Those Who Save Us (26 page)

[
Subject pauses to refold statement.
]

This is not what happened to me, obviously. This is what [happened to my aunt Sarah, whom I loved dearly. Or rather, this is what I imagine happened to her. There is, of course, no way of knowing for certain. There is no way to know what they felt, those millions who were given no chance at survival. I can only speculate. And even I, a Jew—yes, I am a Jew, Dr. Swenson, and my entire family was murdered by the Nazis—even I can only imagine a pale facsimile of what it must have been like.

But I do know that there is no justification. No possible rationalization for what the Nazis did, for what civilian Germans permitted and encouraged to happen.

And yet: you. Here you are. You have the temerity to sit in my home, at my table, with your lights and your cameras and your questions and your historical credentials. You dare to seek some explanation. You dare to record the stories of the butchers and those who abetted them. You dare to seek some exoneration of a people who committed wholesale slaughter of an entire race!

Take your things and get out of my house.

I said, get out. Now.

Get out, I said! Get out of my house!

37

AFTER THIS UTTER DISASTER, TRUDY WANTS NOTHING more than to go lie down in a very dark room for a very long time. But of course this is impossible: she has a seminar to teach, and even though Mr. Goldmann’s interview has been, to put it politely, truncated, Trudy must still scramble if she is to make it to the university for her class. So she leaves Mr. Goldmann’s house immediately as ordered, waiting on the porch for Thomas to pack his equipment. She hangs her head when she hears him coming outside; she can’t bear to look at his face, to find even a trace of triumph there.

Thomas touches her shoulder.

Are you all right? he asks.

I’m fine, says Trudy, staring over at her car. Just late.

She starts to walk down the steps. Thomas’s cart bumps along the risers behind her.

God, that was terrible, he says. I never would have expected—

I’m sorry, Thomas, but I really have to go.

Trudy.

Yes?

Try not to take it too much to heart, what he said. It wasn’t your fault.

Trudy feels the treacherous sting of tears behind her eyes. She quickens her pace until she is nearly running toward her car. As she opens its door, she raises a backward hand in farewell and calls, I’ll be in touch later, okay?

She pulls away from the curb with a rattle of salt. The temperature has risen during her sojourn at Mr. Goldmann’s house and the roads are safer now, but they are also clogged with lunch-hour commuters and people getting a belated start on their day. Trudy drives like a maniac, weaving in and out of lanes, cutting off trucks, smacking her horn whenever she encounters somebody making too slow a turn or lingering at a four-way stop.

Come on, come on! she yells when she hits the snarled traffic on the bridge over the Mississippi.

She parks aslant in her space in the faculty lot and runs clumsily through the basement hallway of the History building,
thump-slap, thump-slap,
her unlaced boot threatening to come off her foot with each step. She hears her students chattering as she nears her classroom, their voices louder and more lively than they ever are during lecture. No doubt they are hopefully analyzing the likelihood of her not showing up. Trudy frowns and plunges through the door.

Sorry to disappoint you, folks, she says, but here I am.

There are a few good-natured groans, and then the room quiets as Trudy grimly
thump-slap
s toward the podium. She struggles out of her coat and scarf and throws them onto an empty chair in the front row—somebody is absent; who has decided not to bother with class today? She bends to her briefcase and unzips it, and only then does she realize she has forgotten her notes. All she has with her is her interview portfolio.

Trudy runs her hands through her hair and looks into the briefcase again as if this would cause her lesson plan to magically appear. When it does not, she props the portfolio on the lectern. She can at least give the impression of being prepared.

As she opens the leather binder she hears whispering and what sounds suspiciously like a snicker, and then some wit calls, Tough morning, Professor?

Indeed, says Trudy. Thank you, Mr. Phillips, for once again exercising your gift of stating the obvious.

She turns and limps to the board to take from the trough a fresh stick of chalk, which she snaps in half. She rubs her thumb over the rough edge as she returns to the podium, trying to remember what lecture she is meant to give.

Today—, she says.

Tiny fragments of chalk patter to the floor. Trudy clears her throat and looks down at her legal pad.
Goldmann, Rainer Josef,
is written there, in her own rather cramped handwriting.
Subject b. 1931, Berlin . . .

Goldmann. Of course. It seems so obvious in hindsight. Trudy should have known he was Jewish. But he responded to her ad— He knew what the Project was about— She even spoke with him on the phone! How could she possibly have guessed?

Sneaky. The Jews were sneaky.

Trudy slaps the portfolio shut.

Today, as indicated by the material you’ve read since we last met, she says, we’re going to discuss, um, the roles German women played in the Resistance—There it is again. A definite snigger. Trudy’s head whips up. In the last row—why must fraternity boys always sit in the back? Do they think this renders them invisible?—this semester’s version of Frick and Frack are sharing some private joke, most likely at Trudy’s expense.

Excuse me, Trudy says. Do you gentlemen find something amusing?

The pair glance up and around as if Trudy might be speaking to somebody else. Then they blink innocently at her:
Who, us?

Yes, you, says Trudy. If you think something is funny, I’d really like to know what it is.

The boys smirk and shift and stare past their desks at their enormous sneakers.

So, what is it?

The rest of the students hunch frozen in their seats, not daring to look at the offenders. Trudy folds her arms and waits.

Finally, Frick or Frack mutters, Nothing.

Nothing, repeats Trudy. Nothing. I see. I’m glad to hear that. Because I personally don’t find anything funny about the content of today’s lecture. But perhaps you do? Or perhaps it means so little to you that you can giggle over some fraternity prank while we’re discussing the fact that people once died trying to fight a regime of monstrous tyranny. Gave their lives for the freedom you so blithely take for granted. Is that it? It means so little to you?

Trudy looks out over the room. Not a single student will meet her eye. Some are doodling in their notebooks, lounging and slack-mouthed, the living embodiment of Mr. Goldmann’s theory that they are intellectually void. The possibility that he might be right makes Trudy angrier than ever.

Well? she says.

She turns again to Frick and Frack, who grin with embarrassment.

Then one of them winks at Trudy and says, Hey, Professor, lighten up. It’s Valentine’s Day, you know? Where’s the love?

There are some stifled giggles at this. Valentine’s Day. This would explain the preponderance of red sweaters in the classroom, the teddy bear holding a satin heart on one girl’s desk, the Hershey’s Kisses the students are mouthing. Trudy grips the edges of the lectern.

Ah, yes, she says. Valentine’s Day. So it is. And do any of you happen to know what was happening on Valentine’s Day in, say, 1943? In Germany? I can assure you it was somewhat different. People your age were not sitting in a classroom with their stuffed animals and little hearts. They were dying. Some because they had been caught performing Resistance activities and were strung up by the Gestapo. With piano wire. From meat hooks. Others were dying in air raids and from the flu that all of you can just run to the infirmary and get shots for. Can you believe that? Dying from the
flu
? Or how about dying of cold? Or starvation, perhaps you can imagine that. What would it be like not to have even bread, let alone chocolate? Do you know that in 1943 in Germany there were children who had never
tasted
chocolate? Who didn’t even know what chocolate
was
?

She glares at the class.

Well? Do you?

Total silence. Then somebody mumbles, You don’t have to, like, yell.

Oh, don’t I? Trudy asks. Thank you. Thank you for that sage piece of advice. But it seems to me that there is no other way to shake you out of your self-indulgent stupor, to make you realize that this isn’t just something I make you read about in history books. This is real. This is something that happened to
real people.
And let’s forget about the Germans for a second. Let’s think about the Jews. Oh, what the Germans did to the Jews. Did you know that when the Americans and Russians liberated the concentration camps, there were people your size who weighed under seventy pounds?
Seventy pounds.
Half of what some of you weigh. And their stomachs were so shrunken, so decimated from years of starvation, that when the soldiers tried to be kind to them and fed them meat and soup and cheese and, yes, chocolate, they died. Died from eating a Hershey bar. Can you imagine that? Any of you? You think about that next time you go to the dining hall— to the
gym
— when you’re trying to decide between yogurt or salad because you’re sticking to your little
diets—

Trudy breaks off. A small choked noise has come from just beyond the podium, from a nice assiduous girl who always sits in the front row. She is staring at Trudy, tears in her eyes. The other students are either boggling at her too, thunderstruck, or looking at the floor.

Trudy turns and puts the chalk, by now a stub, back in the trough. Then she picks up her portfolio and coat and scarf.

That’s all for today, she says.

She walks with as much dignity as her boot will permit her from the room, conscious of being watched in stunned disbelief, and shuts the door quietly behind her.

38

IT IS EARLY EVENING WHEN TRUDY RETURNS TO MR. Goldmann’s house. The sky is a deep navy overhead, shading in the west to a lighter blue so pure it seems to vibrate: a gift of a color peculiar to midwinter Minnesota nights, compensating in clarity for what it lacks in warmth. To Trudy, standing by her car, it is reminiscent of a Maxfield Parrish painting; like a Parrish, too, is the yellow of the windows in the neighboring houses. Trudy eyes Mr. Goldmann’s, which are dark. Perhaps he is not home. She feels such relief at this prospect that she forces herself up the front walk and onto the porch without thinking about it further.

She is carrying a casserole of latkes, the recipe for which she wheedled from the owner of Murray’s Deli and that she has spent the entire afternoon making. The latkes look like potato pancakes to Trudy—or their German cousins,
Kartoffelkuchen
—but what does she know. In any case, they seem to have turned out all right: crisp and brown, rich with onions and butter and flecks of parsley. She has even included a side of sour cream.

She holds the Pyrex dish awkwardly under one arm while she turns the iron key that rings the bell. The ensuing tinny clatter is loud enough to send the dog in the house next door into a frenzy, but Mr. Goldmann does not appear. Trudy starts to try again, then draws her hand back. Once is enough. She sets the latkes on the welcome mat and is rummaging through her purse for paper and pen to write a note to go with them when she hears the
whish-whish
of approaching slippered feet.

Yes, Mr. Goldmann rumbles. What do you want? . . . Oh. It’s you.

Trudy tries to smile.

It’s me, she agrees.

For a long moment Mr. Goldmann merely looks at her.

Then he says, You have interrupted my dinner, and starts to shut the door.

Wait, says Trudy. Please.

She shifts her pocketbook onto her shoulder so she can stoop and pick up the latkes. The bag sags open and disgorges its contents onto the floorboards: pens, Chapstick, a rattling bottle of Motrin, nickels bouncing and rolling into the corners.

Oh, God, Trudy says.

Dropping to her hands and knees, she scrabbles to sweep the mess back into her purse. She doesn’t dare glance up at Mr. Goldmann; she can feel his displeasure as surely as if it were cold air emanating from an icebox. His slippers, which are leather and embossed with his monogram, remain in exactly the same position in the doorway as Trudy crawls past them.

When she has finished retrieving her things, Trudy stands and picks up the casserole dish. She holds it out.

For you, she says.

Mr. Goldmann lifts an eyebrow. There is something different about him, Trudy thinks. He is not wearing his bifocals. He is marginally less intimidating without them. But his silence is daunting enough.

Please, Trudy says again. I made them for you. Though I should warn you, they’re not kosher. I didn’t have the proper cooking equipment—That is irrelevant, Dr. Swenson, says Mr. Goldmann, as I am not observant. I am Jewish in name only.

Oh, says Trudy.

Mr. Goldmann squints at Trudy’s offering.

What are they?

Latkes.

He leans forward over the pan and sniffs suspiciously.

They look like potato pancakes, he says.

Well, they are, essentially. That’s what latkes are.

Ah.

Mr. Goldmann straightens, his hands in the pockets of his cardigan. Trudy shifts from foot to foot, waiting for him to say something else or at least take the pan. When he doesn’t, she bends to put it on the mat.

I’m sorry to have disturbed you, she says. I’ll just leave these here. You can keep the dish.

Dr. Swenson.

Yes?

Mr. Goldmann sighs.

You might as well come in, he says. And bring those—He gestures to the pancakes.

Latkes.

Yes, the latkes. Since my dinner will no doubt be cold by now, I suppose there is no harm in adding a side of cold potatoes to it.

He turns and walks into the house, again merely leaving the door open in brusque implication that Trudy should follow.

So she does, hurrying to catch up with him as he strides through the dining room, the scene of the earlier debacle, and through a long narrow throat of a hallway that opens into a kitchen. It is somewhat warmer in here, but only a little; the drafts, the room’s large and chilly proportions, the high tin ceiling remind Trudy of the farmhouse. Like those in the farmhouse, too, are the old gas range from the fifties and the gigantic refrigerator with its rounded corners, the walls painted their original Depression green. A Beethoven symphony plays quietly and incongruously from some other room.

Trudy looks around for a place to put the latkes.

On the table is fine, Mr. Goldmann says.

Trudy sets the casserole next to a glass of milk and a half-eaten slab of roast. There is also a candle in a pewter holder, though unlit, and photographs spilling from an envelope, in disarray on the checked oilcloth as though Mr. Goldmann has just been sifting through them.

Trudy can’t help glancing at them.

Are these of your family?

My daughter and granddaughter.

May I?

Mr. Goldmann says nothing, which Trudy takes as tacit permission to examine the top snapshot. Against a backdrop of palms, a small woman with dark curly hair laughs into the camera, hugging a pretty child to her waist. Mr. Goldmann stands slightly to one side. They are all wearing Mickey Mouse ears, Mr. Goldmann included. He looks uncomfortable.

Disney World, he explains from behind Trudy, somewhat unnecessarily. A recent vacation. They live nearby. A hideous place, but my granddaughter loves it.

I can see that. She’s a beautiful little girl. What’s her name?

Hannah, after my late wife. Who died twelve years ago of cancer, a miserable agonizing death I wouldn’t wish on an SS dog. The irony being that at the end she was as thin as she was in the camps, skin and bones, all her hair gone. Dr. Swenson—Trudy looks up. Mr. Goldmann is standing stiffly next to his chair, one hand on its laddered back as though he is posing for a portrait.

Yes?

Why are you here?

Mr. Goldmann—

Rainer. Since you have for some unknown reason seen fit to invade my home a second time, you might as well use my first name, don’t you think?

Trudy’s face burns.

All right. Rainer. And please, call me Trudy. Anyway, I just came . . .

She shakes her head.

Go on.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. To bring the latkes, I mean. I somehow had the misguided notion that they might work as a sort of peace offering, you know, to make amends for what happened earlier today, to—Well. It was stupid, really. Nobody could ever compensate for what was done to you and your family. Least of all me.

Trudy hitches her purse more securely onto her shoulder.

But thank you for inviting me in, she says. I’ll leave you in peace now.

She walks quickly from the kitchen, leaving Mr. Goldmann still gripping his chair. She is nearly to the front door, cursing herself for being a fool, when she hears him call: Dr. Swenson.

Trudy turns. Mr. Goldmann is standing at the mouth of the hallway.

Trudy, she says. Please.

Very well. Trudy. Have you eaten?

Well, no, but—

In that case, perhaps you would join me.

Why, I— Yes, that would be lovely. I’d be honored, in fact.

Mr. Goldmann looks startled. Then he nods.

Sit, he says. I will bring the food out here.

Oh, no, says Trudy. Don’t go to any trouble. The kitchen is fine—

But he is already striding away, so Trudy removes her coat and unwinds her scarf and lays them on a chair next to the dining-room table. She pulls out another and settles cautiously on its edge. As she had no chance to take note of her surroundings earlier, she does so now: dark wallpaper with small tasteful wreaths, a sideboard displaying the flowered china, faded Oriental rugs. In an alcove next to the bay window is another, smaller table with a chess set on it, the pieces arranged in midbattle configuration. There are no curtains; on pleasant days, sunlight would stream over the board. Trudy pictures Mr. Goldmann playing himself, angling forward to move a knight and then sitting back to contemplate its position, the light glinting on the gray hair of his wrist and glancing off his watch.

He returns with a tray, from which he doles two plates of meat, carrots and peas, and Trudy’s latkes. Their lacy edges look fussy, she thinks, next to Mr. Goldmann’s simple bachelor fare.

He sits opposite Trudy and picks up his knife and fork.

Gut essen,
he says.

Trudy eyes him warily. Is there a faint irony to his smile?

Bon
appétit,
she replies, and toasts him with her milk.

Mr. Goldmann begins to eat. His complete concentration on his food does not encourage conversation, so Trudy takes her cue from him. She saws at her meat, trying to keep the plate from moving on the table, and brings a forkful to her mouth. Halfway there, her hand pauses: the Beethoven, which Trudy has almost forgotten, stops and starts again, the same piece. It is the second movement of the Seventh Symphony, which to Trudy has always been, with its clever, tortured minor-key strings, the very essence of grief. Mr. Goldmann has programmed it to repeat.

He looks up and levels his knife at Trudy, who notices that his watch is exactly as she has imagined it. Plain, durable. And his large square hand is indeed thatched with silvering hair as thick as that on his head.

Is there something wrong with your food? he asks.

Trudy finishes her bite, chewing and swallowing with difficulty. The roast is in fact overcooked, so tough and stringy as to be nearly inedible.

No, not at all, she says. It’s delicious.

Mr. Goldmann grunts and returns to his meal.

Then eat your dinner, he says.

Trudy does. The cutlery clinks and scrapes on the plates.