The Nazi's Wife

by Peter Watson

  I took the opportunity of the driving lesson to give Konstanze the BMW badge off the car as a memento of her driving lessons that day. It wasn’t my car and, therefore, strictly speaking, the badge wasn’t mine to give. But I gave it to her all the same and she accepted.

  Farther up the river Steyr is Schlierbach, a small Cistercian abbey church surrounded by an eighteenth-century courtyard built of multicolored brick, with a fountain against one wall. The interior of this church was remarkable. Below the gallery it was decorated in dark colors, brown and black, with a little gold, yet the gallery itself was bright, resplendent in white and primary yellows, greens, blues and reds.

  It was one of those occasions when Konstanze had been able to make confession and I waited for her outside in the courtyard, by the fountain. I can remember sitting, half mesmerized by the dripping water, a little nervous in view of what I planned. She did not emerge for over half an hour and I found myself disturbed by what might be happening in the confessional. The sputter of the fountain was comforting, but only up to a point.

  When she did come outside she emerged from the church shading her eyes with her hand. It was not simply the sharp sunshine.

  “Do you often cry in the confessional?” I asked as I passed her a handkerchief.

  There was no reply at first. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose. Held her face to the sun for its heat to remove all trace of tears. “I cry all the time. Anywhere.”

  I felt the urge to put my arm around her as she sobbed again. I had come across these inexplicable tears before, the kind that came racking up from deep within and which, like cancer, divided and grew, rising, boiling, escaping in helpless, unforgiving sobs. Usually I was embarrassed when a woman cried this way, but not this time.

  However, as if sensing that I was about to touch her, Konstanze moved away. She looked about her and, seeing no one, went to one of the walls in the courtyard where there was some ivy hanging down. She broke off a small branch and brought it back to the fountain and handed it to me.

  “Other women get flowers, Walter. I would settle for leaves, anything.”

  Now, forty years later, I believe I know what she meant by that statement, that plea. I think I understand women enough to be able to decode most of their cryptic conundrums. But not then. What she said totally perplexed me.

  I suggested coffee and brandy as a way of relaxing us.

  The walk into the center of the town cheered her, the more so when we found a café overlooking the river. Just below where we sat, the Steyr flowed into the Enns and that, in turn, would eventually become the Danube. We sat and watched as a line of swans and cygnets moved regally downstream and wondered to each other what the chances were that it was the same family that had fallen out with Dieter.

  “I haven’t heard from him yet,” I said, conscious that talk of Konstanze’s son was a good guarantee of avoiding whichever subject it was that was distressing her.

  “Oh, he’ll write. Don’t worry. He’s very responsible, very German in that way.”

  “Would you like more?” I asked. “Children, I mean.”

  She nodded vigorously.

  “I’d love a daughter,” I said. “And I’d like her always to remain the same age—seven or eight. No older.”

  “So she always thought of you as wonderful—yes?” Konstanze smiled. “You’d be a good father, Walter. But a good husband? I don’t know. Most men find it easier to be good fathers than good husbands. It’s less demanding.”

  I felt ever so slightly scolded, but I didn’t mind. “Why do you think I would make a good father?”

  “You treated Dieter as an equal. That’s the most important thing with a child. And you do it naturally. I had to learn. My parents never treated me as an equal: I hated it.”

  I found myself thinking that if I hadn’t read those damn letters, I could now have asked her about her parents; she could have told me in her own words what she wanted me to know. By prying I had robbed myself of the pleasures of discovery now. It was my own fault.

  A waiter brought the coffee, a brandy and some fragile-looking pastries. I offered her one and watched as she took it. She tried her coffee, then bit tentatively into the crust. She appeared to like what she tasted, for she then took a larger bite. This is what I was hoping for.

  I had a question I very much wanted to ask, but I hated the idea of a rebuff. What I wanted least of all was a swift “No,” the kind of response that would close the door once and for all to what I was about to propose. But, if her mouth was full, she couldn’t say no right away. I would have my chance.

  “Konstanze,” I said as she chewed, and I tried to phrase my words and shade my voice as if what I had to say was not very important to me. “I see from the local newspaper that there is a concert on Sunday, in Salzburg. The orchestra will play Chopin, Stravinsky, Bruckner. Would you like to go with me? We could have dinner afterward, at the Sylvaner.”

  The swans were coming ashore a few yards downstream and she seemed engrossed by that. She took a drink of coffee, put her cup down. “Thank you, Walter, but no—not on Sunday. I can’t. There’s someone coming to see me.”

  Her reply, though delivered gently, stung me. It was the first time she had refused me anything, if you don’t count my offer to help with Dieter’s luggage on the day he went back to school. I felt I had mismanaged things, like a youth of eighteen who has moved too fast with his girlfriend and over-reached himself, showing his cards too early.

  That night I dined in Salzburg with some English friends of Maurice’s who were passing through on their way to Italy. And, though they were charming, witty company, I could not take my mind off Konstanze. They must have found me preoccupied and dull.

  They had heard about my contest with Maurice in the stock market. I was able to tell them that he was far ahead at the latest count. Confederate Paper was still doing nicely, and RMC was, naturally, holding steady. They all found our contest very amusing and, looking back, that’s how I see it too, but that night I was feeling quite sad and the bald figures of the stock exchange only emphasized how badly I was doing in general. I couldn’t crack Konstanze and I couldn’t woo her either.

  Saul was growing anxious too. When I called him he said there had been a lot of activity, into and out of the Krumau warehouse, and he was worried that whatever was being shipped out was going to do some damage somewhere.

  “Walter, I would never forgive myself if I found that people, or things, from that warehouse were being used in the conduit. Can’t we make a move yet?”

  “A few days, Saul. Please. Not long now, I promise.”

  But I couldn’t hold him back for much longer. It was unfair.

  It was warmer than ever when I drove out to Mondsee the next morning. I was late because I had to service the BMW. It was the kind of unseasonal heat that makes you think the weather is changing globally and permanently and that, whatever the meteorologists say, the end of the world could be a serious possibility before very long. Tiny lumps of melting roadway were picked up by the tires of the car and flung out behind me in a sand-colored gritty wake.

  As usual, sleep had helped me recover some sort of equanimity, but as I entered Mondsee and drove past the jetties and docks lining the shore, it began to slither away from me again. As the car covered the short and, by now, very familiar distance between the village proper and Konstanze’s house, the nervousness congealed again inside me, black and sticky, not unlike the melting tar on the roads.

  At that point in our relationship, I should have known that, if I expected Konstanze to be in one frame of mind, I would almost certainly find her in the opposite one. She was firmly in control and able to dictate the mood of our meetings almost at will. And so, to my surprise, I arrived to find a table laid in the garden. The yellow gingham cloth, the one we had taken to our picnic by the Salzach, was drawn over the table, and on it were the paraphernalia of lunch: knives, forks, two wineglasses, a basket for bread, salt and pepper, a tiny vase with three or four
head of gentian.

  I inspected the table before going to the door, though Konstanze would know that I had arrived; there was no disguising the exhaust of the BMW. As I stood admiring the table she came out of the kitchen carrying cut bread in a napkin. She gave me a broad smile.

  “You’re late,” she said, coming very close to me. “Too late to go anywhere for lunch.” She tipped the bread into the basket. “And in any case,” she spoke as she busied herself, arranging the table, “we haven’t had a proper lunch in the last few days. It’s time we did.”

  She pulled out one of the chairs for me to sit on. “I’ve managed to get some more eggs. I’m going to give you a real Austrian omelet.”

  I sank into the chair in bewilderment as she vanished back into the house. The nervousness in my stomach had all but disappeared, so warm had Konstanze’s welcome been. I noticed, on the far side of the table, on the grass in the shade, a bottle of wine. I poured myself a glass. On some occasions, like now, Konstanze seemed genuinely fond of me, pleased to see me, and relaxed in my presence. But was it real? Who is more paranoid than a love-sick interrogator who has had the tables turned on him? It was possible to view Konstanze’s behavior as a systematic alternation between blowing hot and cold. Not regular, that would be too predictable, too easy to cope with, but systematic certainly. If our pact had ended that day, I must admit, Konstanze would have been the victor. And, such was her lead, such was her command of the situation, I wouldn’t have minded. It goes without saying that I had never known an interrogation like this one. But I should also stress that, in my life before the war and during it, I had never come across a woman even remotely comparable to Konstanze.

  The wine was fruity but with an edge to it. In those days refrigerators were not widespread in Europe and there was no danger of wine being served too cold, so that all the flavor is lost. I took some bread, soaked it in my drink, and slid it into my mouth.

  Konstanze reappeared, this time with Martha. The housekeeper carried two plates, with the omelets, and Konstanze held a salad bowl, large and made of clay, and what looked like a newspaper. This she dropped onto the grass by her chair and helped me to salad. The omelets, which were slightly burned, crisp brown and smoky hot, were lumpy with chunks of chicken, slices of sausage and tomato and streaked with spinach. I also detected what I thought was cheese. Konstanze had gone to a lot of trouble with this meal and, such was my mood, I found even that perplexing. Why?

  I had not eaten fresh eggs since Konstanze’s previous omelet and this one was even better: I was silent as I munched. For me, food is almost as relaxing as sleep; I was unraveling quickly. Konstanze bent down and picked up the paper she had dropped on the grass. She passed it to me.

  It was the day before’s and open at an inside page. I glanced over it, eating. I could see nothing that meant anything to me and looked up at Konstanze. Using the fork she was eating with, she pointed, not at any of the local news, but at one of the advertisements. It was for the concert I had invited her to.

  “But I thought you couldn’t come? I told them I didn’t want the tickets.”

  “Look again, silly,” she said in mock exasperation. “It’s the same orchestra, the same program, but it’s a different date and a different place—Innsbruck.” She took a forkful of omelet and followed it with a piece of bread, wiping her lips with her napkin. “I could go to the Innsbruck concert, if you still wanted to take me.”

  7

  The evening of the concert was dark, black as the stuccowork we had become so familiar with, and still unseasonally warm. It had not been easy to get tickets, but Hartt, the fixer, had somehow managed it, though it cost me close to a week’s pay.

  The day between our omelet lunch in the garden and the concert had been devoted to monasteries—Lochen and Strasswalchen. It had been an important day. After she had been so warm at the lunch, I was expecting Konstanze to turn cold, or distant, at any point. But, throughout, she remained relaxed, friendly, even intimate. I began to believe that she felt about me almost the same way I felt about her.

  It so happened that both abbeys featured the wooden carvings of Meinrad Guggenbichler, perhaps the most graceful and restrained Austrian sculptor. In the afternoon we stopped in Michaelbeuren for tea, or ice cream, I forget which. Afterward we strolled around the little town looking at the shops. Just as we were about to return to the car we passed an antiquities hideaway, tiny, with a small window. Inside, the shop was narrow but snaked back for as far as the eye could see in the gloom. Halfway along, to one side, was something that looked familiar. I was about to enter, but Konstanze held back.

  “It’s too gloomy, Walter. Let’s stay here, in the sun.”

  I waved to the car. “Why don’t you wait for me there? I don’t mind the gloom. There’s something I want to look at. I’ll be quick and join you at the car.”

  The old woman who ran the shop reminded me a little of Martha. Same build, same age, same manner, like a scarecrow looking for birds to frighten. But she didn’t frighten me and she didn’t know what she had. I got it for a song. In fact it was so cheap that I now think it may have been stolen. She wouldn’t wrap it though, saying that paper was in short supply. Yes, I thought, that’s what pushes the price up, and keeps Maurice ahead. So I had to give it to Konstanze as it was.

  “Walter? For me?… What is it?”

  I could tell she was pleased. Also, that she had quite a good idea what it was. “You tell me, Konstanze. You know enough now to make an educated guess.”

  She held it up, turned it over, ran her fingers along the wood. “It’s not a Schwanthaler, not intense enough—right?”

  I nodded.

  “And it can’t be a Zürn—not frenzied enough.”

  “Correct. Well done.”

  What she had was a carved figure of a saint, St. Rochas, in flowing robes with a plague spot on his leg—the symbol that identified him.

  “Think,” I said. “How would you describe the carving style?”

  She hesitated. “Well, I would say it’s graceful, restrained, but …”

  “But what?” I said.

  “But it can’t be by Guggenbichler—can it? They’re too rare, too valuable.” She searched my expression for clues.

  I nodded. You can’t get that kind of bargain these days. But you could then. I have a good eye and had spotted it straightaway.

  The saint was about two feet high. She hugged it.

  “I’m sorry it’s not flowers,” I said.

  “Sorry?” She smiled. “Walter, this is much nicer.” She paused. “Much, much nicer. Thank you.”

  I think that had we not been in the main square of Michaelbeuren, in the middle of the afternoon, Konstanze would have kissed me then. Instead, she looked at me levelly for what seemed like ages. I could make of that look what I would, she was telling me.

  Physical contact would have moved us forward, of course. But, in a way, I was not sorry we didn’t kiss that day. In the first place it would have been ostensibly a kiss of thanks, nothing more, and that might have made a second kiss, a proper one, harder to achieve. Second, it meant that, between us, Konstanze owed me something and I liked that. Third, it introduced a pleasant feeling of anticipation so far as our next outing, the concert, was concerned. I had deliberately suggested the concert in the first place to move things away from churches and daytime. Whatever my motives might be with Konstanze, I simply wanted to be with her, as a normal couple, enjoying a concert and dinner afterward. I would see then where, if anywhere, that led.

  The gift had touched her; she held it all the way back to Mondsee and refused the opportunity to drive. She was touched, I think, in two ways. In the first place it was a religious gift and that meant a lot to her. Second, it was a gift, pure and simple. That told me something I should have thought of before. If she was so touched by a gift, it could only mean that she had not received any for quite some time. Rudolf, though he was in touch with her, was either too busy, too nervous or didn’t care enough
anymore to send her gifts. That is partly what the tears had been about in the courtyard at Schlierbach.

  It was her response to that gift that made me believe, for the first time, that I might tempt Konstanze to America.

  As we drove back that day, Konstanze fingered the plague spot on St. Rochas’ leg. “You know, Walter, it’s funny but Dieter has a mark on his back, to the side of his spine above the waist. And so have I. Same sort of mark, same place, more or less.”

  I groaned, but not out loud. I knew about that mark on Konstanze’s skin. I had read about it in one of Rudolf’s letters. Konstanze now wanted me to know intimate things about her, wanted to draw me in, to advance closer, bit by bit. Or so it appeared. Lovers getting ever closer is always a pleasure: you mustn’t go too fast or too slow. But those damn letters kept getting in the way, spoiling the surprises. I was in a bind. I wouldn’t have been in the delicious situation I was in but for the letters. But I still wished now that I had never read them.

  I looked across at Konstanze. I had a mark on the left of my neck and I tugged at the collar of my shirt, so she could see it.

  “This is my blemish. In America we call it a birth mark. No one’s perfect—eh?”

  She smiled.

  When we arrived back at Mondsee that afternoon, she behaved exquisitely.

  “How long will it take to drive to Innsbruck, Walter?”

  “Two hours. At least.”

  “So, no churches tomorrow. We shall have to leave around five—yes?”

  I nodded.

  “And I shall need all afternoon to get ready. Can you amuse yourself during the day tomorrow?”