by Jenna Blum
She flings the door open and steps inside, pulling off her gloves, finger by finger, with small angry yanks.
No wonder I never remarried! she says.
Then she hits the light switch and stands looking around her kitchen, as she always does when returning home, to ensure that everything is in place. And it is. The room is exactly as Trudy left it—no surprise, since she is the last person, the only person, to have been here. The floor boasts the snail trails of a recent waxing. The counters gleam. The teakettle—which Trudy scours with a steel wool pad every Sunday—is so shiny that she can see her face in it, elongated and miniature, from across the room. Normally this would please Trudy, to find her home and the things in it in such perfect order.
So nice and clean.
So nett und sauber.
Trudy frowns and folds her arms. Knocks the heel of her boot on the linoleum a couple of times.
Then, deliberately, she tosses her keys onto the counter instead of hanging them on the hook by the door.
She wriggles out of her coat and slings it on a chair. Her gloves follow, one landing on the table, the other on the floor. Stepping daintily over it, Trudy crosses to the stove, where she puts water on to boil. While she waits, she leans against the refrigerator, eyeing the muddy tracks her boots have left on the tiles, and when the kettle sings, she makes herself a messy cup of tea, flinging the used bag toward the sink without looking to see where it lands, carefully ignoring the sugar granules she scatters. She leaves the spoon on the stove top and the sugar jar next to it with its lid off, for the mice—were there any—to plunder.
She steps back, surveying the room over the rim of her mug.
There, she says.
Then she retreats to her study with her tea before she can give in and tidy everything up. From down the hall the disorder tugs at Trudy, the coat and gloves and canister and muddy floor reproaching her: But what have we done to deserve this? Trudy shuts her study door and turns to her stereo.
A Brahms symphony thunders forth when she presses the PLAY button. Grimacing, Trudy sets her mug on the desk and crouches to canvass her stack of CDs. Bach, Beethoven, more Brahms, Mahler, Wagner—God in heaven, has she nobody but German composers? Finally Trudy finds an Austrian buried among the rest, and a sprightly Mozart concerto replaces the symphony on the turntable. This accomplished, Trudy walks over to her couch and collapses on it, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes.
What did you expect? It is, perhaps, a fair question Roger has asked. Trudy doesn't know. She feels stupid for having not anticipated what Frau Kluge might say. Naive in her hope—unarticulated even to herself before the interview—that the woman would confirm that not all Germans are as bad as people think; they can't all be Nazis at heart, can they? It is as though Trudy has reached under a rock and touched something covered with slime. And now she too is coated with it, always has been; it can't be washed off; it comes from somewhere within.
Trudy tells herself not to be so childish. She lies back and gazes blearily through the semidark to the window and the house beyond. All along its gutters colored lights are strung, or rather tubing in which tiny bulbs light up in frenetic sequence and at insane speed, like running ants, before stopping to blink and blink in agitated rhythm. Trudy wishes she could lie to her neighbors, tell them that she is epileptic and their decorations are causing seizures and have to be taken down. Why must people make such a hoopla of Christmas? It is a wretched holiday, really, one that Trudy has always spent at the farmhouse, sitting straight an as exclamation point in her black clothes while Anna serves more goose and stuffing than the two women could ever hope to eat. And this year Trudy's Christmas will consist of a visit to the New Heidelburg Good Samaritan Center, where she will spoon up Jello cubes in the face of her mother's eternal silence.
Trudy closes her eyes. Maybe she should abandon her Project altogether. Why invite additional punishment when she already has Anna to deal with? Perhaps it is best not to stir up this particular nest of snakes. To leave well enough alone.
The past is dead. The past is dead, and better it remain so.
The lights pulse in frenzied patterns on Trudy's lids. She slings an arm across her face. The concerto comes to an end, and in its absence the house is so quiet that Trudy can hear a clock ticking in another room, reminiscent of the water dripping in Frau Kluge's sink.
After a time Trudy gets up, takes her mug from the desk, and returns wearily to the kitchen. She pours the cold tea down the drain. Washes the cup and spoon and sets them in the dish rack. Throws out the teabag and screws the lid tight on the sugar canister and puts it in the cupboard. Sponges the stove and countertops. Hangs her keys and coat and tucks the gloves in the pockets.
When everything is in place, Trudy turns off the lights and climbs the stairs to her bedroom, where she removes her boots and curls on her side, wedging her clasped hands between her thighs. Her last conscious thought, conjured by the pale parallelogram on the far wall, is that she has forgotten to draw the curtains. But at least the neighbors' crazed lights can't be seen from here.
Trudy drifts into an uneasy sleep. And dreams.
She is in her living room, cross-legged on the floor, wrapping Christmas presents. This is a peculiar and pointless endeavor, for aside from Ruth and Anna, Trudy has nobody to bestow gifts upon. Yet she is surrounded by children's toys: a hobbyhorse, a waist-high nutcracker, an army of tin soldiers; there is an endless amount, and if Trudy does not wrap them they will multiply further and take over her house. She sips from a snifter of schnapps and reaches for the next item, a rifle so realistic in appearance that Trudy is surprised it doesn't leave oil on her hands.
She is struggling to disentangle a piece of tape that has stuck her thumb and forefinger together when she sits upright, suddenly alert. Something is wrong. Her Brahms, the Second Concerto, sounds scratchy, as though emanating from a record turntable instead of her CD player. In the corner is a Christmas tree draped with tinsel and garish bulbs from the forties. And beneath Trudy is not a careworn Oriental rug but her mother's deep-pile carpet. Trudy sinks back on her heels and shakes her head over her stupidity: she is not in Minneapolis at all. She is in the farmhouse. But ... if Jack is dead and Anna is at the Good Samaritan Center, who is in the kitchen? For Trudy hears somebody walking about in there, and the creak of the refrigerator door as it opens.
Brushing snippets of paper and curling ribbon from her knees, Trudy walks into the kitchen to investigate. And there, his back to her, she finds Santa Claus. He is hunched in front of the old Frigidaire, digging through its contents and tossing those he doesn't like to the floor, wolfing down those he does with such gusto that his shoulders shake.
Trudy is indignant.
You aren't supposed to be here, she says. Santa is supposed to come only at night, when people are sleeping, don't you remember?
Santa turns. He is drinking milk straight from the bottle, a habit both Trudy and Anna deplore as unhygienic. His red sleeve, trimmed with jolly fur, blocks his face from view, but Trudy sees his Adam's apple working beneath it.
When he has drained the milk, he throws the bottle across the room in the direction of the sink. It misses and shatters on Anna's linoleum, spraying glass and droplets.
You get out, Trudy tells him, her voice shaking. Get out of my mother's house.
Santa laughs heartily.
My dear child, he says, your mother won't mind. Why, she's the one who invited me.
Then, to the forlorn horns of the concerto's second movement, Santa begins an incongruous burlesque. He slowly undoes the buttons of his jacket, and it pops open to reveal not the pillow or cotton stuffing one might expect, but food: a netted ham, a tin of sardines, several loaves of black bread. He sets these one by one with great ceremony on Anna's Formica table. Then he unbuckles his belt and starts to unzip his trousers.
Stop that, Trudy cries.
But Santa ignores her. Humming the Brahms, which now plays at the wrong speed so that the st
rings drone and shriek, he pushes down his trousers and kicks them free of his feet. He has to do an awkward little dance to do this, since he hasn't removed his shining black boots, but Trudy soon understands why: beneath the Santa suit, he is wearing the gray uniform of the Schutzstaffeln, the SS.
He swings a chair out from the table and sits, his face hidden now by the brim of his peaked cap. The light splinters off the double-eagle insignia.
He pats his knee.
Come, sit down, he says, and tell me: Have you been a good girl this year?
No, says Trudy. No, no, no—
He cocks his head. Yes? he says, as if he hasn't heard her. Good. Then I will show you a little something.
He rises from the chair and starts to undo the buttons of these trousers as well.
Stop it, Trudy shouts. I don't want to see!
He parts the cloth and holds it open, standing at attention. He wears nothing underneath, and his stomach and pubic hair are smeared with dark blood.
You see, I am not Santa, he says. I am Saint Nikolaus, and I come whenever I please.
Anna and the Obersturmführer, Weimar, 1942
22
HE COMES FOR ANNA ON THE DAY OF MATHILDE'S DEATH, in the late afternoon, wasting no time. This is always a quiet hour in the bakery, but now it seems abnormally so, as if the citizens of Weimar have sensed the danger and stayed home with their doors locked and blackout curtains drawn. It is so still, in fact, that Anna fancies she can hear the small noises of her eyes rolling in their wet beds as she looks this way and that, at the door and away. Her every instinct screams to grab Trudie from the pile of sacking at her feet and run. But surely the child will howl if so roughly awakened, and beyond the dooryard, of course, there is nowhere to go.
So Anna forces herself to the door, on which somebody is again pounding so violently that the bell above it jingles. After she undoes the bolt, she retreats behind the counter, gripping her elbows in her hands in an attempt to hide their shaking. Maybe they will assume she is simply cold, a logical mistake. She has not stoked the ovens since the morning, and even within the meter-thick bakery walls her breath is visible.
But when the officer enters, Anna's trembling stops. The shock of recognition renders her too terrified to move: he is the one she glimpsed in the quarry with Hinkelmann and Blank during her first delivery of bread, the pale-eyed officer whom she initially mistook to be blind. His decorations indeed proclaim him to be an Obersturmführer rather than a Hauptsturmführer or Sturmbannführer; thanks to Gerhard's attempted matchmaking, Anna is able to make such distinctions. Oddly, this Obersturmführer seems to be alone. At least, Anna hears no commotion outside, no desultory talk or laughter from where his brethren would be lounging against a car, waiting, perhaps smoking.
The Obersturmführer crosses the room. He is an enormous man, projecting an air of complete solidity except for a weakness of the jaw; his face disintegrates into his neck. He moves with the same purpose Anna recalls witnessing at the quarry, but his gait is odd, almost mincing. Anna will later discover that this is because his feet are disproportionately small for his body, barely bigger than hers, sometimes causing him to trip over his own toes.
He plants his gloved hands on the counter and leans forward.
Do you always lock the door in the afternoon, Fräulein? he asks. Hardly an astute business practice.
Then he grins as if he were any man flirting with a pretty girl, teasing her into giving him a free sweet from the display case. The expression transforms his face into one nearly handsome, the upward movement of his cheek muscles lifting the flesh from his doughy jawline. There is something wrong about it, however, that Anna can't put a finger on.
She attempts a return smile. I was just about to close up, she says; I'm afraid we've sold out of nearly everything. This time of day, you know. But—
I haven't come for bread, the Obersturmführer says.
Oh, of course! Forgive me. For a special customer such as yourself, I'm sure I can find something more appealing. There's a Linzertorte in the back, and some poppy-seed cake, very fresh.
The Obersturmführer examines Anna for a moment. At this close range, his eyes are like those of a sled dog, the pinprick pupils set in an absence of color ringed with black. Anna feels them on her flushed cheeks like small cold weights.
Your business partner, Frau Staudt—
Anna twists her hands in her apron. My boss, you mean? she babbles. She's not here, she's delivering the afternoon orders—
The Obersturmführer makes an impatient noise and strides behind the counter, passing close enough to Anna that she can smell the wind in the folds of his greatcoat, cold air, promising more snow. He glances into the kitchen.
She's been executed, he says.
Executed! Anna gasps.
She has been rehearsing this moment for hours, knowing how important it is to appear shocked, and now that it has arrived she finds she hardly has to pretend. She braces herself against the display case, her breath materializing in white gusts. She is nearly panting.
That can't be true, Herr Obersturmführer; begging your pardon, but you must have made a mistake!
The Obersturmführer's gaze alights on Trudie, still sleeping in her pile of makeshift blankets. He bends for a closer look, bracing his hands on his knees.
A pretty girl, he says. Yours?
Please, Herr Obersturmführer, Frau Staudt is a good woman, absolutely loyal; I haven't heard her say or do the slightest thing against the Partei since I've been working here! Why on earth should she have been executed?
Why don't you tell me? the Obersturmführer says absently.
Tell you—? I'm sorry, I don't understand.
He removes his gloves and places a finger on Trudie's cheek. The toddler stirs.
How old is the child? he asks. One, one and a half?
One and four months, Anna whispers.
The Obersturmführer nods. Then he stands and beams at Anna, who realizes why his grin seems ersatz: he waits a beat too long before delivering it, like a bad actor reminded to perform by a director's hissed cue from backstage.
Now then, says the Obersturmführer, slapping his hands together as if about to tackle a difficult task. Let's not waste any more time, shall we? Why don't you tell me how long this has been going on?
What? says Anna. I don't know what you mean.
The Obersturmführer makes a moue of exaggerated surprise.
You don't? he asks. Really?
The tendons in Anna's neck creak as she tries to shake her head.
You don't know, Fräulein, that your boss was feeding the prisoners in our correctional facility, leaving bread for politicals, a-socials, murderers?
No, I didn't know—
I suppose your ignorance also extends to the weapons we found in the bakery truck, beneath the bread.
Weapons? Of all the—Where would Frau Staudt get weapons?
Why, I haven't the slightest idea, the Obersturmführer says, taking a step toward Anna. But you do, don't you, Fräulein? Just as you helped load them into the truck yourself; just as you worked all night, every night, to make that extra bread. Come now, don't look at me that way. Don't insult my intelligence by pretending you didn't know where it was going.
I knew it was going to the camp, but Frau Staudt told me it was for you, for the officers. She acted so proud, saying it was such an honor to supply you—
Anna starts to cry. She lied to me! she says, weeping.
The Obersturmführer watches her.
Enough, he says.
Anna continues to sob. She took advantage of me. She thought I was an idiot! she wails, spraying spittle.
The Obersturmführer stalks to Anna and grabs her by the chin, forcing her to look up at him as though she were a naughty child. Then his thumb is in her mouth, callused and tasting of cigarettes. Anna gags, her eyes tearing afresh. When he withdraws it, she tries to see his face, to gauge his intentions. The Obersturmführer is breathing hard through hi
s nose. He clamps his hands to Anna's cheeks, kneading the skin, rolling his tongue in her mouth.
Anna struggles free. Please, she says.
The Obersturmführer raises an eyebrow.
I don't want to wake the child, Anna whispers.
Nor does she want to take him to her bed in the cellar, where Mathilde has hidden so many enemies of the Reich, so Anna begins walking toward the staircase. She is thinking of all the rewards she has reaped from being a pretty girl, things she has come to accept as a matter of course: compliments, catcalls, men turning to watch her on the streets, smiling, offering her seats on trams, setting aside the best produce for her at market, imminent marriage proposals, flowers. She would trade every last one of them if only this Obersturmführer would now follow her up the stairs. Anna acts with a primitive cunning she didn't know she possessed, an innate knowledge of an ancient system of barter; she wordlessly urges the Obersturmführer onward as she mounts the first step, the second, her breath trembling in her lungs.
Her prayer is granted. Mathilde's old bed is not meant for such punishment: the mattress spills them toward the middle, and the frame cracks beneath their combined weight. The Obersturmführer doesn't bother to remove his clothes; he merely shrugs off his greatcoat and yanks open the buttons of his trousers. He grunts and heaves on top of her, and Anna tries to stifle her own noises by biting the inside of her cheek. Max too was often rough, taking her by surprise and sometimes using his teeth, but he was at least quick. Nothing has schooled Anna for this burning, this prolonged internal abrasion. She concentrates on widening her eyes at the ceiling, knowing that if she permits herself to blink, the tears welling in them will spill over.
When the Obersturmführer is finally done, he says, You like to watch.
Pardon? Anna whispers.
You kept your eyes open. I like that.
The Obersturmführer sits on the side of the bed for a minute, staring at the floor, a man making a weighty decision. Then he sighs and says, I will come once a week to inventory the bread. I will come myself; I won't send anybody else. Do you understand?
