The Dutch Wife

by Ellen Keith

  Dear Father,

  I’ve tried making a list of the times you’ve hurt me most. Disappointed me. But maybe it’s easier to think about the few times you’ve surprised me or left me wondering. The older I get, the easier it is to—you’re a complicated man, Father. All iron, like a knight whose armour has rusted around him. But I know there’s more to you than that. I keep thinking about that spring we took the road trip through Patagonia. Do you remember seeing the glacier in the middle of that cold snap?

  Between the bouts of rain, the wind had wailed so hard it stung their ears. With half the contents of their suitcases layered on, Luciano had thought they resembled sausages, except for his mother, who always managed to appear graceful.

  As the tour boat took them toward Perito Moreno Glacier, his mother kept trying to get them to pose for a photo in front of it, but his father stood at the bow railing, his neck craned up toward that looming, jagged wall of ice. Two hundred and fifty frozen square kilometres of shocking bright blue.

  “That, son,” he said, “is the type of power man will never have.” He turned to Luciano in awe before staring back out over the water. Waves sloshed against the glacier’s edge a hundred metres from the boat, and a patch of sunlight emerged, the reflection against the ice so dazzling that they had to look away.

  His father’s nose had gone pink. He clapped his hands together to warm them and asked Luciano’s mother if she’d packed the Thermos of coffee. As she crouched to get it out of her handbag, they heard a loud boom. Luciano knew it was only a falling chunk of ice, but his father lunged toward them, shoving them against the deck, his arms spread to shelter them. Mamá cried out in surprise and told Papá to calm down. The moment he realized his mistake, he got up, but Luciano could see his frantic panting. A laughing crowd had gathered beside them, and his father had turned crimson when the tour guide came over and launched into a lesson on glacier calving.

  You stayed in a bitter mood all day, but I replayed that incident over and over. I couldn’t—I was obsessed with the panic and concern in your eyes. All my life, you’ve judged Mamá for picking me up after school, for phoning my teacher when I was bullied. “A boy needs to fend for himself,” you said. So why did you finally sense the need to protect me? And since when is a man like you afraid of loud noises?

  After that trip, his father’s hair had turned from dirty blond straight to white, like a reminder of that glacier ice. He’d never seemed to care about appearances, but in the days that followed, he stayed slouched in his armchair, lost in his music, and kept muttering some strange proverb about a crown of grey hair.

  Tough and callous as you appear, Father, you, too, show your cracks. A big part of me felt pleased to see that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  MARIJKE

  JUNE 7, 1944

  BUCHENWALD

  NEARLY A YEAR HAD PASSED AT BUCHENWALD, and I was worn out and deflated. My figure had almost returned to normal, thanks to our decent rations and Karl’s gifts of food and sweets. I normally split these among the girls, except once. The first time he’d given me a cake piled high with berries, I kept it to myself, devouring it in the bathroom like a brothel rat. That same night, I’d found blood in my panties, and from then on, my period randomly came and went.

  The visits from the prisoners had lessened over time, which we took as a sign that the men were dying off. We met this with a mix of relief and sadness. Sophia lay in bed after hours, grieving for Albin the counterfeiter and his soft, woollen voice, or for the French actor, Henri, who had lived beside her favourite brasserie in Paris. I’d long grown numb to the visits; the chalky faces and warped limbs all began to look the same, painful reminders of a time I yearned to forget, of a husband who seemed like the faint glow of a lighthouse on the horizon. Although I still asked each visitor about Theo, the question had become habit, with little hope for a response. To the inmates, the girls at the brothel were perfect examples of femininity. Girlfriends, not whores. They clung to us with such desperation it became difficult not to look on them with pity, to feel guilty at our inability to fulfill their fantasies. How they wanted to feel loved. I barricaded myself from them, providing the necessary comfort and nothing more.

  At first, we girls had tried to alleviate our shared misery. But after months of being cooped up like hens, we’d begun to peck at one another, searching out each other’s weak spots. We fought over who got the biggest slice of cheese, whose turn it was to scrub the toilets. Gerda snapped at Edith for bragging so much, calling her a lush and a harlot. Edith, in turn, accused Gerda of stealing her hairbrush and spare thread.

  No matter how much the sun shone outside, the brothel felt gloomy—a prison for our minds as much as our bodies. Even I felt my patience dwindling. The way Sophia clicked her tongue against her teeth while she chewed irritated me beyond reason, and although she would never have said a bad word against anyone, she seemed more and more absent, like she was only half-listening to me, and I sensed her growing exasperation whenever I went on about Karl.

  Dinnertime became unpredictable. Some days we chatted and gossiped, sharing stories from home, marvelling at the differences between our customs: how we tied our scarves, how we celebrated the birth of a baby. Laughter became our own brand of courage. Other days, Edith and Gerda swore back and forth across the table, while the Polish girls argued in their own language.

  One morning, after another spoiled breakfast, Edith gestured to me as she emerged from her bedroom. Her face had the greenish tinge of unripe fruit.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She led me into the bathroom and shut the door behind us. I’d never seen her so serious.

  “You can tell me,” I said. “I won’t say a word; that’s a promise.”

  She tugged on her lip as she debated what to say. “A week ago, I found a sore, and now there are more of them.”

  “A sore?”

  “You know.” She started to whisper. “Chancre sores.”

  My gaze dropped to her waistline, as if I expected to see them through her dress. She blushed in embarrassment, something I’d thought her incapable of.

  “Oh God, Edith.” In the mirror, my expression shifted to match hers. I reached out to hug her, but she pulled away.

  “That’s not all.” She withdrew her hands from her pockets and flipped them over to reveal a fierce rash across her palms.

  “Is that—?”

  “Syphilis.”

  “Are you sure? It could be something else, maybe scarlet fever?”

  “No, I’ve seen it enough times before in Berlin. There’s no doubt about it.”

  What settled over me then was an icy feeling, the same sensation as when cycling up onto the dike on a February’s day, the type of damp cold that wriggles into your core. I feared not only for her, but for all of us. We’d known something like this would happen sooner or later.

  “How did the doctor not notice?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. During my last checkup, he seemed rushed, distracted. But now it’s inevitable.”

  “It might go away, if you rest all day. I’ll take over your chores.”

  “And then what? I infect all the men who come tonight?”

  For a second, I thought they deserved it. After all, one of them had gotten her sick. They happily visited the brothel knowing the hell they put us through. But then my sensibility returned, and I reminded myself that most of those prisoners had it far worse than we did.

  “We’ll think of something,” I said. “For now, don’t draw any attention to yourself.”

  “Me, not draw attention to myself? That’ll be a challenge.” She forced a laugh as we left the bathroom. At least she was still acting like herself.

  SHE lasted until dinner. When someone asked her to pass the water jug, I caught a glimpse of her palms, which had grown even redder. Gerda watched Edith with disdain, and later, while we cleaned up our plates, the brothel supervisor pulled Edith aside and asked to see her hands. Edith glanced at
me, and we both knew it was over. She was sent straight to the infirmary blocks.

  She didn’t return that night, nor the next. When I told Sophia the whole story, she agreed there was a good chance Gerda had spotted the rash and reported it. A cruel thing to do if it were true, but we decided not to rush to any conclusions, lest we create more of a rift between us all.

  Several days later, Sophia and I lay on our beds, contemplating Edith’s fate. I assumed she’d been taken back to Ravensbrück. Sophia’s guess wasn’t as optimistic.

  “She’s dead, she must be.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “We’re all thinking it. She’s no good to the SS anymore. They have no reason to keep her alive.”

  “Maybe she’s still recovering in the infirmary.”

  Sophia shook her head. “I know you don’t believe that.” She sounded so weary, defeated. “Marijke, I’ve had enough. All of these men, I don’t feel human anymore. I can’t go on like this.”

  “Please, you can’t talk like that.” I said this even though I heard my own echo in her words. The feeling that we’d become objects, the way everything had dulled: my senses, images of home, of the people I loved.

  “Some prisoners have found a way out, you know. They take their lives into their own hands.”

  I sat up. “Sophia, listen to me. We’ll get through this.”

  “Why, what’s the point? What good awaits us, even if the war does end in our favour? We return home to find our cities destroyed, half our family missing? How do you expect me to ever marry after this? We’re tainted.”

  Tainted. She was right. Theo, if he survived, would never look at me the same way. What would become of our marriage? That sick ache came back, that dread, the fear—the only emotions that stayed sharp.

  I gripped the corner of the nightstand and looked her in the eyes. “When the Allies win, you’ll go home to loving parents, your brothers. They will survive, just like you. And you’ll have friends, like me, and one day, you’ll meet someone who can look past all of this.” I moved to sit beside her and placed a hand on her knee. “Please, you need to hold on. Trust me that it will be worth it.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed in, her fingers closing over mine. She squeezed my hand and didn’t let go. “All right,” she said, “I trust you.”

  SUMMER solstice came and went and still Edith did not return. Karl did, though, and his visits were both a reminder of my suffering and a welcome distraction. Whenever he came by, I took extra care to fluff the pillow, to pinch some colour into my cheeks and tease the curls and rolls in my hair. I found myself telling him things I’d only ever told Theo: my fears about how I’d never be let through the same doors as the male violinists in Amsterdam, my worries that I was too selfish to make a good mother. With these confessions came the nervous anticipation of his response, but he always kissed my wrists and told me I had nothing to worry about, that I was strong and brave and beautiful. Later, I berated myself for these moments of weakness. I knew I mustn’t lower my defences, mustn’t forget who he was. Any time another Nazi crossed my vision, my anger prickled, threatening to lash out like slippery tentacles. Who knew what Karl was capable of, how much happiness he’d crushed, how many lives he’d extinguished.

  Docile and concerned as he acted around me, he had a temper that fired up like an engine when he’d had a long day. One minute, he’d praise the meticulous nature of the prisoners tending the camp garden, and in his next breath, he’d accuse them of hoarding potatoes and threaten a flogging. This gave me the sense that he was trying to be two men at once, and I worried what could happen if he ever turned on me.

  As we lay on the bed one night after closing, he pressed into me, his chest sticky against my back. “Seeing you is the best part of my day,” he whispered, his voice lost in my hair.

  “It’s not every day.”

  “I wish it were.”

  I sighed. On his last visit, he hadn’t even wanted sex, claiming he’d come only to see me. But when he didn’t want it, I did. I was afraid of what I’d become, something half-woman, half-animal. I’d always taken pride in being sensible and loyal, so who was this stranger who’d betray all that for something as primal as desire?

  Karl nudged my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking.” He scratched. “Perhaps it’s selfish. I don’t want you to see other men.”

  “Like who? Bruno?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Kommandoführer Hoffmann. He pays the brothel supervisor to arrange a girl now and then.”

  “That brute? He’s got shit for brains.” He scratched his chin. “Well, no, not him—not anyone.”

  It felt like he had struck a match inside of me, a hesitant, flickering glow. “What would I do all evening?”

  “I want you to myself.”

  “You are selfish.”

  “I love you.”

  I closed my eyes. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true. Whether you want to believe it or not.”

  After slipping out of his arms, I went over to the sink and let cold water stream over my wrists. I tried to picture Theo, his scent, the sound of his voice, but the image was blurred around the edges. Karl’s presence remained in the koberzimmer long after he left, his smell of leather and pine, his voice solid and thick as an old elm. If I admitted to having some sort of feelings for Karl, would that mean I accepted what he had done as part of the SS? I wished there was a way to separate one version of him from the other. I turned to him. He sat up in bed; the mattress cover had sprung loose and gotten twisted between his legs.

  “Can you actually do that,” I asked, “keep the other men away?”

  “I can do anything.” He flushed. “Well, a lot of things.”

  “Can you get me out of here?”

  “No, not that. Sadly, that’s beyond my powers.”

  In the pause that followed, I became very aware of my nakedness, my nipples hard and inviting. I returned to the bed and sat down, wrapping my arms around my body.

  He reached for my hand, his eyes teeming with concern. “You would leave me if you were free, wouldn’t you?”

  Water dripped from the faucet. I paused. The sound tugged at something, a memory of one rainy day the winter before our capture. The house had grown drafty and cold, and our attic was newly empty, as the resistance had found a safe house in the countryside for the elderly Jewish couple we’d been hiding. Theo wanted to take in someone new right away, but I was hesitant. With the Gestapo on constant patrol and certain neighbours ratting one another out for so much as humming “Het Wilhelmus,” the risk was higher than ever.

  That morning, Theo had brought something down from the attic, a mahogany backgammon set the couple had left behind as a gift. We sat there for hours, listening to the drizzle outside and drinking tea while racing our pieces around the board. I teased that it was the luck of the dice that made him win. He winked, waving those Midas hands in the air. “That’s where you’re wrong. You see, over the course of a game, luck tends to balance out, and it comes down to strategy.” He explained how you could approach the board in different ways. “It all depends on those opening rolls of the die. If you’re not rolling high, you’ll need to start building walls to block your opponent. At any moment, everything can shift, but strength lies in knowing when to maintain your defences, and when it’s safe to make a move.” I tightened the faucet to stop the dripping. Karl waited for my reply. “You know,” he added, “I would never force you to do anything.”

  “You did the first time.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “I’d had far too much to drink; I wasn’t myself. I love you, Marijke. Did you hear that?”

  “That’s not some magic phrase.”

  He grabbed my arm, almost roughly, but softened his grip and kissed my cheek. “Well, what would you like, then? Would you rather continue your regular schedule?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What is it you
want?”

  “I want to be left in peace.”

  He withdrew his arm. “Does that include me?” His mouth sagged into a frown, a sad, sorry look that made me crumple again. More and more, simple gestures and an ounce of vulnerability could deceive me into seeing him as an everyday man, a lover. I thought back to Theo’s explanation of that backgammon game, and I envisioned all those brothel visitors wiped away like game pieces from my board. Keeping Karl happy, allowing him to believe whatever he desired, could serve only to protect me, to help me survive and find my way back to my husband.

  I sighed and touched the creases in his cheeks. “Make the arrangements, then, and I will be yours.”

  He smiled.

  “For now.”

  “I’ll sort out a private room for you and better rations.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “But I want to.”

  “The other girls wouldn’t understand. I’m surviving as is and I wouldn’t feel right about it.”

  Karl tousled my hair, his fingers catching in the knots. “Always worried about everyone else.” He stood and took an ivory flask from his overcoat pocket. “This calls for a celebration.”

  “I told you I don’t drink.”

  “Not even for this?”

  “I’ll find my own way to celebrate.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  KARL

  JUNE 25, 1944

  BUCHENWALD

  AFTER KARL CAUGHT THAT GUARD LEERING AT Marijke, he rounded up the SS officers who visited the prisoners’ brothel. He didn’t need to worry about the guards. That troublesome brothel supervisor, greedy as she’d been, wouldn’t have let any of them visit the girls, but he wanted to set the officers straight before they started bribing her replacement for that privilege. As far as he knew, only three or four officers, all well below his rank, had made it a habit: Ritter, a couple of his drinking mates, and Hoffmann—“Bruno” to Marijke. He should have suspected that mongrel was after her. When Hoffmann entered the officers’ lounge that night, Karl felt the urge to go over and bust in his teeth.