by Sharon Maas
Von Haagen put down his briefcase beside the armchair and came to stand beside her. He placed an arm around her waist.
‘Think of this as your home, too, my dear. Though we shall not be living together, I want, I hope…I don’t expect you to cook for me – I’ll be eating with the other officers at the Rote Löwe. But for you to be here, when I come home at night…for you to be waiting for me…the fire lit, your arms…’
‘Wolf, we need to talk about that. Everything’s moving so quickly, and since we won’t be married yet…’
‘I know what you’re worried about. But, you know, from the start I told you that my intentions are honourable and I promise again not to compromise you in any way; I promise to wait. But oh, my dear…if you knew. If you only knew.’
Gently he turned her around so that she faced him. He clasped her even closer, nuzzled her hair, her neck. A shudder went through him; a shivering of his whole body, but it was not from cold. It couldn’t be; not with that stove before them.
‘Come,’ he said, and led her to the armchair. He sat down, pulled her to his lap. Held her close. She let him, but did nothing to encourage him. He moaned.
‘At last – we are alone together, completely alone. And I – oh, my darling. You cannot imagine, what it is like; for a man to spend his days surrounded only by soldiers and war and plans for more war and violence, by roughness and primitive maleness and – and then to come home to this. To you. You are so soft. So feminine. You smell so good. Just to touch you. Your hair. Your cheeks. Your lips.’
He kissed her, gently, just a touch of the lips, and pulled away.
‘You bring healing to me. All the ragged edges of my soul, they fall away when I am with you. How I long – oh, how I long…’
And then, abruptly, he pushed her away. ‘I cannot – I must not. I am so sorry, my dear. I must ask you to leave. Please, leave. Now.’
‘Wolf – it’s all right. You don’t need to…’
‘Oh Marlene, my love – if only – but until we are wed I must learn to control myself. Forgive me. I will try harder next time. But this place, and you – it is like a foretaste of home, of all I yearn for. This blasted war! But I will lose my mind if you stay longer. So – go, please go. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.’
She nodded and stood up. He too stood up. They walked to the door, silently. He reached for her coat, helped her into it.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, if I may,’ he said. ‘I promise to be better behaved.’
She nodded, stood on her toes, reached up her face to kiss him on the cheek. He turned his face away, so that she kissed air, and reached up to unhook his own greatcoat from the coatstand. He said nothing, but a vein in his neck throbbed, as if under great tension, and the smile he gave her was strained.
‘Are you going out? I though you were finished for the day?’
‘I – I just have to talk to someone; a – a colleague.’
‘I see.’
They walked down the stairs together; she took hold of his hand, but it was stiff and unresponsive, and the moment they walked out of the door he retrieved it to pull on his gloves. Sibyl shoved her own hands into her coat pocket. It was a thankfully very warm sheepskin which Oncle Yves had rescued from the attic, with a woolly hood.
‘Well, goodbye then,’ she said; but he barely nodded and walked away in the opposite direction. She stood and stared after him; why had he not walked her home? Then she shrugged and walked the few paces home herself.
Oncle Yves noticed at once that something was wrong. ‘Back already? And why the frown? Lover’s tiff?’
‘I don’t know; I mean, I do know but…’ She told him what had happened. Failing a best female friend, or a sister nearby, he had become something of a confidant over the last few weeks. She desperately missed Margaux and Elena; but here she was, stuck in the Colmar pocket, war raging all over the countryside. Cynical as Oncle Yves was and mocking of her relationship, he nevertheless sometimes offered little jewels of wisdom, titbits of advice which she took to heart and acted on.
Now, he roared with laughter. ‘And you really don’t know where he rushed off to?’
‘No – it was so sudden!’
‘You must be the most naïve female this side of the English Channel! Any Frenchwoman would have known his problem immediately; and would have prevented it. You women are such prudes, too ladylike for your own good! You should have helped him out.’
‘What do you mean?’
He told her. She blushed.
‘You really don’t know much about men, do you?’
‘Of course I know about men! I worked for years in a men’s ward; they told me all their problems!’
‘Ah, but this is different. You did not have to seduce your patients. Didn’t they tell you all this in agent training? What to do in such a situation? How to seduce a man?’
‘He doesn’t need seducing! He’s doing his best not to seduce me and I don’t know how to handle it! He’s put me on a pedestal – and anyway, I can’t, Oncle Yves. I just can’t. Jacques…’
Oncle Yves snorted. ‘Forget Jacques for the time being. This is work. It’s what they employed you for. You’re doing a job. You’ll do a much better job, trust me, if you let go of this prudish nonsense. You can’t take him this far and leave him hanging. Do what you have to do, ma chère, give him what he needs, and he’ll rain you with diamonds – of the sort you need to win the war. It’s easy.’
‘Maybe for you. Goodnight, Oncle Yves.’ She wrapped her coat tightly around her and walked out the door into the freezing stairwell.
‘Think about what I said!’ he roared after her.
Chapter 49
The cold was so bitter it cut through to the bone, chilled the blood. There was no relief, but for the little cast-iron stove in Oncle Yves’ workshop. During the day he left the connecting door open so that a little warmth came through to the shop but it wasn’t enough; she wore her coat and cap and even gloves while sitting behind the counter.
The Germans had arranged for coal to be delivered from the ‘coal pot’ of Essen in northern Germany but it was strictly rationed and it was going far too quickly; and it wasn’t even January yet. The pile of coal nuggets in the coal-room down in the cellar was diminishing at an alarming rate. If the temperature dropped further, and if the winter dragged on, Oncle Yves said, they would have to axe the wooden furniture up in the attic. Unless the Germans brought in more coal. Unless the war ended suddenly, and it rained coal nuggets. But no-one believed it.
Outside, Gerechtigkeitsgasse was a white alleyway, half a metre deep in snow, with narrow channels on both sides where residents had dug pathways of access to the main streets, and sprinkled them with ash to prevent slipping. Each house was required to have cleared their own space by seven each morning, and this job fell to Sibyl, not only for the cobbler’s shop but for her second home, the violin-maker’s. It was the worst part of the day.
But, she reminded herself, she still had the better part. The soldiers out there fighting for their lives, for the life of France – they were living a hell. Some of them, she learned, were from Africa; they had never even seen snow before, had never had to cope with a European winter. What must they be going through? Rumours and reports of the fighting trickled through the grapevine. Alsace, the plains and forests and fields, had turned into a slaughterhouse. Dead bodies lay buried in snow, frozen and discarded. French bodies, German bodies, American bodies. They lay abandoned and more snow fell and more bodies. Alsace ran with blood.
Except for the vineyards.
* * *
Sibyl had another source of warmth: the second home she shared with von Haagen. Every evening at seven she went over to the violin-maker’s house. She fetched coal from the cellar –no rationing here; von Haagen’s coal would never run out – and got the fire going and soon the little parlour glowed with warmth, and she would snuggle into the armchair and draw it near to the stove and cuddle with a book, and wait for
him.
She found herself looking forward to the evenings. Sometimes he came, sometimes he didn’t. When he came it was somehow different, since that last evening when she had sat on his lap.
He had had a second armchair delivered, and now they sat apart, each in their own chair; von Haagen carefully steering the conversation into safe topics such as literature and music; she trying to find an opening, a crack of intimacy, in which she could apply Oncle Yves’ advice. But no such crack appeared. Von Haagen had reverted into a stiff, formal, courteous version of himself; he no longer spoke of marriage, he no longer bared his soul to her. It was worrying.
One day he brought a radio. Radios, of course, were forbidden for Alsatians and since that one day after the fall of Strasbourg, Sibyl had never listened again. But now: here was a radio. When she was alone she listened, and occasionally managed to tune into the BBC. How different those reports were to the heavily censored ones delivered by Goebbels’ propaganda machine! Whenever she heard von Haagen’s step on the wooden stairs she quickly changed channel. She would jump up and open the door and welcome him with open arms, leading him into the comforting warmth of the little room where she would sit him down in his armchair, pour him a glass of wine, welcome him with cheery chatter.
But, she found, she was no good at the art of seduction. Von Haagen continued to hold her at arms’ length, even push her away if she came too close, his demeanour controlled, reserved.
Shortly before ten he would get up and fiddle with the radio controls. He would find Radio Belgrade, and at ten when ‘Lili Marlene’ came on he would sink into his armchair and weep. She would follow him there and wipe his tears away; but always he pushed her away.
‘I must face this alone!’ he told her. ‘Just be near me; it is all I ask.’
Christmas was fast approaching; there was going to be Christmas party at the Rote Löwe the night before Christmas Eve. She dreaded it – a room full of drunken German officers! And it was every bit as dreadful as she had anticipated.
Then it was Christmas Eve. She had made him a present; knitted him a long, multicoloured scarf out of a myriad bits and pieces of wool she had found in the attic or manged to buy from one of the market stalls. It had turned out quite pretty, finally; simple but the colours somehow evoked joy in the bleakness of wartime winter.
‘One day you will wear it, when all this is over,’ she said, and hated herself as she knew he never would – but she could not think that far. This was Marlene speaking, because Marlene was all she could be; there was no future except the one he planned, and she, as Marlene, had to live for that future. The other half of her being: it was submerged deep within her. She could not allow the two selves to mix.
He had brought her a wrapped present, a large box, tied up even with a bow.
‘This is for you, my love. But hopefully we can share it for now.’
She cried out in delight, clapped her hands. ‘What is it? What is it, Wolf?’
‘Open it and see!’
She peeled away the paper – carefully, for though the war might indeed be near the end, the ‘waste nothing’ creed was deeply ingrained in her mind. So she folded every scrap of paper, rolled up the ribbon until, finally, a box, more a kind of a suitcase, lay exposed, with a picture on it, and writing. She actually screamed in glee.
‘Telefunken’, it said on the box. Beneath that was a small picture of a gramophone. A gramophone in a wooden box styled as a small suitcase.
‘Oh Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, I can’t believe it! Oh, this is too good to be true!’ She flung her arms around him. His smile was shy, pleased at her joy.
‘There’s more,’ he said, and produced a second, much smaller parcel. When she unpacked that she found it was a pile of records.
‘I can’t believe it! This is just – too good to be true!’
‘Well, it’s true,’ he said. ‘The records – well, it’s some classical music, Beethoven, Mozart – but also some popular tunes from pre-war Berlin. The Threepenny Opera, of course. But – and you must keep this a secret – even some American records. And French – I thought you’d like that! Edith Piaf. I used to listen to all this before we were at war and I kept them. This is my own personal collection. My parents sent it.’
‘I can’t believe you like this sort of music. I though you only listened to Bach and Brahms!’
He chuckled ‘Oh, that nonsense! And the Rilke poems… see, I was under the impression that a man has to impress a woman. With his refined culture. Especially a chic Parisian woman.’
‘It had the opposite effect. I thought you were a pretentious jackass. You were obnoxious, Wolf.’
He had the grace to blush. ‘I suppose we men know very little about women, and what makes them tick. We don’t understand you.’
‘That’s true. We can be very complicated. Even some women don’t understand themselves. I for one – sometimes I think I know nothing at all about myself. I…’
She stopped speaking abruptly.
‘What were you going to say?’
‘Nothing. Just that I’m very, very moved. Thank you, Wolf.’
She touched his arm. Again, that almost shy smile.
‘Let’s try it out, shall we? You choose a record.’
‘No, you.’
He set the gramophone on the table, connected the cable to the mains, searched through the records until he found the one he was looking for.
‘Hitler would say this is verboten,’ he said. ‘But you know what? Screw Hitler.’
He placed the record on the turntable and turned the gramophone on. Carefully, he raised the needle arm and placed it on the record. It began to spin.
‘Do you know this one?’ he said. The first bars of something very familiar indeed filled the room. Her heart gave a little leap as a wave of nostalgia broke over her. It was ‘Cheek to Cheek’, from the film Top Hat – she had seen it in the cinema with Elena, swooned to it, longed to be in love, to dance to it, a giddy teenager.
‘Oh Wolf! It’s the best present I’ve ever had! Come – let’s dance?’
She jumped up and pulled him to his feet.
‘Really?’ He seemed reluctant, but it was a hopeful reluctance, the reluctance of a man who can’t believe his luck, for whom Christmas has come early.
‘Yes! Really!’
He lost no time. His arms closed around her; they danced, pressed together, their bodies closer than ever before. He was almost a head taller than her; his cheek rested against her forehead. Emotion swelled within her; evoked by the song, the dance, his closeness, and, despite herself, by him.
‘I love you,’ he whispered. ‘I love you so much.’
‘Hmmmm,’ she murmured.
He pulled a little way apart from her, looked down at her.
‘Marlene – are you beginning to have feelings for me? Just a little bit? I know I promised you that love would grow, once we are married – but has it begun to sprout, just a little?’
‘Just a little,’ she whispered. The odd thing was – it was true.
They danced some more, to other songs, von Haagen carefully selecting each record and placing it on the turntable.
Later, he sat down on the armchair and pulled her down to sit, not on his lap as before, but on the armrest. But his arm was around her, and hers around him, and she leaned into him.
‘That’s such a lovely present,’ she said. ‘My silly scarf – it seems so inadequate.’
‘I love your scarf. I will wear it every day once I am in civilian clothes.’
‘What, even in summer!’ she laughed.
‘Even in summer.’
He was silent then, as if contemplating something. Then he said, hesitantly:
‘Marlene, my darling, I was wondering if I could – just this once – because it is Christmas…’
‘What would you like, my dear?’
‘Just to touch your breast – without clothes – feel your skin?’
‘Oh, you dear, dear man!’
Sh
e immediately stood up, removed first her cardigan, then unbuttoned her blouse and removed it, then her brassiere. Only then did she down again; this time on his lap. He gasped; his hand hovered above the swell of her breast, hesitant.
‘Go on!’ she said, and placed her hand on his, gently pressing it down. And then he cupped her breast, fondled it, gently. She leant in, kissed him. On the lips.
‘You may,’ she whispered. ‘You may. Komm zu mir. Come to me.’
They were silent for several minutes. Then he gently pushed her off his lap, stood up, reached out his hand for hers. She gave him it. He pulled her to her feet. They looked into each other’s eyes, his gaze questioning, hers affirming. She nodded slightly. He led her into the bedroom.
Chapter 50
The war stopped for Christmas Day. Sibyl spent the day with von Haagen, wrapped in his arms, cuddled in his bed, enclosed in a membrane of his love, a love so tender she imagined herself in heaven, shielded from the horrors of war, enfolded in the warmth given off by the little stove and by the fluffy eiderdowns and bare skin, enclosed in a cocoon of gladness and protected from the bitterness of winter and war outside the walls of crooked little home.
Now and again von Haagen left the building, sallied out into the cold whiteness of winter and returned with food prepared and packed by the Rote Löwe, offering it to her as to a goddess; which, in his eyes, she was, as he told her again and again, for surely such healing was divine?
He suggested attending a carol service at church that afternoon. She declined; fearful of the guilt such an event might expose. Instead, they listened to German carols on the radio: O Du Fröhliche, and Alle Jahre Wieder, and, of course, Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht. They all imparted a certain unique sense of Christmas, of peace, and healing, and nostalgia; and strangely, for her no guilt, but only warmth and closeness. He spoke of Christmasses to come, when they’d have their own home, perhaps here in Alsace, surrounded by their future children. And even then she felt not guilt, but peace. As if that impossible dream could ever come true.
