At the Wolf's Table

by Rosella Postorino

  It was a springtime ever ajar, ever vulnerable; it was a realm of desolation with neither a way to vent nor a means of catharsis.

  Elfriede was leaning against the wall, smoking and staring at her shoes. I crossed the courtyard and walked up to her.

  “What?” she said.

  “How are you?”

  “You?”

  “Come to Moy Lake tomorrow afternoon?”

  The ash on her cigarette grew longer until it sagged, then broke off, crumbled to dust.

  “All right.”

  * * *

  WE ALSO BROUGHT Leni, with her black swimsuit and pale complexion. Elfriede had a thin, elastic body as rough as linen. When Leni dove in we were astonished to see that in the ice-cold water—it was too early to go swimming, but we were in a rush to wash everything off ourselves, or at least I was—her gestures lost all their awkwardness. When wet, her skin was no longer that of a land creature. I had never seen her so self-confident before. “Are you coming in or not?” On her translucent cheeks, the dilated capillaries were butterfly wings—one flutter and they would fly up into the air.

  “Where has this Leni been all this time?” I said to Elfriede, grinning.

  “Hiding.” Her gaze was fixed on a spot that was neither Leni nor the lake, a spot I couldn’t see.

  It sounded like an accusation, one directed at me.

  “Things are almost never as they seem,” she said. “That goes for people too.”

  With this, she dove in.

  20

  One night I undressed.

  I opened the wardrobe and chose one of the evening gowns Herta had criticized, a different gown from the one I had worn to the soirée. I brushed my hair and put makeup on my face, though in the darkness Ziegler might not notice. It didn’t matter. As I brushed my hair and powdered my cheeks, I rediscovered the anxious anticipation before a date. Those preparations were made for him, for he who lingered at my window as though before an altar, almost as if fearful to profane it. Or presenting himself before me was his way of facing the Sphinx. I had no riddles, nor answers, though if I had any I would have revealed them to him.

  I sat at the window with the lamp lit, and when he arrived I stood up. I thought I saw him smile. He had never done that before.

  If I heard someone stirring in the house, I would extinguish the lamp and he would hide. The moment I lit it again he would come back out into the open. It glowed softly, as I would cover the lamp with a cloth. There were blackout orders, anyone could have noticed us. If I suddenly feared Herta was about to walk in—why would she possibly have done that?—I would slip into bed. Once I had even dozed off, the tension having drained all my energy. Who knew how long he had waited before leaving? That tenacity, a form of weakness, was his power over me.

  * * *

  PRECISELY ONE MONTH after the soirée, I extinguished the lamp even though I hadn’t heard a sound. On tiptoe, barefoot to soften my footsteps, I opened the door, made sure Herta and Joseph were asleep, went to the kitchen, and stepped out the back, made my way around the house toward my window, and found him crouching as he awaited some sign of me. To my eyes he looked tiny.

  I stepped back and my right knee cracked. Ziegler shot to his feet. Standing in front of me, in his uniform, without the shield of the window separating us, I was as frightened as I was in the barracks. The spell came crashing down, reality revealing itself in all its candor. I was defenseless before the executioner, and it was I who had gone to him.

  Ziegler moved, grabbed my arms. He buried his nose in my hair and breathed in. As he did, I too could smell his scent.

  I entered the barn, he followed me. It was dark, not even a sliver of light. I couldn’t see Ziegler but could hear him breathing. The mellow, familiar scent of the firewood calmed me. I sat down, so did he.

  Blindly, awkwardly, guided by our sense of smell, we tumbled into each other’s bodies as though each trying on our own body for the first time.

  Afterward, we didn’t say that no one should know but acted as though we had agreed on it. Both of us were married, even though I was alone now. He was a lieutenant in the SS. What would happen if it were known he had a relationship with a food taster? Maybe nothing, or maybe it was forbidden.

  He didn’t ask me why I had taken him into the barn, I didn’t ask him why me. Our eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness when he begged me to sing to him. They were the first words he spoke to me. My mouth glued to his ear, below my breath, I sang. It was the nursery rhyme with which I had entertained Heike’s daughter the night of the abortion, the one my father had taught me.

  Naked in the barn, I thought of my father, the railroad worker, the man whose will had never been bent. Stubborn, my mother had called him, reckless. If he had known I was working for Hitler … I couldn’t refuse, I would tell him if he returned from the land of the dead to ask me to explain my actions. Going against his own rules, he would slap me. We have never been Nazis, he would shout. I would cup my hand over my cheek in shock, would whimper that it wasn’t a question of being Nazis, politics had nothing to do with it, I had never bothered with politics, besides, in ’33 I was only fifteen, it wasn’t like I had voted for him. You’re responsible for any regime you tolerate, my father would scream at me. Each person’s existence is granted by the system of the state in which she lives, even that of a hermit, can’t you understand that? You’re not free from political guilt, Rosa. My mother would intervene. Leave her alone, she would beg him. Yes, she would return as well, with her coat on over her nightgown, without even the good taste to change. Let her stew in her own juice, she would say to bring the conversation to an end. I would provoke her: You’re angry at me because I went to bed with another man, aren’t you? You would never have done it, Mother. And my father would repeat, Rosa, you’re not free from guilt.

  * * *

  FOR TWELVE YEARS we had lived under a dictatorship yet almost hadn’t noticed. What allowed human beings to live under a dictatorship?

  We had no alternative—that was our alibi. I was responsible only for the food I ingested. A harmless gesture, eating. How could it be a sin? Were the other women ashamed of selling themselves for two hundred marks a month, an excellent salary, and unparalleled board? Ashamed of believing, as I believed, that immorality was sacrificing one’s life if the sacrifice served no purpose? I was ashamed before my father, even though my father was dead, because in order to manifest itself shame requires a judge. We had no alternative, we said. But Ziegler must have had one, because it was I who walked out to him. I was a person who could accept that shame made of tendons and bones and saliva—I had held that shame in my arms, and it was at least a meter eighty tall, weighed seventy-eight kilos at most. Neither alibi nor justification, the relief of a certainty.

  “Why did you stop singing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That song makes me sad.”

  “You can sing a different one. Or not, if you don’t feel like it. We can stay here and quietly stare at each other in the dark. We know how to do that.”

  Having returned to my room, in the silence of Herta and Joseph’s slumber, I sank my head into my hands, unable to accept what had happened. Deep within me, euphoria sparked intermittently. Nothing had ever made me feel so alone, but in that solitude I discovered I was powerful. Sitting on the bed in which Gregor had slept as a child, I once again made a list of my sins and secrets, as I had done in Berlin before meeting him, and I was myself, and I was undeniable.

  21

  The mirror reflected an exhausted face in the morning light. It wasn’t from lack of sleep—the dark circles around my eyes, my subdued anguish, were a prophecy finally fulfilled. From the photo stuck in the mirror’s frame, the unsmiling little boy was angry with me.

  Herta and Joseph didn’t notice a thing. How imperceptive human beings’ trust is. Gregor had inherited it from his naïve parents—their daughter-in-law snuck out at night and they went on sle
eping—and then he had heaped it onto me: a responsibility too great to bear once he left me alone.

  A honk from the bus declared my freedom. I couldn’t wait to leave. I was afraid of running into Ziegler, a splinter under my nail. I wanted to.

  * * *

  IN THE LUNCHROOM I was also served dessert. Topped with a spoonful of yogurt, the cake looked fluffy, but my stomach was in knots. I had barely gotten down the tomato soup.

  “Don’t you like it, Berliner?”

  I shook myself out of it. “I haven’t tried it yet.”

  Elfriede sliced with her fork what remained of her own piece of cake. “It’s delicious. Eat it.”

  “As though she has any choice,” Augustine said.

  “What bad luck, not being able to choose whether or not to eat cake,” Elfriede replied, “while everyone’s starving to death.”

  “Let me try some,” Ulla whispered.

  No dessert for her that day, but she had been given eggs and mashed potatoes. Eggs were one of the Führer’s favorite foods. He liked them sprinkled with cumin. The sweetish smell reached my nostrils.

  “Careful. They’ll rat on you,” Augustine said, trying to dissuade her.

  Ulla turned toward the Fanatics two, three times. Leaning over their plates, they were eating ricotta and cottage cheese. There was honey for them to dip it in. “Now!” Ulla said. I snuck her a bit of cake, which she hid in her hand. She popped it into her mouth only when she was sure none of the guards would see her. I ate as well.

  * * *

  IN THE COURTYARD, the high midday sun blurred the outlines of the houses near the barracks, silenced the birds, exhausted the stray dogs. Let’s go inside, it’s too hot out here, someone said. Unusually hot for June, someone else said. Seeing the other women walk sluggishly through the hazy air, I also moved, each step landing heavily, as though I were descending a staircase. I faltered, squinted my eyes to see more clearly. It’s hot out, unnaturally hot, it’s only June, I’m dizzy. I steadied myself on one of the swings, the chains were burning hot, nausea churned my stomach like a plunger, I felt it shoot up to my forehead, the courtyard was deserted, the other women already inside, standing in the doorway a backlit figure. The courtyard tilted, a bird swooped down, beat its wings hard. In the doorway was Ziegler, then I saw nothing else.

  * * *

  WHEN I CAME to, I was lying on the lunchroom floor. A guard’s face eclipsed the ceiling. Vomit spurted to my throat, and just in time I rose onto my elbows and leaned to the side. As my sweat turned to ice, the sound of other regurgitations reached my ears, and another acidic gush burned my throat.

  I heard the other women crying, couldn’t distinguish them by the sounds. You can tell people’s laughter apart—Augustine’s chuckles, Leni’s titters, Elfriede’s snorts, Ulla’s cascading laughs—but not crying. When crying we’re all the same, the sound is the same for everyone.

  My head was spinning. I glimpsed another body lying on the floor and a few women standing, their backs pressed against the wall. I recognized them by their footwear: Ulla’s plateaus, the studs in Heike’s clogs, the worn tips of Leni’s shoes.

  “Rosa.” Leni broke away from the wall to come to my side.

  A guard raised his arm. “Return to your place!”

  “What do we do?” the Beanpole asked, wandering the room, at a loss.

  “The lieutenant ordered that they all be kept here,” the other guard replied. “None of them are to leave, not even those who haven’t shown symptoms yet.”

  “Another one just lost consciousness,” the Beanpole warned.

  I turned to check the body I had seen sprawled out. It was Theodora.

  “Find someone to clean the floor.”

  “They’re going to die,” the Beanpole said.

  “My god, no,” Leni gasped. “Call a doctor, please!”

  “Would you be quiet?” the other guard told the Beanpole.

  Ulla put her arm around Leni’s shoulder. “Calm down.”

  “We’re dying! Didn’t you hear him?” Leni shrieked.

  I looked around for Elfriede. She was across the room, sitting on the floor, her shoes submerged in a yellowish puddle.

  The rest of the women weren’t far from me. Their breathless voices and sobs amplified my feeling of malaise. I didn’t know who had carried me inside from the courtyard and left me on that spot on the floor—Ziegler, maybe? Had he really been there in the doorway or had I only imagined it?—but it was to the same side of the lunchroom as the others. Out of instinct, my companions had huddled together; it’s terrible to die alone. Elfriede, though, had withdrawn into a corner, her head between her knees. I called out to her. I didn’t know if she could hear me over the noisy chaos of, Let us out of here, bring a doctor, I want to die in my own bed, I don’t want to die.

  I called out to her again. She didn’t answer. “Please, make sure she’s alive,” I said, not knowing to whom. Maybe to the guards, who ignored me. “Augustine,” I mumbled, “please, go check. Bring her over here to me.”

  Why was Elfriede like that? She wanted to die in hiding, like dogs did.

  The French door to the courtyard was closed, a guard standing outside it. I overheard Ziegler’s voice. It came from the hallway, or the kitchen. Amid the litany of sobs in the lunchroom and the bustle of footsteps racing back and forth through the rest of the barracks, I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it was his voice, and it didn’t comfort me. The fear of death was a swarm of insects crawling beneath my skin. I collapsed.

  Krümel’s helpers came to wipe up the vomit with rags, and the dampness worsened the stench. They cleaned the floors, not our faces, our clothes. They left a bucket, scattered sheets of newspaper around, and walked out with the guards, who locked the door behind them.

  Augustine shot over, grabbed the doorknob, and tried to wrench the door open, in vain. “Why are you locking us up in here? What are you going to do with us?”

  Their faces already drained, their lips bluish, my companions inched toward the door. “Why are they shutting us up in here?”

  I tried to get to my feet to join them, but didn’t have the strength.

  Augustine kicked the door violently, the others slammed their palms or fists against it. Heike banged her head against the wood slowly, repeatedly, an open display of desperation I would never have expected from her. Threats were snarled from the other side and all the women desisted, all of them except Augustine.

  Leni came over and knelt beside me. I couldn’t speak, but she was the one seeking comfort. “In the end, it happened,” she said, “they poisoned us.”

  “They poisoned them,” Sabine corrected her. She was slumped over Theodora’s body. “You don’t have any symptoms and neither do I.”

  “That’s not true,” Leni shouted. “I’m queasy.”

  “Why do you think they make us eat different foods, hmm? Why do you think they divide us into groups, you fool?” Sabine said.

  For a moment Augustine detached herself from the door and turned to face her. “Yes, but your friend”—she gestured at Theodora with her chin—“ate fennel salad and cheese, while Rosa, for example, had tomato soup and dessert, but they both passed out.”

  I doubled over and retched. Leni held my forehead. I stared at my splattered dress, then looked up again.

  Heike was sitting at the table, her face in her hands. “I want to go home to my children,” she murmured, as though reciting psalms, “I want to see them.”

  “Then help me! Let’s knock the door down!” Augustine shouted. “Help me!”

  “They’ll kill us,” Beate said breathlessly. She too wanted to return to her children, to her twins.

  Heike got up again, went to Augustine’s side, but instead of ramming her shoulder into the door, she began to shout, “I’m fine! I haven’t been poisoned. Do you hear me? I want to get out of here!”

  I went ice-cold. She was saying out loud what had just crossed everyone’s mind. We hadn’t all eaten the same foo
d. Identical fates weren’t in store for us. Whatever dish it was that had been poisoned, some of us would die, others wouldn’t.

  “Maybe they’re sending for the doctor,” Leni said, not at all persuaded she was out of danger. “Maybe they can save us.”

  I wondered if a doctor actually could.

  “They don’t care one bit about saving us.” Elfriede had pulled herself to her feet. Her stony face seemed to crumble as she added, “They don’t care one bit. They’re only interested in finding out what it was that poisoned us. All they need to do is perform an autopsy on one of us tomorrow and they’ll find out.”

  “If one is enough,” Leni said, “why do we all have to stay here?”

  She didn’t even realize she had uttered an abomination. Let’s sacrifice one of us, she was proposing, if it means sparing the others.

  If it were up to her, on what basis would she choose? The weakest among us? The one with the worst symptoms? One who didn’t have children to care for? One who wasn’t from the village? Or simply one who wasn’t her friend? Would she count, chanting, Backe, backe Kuchen, der Bäcker hat gerufen, and let fate decide?

  I didn’t have children and I came from Berlin and I had gone to bed with Ziegler—Leni didn’t know that last part. She didn’t think I was the one who deserved to die.

  I wished I could pray, but I no longer had the right to. It had been months since the last time, since my husband had been taken from me. Maybe one day, sitting by the hearth in his dacha, Gregor’s eyes would open wide. That’s it, he would tell his matryoshka, now I remember. Far from here is a woman I love. I must return to her.

  I didn’t want to die if he was alive.

  * * *

  THE SS DIDN’T reply to Heike’s cries and she moved away from the door.