by Louise Fein
“Shut up. Pig.” A thump, a yell.
Suddenly Walter lurches. “They’re killing him,” he hisses. “I have to do something!”
“No! Walter, stop. What good can you do?” I whisper, desperately pulling his arm. “They’ll only kill us, too!”
There is a groan.
“He’s alive! Walter . . .”
Walter hesitates; he’s tensed, ready. I hang on to his arm tightly, both hands. I can’t let him go.
“Where is the boy?” Another voice.
“Probably at home. Where he should be.” Josef’s voice, firm but trying to placate.
More groaning, low down. Walter’s father must be on the ground.
“You have us. Why would you need him, too?”
“For questioning on another matter. There has been a serious accusation.”
Walter and I grip hands tighter. Ingrid must have tipped off the Gestapo. What else could they want Walter for?
“Search the place,” someone barks. “You, go to the home address.”
I feel Walter shudder, tense against me.
Oh dear God, I know I have sinned and been bad in so many ways, but please, please, if you are listening, I will change. I will go to church, I won’t forget you again. Just don’t let them find us. Please God. Don’t let them find us.
I have not prayed to God since I was small. But I do it now, over and over. What else is there to do? My legs are so weak and shaky that if I wasn’t propped between the wall and the bales, they wouldn’t hold me up.
The men crash about the warehouse. Their boots click, their voices harsh and ringing. There are thuds and bangs. Torchlight flashes. The boots come closer, but somehow, miraculously, thank you, God, if you really are there, I won’t forget this, they don’t find the gap between the mountain of rabbit skins and the wall.
They leave as suddenly as they arrived. The lights are switched off and a key turns in the lock. A deep blanket of silence descends. Shakily, we inch our way out.
Walter begins to sob. I put my arms around his shoulders. “Let’s get out of here.”
“But what shall I do?” he asks quietly. “They’re after me.”
He cannot go home, that’s clear. He must disappear for a while.
And I know just the place I can hide him.
THE DARKNESS IS thick, like treacle, as I stand, ears straining, on the landing. The evening passed at an agonizing pace as time stretched over dinner and coffee and silent pauses between the few words passed between Vati, Oma, and me earlier in the evening. Around me, the house heaves and creaks. Breathes and watches. I’m still for a long time, listening, checking for light beneath doors. All is quiet.
Working in slow and silent motion, I gather blankets and supplies from the kitchen. I close the back door behind me and take it all to the treehouse.
“Walter?” I call softly from the base of the tree.
“Up here.”
My heart swoops with relief.
The treehouse is in surprisingly good shape after all these years. Watertight and solid, if rather dusty and neglected. A nest, hidden from the predators prowling below. Walter sits with his knees to his chest while I spread the bedding on the floor to make him comfortable. He shivers now and then and says nothing. He refuses food, but it will keep for tomorrow.
“Come,” I say at last. “You need to get some sleep.”
“How can I sleep? I have no idea what’s happening to my father or uncle, nor my poor mother. She’ll be wild with fear. Besides, what if they should find me, Hetty?”
“They would never think of looking here. It’s the safest place to lie low for a couple of days, trust me.”
“I do. But”—through the darkness, he reaches for my hand—“I can’t stay here long.” He squeezes my fingers. “Do you think you should go back to the house?”
“Not yet. I intend to make the most of every moment I have with you. I’ll go back before it’s light. I don’t want to leave you here on your own. Not yet.”
He says no more and we lie together on a soft eiderdown, beneath the blankets. Slowly, his trembling lessens and finally ceases altogether. We press together for warmth and comfort. The wind tosses the branches of the giant tree, twigs scratching and scraping at the wooden sides of the treehouse, as if trying to enter and tear us apart.
It feels safe here, in the warm cocoon of soft down and blankets, high up in the ancient oak tree. Far above the madness playing out in this city, in this troubled country of ours. I screw my eyes tight shut and bury my head in the crook of Walter’s neck. His scent is overwhelming. They can’t take him away from me. I won’t let them. If only I could save him from whatever the future holds.
We lie face-to-face. He shifts and our lips connect. His kisses are filled with sadness. Desolation. Then slowly I sense a change to yearning and desire. His feelings seem to mirror mine. Is this what love is? To know how the other feels, without ever having to explain? His fingers begin to wander, to explore beneath my clothes.
“Shall I stop?” he asks, several times, his voice low, his breath soft in my ear. “We shouldn’t . . .”
Stop. Now. Before it’s too late.
“No, we shouldn’t.” I’m on a precipice, teetering on the edge of cataclysm. I know I should pull back, but it’s impossible to fight. I don’t want to fight it. “Don’t stop,” I murmur at last. “I don’t ever want you to stop.”
Whenever I imagined this moment, which was often, late at night, alone in my room, I didn’t picture it here, in a dark, drafty shack, perched halfway up a tree in my garden. It was always in a canopied bed, where I would lie on my back with my hair spread out on the pillow, like a movie star dressed in silk. He would take control, instruct me, and I would comply, but I would be afraid of doing it wrong or that he might not like me without my clothes. Afterward, we would lie in each other’s arms, my head on his chest, and we would both be smiling with love and happiness.
But this, this real-life enactment of my fantasy, couldn’t be more different. A piece of me steps out, watches in amazement as I transform into someone else. This someone who doesn’t freeze with the shame of her own nakedness. Whose body seems to know better than her what it is to do. Who is not afraid to explore a man’s body not just with her hands but with every inch of hers; and who surrenders the most intimate parts of herself to him. Because unlike the act that took place in my imagination, this is not merely a mechanical transaction of intertwined body parts. It is so much higher and greater than the awkward tangle of limbs—the wet, the smell, the blood, the pain, the pleasure. It’s the joining together of our spirits, finally playing out our love, our desperate desire for each other that has simmered to boiling after all these months of wanting.
WE LIE, NOT speaking, but closer than we have ever been before. His heart beats, quick and strong next to my ear, and he runs his fingers along the line of my naked back; a feather touch, soft, tingling. I don’t want to move, to destroy this moment. I drift in and out of sleep for what seems like hours.
“I must go,” I whisper at last in Walter’s ear.
“I don’t want you to leave.” He clutches me tight.
“I must . . .”
It’s still long before daybreak. Reluctantly I peel myself away from his warmth and creep quietly back to my room. My legs are sticky. They’ll smell it on me. The sex. They’ll know.
Alone in my bed, I try to sleep, but it’s impossible. Events replay and replay in my mind. An energy fizzes inside, keeping me on high alert, so much so that I fear I may never be able to sleep again. What on earth have I done?
I pull out my journal and begin to write, to pass the time, as the night ticks relentlessly toward morning. Writing my feelings down risks discovery, but it’s the only way to calm the turmoil in my brain. I will find a place for it where Ingrid cannot think to look.
What do you think of me now? After what we did? According to the law, we have sinned. The worst of all sins. I think of our bodies, our sweat, our bl
ood, mingled now, forever. It can’t be undone. I’m ruined and damned. But how could something that felt so natural, so perfect, be a sin? Indeed, it is not. It cannot be. Walter is the best, the most kind, the most gentle. In his arms, I am safer than safe. It is they who are wrong, not us.
Thirty-Three
November 3, 1938
Come to the BDM fund raiser this afternoon, Hetty,” Erna urges at the end of school. “You need a change of scene,” she adds, looking carefully into my eyes. “A . . . break. Besides, I miss him, too, you know. I haven’t seen you, properly, since . . .”
“I know. But Mutti is home. I must take care of her. Soon, I promise.”
She gives me a sad smile and I hurry home.
Mutti returned yesterday. Impossibly thin and angular, she looks like she could be snapped in two. More streaks of gray are visible in her glossy, dark chignon. Like her dress, her eyes are dull. She smiles and hugs me. Tells me it’s good to be home. She’s here, but she isn’t here. The mutti she used to be is buried alongside Karl in the graveyard.
After lunch Mutti and I walk arm in arm to the florist’s on the corner of Hallische Strasse, Kuschi padding quietly at our side.
Mutti looks and looks at the selection of colorful blooms but is unable to decide.
“How about these?” I point to some blue cornflowers. Her favorite color. Her favorite flowers.
“Too cheerful.” She shakes her head.
I look over the selection. Is there such a thing as a flower without cheer?
“Can I help you, dear ladies?” The shop owner sidles toward Mutti, a dazzling smile beneath his stiff-looking mustache.
Mutti gives him a withering glance.
“I’m looking for something suitable for my son’s grave,” she says.
I wince at her words.
The man extinguishes his smile and adopts a suitably respectful demeanor, head bowed, face downcast.
“I’m so very sorry,” he says. “Let me help you. Please.”
He swiftly gathers blooms from various buckets: tiny gypsophila; cream roses; white willow sprays; and pale lilies, lightly brushed with pink. He bundles them together with brown paper and presents them to Mutti.
“Yes,” she comments. “Just right.”
We walk arm in arm again to the graveyard and place them on Karl’s grave.
“There,” she says, looking down at the perfect pale flowers against the fresh, dark earth.
Such a waste that they should lie here to wither and die.
We sit on the bench beneath the spreading branches of a big fir tree and look out over the graveyard toward the church. Faint strains of organ music reach us, but mostly it’s just the wind sighing in the trees.
“I miss Karl, too,” I say.
She grips my hand tightly and sobs, her whole body trembling with the loss she has suffered.
“Mutti,” I say at last, when her tears are all spent. “I’m due at a fund-raising meeting at the BDM this afternoon.”
She looks at me vaguely. “Yes, yes, you must go. I’ll stay just a little longer.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’ll be fine. Go. I’ll see you at supper.” She gives me a thin smile, then turns back to watch over Karl’s grave.
I walk softly away.
Once I leave the graveyard, I quicken my pace and make for the woods near the river. I can hardly breathe. Is he safe? Will he be there, like he promised? My legs feel jellylike as I push them to go faster. Or could there be a trap when I get there? A vision of the woods crawling with Gestapo, ready to arrest me for my sullied, filthy blood, flashes in my mind. I grasp the iron railing beside the pavement, which swoops and rolls, then rights itself.
A woman passes and gives me a strange look. I release the railing and continue on my way, slower now, less steady on my feet. Can she know that I’ve been with a Jew? Not just once, but three nights in a row. I glance over my shoulder, but the woman is walking swiftly away, head bowed against the wind.
In my pocket is the note Walter left for me with Lena at the café after his stay in the treehouse a week ago. I clasp it as though my life depends on it.
My darling,
How I have missed you! Not a second passes without a thought of you, and our three nights together. I feel tremendous guilt that in among all the anguish, I should have shared such bliss with you. I’m desperate to tell you what has happened. It isn’t safe for us to meet in the open. The woods are best. I’ll wait for you at 3:30 p.m., tomorrow, just off the path by our favorite picnic spot. I hope you remember.
W xxx
He’s already sheltering beneath the trees, hat pulled low, when I reach the curve in the river where we once sat beneath the hot summer sun. It might have been another lifetime.
“Thank God you’re here.” He steps forward to greet me.
“And you. I was so scared they would arrest you when you got home.”
“Not yet,” he says. “I’m doing everything I possibly can to avoid it.”
He takes my hand and leads me deeper into the woods. The undergrowth is tangled and it’s difficult to pick our way through. He stamps on brambles and holds back branches to stop them whipping my face.
A light drizzle is falling, but that’s a good thing. Fewer people will be out for an afternoon stroll.
We stop in a small clearing. At last I’m able to look into his pale, tired face.
“Please tell me—what’s happened to your father and your uncle?”
“The Gestapo let them go. They kept them for two days—”
“But that’s wonderful!”
Walter shakes his head. “Of course it’s good they’re home. But at an enormous price. Hetty, it’s awful. They were beaten and interrogated nonstop for two days and nights. They were starved and weren’t allowed to sleep. They broke them. In the end they were so weak they agreed to sign papers to transfer the business to the National Socialist Party in order to be released. They also have a hefty fine to pay and only have until the end of the year to pay it.”
“Oh God no. I’m so sorry.” His news is sickening. Shame, unbidden, floods me. To think I’m part of it. “On what basis can they do this?”
“Tax fraud! Utter lies. They invented the worth of the business, which is in reality almost bankrupt, and taxed us on fictitious profits. Then they accused us of not paying tax bills, worth more than the stock and net worth put together. It’s preposterous. Josef and my father can’t fight it anymore. The bastards have got what they want. Perhaps now they’ll leave us alone. My father still writes letters hopelessly, all over Europe for a place to go, but since the conference at Evian in the summer, no country will take any more refugees. Even Palestine. He fears the Nazis will soon take my grandmother’s house, too, and then the whole family will be homeless.”
I see a change in his face. A collapse. An acceptance that the worst is to happen.
The lump is back in my throat.
“And what about you? Did they come for you?” My voice drops to a whisper. Something about the way he shifts his body and drops his gaze stirs the fear in my belly. He sidles a little closer to me and reaches for my hand.
“It was a good job you hid me.” I can tell he’s struggling to keep his voice light. “They did come looking. But, well, for now at least, they’re having to leave me alone.”
“But why? Looking for you for what?” I grip his hand tight and press my body against his.
“It’s very bad, Hetty.” He hesitates. “There’s been an allegation of Rassenschande—”
“No!”
“So it seems someone really is watching us.”
“It’s Ingrid, it must be. Bertha warned me—”
“What do you mean?”
“She . . . She told me that Ingrid suspected I had a young man, and that she had seen proof of something sensational.”
“I know you thought she saw us together that time, but you said she wouldn’t remember who I was . . .”
“I don�
�t know if she did, and just seeing us in the shop, in itself, isn’t a crime. So I think it must have been something more . . . Oh, Walter, I think she found my diary.”
“Hetty, don’t tell me you wrote any of this down . . .” He looks at me. “Did you actually mention my name?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
Walter sinks his head into his hands and groans.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Of all the stupid—”
“I’ll destroy it. As soon as I get home. I promise.”
“So she doesn’t have it?”
“No! I used to keep it under my mattress. But I found a much better hiding place. She couldn’t possibly have found it there—”
“She can’t have; that’s why they couldn’t arrest me.” Walter chews his nail while he thinks. “They’ve no proof. The person who made the allegation has so far refused to name you. To bring me to trial for Racial Defilement, the other party—you—cannot be prosecuted, because you would have to give evidence of the defilement, thereby implicating yourself. And you can’t give evidence against yourself. I think that’s why this person, whoever they are, has withdrawn the accusation, for now. They’ve no evidence to back up their claim. Perhaps they hope to catch us together. Or maybe they’re afraid of the consequences of dragging your family name into the whole thing. But, if they had hold of your diary, and it confirmed everything . . .” Walter stares at me, his eyes stretched wide. “Hetty, you must burn that thing. They could prosecute you, too, you know that? Please promise me!”
“I promise . . .”
Fighting the grip of panic, I peer through the trees at the water-blackened branches and sodden leaves, whose earthy hint of decay rises, musty and sweet. Like some menacing omen, the threat closes in, slipping silently between the trees, ever closer to Walter.
I cling to him.
“Walter, you must go now. Leave for England, please.”
He nods, holding me tight. “Anna’s father has gotten me a visa at last, by providing financial guarantees and assurances about my ability to support myself and my future wife.” The word makes me flinch. “He’s really been very good to me. He’s even arranged the wedding date, as firm proof of the intention, for March next year.”