by Louise Fein
We stare at each other. I curl up. Knees to chest. Arms wrapped around. A small, tight ball.
“What the hell. Shit.” Tomas slides away from me along the bench.
“Why didn’t you stop? You hurt me,” I say, sobbing.
I run backward in my mind. What did I say, what did I do to lead him on? What made him think . . . ?
He puts his elbows on his knees. Head in his hands. He’s shaking. “I’m sorry, Hetty, I got carried away. I never meant to . . . hurt you.”
I wipe a trembling hand across my mouth.
Was it me?
“Shit. Shit. Shit. I’ve had too much to drink. Forgive me, please. Can you forgive me?”
“It’s . . . it’s okay, Tomas.”
“Damn it. I just really like you. I mean. If you knew how much I like you. Love you. For so long. I shouldn’t have come on so strong.”
I’m trembling uncontrollably. I hug myself tighter. It wasn’t my fault.
“Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Thing is, Hetty, I’ve thought about this for ages. Realized I’ve approached it all wrong. So, I thought, it’s now or never, see?”
“Now or never for what?” I straighten my dress. My back hurts where the arm of the bench dug in. My breast is sore. I wish I could stop trembling. Wish we could go back to the bar. Wish I could go home.
I thought I knew you, Tomas. But it seems I got you wrong, too.
“I’ve been too much of a coward. Never been able to pluck up the courage.”
“What on earth do you mean? I thought we were friends. Only friends.”
“I thought about it and realized, I’d not been forward enough. I needed to show you how much I want you, see, and I thought that’s the sort of thing you wanted. You know, after I saw you with that . . . dirty bastard.” His fists are clenched and the muscles in his jaw contract. “It still haunts me, Hetty.”
Anger rises like bile in my throat.
“What did you think I wanted, Tomas? Exactly what kind of girl do you think I am? How dare you assume . . .”
I have to get away from him. He’s mad, unstable. I jump up and stumble away from the bench.
He rushes after me, catches hold of my arm.
“Wait! Look. I’m sorry, okay. I got it wrong. Badly wrong. I always seem to when it comes to girls. I can’t help being jealous—you’re all I’ve ever wanted. You’re better than every other girl. But you were always out of my reach. Living in that great big house. I mean, you were untouchable. Like some sort of angel. Even when we were kids you were different. When everyone else picked on me, you didn’t care. You ignored them all and stuck by me. But you did it from a great height. Like I was someone to pity. I mean, the bullying only stopped because of you. You saved me, and I could never match up. I’d’ve done anything to impress you. I did everything to impress you. But I knew I never had a hope in hell. A girl like you would never want to be with someone like me.” He takes a breath and jabs the toe of his boot into the ground.
My head whirls and I begin to feel sick again.
“That’s not true, Tomas.” I sigh, suddenly overcome with weariness. “I always liked you, as a friend. I never pitied you.”
“But then . . . that awful morning. When I saw you with him.” Tomas’s face twists in disgust. “It ate away at me. I kept seeing it. Couldn’t understand, couldn’t bear it. Then I realized—you aren’t so perfect. You’re tainted, like the rest of us. So that meant I did have a chance. The Jew brainwashed you, I know that—it meant I could forgive you, because it wasn’t your fault. But I didn’t tell anyone what I saw. Kept my mouth shut. And I’ve been bloody patient . . . So I deserve something in return for all that, don’t I?”
I stare at him. There is a sourness on my tongue.
I won’t be anyone’s reward.
“I still want to beat the hell out of him,” Tomas says, shuffling his feet, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Well, you can’t. He’s left the country, so you’ve no need to worry about him anymore,” I tell him coolly.
“Thank God for that.” Tomas exhales heavily. Then he grabs my hand and looks earnestly at me, his words a little slurred. “I’m sorry about earlier, honest. Won’t make that mistake again, but Hetty, please be my sweetheart. I shall go mad if I don’t have you.”
VATI IS ENTERTAINING when Tomas delivers me back to my front door.
“Herta, is that you?” I hear him call from the sitting room. I long for nothing more than to climb the stairs, sink into my bed, and disappear into the black oblivion of sleep.
“Yes, Vati, I’m back from the dance.”
Whatever happens, always be true to yourself. Walter’s words. I hang on to them, a lifeline to pull me from the waters of despair.
In the sitting room is a man I recognize from pictures in the newspapers. Theo Gratz, head of the Leipzig division of the Gestapo. Lord Mayor Schultz is also here, but I don’t know who the other two men are.
“Come on in, Herta, my darling. Don’t just stand there, come here, so I can show you off to these lovely gentlemen!”
Vati, rosy cheeked from an evening of red wine and good food, beckons me over, arms wide and welcoming. The men all stand and nod to me as I make my way over. Vati wraps an arm around my shoulders.
“My delightful daughter,” he announces. “Seventeen, and ripening nicely.” The men all chuckle. “Isn’t she pretty?” he asks, looking around at them.
I want to run far, far away, but I stand exposed in the middle of them all, like a brood mare, while they look me up and down.
Vati laughs and pats my hair. “A bit fiery, this one, but a spell at Hausfrau school should do the trick. Calm her down. She’ll make someone a good wife one day.”
The men nod and smile at me.
“Where’s Mutti?” I ask in a whisper.
“Gone to bed.” Vati mimics my whisper in reply. “And left us men to it,” he adds in a normal voice.
“Yes, I should get home myself,” says Gratz, looking at his watch. “I must send my report on all this to Dresden before nine tomorrow morning. Can we finish?”
“Of course.” Vati becomes serious. “Off you go, my dear. Get your beauty sleep.”
“Good night, Vati. Good night,” I say to the men.
In the hall, I collapse onto the bench to remove my shoes. I ache all over and wonder if I have the strength to do it. I sit for a long time staring at my feet, back resting against the wall, listening to the men talk through the open door.
“. . . estimated to be around fifteen hundred in the Leipziger Meuten alone. We’ve clearly not done enough. The resistance has spread to towns all over Saxony. Dresden knows only too well . . .” It’s the voice of Theo Gratz, I think. I listen harder.
“And you know where these pockets are operating from?” Vati now.
“The working-class areas primarily—Plagwitz and environs. Some are Communists. Some just troublemakers. But enough to be a worry. Most concerning is they are predominantly young. They pick fights with the HJ, calling them prigs and snobs. Actively seeking them out for attack.”
Silence for a moment. My heart beats wildly. Could this be what Herr Bäcker is involved in? He’s neither young nor working class, but it’s possible. Or is it another resistance group? Perhaps there are many, springing up everywhere. A glimmer of hope. A sign that everything may not be lost.
“Recommend to Dresden that we take swift and decisive action.” Vati’s voice again. “We cannot allow this dissent to continue. We should use the Marxist rhetoric as an excuse for prosecution, and fight this with full brutality. Stamp it out, fast. We should make an example . . . discourage others . . .”
Murmurs of agreement.
Someone clears his throat. “I must be away, Franz. Thank you for your kind hospitality . . .”
I’m spurred to action, quickly kicking off my shoes. I tiptoe to the stairs and dissolve into the darkness of the upper floors of the house.
Forty-Five
>
February 5, 1939
The conversation I overheard last night about the Leipziger Meuten replays through my mind. In the crisp morning light, I wonder what I should do.
I wander through the downstairs rooms, Kuschi at my heels. I should pass the information to Herr Bäcker. Would he know the leaders of the Meuten? They need to be warned. Unease grows. This is beginning to feel horribly like it did before Kristallnacht last year.
In the garden room, my eyes fall on a two-day-old copy of the Leipziger, which lies on the coffee table. Hitler’s recent speech to the Reichstag is printed in full. It takes up more than a double-page spread. I sink into a chair to read it.
. . . when the outside world insists Germany is threatening other peoples by military extortion, it is on the grounds of grossly distorted facts. Germany has realized the right to the self-determination of ten million German people without the mobilization of any forces, contrary to the fictitious reports by the foreign press. In this area, neither the English nor other Western nations have any business meddling. The Reich does not pose a threat to anyone, it has merely defended itself against the attempts at intervention by third parties . . . We will not stand for Western states meddling in our affairs . . .
. . . What is the reason for our economic woes? Simply the overpopulation of our lands! The German people survives with 135 inhabitants per square kilometer, and yet the rest of the world has looted Germany throughout the past one and a half decades. The German people are not enemies of England, America, or France and desires to live calmly and peacefully, while Jewish and non-Jewish agitators persist in rousing the animosity of these peoples against the German people . . . Germany will not be swayed from its reckoning with Jewry. It is a shaming display when we see the entire democratic world filled with tears of pity at the plight of the poor, tortured Jewish people while at the same time crying that they “cannot possibly admit the Jews!” And these world powers have no more than ten persons per square kilometer! Small matter that Germany has been good enough to provide for these elements for centuries, with their infectious political and sanitary diseases. What we do today is no more than to set right the wrongs these people committed.
. . . Europe cannot find peace until it has dealt properly with the Jewish question. In the time of my struggle for power, it was primarily the Jewish people who mocked my prophecy that, one day, I would assume leadership of this Germany and would press for resolution of the Jewish question. The resounding laughter of the Jews then may well be stuck in their throats today, I suspect.
Once again I will be a prophet: Should the international Jewry succeed in plunging mankind into yet another world war, then the result will not be a Bolshevization of the earth and the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
I put the paper down. What if there is another war? What if it reaches England and Walter is no longer safe there, either? What if this thing spreads all across the world? I think of the Leipziger Meuten and I know for sure: if we don’t fight this here, now, then it will gather force and sweep over Europe and beyond. It’s time I put aside my own problems, my own safety, and live up to my promise to Walter.
Dressed for school, I first make for the café. I’ve not seen Lena since that awful day in December when I met with Frau Keller for the first time. The door jangles as I enter and she looks up in surprise.
“Hetty!” She comes to the door to greet me. The café is semifull of workers, either having finished a shift or about to go on one. There is a strong odor of sweat, tobacco, and grime. “Come through, to the back.”
Her mother is working in the kitchen. She looks older than I recall. More stooped and gray. Her dress hangs loosely from her shoulders. Lena also looks thin, her cheeks drawn in. There are lines on her forehead and around the corners of her mouth I’d never noticed before.
“How are you?” I ask. The two exchange a look. Lena’s mother turns her attention to the stove and places potato and bacon into a pan with a sliver of butter.
“Oh, you know,” Lena says, wiping a hand across her forehead. “We’re getting by.”
I nod. There’s an awkward pause.
“I was hoping you would be able to get a message to Frau Keller. And”—I hesitate—“it might be of interest to you, too. For your boy.”
She nods quickly. “Yes?”
“The British are organizing for children to travel to England, to be looked after by foster parents, until it is . . . safe for them to be reunited with their parents. Someone I know is trying to find places on one of the trains. It’s very difficult—there are more requests than spaces. But he will keep trying, for the Keller children, and for your boy, if you would wish it?”
She nods again. “I heard talk of this. And also, that a politician in America is trying to organize a similar program. If he’s successful, they will be able to double the numbers . . .” Her face crumples. “What has it come to, that we must send our precious children to the care of strangers in foreign countries?”
On a sudden whim I grab her hands. “Don’t give up hope, Lena. We must all . . . fight this, however we can.”
Lena’s eyes fill with tears, and she looks away, embarrassed.
“I must go, I have school. But I’ll try to come back soon. Hopefully with good news,” I add.
I leave the café feeling better than I have in weeks. I’ll find an opportunity at school to tell Erna what I heard about the Leipziger Meuten. Herr Bäcker will know what to do about it. At last I feel useful. It may not be much, but it might make a difference.
Wissen ist macht, after all.
And I smile to myself as I hurry to the tram stop.
Forty-Six
March 1, 1939
The nausea has gone. Nothing more to worry about. Sudden shock and grief can stop bleeding. I heard that somewhere, and it’s a relief to be without the dreaded monthly cramps.
As I’m gathering my books for school, Kuschi barks loudly from the hall, heralding the arrival of the postman. I find Mutti in her bedroom. Unusually, since Karl’s death, she is dressed to go out at this time of morning. She’s sitting at her dressing table, arranging her hair into its usual neat chignon.
“Good morning, Mutti,” I say, unable to mask the surprise in my voice. “Do you have an appointment?”
She smiles at me in the mirror.
“It’s time I pick myself up and get back to my charity work. The need for the children’s home becomes more urgent every day,” she says. “Truthfully, Hetty, I don’t have the heart for it, but the doctor says I must, otherwise my malaise may never leave me. And I’m not sure I can bear to live with it forever,” she adds with a quiver in her voice.
I place my hand on her shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze.
“He’s probably right,” I say softly. “Nothing will bring Karl back. He would want you to be happy, Mutti.”
She nods and taps my hand with her own.
There is a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Mutti calls, sliding a final pin into the back of her hair and patting it.
Vera appears. “I have a letter for Fräulein Herta,” she says, handing me an envelope. I recognize Tomas’s handwriting.
Dear Hetty,
I’ve not seen or heard from you since the night of the dance, but I’ve thought about you all the time. Day and night. I’d hoped you might write and soothe my nerves and let me know that I’m forgiven entirely for my mistake. I hoped you would come to see it as a compliment, because it demonstrates my passion toward you and the strength of my feelings, which are undented by your silence.
I went too quick for you and I shan’t make that mistake again. There is something wholesome and good and old-fashioned about waiting and I’ll wait, so you needn’t worry. So please say you will come for a walk with me on Sunday. You will be perfectly safe. Perhaps we could see a film together another day soon as well?
Yours devotedly,
Tomas
I fold the letter slo
wly and put it back in the envelope. I try to picture myself with Tomas, holding hands or kissing him, and my skin crawls.
“Who is it from?” Mutti asks, fixing her hat in place with a pearl-topped hatpin.
“Tomas.”
“What does he want?”
“To walk with me on Sunday. To take me to the cinema. Ultimately to become my sweetheart, which I don’t want.”
“So write to him and say no. Surely he knows you’re too good for him?”
I look at Mutti as she stares at herself in the mirror, hair perfectly arranged beneath her hat, her dress neat, an amber pendant hanging from a delicate chain around her slender neck, and in that moment, I realize fully the helplessness of us women. She, at the mercy of Vati, the sun in her universe, and yet he loves and fathers children with another; I, forced to walk out with a boy because he has a hold over me through what he knows. Wissen ist macht. I shall never get away from it.
“But Vati was your inferior, Mutti, and you married him.”
“Don’t be silly; look what he has achieved in life!”
“He was just a poor farmworker’s son with no prospects.”
“Not when I met him. He was already apprenticed at the newspaper.”
“Still . . .”
“Well, it seems I chose well, in the end, doesn’t it?” She bristles.
“So shouldn’t I give Tomas a chance? He’s an apprentice with ambitions. He’s going to join the Heer in September. Perhaps he will be more acceptable then.”
“Herta—”
“I shall tell him we are simply friends, Mutti. Don’t worry. I’ll make myself clear. Will it be all right for me to go?”
“If you make your position absolutely clear, then yes. It can’t do any harm. You’ve known each other for a very long time.” She stands and picks up her handbag.
“Thank you.” I sigh. It’s going to be harder to extricate myself from Tomas than I’ve made out. But I’ll find a way. It might just take a little time, that’s all.