You won’t believe the story I have to tell, I wrote on a piece of paper. Meet me in the corner of the schoolyard by the linden tree at second break. I passed her the note during Latin.
Rosa had missed the first half of the school day. She had had to stay with her grandmother, who had been feeling dizzy that morning due to her heart problems, until her mother could come back from an important morning meeting at the university. I was practically having a heart attack myself, bursting with the events of the previous evening at the theater. I kept waiting and waiting. But she only showed up toward the end of the school day.
Rosa’s eyes widened as she read the note. She began to scribble something on it but then stopped as our Latin teacher, Fräulein Gompers, ambled down the aisle toward her.
“Now, I want you all to check your translation of that Cicero passage. It’s a very short passage. Then pass it to your neighbor and you will check each other’s work.” Fräulein Gompers liked us to learn from one another. She believed in what she called collaborative learning. “See if perhaps your neighbor had a better or less graceful way of translating a word or a sentence. You be the judge.”
Rosa and I looked at each other. Just before she passed me her Cicero paragraph she wrote in pencil in the margin, Quid est haec fabula? Dic!
I read the margin note, which of course had nothing to do with Cicero but asked in Latin, “What is this story? Do tell!”
“How clever!” I whispered. She was a much better Latin student than I was, and there was no way I could even give the slightest hint in Latin as to the details of the story. All I could write back was Expecta secessum. “Wait until break.” Finally break came.
“I thought you’d never get here!” I was practically dancing with excitement.
“Well, what is it?”
“I saw Fräulein Hofstadt last night at the National Theatre. She was beautiful, gorgeous. A vision.”
“Was she with a man?” Rosa asked.
“An old man!”
“Old man—that’s so sad.”
“No, not a boyfriend, she introduced him as her uncle.”
“Oh, thank heavens. I hate to think of her fiancé’s bones rotting away in a battlefield and her, well you know, with another man.”
“Yes, I’m sure she’ll grieve forever.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Of course. That’s the best part. Baba was with us and Fräulein Hofstadt was so impressed that we knew Baba. I could see that she hoped that Baba might mention her in her social column.”
“Will she?”
“I’m not sure. I got a feeling somehow that maybe Baba didn’t approve of her in some way.”
“Really? How could anyone not approve of Fräulein Hofstadt?”
I shook my head in wonder. “I don’t know.”
On November seventeeth, the very day after I told Rosa this story, an odd chain of events seemed to begin, and it was as if we, Berlin, Germany, and soon all of Europe were launched on an inexorable course. The first event in the chain was the resignation of Chancellor Franz von Papen. Then members of his cabinet had to resign, too. That was the way it worked. Baba said it was Schleicher, whom she also called “the king-maker,” who “unmade” Papen. He was a crafty behind-the-scenes political operator, but Baba liked him well enough. She was very close with Scheicher’s wife. So she got a lot of information. The day Papen resigned, Baba was at our house for dinner. She was full of news and optimism now that the “fool” Papen was out. We were all at the table. Hertha had made sauerbraten. It was so tender you didn’t need a knife to cut it. I was scraping off the vegetables and putting them to the side. I didn’t like it when food touched. Meat and vegetables should be separate, in my opinion. I could feel Ulla looking at me slightly critically.
“I’m not so sure this is good, Baba,” Papa said in answer to Baba’s remarks.
“Let me just say this before we get to Papen,” Baba said, looking up at Hertha who was passing the platter. “Hertha, this is the best sauerbraten ever! It’s so tender. So sweet. No sugar, right?”
“Never sugar, madame. Beet juice, apples. It’s the same recipe made by the chef at the Kaiserhof Hotel.” It was as if the air in the dining room froze. The Kaiserhof! Hitler’s favorite hotel in Berlin. Unofficial Nazi headquarters. Mama coughed nervously. Baba looked as if she might choke on her sauerbraten. I stole at look at Hertha. Her face was as placid as a lake, as expressionless as a potato. When she finished serving, she carried the plate out of the dining room, but the tension lingered.
Baba turned to Papa, and in an effort to smooth over an awkward moment she asked, “So, Otto, to resume our conversation, why is it not so good that Papen resigned?”
Papa patted his mouth lightly with his napkin and then leaned back in his chair. “Papen has resigned. There is a vacuum. Nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum. Watch, the Old Gentleman is weak. He is going to be pulled, sucked into the vacuum, and then the stage will be set for Hitler.”
He looked around the table slowly at each one of us. I felt a terrible dread, a taste of darkness rising from deep inside me. For me it was not simply a vacuum. After the vacuum that nature hated was filled, there would be Hitler. And Hitler wasn’t a vacuum, he was a black hole, a collapsing star whose gravitational pull is so strong, the force so powerful that not even light can escape. My middle name, remember, is Lucia. I was named for the light of a star. And now it was as if I and everything dear to me were being dragged in.
Papa was right. Two days after Papen resigned, Hindenburg, the president of Germany, had a meeting with Hitler. I did not understand it. Vacuum or not.
“Hitler lost thirty-four seats. There isn’t any majority because there are too many parties, but just because he has a few more seats than any other party, how come he gets to meet with the president?”
“Well, I think the other party leaders got to meet with Hindenburg, too, probably,” Rosa said.
We were talking about this as we walked home from school on Monday following the election. We had reached the northwest corner of the schoolyard when I noticed a sleek dark limousine parked down an alley off the main street. From this point on, the limo would become intertwined in the links of the chain.
“Look! It’s Fräulein Hofstadt!” I said. She was coming around from the other end of the alley, her head bent down. I started to raise my hand to wave and call out. But Rosa grabbed it.
“Shhh! Let’s watch.” The car door mysteriously opened from the inside and an arm reached out. Fräulein Hofstadt took the proffered hand and stepped into the limousine. Rosa and I watched in silence as the limousine pulled away, then we turned to each other and didn’t say anything for several seconds. I knew immediately that Rosa had been right to pull my hand down and shush me. We had witnessed something but were not quite sure what. Teachers did not get picked up in limousines. Not only that, but Fräulein Hofstadt was wearing a rather lovely hat with a deep brim that dipped down over one eye. She was always very fashionable, but she never would wear such a hat in school. Had she carried it in a hat box? If so, where was the hat box now? There were an awful lot of unanswered questions.
Finally Rosa spoke. “You said she was with a very old man at the theater.”
“Yes, her uncle.” I paused. “At least, she introduced him as her uncle. But I don’t think he was the kind to have owned a car like this, a limousine,” I said, recalling the hair sprouting from his ears.
“What made you think that?”
“He was just not fancy. Can you imagine Herr Doktor Berg having a limousine?”
“No!” Rosa said firmly.
It was funny I should mention him. I had not thought of Herr Doktor Berg for some time. I never saw him now that we had moved into the other building. I had almost forgotten about my two confiscated books. Hessie had found me another copy of TheCall of the Wild, but I sensed that the translation wasn’t as good.
Snowflakes had begun to fall. “I’m cold,” Rosa said. “No use stan
ding here wondering about Fräulein Hofstadt. Her life is obviously more exciting than ours.”
“More extraordinary,” I said, and we both laughed.
A few days after we saw Fräulein Hofstadt getting into the limo, I came home from school and Papa was already home. The weather had turned quite cold. There was a fire lit in the fireplace and he and Hessie were having a Schnaps. I heard them talking as I walked in.
“But so far Hindenburg seems to be holding off, thank God.”
“Holding off what?” I asked as I came in and dropped my books on a chair.
“Gaby, you know Mama doesn’t like you simply dumping your books on the furniture.”
I picked them up again. “All right, but what’s Hindenburg holding off on?” That fear I had felt before at the dinner table when Papa had described how Hindenburg would eventually be sucked into a vacuum created by Papen’s resignation returned. Once again I felt that dark dread and imagined myself like a collapsing star.
Hessie answered. “He has refused to appoint Hitler chancellor.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes,” Papa said. “So far. Let’s see how long his resolve will last.”
“Maybe until Christmas,” Hessie said
“I honestly doubt it,” Papa replied
“Want to bet?” Hessie said with a twinkle in his eye.
“I shouldn’t bet against a rich man.”
“A dinner at the Drachenhaus?”
“It’s a deal.” They shook hands on it.
“Can I go, too?” I asked. The Drachenhaus was an unusual Oriental-style restaurant a bit outside of Berlin. It was like stepping back into another century on another continent. I loved it.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Papa laughed.
“What’s so ridiculous?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you what, Gaby,” Hessie said, “if I lose and the dinner is on me, you can come.”
“Honestly, Hessie, you spoil her.”
“Why not?” he replied merrily. At that moment Ulla arrived.
“Ulla!” Hessie exclaimed. “How did the audition go?”
Ulla smiled and held up her hands with fingers crossed. “I hope well. One never knows.”
“Well, if you get into conservatory, I suggest a celebration at the Drachenhaus for you!”
“Oh, that would be lovely,” Ulla said.
“And of course your beau is invited. Karl? Is that his name?”
“Yes, Karl.” She nodded and smiled, but her smile seemed strained. Indeed the summer languor had vanished, and she seemed tight as a drumhead.
On December third, I was dining at the Drachenhaus with Papa and Hessie! The day before, Kurt von Schleicher was appointed chancellor and not Hitler, to everyone’s profound relief. Hessie and Papa were drinking champagne.
“A reasonable man, von Schleicher.” Papa paused, then added somewhat hesitantly, “At least, I think he is. A man of the old values.” By old values Papa meant Prussian values, like loyalty, discipline, and responsibility.
Uncle Hessie nodded. “Baba, of course, is very close with his wife, Elisabeth. I’ve never been so happy to lose a bet, given the alternatives.”
I was feeling very grown-up, and thankfully no one had told me I looked that way, for it would have wrecked the feeling completely. Hessie was not only paying for our dinner, but he had sent me a pretty dress for the occasion as an early Christmas present. It was dark green velvet and had long sleeves with a lighter green satin cuffs and pearl buttons down the front.
“Can I have a taste of champagne to celebrate Schleicher and the old Prussian values?” I asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Gaby!” Papa said.
This was always Hessie’s cue to come to my service. “Of course you can, dear. Waiter! Another glass please for the young lady.”
The waiter brought the glass, and Uncle Hessie poured a small amount of champagne into it. We then lifted our glasses and clinked them.
“Here’s to old Prussian values,” Hessie said. “And as King Frederick said, ‘As a king, I am the first servant of my state.’” King Frederick had been the King of Prussia in the mid-1700s. Hessie felt he was the very essence of enlightened rule.
The dinner was delightful, but even with the good news of Schleicher instead of Hitler, nothing seemed settled. Over the next few weeks the changing characters in the cabinets, the endless discussions of the Old Gentleman, and the instability of the Reichstag continued. For Rosa and me all of this was merely a backdrop for the limousine that wound through the shifting political landscape like a dark, shiny beetle, and in its gleaming carapace was our darling and beloved teacher. There had been other sightings of the limousine, of the mysterious arm that would reach out and open the door.
Rosa and I knew where Fräulein Hofstadt lived. She had said one day in class that her apartment was off Kufsteiner Strasse in a large building. So we had set up a watch system. The limousine would never pull up in front of her building but usually into one of the smaller alleys to wait for her, a different alley almost every time. We began to imagine that Fräulein Hofstadt was involved in some sort of espionage. She was a spy! It seemed to me like a book that Vicki Baum could have written. We couldn’t wait until school let out for the Christmas holidays and we would even have more time to follow her. But then just a few days before vacation she invited us to her apartment for a holiday tea, and this changed everything. It seemed terribly wrong to go to someone’s house for tea and at the same time be spying on her. We both felt slimy and agreed that we were completely disgusting girls.
So this became item number seven in my Diary of Shame.
1. SA officer on Kurfürstendamm
2. Beer garden in Caputh when boy sings” The Watch on the Rhine”—K’s eyes
3. U doing it with K
4. K’s spitting in our basin; K’s toothbrush
5. “Heil Hitler” in the alley; alley dream. Paint squad boy
6. Baby Hitler naked on mother’s fat shoulder
7. Accepting invitation to Christmas tea with Fräulein Hofstadt after spying on her
chapter 23
If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
There were only four of us invited to Fräulein Hofstadt’s: Helga, an upper-class girl who was a Vertrauens-Schülerin, or trusted student, and a member of the student council; Hannah, the head of the student council; and Rosa and me. We were the only girls in our year who were invited. Fräulein Hofstadt’s apartment was elegant in a quiet way. There was nothing ornate, the furniture was of simple lines. I think Mama would have said it was sophisticated. The walls were the color of sand, and the couch and easy chairs were covered in some material that reminded me exactly of café au lait. Fräulein Hofstadt was dressed in cream-colored cashmere pants and a sweater that honestly were nearly identical to an outfit Joan Crawford had worn in a picture I had seen in a fashion magazine.
She had the table beautifully set and a fire lit in the pretty porcelain stove. There was a tiered platter with an assortment of tiny little cakes decorated with Christmas frosting designs and a silver pot of tea. At each of our places was a gift. When we opened them, we each found a glass pendant with a wildflower pressed inside it.
“Every one is different,” she said. “But they are all flowers from my home village in the mountains of Tyrol.”
“Did you ski a lot?” Helga asked as she reached for a tiny cake.
“Oh, most certainly.” Fräulein Hofstadt looked down into her plate and a blush crept across her cheeks. “As a matter of fact, would you believe that I once had a part in a movie?”
“Oh yes, I mean, just as an extra,” Fräulein Hofstadt explained. I marveled at how neatly she ate. No crumbs on her mouth. I already had crumbs in my lap and a few scattered to one side of my plate. I felt like a complete slob.
“What movie?” Helga asked.
“The Holy Mountain.”
“With Leni Riefenstahl?” Hannah’s eyes opened wide.
It was all too unbelievable.
“Yes, indeed. That was her first film, I think.”
“Did you meet her?” Hannah asked. “My aunt, Lotte Gruen—you know, the wife of the industrialist Hans Gruen—met her once.” Rosa was sitting next to me and I nudged her foot with mine under the table. That was so like Hannah. She came from a very wealthy, important Berlin family and was not modest about it. She was always name-dropping.
“Yes, of course, but she was the star. I was only an extra. A speck on the mountain, really. I just had to ski down a slope of virgin snow. You see, I am not an actress but I can ski. They needed someone who could make nice, clean tracks in the snow. It’s supposed to be Leni in the film skiing, but to tell you the truth I skied so much better. They couldn’t count on her to make those tracks. So the director, Arnold—”
“Arnold Fanck?” Rosa gasped.
“Yes, of course. Arnold Fanck.” Rosa and I exchanged looks. Arnold Fanck was one of the most famous movie directors ever. And Fräulein Hofstadt had just called him “Arnold” as if they were old pals! “So Arnold said, ‘Now, Trinka’—my nickname, you know. My real name is Katrina. He says, ‘Trinka, when you see me drop the flag, you start skiing down the slope. At the halfway point, you carve a great big sweeping turn and stop right where the marker is. Then we’ll get Leni up there, and I’ll cut to her.’ ”
We were all so excited that we vowed to go to the movie the next time it played in Berlin. And best of all Fräulein Hofstadt said she would come with us.
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