At the Wolf's Table

by Rosella Postorino

“What are their intentions? What are they going to do to us?” Beate asked her, as if Heike could know. Her friend didn’t answer; she had tried to save her own skin, hers and hers alone, and since it hadn’t worked she shut herself off in silence. Leni curled up under the table, repeated that she felt queasy, slid two fingers down her throat, gagged, only dry-heaved. Theodora continued to rock in a fetal position on the floor, helped by her friend Sabine, whose sister Gertrude gasped for air. Ulla had a headache and Augustine needed the bathroom. She tried to convince Elfriede to lie down beside me. “I’ll help you,” she said. Elfriede shoved her hand away. Isolated in her corner, she was gripped by more waves of nausea. She wiped her chin with the back of her hand, huddled up on her side. I was exhausted, my heartbeat slow.

  I don’t know how many hours went by. I know that at some point the door opened.

  Ziegler appeared. Behind him, a man and a young woman in white coats. Serious expressions and dark medical bags. What did they contain? Call a doctor, Leni had pleaded, and voilà, one had come. Not even she could believe he was there to save us. The bags on the table, the click of latches. Elfriede was right: they didn’t mean to administer a treatment—no one had bothered to hydrate us, take our temperature—they had simply isolated us there, waiting to see how things unfolded. They wanted to understand the cause of the affliction that was killing some of us. Perhaps they had already discovered it and we, those poisoned, no longer served a purpose.

  We remained perfectly still, animals facing predators. A taster who doesn’t eat is of no use to us, Ziegler had said. If we were destined to die, it would be best to speed things up. After that, they would clean the room, disinfect it, open the windows, let in some fresh air. Putting creatures out of their misery is an act of mercy. It’s done with animals, so why not with people?

  The doctor was in front of me. I flinched. “What do you want?”

  Ziegler turned around.

  “Don’t touch me!” I shouted at the doctor.

  Leaning over me, Ziegler grabbed my arm. He was centimeters from my face, like the night before—he could smell my stink, would never kiss me again. “Be quiet and do as they say.” Then, standing up: “All of you, be quiet.”

  Under the table, Leni hugged her knees to her chest, as if by doubling up over and over she might make herself smaller than a handkerchief, might hide in someone’s pocket. The doctor felt my pulse, raised my eyelids, listened to my breathing with a stethoscope pressed to my back, and went off to check on Theodora. The nurse wiped my brow with a damp cloth, gave me a glass of water.

  “As I was saying, I’ll need a list of who ate what,” the doctor explained as he turned to go. The young woman and Ziegler followed him out and the door was locked again.

  The swarm of insects beneath my skin became an insurrection. Elfriede and I had eaten the soup and that sweet, sweet cake. The two of us definitely shared the same fate. I had been punished for what I had done with Ziegler, but what was Elfriede guilty of?

  Either God is perverse, or He doesn’t exist, Gregor had said.

  Another wave of nausea shook me to the core. I spewed out the food for Hitler that Hitler would never eat. They were mine, those groans—guttural, indecent, inhuman-sounding. What of me remained human?

  Suddenly I remembered, and it was like crashing down to earth. The Russian superstition Gregor had mentioned to me in his letter—did the same thing go for German soldiers? As long as your woman is faithful, you’ll never be killed, it went. So I suppose, Gregor had written, I have no choice but to count on you. But I wasn’t a woman to count on. He hadn’t realized that, he had trusted me, and he had died.

  Gregor had died and it was my fault. My heartbeat slowed further still. Breathlessness, plugged ears, silence. Then my heart stopped.

  22

  I was awakened by a fury of bangs.

  “We have to use the washroom! Open up!” Augustine was hammering her fists on the door. No one had helped her break it down. The French door to the courtyard was locked, the sun had set. Who knew if Joseph had come looking for me, if Herta was waiting at the window?

  Augustine picked up the bucket beside me.

  “Where are you taking it?”

  “You’re awake?” she asked with surprise. “How do you feel, Rosa?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Dinnertime was a while ago but they didn’t bring us anything to taste. We don’t even have anything to drink anymore. They’ve all gone. Leni has been a torment. She’s been crying so hard she’s dehydrated now too, and she didn’t even throw up. She’s healthy as a horse, and so am I,” she added, sounding almost apologetic.

  “Where’s Elfriede?”

  “Sleeping, over there.”

  I saw her. She was still lying on her side. From the pallor of her dark complexion she looked like she was made of flint.

  “Rosa,” Leni said, “are you better?”

  Augustine crouched over the bucket wearily. After her, other women resorted to doing the same. There was no way it would be large enough for all of us to use—someone would end up wetting themselves or urinating on the floor, which was already filthy and foul-smelling. Why wouldn’t they open up? Had they abandoned us in the barracks, evacuated it? My temples throbbed. I dreamed of breaking down the door and escaping, never to return. No doubt guards were out there, though—they had been given specific orders. They would never open the door, they didn’t know how to handle the problem of the women in their death throes, had set it aside until further orders.

  With Augustine’s help I pulled myself up, teetering on my unsteady ankles, and used the bucket as well. She and Beate had to hold me up by my underarms. It wasn’t humiliating, it was just my body surrendering. I remembered the bomb shelter in Budengasse, remembered my mother.

  My urine was boiling hot, my skin so sensitive that it ached to the touch. My mother would have said, Cover up, Rosa, don’t catch cold. But it was summer, the wrong season in which to die.

  Peeing was as sweet as a dying wish being granted. I thought of my father. He had been a righteous man, he would be able to plead on my behalf. And so I prayed, despite no longer having the right to. I prayed I would die first, not wanting to witness Elfriede’s death. I didn’t want to lose anyone else. My father, though, wouldn’t forgive me, and God was already distracted.

  * * *

  THE FIRST THING I felt was a chill throughout my body, then light-headedness.

  I opened my eyes to the ceiling. It was dawn.

  They had swung the door open and my body had awoken. Maybe the SS imagined they would find a couple of bodies, maybe more, which they would need to carry out. Instead they found ten women whom the sound of the key turning in the lock had just torn from broken sleep. Ten women who had crusty eyelashes and parched throats but were alive, all of them.

  The Beanpole gaped at us in silence from the doorway, as frightened as if he were staring at ghosts, while another guard pinched his nose and stepped backward, his heels echoing off the tiles in the hallway. Were we ghosts? Without speaking, we warily made sure our limbs worked, checked our breathing. Mine flowed between my lips, through my nostrils. I was alive.

  Only when Ziegler arrived and ordered us to stand up did Leni crawl out from under the table, did Heike move her chair in a daze, did Elfriede slowly roll onto her back and seek the strength to sit up, did Ulla let out a yawn, and did I unsteadily rise to my feet.

  “Line up,” Ziegler said.

  Placated by the aftereffects of the illness, or simply tamed by fear, we formed a row of prostrate bodies.

  Where had he been all that time, the Obersturmführer, my lover? He hadn’t carried me to the washroom, hadn’t laid a dampened towel on my temples, rinsed my face. He wasn’t my husband, had no need to see to my happiness. As I was dying, he was busy safeguarding the life of Adolf Hitler, his and his alone, tracking down the culprits, interrogating Krümel, the assistant chefs, the kitchen helpers, the guards, the entire SS unit housed in the headquar
ters, as well as the local suppliers and those farther away—he would have interrogated even the train conductors, journeyed to the very ends of the earth to track down the guilty party.

  “Can we go home?”

  I wanted him to hear my voice, to remember me.

  He looked at me with those tiny eyes, two stale hazelnuts, and ran a hand over them to massage them. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to see me. “The chef will be here soon,” he said. “You need to resume your work.”

  My stomach knotted. I saw hands clapped over mouths, fingers clutching bellies, queasy expressions. None of us, however, said a word.

  Ziegler left and the guards accompanied us to the washroom, two at a time, so we could freshen up. The lunchroom was cleaned, the French door to the courtyard left open for a while, and breakfast was ready earlier than usual. The Führer must have been hungry, he couldn’t be kept waiting a minute longer. He had spent the night nibbling his fingernails just to sink his teeth into something, or perhaps the unforeseen incident had ruined his appetite, his stomach had grumbled but it was gastritis, flatulence, a nervous reaction. He had fasted for hours, or maybe he had a supply of manna that had fallen from heaven one night just for him and had been stockpiled in the bunker in case of emergency. Or he had simply endured his hunger, since he could endure anything, had stroked his German shepherd Blondi’s soft fur, having kept her too on a strict diet.

  We sat down at the table in our soiled clothes, an unbearable stench. We held our breath and waited to be served. Then, with our customary submissiveness, once again we began to taste the food, as we had the day before. The sun illuminated our plates and our haggard faces.

  I chewed mechanically, forcing myself to swallow.

  * * *

  THEY EXPLAINED NOTHING to us, but at last they drove us home.

  Herta came outside to greet me with a hug. Then, sitting on my bed, she told me, “The SS visited one farm after the other. They grilled the suppliers. The shepherd thought they were about to kill him right there in the barn, they were so furious. Recently there have been other cases of poisoning in town, and no one knows what from. We were fine, though—that is, we suffered, but for you.”

  “Fortunately no one died,” Joseph remarked.

  “He went looking for you,” Herta said.

  “Joseph, you were out there?”

  “Leni’s mother was there too,” my father-in-law replied, almost as if to play down his concern, “and the farmhand who works for Heike, and sisters and sisters-in-law, and other old folk like me. We stood there outside the barracks asking for news but no one would tell us anything. They threatened us every which way until we were finally forced to leave.”

  Herta and Joseph hadn’t slept. I don’t know how many people in town had slept that night. Not even the children had drifted off, until terribly late, exhausted from sobbing, before the watchful eyes of grandmothers and aunts. Heike’s children asked for their mother, I miss her, where is she? Little Ursula calmed herself by singing my nursery rhyme, though she couldn’t remember the words anymore. The goose was stolen, the fox was dead, the hunter had shot him, tinged him red. Why had my father sung me such sad stories?

  Even Zart, Joseph told me as he stood beside Herta, had watched the front door all night as though expecting me to return from one moment to the next, or as though there were an enemy lying in ambush. And there was. There had been for eleven years.

  23

  He wouldn’t come back. He wouldn’t dare appear at the window after what he had done. Or he would come, just to measure his power. But I had been the one to lead him into the barn. Did I really expect special treatment? The favorite lady. The lieutenant’s whore.

  Though the night was hot I closed the windows, fearing Ziegler would sneak into the room, fearing I would find him beside my bed, or on top of me. My throat tickled at the thought.

  I banished it, rolled the sheet down to the foot of the mattress, sought cool patches on which to rest my calves. If he dared come I would hurl my rejection right in his face.

  Lighting the lamp with the customary cloth over it, I sat down at the window. The thought that he might be the one to reject me—after seeing me indecent, covered with vomit—made me angry. He could do without me. I, instead, waited for him, scrutinizing the dark countryside, barely making out in the darkness the dirt road, the bend, and, farther up, the turn leading to the castle, where it had all begun. At one o’clock I extinguished the lamp—a matter of pride, an admission of defeat. Ziegler had won. After all, he was stronger. I lay down again, my muscles so tense my back hurt. The alarm clock ticked, making me nervous. All at once a faint, high-pitched noise terrified me.

  Fingernails against the windowpane. A wave of fear brought back my nausea of the day before. In the silence, only the fingernails scratching and my heart pounding.

  When the sound stopped I leapt out of bed. The windowpane silent, the road empty.

  * * *

  “HOW ARE THINGS today, ladies? I’m pleased you’ve recovered.”

  With effort, I swallowed. The other women also stopped eating and they all looked at Ziegler—stealing glances, almost as though it were forbidden but they couldn’t help it—then we all stared at one another, our faces pinched.

  After the poisoning, after the lunchroom had shown itself for what it was—a trap—whenever the SS guards spoke to us we felt panic rising. If it was Ziegler, we sensed imminent danger.

  Ziegler walked around the table, stepped over to Heike, said, “You must be pleased it’s all over.” For a fraction of a second I thought he was talking about the abortion. Heike might have thought the same thing; she nodded with little jerks of her head, too rapid to hide her nervousness. Leaning over her shoulder, he reached out and picked up an apple from her plate. With the air of someone at a luncheon on the grass, he bit into it. The sound of his bite was crisp, sinister. He chewed as he walked, chest out, arms behind him, as though every step were in preparation for a dive. It was so strange, his walk. Why, then, did I miss him?

  “I wanted to thank you all for your cooperation during the emergency.”

  Augustine stared at the apple in the lieutenant’s hand, one of her nostrils quivering. Elfriede’s nose was stopped up, as always, and she was breathing with difficulty. A lattice of stagnant blood had turned Leni’s cheeks purple. I felt exposed. Ziegler strolled and chewed with such coolness I thought he might change his tone from one second to the next; we were expecting a dramatic twist, were prepared for the worst, impatient for it to arrive.

  But Ziegler completed his walk around the table, stopped behind me. “We couldn’t have done things any differently, though in the end, as you’ve seen for yourselves, the crisis is over. Everything is under control,” he said, “so enjoy your meal.” He placed the apple core on my plate and left.

  Beate reached across the table and with two fingers picked it up by its stem. I was so shaken I didn’t even wonder why. Glistening with his saliva, the pulp around the seeds was already darkening.

  * * *

  HE WANTED TO blackmail me. Everyone will know who you are. Wanted to torture me. Or just see me—a pang of nostalgia. We had made love. It could never happen again. If no one found out about it, that night would never have existed. It was in the past, couldn’t be touched, it was as though it hadn’t happened. Maybe with time I would even come to wonder whether it actually had happened, I wouldn’t be able to say, and would be being honest.

  I started eating again, drank my milk, set the cup on the table far harder than I meant to. It wobbled, tipped over. “I’m sorry.” The cup rolled over to Elfriede, who set it upright. “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “It’s nothing, Berliner.” She handed it to me and laid a napkin over the puddle of spilled milk.

  I went to bed early, searching in vain for redemptive sleep. My eyes open wide, I imagined Ziegler had come. I feared he would walk up, scratch the windowpane with his fingernails as he had the night before, that he would smash the
window with a rock, grab me by the neck. Herta and Joseph would come running, wouldn’t understand, I would confess, would deny it to my dying day. The light out, I trembled.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY the Obersturmführer came out into the courtyard after dinner. I was talking to Elfriede, who was smoking. He headed straight for me. I instantly fell silent. “What is it, Rosa?” Elfriede asked.

  “Throw away that cigarette.”

  She turned around.

  “Throw it away at once,” Ziegler repeated.

  She let go of it hesitantly, almost as if wanting to take one last puff to avoid wasting it all.

  “I didn’t know smoking was forbidden,” she said in her defense.

  “From now on it is forbidden. No one smokes in my barracks. Adolf Hitler detests smoking.”

  Ziegler was mad at me. He was taking it out on Elfriede, but it was me he was angry with.

  “A German woman mustn’t smoke.” He tilted his head, breathed in my scent, as he had done four nights earlier outside my window. I flinched. “Or at least she mustn’t smell like it.”

  “I never have,” I said.

  With her eyes Elfriede begged me to be quiet.

  “Are you sure?” Ziegler said.

  * * *

  THE APPLE CORE had turned brown. Beate rested it on the table beside a black candlestick and a tiny box. She lit the candle with a match. It was early evening, before curfew, and it was still light out, but her twins were already in the bedroom, sleeping. Ulla, Leni, Elfriede, and I were sitting around her.

  Heike wasn’t there. Ever since her abortion, she and her childhood friend had grown somewhat apart, without having decided to. Heike had simply kept her out of one of the most significant events of her life, and this had caused a distance. Actually, she had become more introverted around all of us, almost as though having shared such a secret with us we were a burden to her. She couldn’t forgive us for knowing something she would rather forget.