Those Who Save Us (24 page)

33

BY MIDMORNING, THE WEATHER HAS TAKEN A TURN FOR the worse. From the dining room, Anna watches a fog roll across the mountains, first snagging on the peaks and then cloaking all Berchtesgaden in a dense shroud. The
Obersturmführer
is disappointed; he has envisioned a rigorous hike in the foothills, lunching like Tristan and Isolde beneath the trees. But the conditions permit neither picnicking nor perambulation, so after their breakfast, they return to their room.

Anna sits astride the
Obersturmführer
on the bed, straddling his buttocks; he lies on his stomach, his dark head turned sideways on the pillow. He wears only his briefs. His wounded shoulder, he tells Anna, reacts poorly to the cold and damp; it often troubles him in the camp, but it is a misery to him here. I am a human barometer, he says ruefully, his voice muffled. Anna doesn’t have the breath to answer. Massaging the muscles around the wound, as he has instructed her to do, is a vigorous business.

The
Obersturmführer
gazes sadly toward the window. The fog, a swirling gray mass, is so heavy that one cannot see the church opposite.

The Gods conspire against us, Anna, he sighs. And I so wished to show you the trails. The excursion up the Höhe Göll is especially magnificent.

Hummm,
Anna murmurs. She is drugged, gravid with food. As the
Obersturmführer
promised, breakfast here is a veritable feast: eggs! cheese! yogurt with muesli, and, a small miracle, jam! Her overladen stomach groans. Even the
Obersturmführer
’s back reminds her of unbaked bread. His wound is a saucer-sized crater near the right shoulderblade, the scar tissue stiff and shiny, but the flesh around it is elastic as dough. Anna plucks it between thumb and forefinger, watching fascinated as it slowly sinks, reddened, back into place. The
Obersturmführer
is getting fat.

And the Berghof, the
Obersturmführer
adds. The Berghof and the Kehlsteinhaus, the
Führer
’s private retreat—a marvel, truly!

As Anna probes an obstinate tendon, he grunts and closes his eyes.

I was there only once, in 1938, when Koch and I were summoned, he continues. We SS stayed in the Hotel zum Türken, of course; only the biggest wheels slept at the Kehlsteinhaus. But I never forgot the view—one could see into Austria!—nor the grounds. Just think, Anna. Among those inhospitable peaks, Bormann has created Utopia as a gift for the
Führer
: a greenhouse, a mushroom farm, beehives, and birdhouses. Salt licks for the
Führer
’s deer.

It sounds quite opulent, Anna says, unable to prevent a note of sarcasm.

Oh, yes, you can’t imagine...The
Obersturmführer
chuckles. Just reaching the place is an engineering exhibition. First the drive up the mountain, a nightmare of a road, hairpin turns every hundred meters or so. And when the road stops, one drives straight into the heart of the Höhe Göll and then is whisked to the top by a lift. I have never been fond of heights, but Koch’s face—it was absolutely green, I can tell you.

He laughs again.

One can drive into the mountain? Anna asks, intrigued despite herself.

Bormann ordered a tunnel blasted through the rock with dynamite. Ingenious . . .

The
Obersturmführer
grows pensive. The laborers were all criminals, of course, he says; rapists and murderers. But I must admit, I felt some sympathy for them, clinging to the mountainside like goats. The explosives and exposure did away with quite a few. And to look down from that height is to see oneself falling into the abyss, to envision one’s own death...However, they were well-treated. There was even a cinema where they could watch films once the day’s work was done.

Suddenly the
Obersturmführer
stiffens, drawing air through gritted teeth.

Achhh,
he says, not so hard!

Anna forces her hands to unclench.

I think it’s revolting, she hears herself say.

After a pause, the
Obersturmführer
replies thoughtfully, Yes, I suppose you’re right. Such decadence when even gasoline was declared a national resource—yes, it shows poor judgment.

Anna resumes her work, pummeling harder than necessary, her hair swinging on either side of her face.

Between us, says the
Obersturmführer,
this sort of thing is rampant within the higher levels of the Reich, this . . . corrosive decadence. It troubles me. It corrupted Koch, you know.

The
Obersturmführer
flexes his arms backward. His spine cracks. I myself am no angel, he says; at the front, I . . . In any case, some adolescent behavior is to be expected, given our demanding work. One seeks spiritual release in the physical. But one would think the
Kommandant,
at least, to be above such behavior—More on the left shoulder, please.

Anna obliges. The
Obersturmführer
groans: Koch, what a
Dummkopf
! That he contracted syphilis—stupid, but understandable. To want to hide it—who wouldn’t, in his shoes? Ha! Frau Koch would have had his head on a platter had she known. To order the extermination of the doctors who treated him—just covering his tracks. But to record the whole business in writing! Unpardonable stupidity! The decadence dimmed his thought processes, you see. The incessant parties, the orgies; exactly the sort of degenerate behavior that riddled the Weimar Republic, which one was led to believe the Reich would stamp out.

Anna tries to picture the
Obersturmführer
participating in an orgy and fails. It seems more likely that he has learned his dexterity from whores. In a group activity, she imagines, he would have stood to one side, watching.

The
Obersturmführer
sighs.
Kommandant
Pister runs a tighter ship, which is a relief. But he has given me Section II duties, whereas Koch never would have wasted a deputy
Kommandant
’s time with paperwork! I haven’t much nostalgia for the early days, but . . . without Koch, you see, I’ll never be . . . more than a small cog in a big machine. I don’t have the . . . the stand-out quality; I do my job well, but . . . I don’t possess the . . . the requisite . . .

As he struggles for the words to express his inadequacies, a man unacquainted with introspection, Anna thinks she can almost hear the dirt gritting between the gears of his own strange clockwork. She has never seen him this preoccupied, vulnerable, dreamy. How many camp inmates, how many members of the Resistance, would give their lives to catch the
Obersturmführer
in such a state? Anna’s hands tremble on the whorl of moles between his shoulderblades. How many people could she save by shooting him in the center of this natural target? His pistol lies within reach, on the bureau with his dagger. All she has to do is cross the room.

Instantly, Anna thinks of all the reasons why this is impossible. She would be arrested. There would be reprisals, not only her own death and Trudie’s but within the camp. And even if, as in a fairy tale, she could escape undetected, another officer would take the
Obersturmführer
’s place. The rations and provisions for bread, the lifeline upon which she and her daughter depend, would be cut off. On a simpler, pragmatic level, Anna has never fired a gun, nor so much as held one.

Yet beneath these concerns exists another. It revolts Anna to feel any understanding for this creature. How is it possible? But that morning, the
Obersturmführer
hesitated in the doorway of the breakfast room. He must have heard, as Anna did, the sarcastic stage whisper of the officer who applauded his actions the night before:
Look, it’s the hero with his little . . . wife.
For a moment, watching the
Obersturmführer
’s face sag, Anna glimpsed him as a small boy: wary, ridiculed by his peers, never quite comprehending why. Then, nodding icily, he guided her to a table on the opposite side of the room.

The despair within Anna over her own cowardice, her instant of fellow feeling for this man, is so great that it seems to have an accompanying sound, a desolate internal whistle. She lowers her forehead and touches it briefly to the blotch of dark spots on the
Obersturmführer
’s back.

The
Obersturmführer
heaves galvanically beneath her, turning over. He takes her hands in his.

My masseuse, he says. Such strong hands, like those of a pianist, or a farm girl.

It’s from working with bread, Anna tells him.

He catches one of her fingers between his teeth and nibbles.

And what astounding things you do with these demure little hands, he murmurs, mouth full. You—

Without any forethought whatsoever, shocking herself, Anna asks,
Do
you have a wife?

The
Obersturmführer
thrusts her hand aside and swears. He frowns in the direction of the sampler. Anna doesn’t dare look at him. She stares instead at her lap, split in a Y because she is still straddling his waist.

After a time he snaps, Yes, I have a wife. She’s a spoiled, fat, wretched woman who suffers agoraphobia; she hasn’t left the house in years. She lives with her mother in Wartburg. Does that answer your question?

Yes, Anna whispers.

She senses rather than sees the
Obersturmführer
’s gaze on her. Then his index finger is on her chin, forcing her to look at him. He has mistaken her surprise for heartbreak, for he bestows a smile upon her, rich and reassuring.

But I never expected to meet somebody like you, the
Ober-sturmführer
says. Do you know, you alone save me. Your purity, your values—our shared values—they elevate me above the filth that surrounds me every day.

He grasps Anna’s hands again and gives them a small shake.

You are my savior, he says. After all, if not for you, I might have been pulled into Koch’s decadence, and then I too would have been removed from my post. We might never have met, Anna! I often think of that.

As do I, says Anna. As do I.

34

THE
OBERSTURMFÜHRER
DEPOSITS ANNA AT THE BAKERY late Sunday afternoon. She stands watching his car pull away, realizing belatedly that she could have asked for transport to collect Trudie. The thought never so much as crossed her mind; the less people know about her arrangement with the
Obersturm-führer,
the better for all concerned.

No matter; it is a fine, mild evening, and the sun now holds some warmth even as it sets. Yet Anna wants to grizzle like a child as she trudges along. She is exhausted from the
Obersturm-führer
’s revelations and nocturnal demands. How much faster this journey could be in the
Obersturmführer
’s car! Anna finds that she would like to slap herself for such a thought, but it persists nonetheless. She vows not to look away if she encounters a labor detachment; she will give the pastries in her handbag to anyone wearing the yellow star. But the streets are deserted. And no wonder: it is dinner hour on Easter Sunday.

Indeed, when Anna knocks on the door of the butcher shop, Mother Buchholtz and her flock are just sitting down to eat. The butcher’s widow leads Anna behind the store into the kitchen, where her children are gathered around the table. All sounds of slurping and chewing cease as Anna enters; the children inspect her traveling suit, its warm nubbly tweed, with awe.

Mama! Trudie calls. She has been stuffed into a highchair far too small for her, and she struggles to escape.

Just a minute, little one, Anna says.

She makes a face of chagrin at Frau Buchholtz. I’m sorry to have interrupted your meal, she says.

Frau Buchholtz averts her eyes.

That’s all right, she says to the corner.

Her hands wander to the Mother’s Cross pinned to her shirtwaist, her reward for having produced six children for the Reich. Its silver glints as though she polishes it every day. Perhaps she does.

Anna unfastens Trudie from the chair, planting a kiss on the child’s head where the parting divides into the fair braids. In preparation for Trudie’s stay here, Anna has carefully selected the child’s shabbiest clothes, only those of the
Obersturmführer
’s gifts that have stood the most wear. Even so, the difference between Anna’s daughter and the Buchholtz children is all too evi-dent: Trudie, though spindly for a girl of two and a half, has good color and a shine to her hair, while the wrist bones of the Buchholtz brood look as if they will soon break the skin. Their eyes, staring at Anna over plates of bread spread with lard, appear simultaneously sunken and too large.

Anna hoists Trudie on her hip. What do you say to Frau Buchholtz? Anna prompts her.

Thank you, says the child, uncharacteristically dutiful.

Frau Buchholtz smiles and sticks out her tongue. Leaning from Anna’s arms, Trudie touches it with the tip of her own.

I hope she’s been no trouble, Anna says.

No, not at all, says Frau Buchholtz. As she guides Anna back through the hallway, the widow’s hands are again drawn to her decoration, caressing it.

And did you have a good journey? she asks.

Oh, yes, says Anna, brightly reeling out the tale she has rehearsed all the way from Berchtesgaden. My Tante Hilde was in fine spirits, though she complained about the lack of food. I thought in Leipzig one might be able to procure more rations, but apparently it’s the same as here. Too much to die, too little to live, as they say.

Frau Buchholtz shakes her head in commiseration.

Anna, knowing she is embroidering too much but helpless to stop, continues, And the train! A hellish journey. Though I was lucky to get a spot at all, since it’s all
Wehrmacht
these days. It would have been impossible with the child. I stood the entire time, crammed in with the others like sardines . . .

She trails off. It is peculiar: in the
Obersturmführer
’s presence Anna lies with impunity; yet in front of this woman, she flushes. Does Frau Buchholtz, who has provided meat to Anna’s family for years, know that Anna has no Tante Hilde? Anna wonders how many others have seen the
Obersturm-führer
’s car idling in front of the bakery. Frau Buchholtz continues to finger the Mother’s Cross. Her fidgeting suddenly irritates Anna beyond endurance. She stands as tall as she can and squares her jaw.

But when Frau Buchholtz, perhaps perplexed by Anna’s silence, looks directly at Anna for the first time, Anna understands that not only does the woman know, she is terrified. There is no condemnation in Frau Buchholtz’s glance, only the fear that Anna might have spied some infraction that she will certainly report, well connected as she is. Apparently disdain is a luxury, like sugar or real coffee, that one cannot afford in wartime.

Anna wonders what small crimes this good mother might have committed: trading on the black market, perhaps, to feed that multitude of hungry mouths, or listening to the BBC broadcasts. She puts a hand on the other woman’s arm. Frau Buchholtz’s flesh wobbles loosely from the bone, like chicken skin.

Thank you for watching Trudie, Anna says. There will be extra bread for you this week.

My pleasure, truly, Frau Buchholtz replies. She is again looking anywhere but at Anna. She opens the door, her relief at Anna’s imminent exit as palpable as sweat.

As Anna, feeling much the same, steps over the jamb, Trudie uncorks her thumb from her mouth.

Mama, she pipes, did you see Saint Nikolaus? What did he bring for us?

Shush, says Anna. If you’re a good quiet girl, you’ll get a story before bed.

I don’t want a story, insists the child. I want a rabbit. Saint Nikolaus said I could have a rabbit.

Quiet now, Anna says. Shhh.

She glances back at Frau Buchholtz, who has withdrawn into the shadowy interior of her shop. Though she can no longer see the butcher’s widow, Anna can feel her watching, listening.

Mama, let go, you’re hurting me, Trudie says, pushing against Anna. She drums her feet on Anna’s thighs.

I want Saint Nikolaus, she wails.

Anna presses the child’s face into her shoulder. She has often told herself that she is not so badly off, really. Men of power have had mistresses since time out of mind, and it doesn’t matter that none of the gaunt women who visit the bakery will look directly at Anna. At least she and Trudie are safe in a warm place with access to food, and she is earning her keep in ways both legal and illicit while at this very moment others are dead, dying, starving, having their eyeballs lanced and toenails pulled by the Gestapo, laboring with heavy machinery that crushes their fingers to nubs, standing naked in the rain, their children wrenched shrieking from their arms, being shorn, shot, tumbling into pits. It is really very enviable, Anna’s prosaic little arrangement with the
Obersturmführer.

But Anna has overlooked something. She has not foreseen that his contamination of her would spread to the child.

Saint Nikolaus won’t come if you’re bad, she whispers to Trudie. Remember?

She embraces the girl more tightly. The door to the butcher shop slams behind them.