“Madam,” I said. “May I give you my card? If you have something else you think I would like.” I pulled one of my calling cards out of its silver holder. “Or if I can be of any help to you. Please.” And I handed it to the old lady. “I’m going away, but I’ll be back at the end of the summer.”
“Thank you, Fraulein. That is most gracious of you. Here, Marlene, my dear,” said the woman, handing my card to her daughter-in-law, who was waiting to usher me out.
Gathering my gloves and bag, I saw Marlene’s face as she read the address. I said my good-byes to the older lady and passed into the outer shop.
“The embassy?”
“My father is the ambassador,” I said. Marlene handed me the small oblong package of brown paper and string. I tucked it and my purse firmly under my arm. “If I can do anything . . .” I said.
Marlene nodded and smiled briefly, then she faded back toward the curtains. I took a deep breath, forced a smile onto my face and opened the door.
I was out onto the pavement before the SA men realized it, and walking toward the corner. I heard them call me.
“Hey, girl. Miss Englishwoman.”
I continued walking, wondering if they would follow. They did. I heard running feet behind me.
“Hey, stop. Hey, you.” Their voices were very loud.
So I stopped and turned toward the men.
“Yes,” I said in English. “What do you want? Why are you yelling at me?” I asked in an even tone.
The first man to reach me grabbed my arm and, outraged, I jerked it away.
“How dare you?” I yelled, even angrier than I had been when I entered the lace shop. “Don’t you dare touch me or you’ll have the government of the United States of America to deal with.”
“America,” he said. “You’re an American?”
“What kind of a country is this that women are accosted on the street in broad daylight? You think you can just do anything? You’re barbarians. All of you. You take one more step toward me and you’ll be sorry!”
The young men looked at me in consternation. I suppose they were not used to being treated like that. I didn’t care, I was furious at them. At that moment a taxi pulled up in the street next to me. Its brakes screeched, startling the SA bullies.
“Jesus Christ, Sally,” said David, flinging open the door of the taxi. “Get in here—quick!”
“Go away, David,” I said, “I’m all right. Oh, shut up,” I yelled as an SA man started to speak. “You just shut up, all of you. I’ve had enough of this, being pushed around in this wretched country.” David appeared next to me and took hold of my arm, trying to steer me into the car. People were starting to gather. “Sally, come on, kid, this is getting out of hand.”
“This used to be a wonderful place, but you and your damn Fuhrer have spoiled it.” I was yelling in English, but the crowd picked up on “Fuhrer” and their mutterings began to grow louder. David grabbed both my arms, spun me around and pushed me into the taxi, jumping in and closing the door after us. He yelled something at the driver and the car sped off.
“Damn it,” I said, beating my fists against my thighs. “Damn it, damn it, damn it! I hate this country!”
“Here, kid,” he said, when I had calmed down, offering me a cigarette. My hands were shaking so badly, I could barely hold it in the flame of his lighter. “So, did you get your lace?” he asked. I held the package up. “I hope it was worth it.” I nodded and placed the package carefully on my lap, smoothing out the paper.
“Whew,” said David, “what a gal.”
“I made a real spectacle of myself, didn’t I?”
“Sure did. But it was magnificent.”
“This is awful. How can you smoke these things?” And I thrust the cigarette at him. He took it and put it out.
When the taxi stopped, he put his arms around me and gently helped me out.
“Where are we?” I asked, looking around. It was a wide street, and treeless, which was strange for Berlin, the buildings all huge gray monoliths.
“I live up there,” he said, and not giving me a chance to comment, led me into the courtyard of his building and up the five flights of stairs to his little flat. Three rooms, no kitchen with two windows facing the courtyard. The small sitting room was empty of furniture except for a table and two chairs and a bicycle propped up on its kickstand, with a pair of aviator goggles hanging from the handles.
“I’ll get you a drink,” he said. “The bathroom’s in there and I hope you appreciate the fact that I have one.” He waved in its direction. When I came back he handed me a glass of very good brandy. We stood by the dirty windows. It was warm and stuffy in the room, and I unbuttoned the jacket of my suit.
“What’s wrong, kid?” he asked. I shook my head. “You can tell me. We’re pals, right?”
I looked at him, considering, but I knew I couldn’t tell him what Christian had done to me, what I had let him do. I felt so guilty and angry about that afternoon, I could hardly think coherently about it, let alone explain it to someone, especially to David.
“Is it Heydrich?” he asked, handing me another glass.
“Oh, no, that’s all over. My father didn’t like it and we all agreed. Before I went to the States.” I drank then looked around the room. “How can you live here? It’s so depressing.”
Moving closer to me, David said, “It’s dirt cheap. I don’t get paid much. And I’m seldom here. Hold still, you’ve got. . .” and using his thumb, he gently wiped something away from under my eye. His hand was soft and cool on my flushed face.
“I look a mess,” I said, raising my hand to my face. He caught my hand, palm to palm with his.
“Not at all,” he said, spreading his fingers, letting my fingers coil around his. My thumb ran over his, our hands parted, the fingers stroking and parting, clasping and letting go.
I leaned against him as I watched our hands intertwine. Finally, he brought my hand to his mouth, lightly brushing my fingers with his lips. I felt a stirring inside me and raised my face to his. He kissed me, holding my face, holding me close. I’d never felt such physical closeness with another person, not even with Christian, and it made me breathless.
I backed away—just a step or two—from him. He searched my face for a long time, and when he was satisfied with what he saw, he leaned forward, bridging the space between us, and gently kissed me again, his lips barely touching mine, making me lean, in turn, toward him.
Still without a word, he led me into the tiny bedroom. We lay down together and he held me, until I lifted my face and he kissed me. It was dark in the room and I liked the darkness. I liked being able to feel nothing but his lips and tongue and that he needed a shave, and I could smell the sun his shirt had been dried in. I liked not thinking. I liked his kisses. I liked his lips on my breasts, soft and insistent, pulling and sucking, his hands gently cupping and molding me as though he were drinking me in. I unbuttoned his shirt and touched his bare skin and found I liked that too, especially the feel of his nakedness against my breasts. I liked everything he did to me there in the dark. And my mind finally was at peace.
Until I felt his hand between my legs. He’ll know, I thought instantly. If I let him make love to me, he will know I am no longer a virgin. And I knew he would know who had had me. And he would hate me.
I sat up abruptly, wiggling out from under his hands and mouth. I pulled my skirt down and folded my arms over my bare breasts.
“What is it?” His voice was thick and husky; his hands were on my back.
“Where are my things?” I said. “I need my things. I should go home.”
I expected him to be angry. Instead, he did a terrible thing. He tried to understand me in terms of that innocence he had talked about in the kitchen that night.
“Oh, God, kid, I’m sorry.” He put his arm around me. “I shouldn’t have let it go so far. You’re so sweet, I just couldn’t stop. I’m sorry. Shhh, that’s okay. Sally, you’re such a sweet kid. I’d never do
anything to hurt you. I’m just nuts about you. Ever since we met. Remember how we necked in the taxi? You looked so fresh, like the girls on Fifth Avenue in the fall, all dolled up in their new autumn duds, ready to take on the world.”
“Oh, shut up, David,” I cried, jumping off the bed, grabbing my shoes, pulling my clothes together. “None of you knows anything at all about me. It’s driving me crazy.”
I hurried into the bathroom, and when I came out he was back by the window, fully dressed, smoking.
I stood by the door and tried to apologize. He waved his hand. “Forget it, kid. I’m the one who’s sorry. But tell me this, what do you mean, ‘none of you’? You talking about the blond again? Did he make a pass at you too?”
I looked at him a long moment, tempted to tell him, just to shock him, to prove how wrong his notions about me were, but I didn’t. “I didn’t mean anything. I was talking about him, yes, and you, and my father. All of you.” And with that lie, I left. I wouldn’t let him take me home but he insisted on coming downstairs to get me a taxi.
When he leaned down through the open window to give me a kiss, I did something I have regretted ever since: I turned my head so that his lips just grazed my cheek. I know he knew that it wasn’t an accident, but I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t tell him why. It was awful.
I SPENT THE rest of the summer in northern Italy, looking at paintings and statues. My father, who was finding his position more and more difficult, joined me in Florence, and we took a small villa in Fiesole for two weeks in August. There were jackboots and uniforms all over Italy too, but I pretended they weren’t there, loosing myself in the glories of the past.
THERE HAD BEEN repercussions about my scene with the SA at the lace shop. Word had gotten back to the embassy. Father told me that I had been wrong, that I should not, could not, interfere in the internal affairs of our host country. “But,” he said to me, “I am proud of you, Sally.”
I ducked my head, flustered. Pleased. He asked me about the people in the lace shop and I explained, telling him everything, showing him the lace, which I had brought with me to Italy, not wanting to let it out of my sight. He told me to let him know if he could do anything, but to remember that, officially, he was not allowed to help.
“FDR didn’t hire me, Daddy,” I said to him.
“No, my dear, he didn’t,” he replied, and laughed, his tired face finally relaxing.
Though Italy under Mussolini was not nirvana, we both felt wonderful to be out of Germany. I had seriously considered not returning, but after that moment with my father, I knew I could not leave him alone in Berlin.
I had nightmares about what Christian had told me and what I heard from other people, Brian and David especially. David, with whom I had an uneasy Bon Voyage dinner, had seen one of the execution sites: a row of four tall stakes in a courtyard of an old stable. The stakes had been splintered away by bullets and the old stucco wall behind them had been splattered with blood that wouldn’t wash out. As he described the scene to me, all I could think of was Hans Behrens being cut in half by the bullets of Christian’s gun.
In Italy, I tried to put those horrors behind me, although I felt a deep, dark sadness in my heart that would not go away. I think it must have been for Christian. I mourned him, not only for myself but for the man he had been and wasn’t anymore. I didn’t think about David. I felt too treacherous, too much the liar.
I had told no one about that afternoon. There were many reasons, not the least of which was what had happened between Christian and me. But I also felt some obscure need to protect Christian, although any protection of mine was obviously useless against the real danger he was encountering, against the things he had done. But I knew that Heydrich would be enraged if he knew Christian had told me about Hans Behrens and the others and the rest of it. Perhaps I should have told my father of Christian’s crimes, but they were too terrible. I kept the secret. If I told one secret, the other might slip out too.
I began to think seriously about my future and what I might do with myself. I hated the things that had happened to me, the way I had behaved. Here I was, twenty-one, and I was not at all the honest, straightforward person I imagined myself. What Christian had done to me was very close to rape, except I had allowed it to happen. Then I had rejected David, who obviously would have been gentle and loving. I hated knowing this about myself and I resolved not ever to let any man near me, until I met the man I would marry. Who that would be, I couldn’t imagine.
Then I found out I was pregnant.
I was terrifically stupid about such matters, but I did know, from college dormitory conversations, what missing my periods meant. When the weeks went by in July, I hardly noticed, what with the traveling and all, but by the last week in August, when nothing had happened, I realized I had missed two months.
I even remember where I was, sitting in the Piazza della Repubblica, in Florence, trying to write a postcard to David. I was flipping through my appointment book, looking for the dates Sydney and Brian would arrive, when, I guess, the squares of days, all laid out neatly, reminded me. Quickly, I thought back to my last period and then I almost started to laugh at the absurdity of it all, the stupidity, the absolute wrongness of it. I tore up the postcard. How could I ever look David in the face again? I gathered up my things and went back up the hill to the hotel. I needed help, that was obvious, and the only person I could trust to give it to me was Sydney.
SHE AND BRIAN arrived in Florence the next week. As soon as I could, I got Sydney alone and told her. She was wonderful, gentle and understanding, never condemning.
“You know what the very worst part of this whole thing is?” I asked her. I was sitting on the floor of my room in the hotel, leaning against the bed, my shoes off. She was in the corner, next to the window, curled in a large armchair, smoking. Brian had gone off to take pictures.
“What, love?”
“It’s that it happened and it was nothing. You’d think, being pregnant as I am, I would know something now about—you know, it. God, I can’t even talk about it.”
“He didn’t make love to you, is what you mean.”
“Yes. But David . . .”
“Don’t tell me you and David—”
“No, but close. I . . . oh, Sydney, I deserve this. If I had been decent and moral, this wouldn’t have happened to me.”
“Don’t be silly.” She blew out a stream of smoke. “I’m going to ask you a question, and you don’t have to answer, all right?” I nodded. “Are you sure this baby is Christian’s? Are you sure, whatever it was that happened between you and David, this could not be his child?”
“I’m sure, Sydney. I know what’s supposed to go where.” Talking about it embarrassed me and I couldn’t look at her.
“All right, love, I just wanted to ask. Because, of course, David would marry you in a flash. Not that he would be the most suitable, but he’d be better than—I don’t suppose you’d consider marrying David anyway?”
“Oh, Sydney, how could I? Can you imagine how that would hurt him? I wouldn’t let him make love to me because of Christian. He’d hate me, Sydney. He’ll hate me anyway, when he finds out.” And I started crying again.
“There, there, love,” she said, sitting down next to me, putting her arm around me. “Pull yourself together. We must decide what you should do. You haven’t got much time. Now, another question. Tell me, do you love Christian?”
I took a moment to answer. It was a question I had been asking myself. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him. He doesn’t seem to still care for me. But I don’t know.”
“What about marriage?”
“With him? It would mean staying here. The politics. . .”
“Sally, sometimes I think all of that is so unimportant,” she whispered. “Men become so overwhelmed with power and who’s got it and what they’re doing with it, don’t they? I think of myself as a reasonably well-educated, modern woman, and I can manage myself well enough with conversations
about foreign affairs or the Treaty of Versailles, but I wonder, really wonder if all of it’s not just nonsense.”
“Love isn’t.”
“No. Nor are men and women loving each other and having children and taking care of them.” She sat next to me, her long legs reaching beyond mine. “Of course, the politics become highly relevant when the result is roundups and camps.”
“And wars.”
“Yes, and wars.”
The conversation made me think again about Christian’s sobbing that day, about his pain. And I began to think I should tell him. Besides, he had only said he didn’t want to see me again because he didn’t want to embarrass my father. He had never said he didn’t want to see me because he didn’t care for me. Things would be different if we were married. If he would marry me. If he believed that what had happened had happened.
I leaned my head back against the bed. “Oh, Sydney, I don’t know what to do.” I got up and went to the dresser, picking up my brush. “It’s Christian’s baby, and he should know.” I ran my hand over the hard bristles of the brush, back and forth.
“Have you thought about an abortion?” Sydney had gotten up and was sitting on the bed, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror.
“No.” I looked down at the brush. “Yes. It frightens me. You hear such horror stories.”
“Well, the first thing you must do is be sure. I know a doctor—he’s discreet and very kind. He’s Jewish and has been very helpful to me. Brian and I are trying to get him a visa. Well, he doesn’t want to leave. He won’t be able to practice in England.”
“What have you been going to a doctor for?”
She raised her hand and smoothed her hair away from her face. “The opposite of your problem. I want to be pregnant and can’t seem to achieve it.” She grinned at me. “No matter how hard we try. It’s one reason we came to Italy. The romance.”
The Last Innocent Hour Page 35