
“No, let me,” Hedy chipped in, eager to get her rapidly chilling body off the freezing floor, and even more eager to eat. “A bride on her wedding day should do nothing but sit and look beautiful! I’m sure I can find everything.” She pulled herself up and started toward the kitchen.
That was when it came. A loud rat-a-tat-tat on the front door. Not the cautious, friendly knock of a curious neighbor, but the determined, righteous hammering of one who expects to be admitted. For a second, everyone froze. Dorothea’s smile vanished, replaced by a look of bewilderment. Hedy looked anxiously toward Anton, knowing that he, too, suspected one of Dorothea’s family might show up to cause trouble. Handing his teacup of sherry to his bride, he marched quickly into the hallway with the stance of someone expecting a fight, while the three of them sat very still, listening. The visitor spoke before Anton could get a word out, and as he did so, Hedy’s stomach lurched.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your party, but I must speak to Hedy at once.” Seeing the color drain from her face, Doctor Maine and Dorothea both gaped at Hedy, while they all waited for the next sentence. “I am Kurt Neumann. Could you get her for me, please?”
Hedy stumbled into the hallway. Kurt, in uniform, was standing on the doorstep. For some reason he seemed taller than usual. Hedy’s voice came out as a croak. “I thought you had to work today?”
“May we speak in private?”
His formality terrified her. But somewhere inside she already knew the reason, and from the look of him, Anton did too.
Anton gestured to the end of the hallway. “Please, be my guest.”
Hedy walked down the hall into the unfamiliar kitchen, hearing Kurt’s footsteps directly behind her but not daring to turn and look at his face. They found themselves in a dull, chilly little room with black-and-green checked linoleum, and a gas water heater over a deep ceramic sink. The gas supply was currently on, and Hedy could hear the sputtering of the tiny flame inside the white metal cylinder. Strange, she thought, the rooms in which your life changes forever are never the places you would imagine. She positioned herself by a small leaf table covered with a chenille tablecloth, and forced herself to face him, though she kept her eyeline firmly on his knees.
“What is it?” The question was insulting and she knew it.
“Fischer says your registration card classifies you as Jewish. Is it true? Are you?”
Even now—and she marveled at her own idiocy—part of her was still preparing to continue the lie. She thought about the story she had used at the Aliens Office about her surname being inherited and having no Jewish blood, and almost began to tell it again. But when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. In that second she realized she was exhausted by the pretense, sick of the imagined scenarios. Whatever was about to happen, it was better that it was now.
“Yes.” Her body began to tremble. She tried to calm herself by picking at the tassels of the tablecloth, twisting them between her fingers. Still she couldn’t bring herself to look at his face, but the bewilderment in his voice told her everything.
“I told you that very first evening that I didn’t believe in any of that master-race nonsense.” He paused, selecting and rejecting various sentences. “Since I’ve been here, witnessed what’s happened, that feeling has only grown stronger. And you knew that.” Another pause. “So after all we’ve been through together the last few months, all that we’ve said...” He fell silent. The sputtering of the gas flame filled the painfully empty space. “I’ve only got one question: why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Hedy had assembled three of the tassels, and began to plait them. She remembered how she used to plait Roda’s hair in her bedroom, finishing it off with a silken bow.
“I wanted to. But I left it too long. I didn’t know how you’d react.”
He gave a snort of disbelief. “For heaven’s sake, Hedy! I spent two weeks in that stinking jail for you! But apparently”—his arms rose in exasperation then dropped back to his sides, lifeless—“apparently that meant nothing.”
“Of course it did...does...it means everything. I’d have been arrested if it wasn’t for you.”
“Yet you still thought I was capable of turning against you?”
Hedy began another plait, then returned to the first. She could feel the fabric start to fray in her fingers. Soon that section would be completely bald.
“I know it’s hard to understand, but you don’t know what it’s like to be picked out, hated by everyone.”
“Try walking down King Street in full Wehrmacht uniform—”
“It’s not the same! When the Anschluss came, I saw people turn on us. People who’d been friends for years, who we thought we trusted. Hiding becomes an instinct. I hated lying to you, but...” With a supreme effort, she lifted her eyes. The hurt she saw was shocking. “I’m sorry. I was just...scared.”
“But this wasn’t just about you. You’ve put me in danger too, without my knowledge, or consent.”
“I know.”
For a long moment he said nothing. Then his features softened and he took a step toward her, stretching out his hand to touch her fingers with the ends of his own. She let go of the tassels as she felt the softness of his skin.
“Hedy, I would never do anything to hurt you.”
She bit her lip, a chastised child sent into a corner. Her logic of the last few months was disintegrating, and suddenly seemed ridiculous. This war had driven out every gram of trust she once had. “You mean it?”
“I swear.”
The ball of anxiety in her stomach began to unravel and she felt a swell of optimism. “I know that now.” She reached out her other hand, but as she did so, he released her and pulled his arm backward. Instantly, something shifted in the space between them. The room grew colder, tiny icicles seemed to form within her bones.
“Yes, I think you do. But it’s too late.”
The icicles broke into every organ. It was hard to catch her breath. “Why?”
“If you can hide something so important for so long, treat me like the enemy, compromise my safety...” He shrugged, drained. “Without trust, there’s no point going on.”
Hedy could hear her teeth grinding in her head. Her jaw felt stiff. “I said I’m sorry...and I mean it.”
Kurt shook his head. “I know...and I believe you. But it makes no difference.”
It was too much. Every nerve in her now felt raw and exposed. A wall rose up, high and protective. “That’s an excuse. You just don’t want to risk being with me, now that you know
. You’re scared you’ll be charged with Rassenschande, lose your commission and be packed off to the Russian Front.”
His face changed at that moment. She could feel the fury.
“You know damn well that’s not true. I’d have willingly taken that chance.” He turned and walked back toward the kitchen door. “You know that first night, when you were angry with me? Called me a coward for getting swept along by the Nazi machine? I’ve thought a lot about that. I’d actually decided you were right. But now...now I think you’re the coward. Goodbye, Hedy.”
She heard his footsteps in the hallway, his mumbled apology to Anton and Dorothea for spoiling their day, and the sound of the front door slamming shut. Just at that moment, the gentle popping of the gas light in the cylinder fizzled out.
The last thing she recalled was Anton’s concerned voice asking if she was all right, the soft swish of her body sliding down the wall onto her haunches, and the gasping of her lungs as she dropped her head onto her arms and sobbed.
SIX
1942
There was sleet in the air. Fine feathery specks whirled in corkscrews, then vanished into dark spots as they landed on the pavement. Every person shuffling along the street, bundled against the wind in threadbare old coats hunted down from cobwebbed attics, kept their chins on their chests and elbows tucked close to their bodies, occasionally releasing a hand to brush away the frozen flecks. How sad, Hedy thought, that something so fragile and beautiful could cause such pain; her fingers, gripped around the straps of her battered handbag, were now a cruel, livid purple, and stinging as if her skin had been torn away.