“You know,” he said, “you haven’t changed at all.”
“Herbert,” she said. “What are you doing?”
But she couldn’t move. His beery breath on her skin, the pulse that came from having a human body so very close to hers, was transfixing. He put his hand on the round of her shoulder, and instead of flinching she yearned to lean against him, let his body support her. It had nothing to do with Herbert and everything to do with the shocking jolt of a man’s touch, the familiar yet distant thrill of allowing her body to lead instead of her mind. Through the black silk of her shirt, his fingers felt heavy and slippery, and she shuddered. She understood love—she had had it in her grasp once—and she wanted it back. If she only could yield a bit, soften, it might be possible again. But not with this man.
She pulled away and placed a hand on his chest. “No,” she said. “No, this cannot happen, whether you’re married to my sister or not.” Scooting around him, she pulled out a blanket from behind the couch. “You will sleep here. You drank too much.”
“Come, Betty, please—don’t you feel anything?” He swayed slightly, his eyes reddened. He was a man unmoored; like her, he was looking for someone who could understand him.
“I’m sorry, I—it’s just . . . you’re like a brother,” she said more kindly, though this wasn’t entirely true. Her stomach turned over. It seemed impossible that after all the searching and calling and letter writing she’d done over the last decade, this man had actual news for her from her home. She’d been so desperate for information, and now—now she was afraid. “You can stay if you need to, but first tell me your news, for God’s sake. What’s happened?”
Herbert coughed into his closed fist a few times. “My mother, she’s still up in Gummanz,” he said. “She toes the party line, loves the five-year plans, all that . . . that socialist nonsense. The fortifications of the wall, Leonov’s spacewalks, the rabid, endless competition with the West . . .” He waved his hand in front of his face as though to swat away the whole sorry business. “We spoke some weeks ago, and she told me about a friend of hers in Berlin, someone who works with Werner Nietz.”
“Werner?” Bettina asked, the pulse of her heart echoing in her throat. “Werner works in Berlin?”
“Doesn’t he at least tell you about the girl? You have a right to know about your own daughter, don’t you?”
“That’s not the way he is,” she said. “I—I haven’t been able to get news. And I suppose I . . . well, eventually I sort of gave up trying.”
“I see, all right. So yes, he’s in Berlin. He works there now.” Herbert’s eyes were small and swollen from the alcohol, and he seemed reluctant to talk all of a sudden.
“Herbert, please. Just say it.”
“He’s sick, Werner is. Cancer, my mother says, or some kind of horrible illness. I’m sorry.”
Bettina gazed out into the darkness. She couldn’t be certain what she was feeling; of all the things she had obsessed over, she had never considered that Werner might die and leave her daughter an orphan. “He’s in the hospital? In Berlin? But where is Annaliese? She’s not on Rügen anymore?”
“I’m sorry; I don’t know. I—Betty? Listen, you are all right?”
A tinge of panic, but also of possibility—of hope—began tugging at her. She was frozen, sick to her stomach. She was going to have to do something, but she had no idea what.
5
Rügen
Spring 1945
Each day when Werner Nietz arrives at his office in Saargen Town Hall, he completes the same simple ritual. In his pocket he carries two fresh handkerchiefs. He takes one out and swipes the surface of his desk, removing specks of dust that have settled on its gleaming surface overnight. He does the same to the smaller desk, which holds a typewriter, an adding machine, and a wooden tray. Each light (there are four, including the standing lamp near the filing cabinets) is switched on, regardless of the amount of light that is coming through the large window. Before he settles down, he makes himself a cup of tisane using the electric kettle his mother gave him when he was first given this job at the age of eighteen. He’d prefer coffee, but that’s impossible to come by these days.
As an accountant he is tasked with numerous responsibilities. Assessing extra taxes, for example, meting out rations, or—in recent years—typing letters about death benefits (or lack thereof) to the bereaved in the nearby villages. Werner is good at this work. He understands that his role is not one of substantial power, that it is, in fact, one of relative weakness. He carries out orders; he does not give them. In his twelve years as a civil servant, he has been promoted only once, yet he wields a certain power: surrounded mostly by elderly or crippled men and a handful of women, he is able to roam largely unchecked in the marble corridors of the town hall. Werner thus operates with a certain lack of constraint and has access to all sorts of information. Lists of inhabitants, their wealth, and their holdings. Letters of complaint to the town hall. Sometimes letters of commendation. Requests for repairs, for divorces, or for visitation rights. On occasion he is privy to information that he may not—and does not—divulge to anyone. It is a privilege to have a window into people’s lives, to know so much more about them than they would ever suspect. The secrets he holds are jewels he cradles in the safety of a warm palm.
Werner swipes a paper off the telegram machine and reads it through. No German town shall be declared open! Every village and town shall be defended and held by every possible man. Every German who contravenes his obvious civic duty will forfeit his honor and his life.
My God, he thinks, so it is finally happening. The Nazi Party district leaders have been organizing squads of civilians on every block, an army of men—and even women, he’s heard—and now it seems the time has come for a final resistance. No one is admitting it yet, but Werner knows this means the war is over. Their island, Rügen, lies right underneath Denmark and Sweden, straight across the lower Baltic Sea; once it was Danish, then Swedish—it was even French for a few years—and finally, for 130 years, it’s been part of Germany. Now they are all terrified it will fall to the Russians. Everyone on the island is tight lipped, stunned by privation and fear. What they hear from Goebbels is not what they’re hearing on the ground. When France was liberated the previous year, Werner added to his stockpile of canned food (which he hides in the cellar of his small apartment block) and acquired a gun—albeit an old one from the first war, but he’s made sure it functions. He’ll be damned if he’s going to let the Bolsheviks string him up just for being a German citizen.
The telegram is a directive from Berlin, sent to all major cities that have not yet been overrun by the Allies. This ragtag people’s army, the so-called Volkssturm, is being ordered to blow up the two-kilometer-long bridge between their island, Rügen, and the Hanseatic city of Stralsund that lies on the mainland. Any man “still breathing” has been ordered to give his life in this eleventh-hour effort to keep the Russians at bay.
Bringing the paper over to his desk, he is aware again of the dull pain in his hip, the ever-constant ache he has known since he was ten years old. The doctors told him he would need to use a cane for the rest of his life, but even as a child, and a rather timid one at that, he scoffed at the idea. It is bad enough that he moves like a machine with ill-fitting parts, like some poorly oiled hunk of metal, but to add a cane to the mix—absolutely not. He does not wish to draw even more attention to himself, and yet at all times, in almost all situations, eyes are busy tracking him—curious eyes seeking to unclothe him in order to stare at his body, twisted with poliomyelitis. Even now as an adult, well presented in a suit and hat (always conducting himself with intelligence and honor), people tend to be dismissive. They see the limp, the shortened leg. It takes an age for them to look up into his face, to actually hear what he is saying.
Rubbing at his thigh muscles with his thumbs, he digs deeply into the tissue. The pain no longer bothers him, but the memories it brings up do. The boys who poked him with sticks
in the playground when he failed to rise quickly enough. The little girl who shrieked as he disrobed to swim in the ocean. And of course those blasted Wehrmacht soldiers at the ceremony in Saargen. He wonders what the new world order will mean for him, but he pushes that thought aside. A certain delirious fear, something that is probably not unlike courage, percolates through him at the thought of finally, finally doing something useful.
He thinks, then, of the young woman from the fish shop, Bettina Heilstrom. How he discovered deep inside himself the fierceness to act when she was in danger. In that instant he surprised himself, and her too. Werner cannot forget the sensation of pushing that blade through the soldier’s skin and deep into his flesh; it entered the boy’s body so very easily. What heresy, and yet war pushes men to do what they must, no? The triumphant surge Werner felt when the soldier slumped over electrified him, and that feeling lingers even now. It reminds him that he is, in fact, a man, someone with abilities and needs, a man who can make a good life for himself with the right woman at his side.
Each time he’d entered the Heilstroms’ fish shop, he had not allowed himself to look at her for long; she was far too young. Not someone for him. But who is for him?
The shop has been closed for two years now, and for a while he lost sight of the girl, though she crops up in his thoughts every so often when he lies alone at night: the lush brown nest of her hair; that shocking moment of recognition they’d shared when she touched his cheek. Then, about a year ago, he read in the paper that her father had died. After that he could not stop wondering about her. He remembered that her family lived on the old square, Apolonienmarkt, and one day he stopped by to pay his condolences.
He’s now been to her fisherman’s cottage a number of times. At first he arrived empty handed, twiddling his hat in his hands, but he’s taken to scouring the shops for some offering with which to indulge her. Truthfully, this takes time, and he often struggles to determine if his finds are appropriate. It’s become a bit of a scavenger hunt: one week an embroidered handkerchief, the next a small bottle of schnapps. They are lucky to live on an island with animals and gardens (unlike in Berlin, where people are said to be starving); last time he visited her, he took some beets from the communal plot down the road and a bottle of homemade beer. Her face lit up, and she invited him to stay and enjoy them with her.
This girl, she emits an energy that is palpable; it changes the cadence of his breath. Perhaps it is her youth. It is possible that she is only twenty or twenty-one years old; he can’t be certain. But those years do not mean so much when you have been through what they experienced together. She could be a dancer, the way she moves with such purpose and grace. A long neck, pale and smooth. Her limbs, covered in fine hairs. He thinks he can see from her demeanor that she appreciates his presence. Perhaps even that she admires him a bit. She may be young and timid, but he sees a spark of empathy in her, and he believes she could grow to love him. It might be time to make his intentions clear.
The very thought of doing this makes him begin to sweat, and he realizes that he will have to head back to his small apartment after work to change his undershirt before he makes any moves at all.
The Kübelwagen, a Wehrmacht jeep, clatters over the cobblestones, passing through the old market square three times. A loudspeaker rigged on its roof with twine is held in place by a mangy-looking boy. Each time the jeep enters the square, the same proclamation rings out from the vehicle while a gaggle of children run behind, throwing small rocks and twigs at the tires.
“Achtung, alle Männer!” the speaker announces, calling all the neighborhood men. “Convene at your local town hall, tomorrow, eight a.m. sharp. Calling all men, injured and whole of body, ages twelve and up. Bring identification papers and work boots. Those with injuries, bring signed documentation from your physician.” Then there is a pause before the incantation resumes.
Werner is in the living room of Bettina’s house, surveying the scene outside. The room is rather spacious, shaded by a jagged thatch that overhangs the windows. An extraordinary number of books line a set of shelves on one wall. Above the hearth, which seems to be inactive, hangs a portrait of a man with a handlebar mustache and a high forehead—her grandfather, perhaps? In his pocket Werner carries his mother Lotte’s battered wedding ring.
“Oh dear. What’s that racket outside?” Bettina asks, putting down a tray with cups and saucers and a pot of Ersatzkaffee on the table between them. Her dark hair is pinned back in a bun, and she wears a plain dress with a spotless apron tied around her waist.
“Do not concern yourself,” Werner says. “It will be all right.”
“But . . .” She peers out the window, leaning with both hands on the sill. “It’s the end, is it? Is that what they’re saying?” When she looks over her shoulder at him, her eyes are wide. They are dark, an intense brown that borders on black. Though her face has strong features, she carries a softness on her bones that some women don’t grow out of until they’re fully adult.
“Not quite yet,” he says, fiddling with the ring. “We will make one last push against the Soviets. There were orders from Berlin—the town hall was buzzing about it all day.”
“Will you fight too?”
Is that a look of concern on her face? The idea that she might be worrying about his safety gives him courage. “Bettina, dear,” he starts, but his tone is patronizing, and that is not at all what he is aiming for. He clears his throat. “This is the end of one phase of our lives and the beginning of another. This . . . after this, nothing will be the same again, whatever happens. I think, don’t you—that people are better off together than alone?”
He fumbles in his pocket, bringing out the gold band. “This belonged to my mother, and I would like you to have it,” he says, holding it out toward her. “May I dare to presume that you do not find my company distasteful? Together we would be stronger. Together—we could face whatever may come next.”
Her face is blank as she gazes at his hand. Clearly she has been taken by surprise and is struggling to think of a response.
“Your father and I were friends,” Werner continues, though this is perhaps overstating things a bit. “I think he would approve.”
“Is this a proposal, Herr Nietz?” the girl asks.
He continues to hold the ring out somewhat awkwardly. “Bettina Heilstrom, would you . . . I mean—I promise . . . will you do me the honor?”
“What is it that you promise me, then?”
She is trying to be lighthearted. Or is she being coy? He can’t quite tell. He chooses to believe she has the capacity for playfulness, and so he smiles at her. “I promise to be true to my word. I will always—never mind the circumstances, I will do my utmost—”
To stop his stammering, she brings her face close to his and kisses him. And then—he can barely believe it to be true—she parts her lips. Her mouth tastes of nuts, and her skin smells pleasantly of soap, and this sends a shot of adrenaline through his body. He begins to tremble.
He is tired of making decisions on his own, of trusting in a fickle fate. Domesticity, the comfort that comes from family life, will be the driving force that will see them through the coming years. The war is lost, and they will spend many years digging themselves free of the horrors foisted on them by the Nazis. Werner doesn’t care for politics, for the NSDAP and all the party now stands for under Hitler. He isn’t moved by the rhetoric and bluster of a party bent on dominance and destruction; he believes that strength lies not in politics but in family. It seems possible that he might cobble one together for himself after all, and he knows that it will change his life in ways that he cannot even begin to imagine.
He pulls away from the kiss, grasps Bettina’s hand, her bones as slender as reeds, and slips the ring over her finger. And so it is done.
6
Husband and wife are careful with each other; Werner treats Bettina with the kind of gentleness with which you might treat something breakable. Next to her at night, he sleeps peac
efully, stretched out with his hands at his sides and the feather duvet pulled up to his shoulders. He does not like to be touched as he sleeps, and this suits Bettina fine. Spontaneous affection is not instinctive for her. Even after five years of marriage, Bettina is perplexed by this man’s daily rhythms, his nocturnal sounds, even his odor, which is at times animalistic and repellent but also surprisingly alluring. Many hours go by as she stares at the ceiling in the darkness, unable to fall asleep, trying to imagine faraway places she reads about in the old books her father so loved.
At night, flickering images of the dead fill her mind as though they are trying to keep her company, and even though she does not want them there, they stay. Sleep remains elusive. It is not just the murdered German soldier she sees—his surprised young face—it is all the dead, even the enemy, the Russians and the Allies. No amount of reading or dreaming of new worlds can banish the pale, gaunt faces of all those who have been killed. Their blind eyes, slack mouths. The islanders have slogged their way through the postwar years, and yet the war seems to rage on inside her head regardless. The dreams, they simply won’t stop. And she’d prayed that by now she and Werner would have children, but it has not happened.
Just a few weeks after Werner’s proposal, he and Bettina were married. Her new husband gave up his modest apartment (a widow from Danzig with her three-year-old had immediately moved in), bringing along only two battered leather suitcases with him. He had no family heirlooms, no decent furniture, and only a few framed photographs of his parents, who had died years earlier, but he did request that two crates of accounting texts be brought over from his office. The old volumes sit on the overfilled shelves alongside her copies of Kleist and Goethe, next to her collection of etchings and photography supplies.
For the civil wedding ceremony at the registrar’s office, she wore her favorite maroon housedress with the lace collar while Clara and Herbert looked on with bewildered expressions on their thinned-out faces. Neither bride nor groom invited a single friend or acquaintance.
This Terrible Beauty: A Novel Page 5