The Last Innocent Hour

by Margot Abbott

  “You must face it. Open your eyes,” he said. I did. “Good. You’re not a coward. I didn’t think you were. I want to be sure you understand what he did. What I asked him to do and what he did. Do you?” I nodded. “Good.” He gently moved me away from the window and guided me into a seat, then turned to pull the blind shut. He squatted in front of me.

  “You see this?” he asked. I looked. His gun lay in his hand. Instinctively, I drew back against the cushion of the seat. “This is the same kind of gun. It’s a Luger, made of good German steel from the Ruhr, which the French have tried to steal from us. It fires nine rounds. Then you have to reload. So, If Mayr had twenty men to shoot, assuming that he killed each man with one bullet, how . . .”

  “Twice,” I whispered, then cleared my throat. “Three times.”

  “Good girl,” he said, as though I were a well-trained dog. “Be patient, I’m almost done. He shot them in the head, because that’s—well, you tell me why.”

  I looked at him helplessly.

  “Why would you shot someone in the head?”

  “To kill him?” I said, my voice small and thin.

  “Right. And if you do it there”—he touched my temple—“or here”—he touched the back of my ear—“either place should do the trick. I know Mayr knows that because I told him. Now, when you shoot someone in the head, the bullet exits away from you, taking blood, brains, and bone with it. You usually don’t get splattered, but it does happen. Maybe the victim moves at the last minute or your aim is off.”

  He leaned into me, his body against my legs, his arm over my lap, the hand holding my waist. “Brains are gray,” he whispered, “like gray custard. Ah, we’ve stopped. I must go. Good-bye, dear Sally.” He stood up and, without another word, left me alone.

  I flew at the door and locked it, my hands shaking so badly I could barely work the key. Then I went into the bathroom and threw up.

  I sat in the seat by the corner all night. What was the truth? That Christian had killed those men or that he had told Heydrich where we were going or that he hadn’t done either thing. Who was lying?

  You knew he had killed those men, I told myself, but a firing squad was one thing. A long string of individual executions was entirely different.

  I kept seeing, as I’m sure the general wanted me to, Christian’s hands and face splattered with gore. I pulled my legs up and sat, my arms around them, in as small a space as I could manage.

  I CALLED MY father when I got into Berlin. Christian had told him what had happened and that he wasn’t sure which train I’d be on. Daddy offered to send Rick to pick me up, but I said I’d take a taxi.

  It was good to be in my father’s house. I felt safe for a moment and went up to bathe and sleep. I crawled gratefully under the covers of my bed and fell soundly asleep. Until I started to dream. I don’t remember anything specifically, just blood and trains and Heydrich’s voice. I woke with a start.

  The door to my bedroom opened quietly.

  “Who is it?” I snapped, turning on the light on my bedside.

  “Me,” said Christian, coming into my room in his uniform and tall boots.

  I pulled the covers up. He sat on the bed and leaned forward to kiss me. I turned my head. I had hoped to have some time before I saw him.

  “Your business is finished?” I asked, my voice hard.

  “What is it? Sally?” He sat on the bed. “I know you’re angry with me for leaving you there. Darling, I am sorry. There was nothing else I could do. And you got home all right. Are you all right? My mother’s party is Friday, did you remember that? We have to talk about where we’re going to live. Sally, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  He looked at me, studying me. “Sally. What happened? What is it?”

  “I don’t want you to touch me.”

  “Touch you?”

  “Yes, I’ll say it in German so you’ll understand. I don’t want your hands oh me. Do you understand?”

  “Why?” He was utterly astounded. I could see that.

  “Because you’re a killer.”

  I wasn’t looking at him, but I heard his sharp intake of air at my statement.

  “You knew that,” he said, his voice so faint I could hardly hear it. “I told you everything.”

  “Did you? There’s a lot more that Heydrich told me.”

  “Heydrich? Where. . .?”

  “On the train. He was on the damned train.”

  “Oh, Christ. Did he do anything? Hurt you? Is that why. . .?”

  “Christian, he told me terrible things about you.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “You’d believe him before me?”

  “Please, Christian, tell me the truth.” I sat up, my hands on his arm.

  “The truth. What’s so bloody great about the truth? I can’t believe you’d believe him and not me. Did he touch you? Did he try to make love to you?”

  “No, not really.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not really’?”

  “Christian, tell me. Don’t get off the subject. Tell me.”

  “What? What did he tell you? Are you going to let me defend myself or condemn me without a hearing?”

  So I told him what the general claimed Christian had done on that horrible summer day. “And I remembered how you held your gun. As though it were welded to your hand.” I started crying as I spoke. “And your boots, you were so dirty. And frightened. You were so frightened.”

  He was silent for a moment, turning his face away from me. “Heydrich sent us out Friday night to make four arrests. To arrest four men. One wasn’t at home, two were, and the last one resisted arrest and we had to take him. I didn’t, but one of the other men shot him. In the leg. He wasn’t dead. At least, I believed he wasn’t.”

  “What about the woman? You talked about a woman.”

  “A woman?” he said confusedly, turning to face me. “There was no woman. Maybe I meant. . . Oh, I know. At one of the places, the man’s wife came out and we had to hold her back. We shut her in the dining room, she was making so much noise. That was it.

  “About Hans, Sally,” he said, his voice full of pain. “That was true. I wish to God it weren’t.”

  “But going cell to cell, Christian, did you do that?”

  “No, I swear it. There’s nothing more. I was in the firing squad that shot my best friend. That was all. Isn’t that enough? Oh, shit.” And he quickly got up, standing helplessly in the middle of the floor. “I am in such a trap. You don’t know, Sally.”

  “Christian.”

  “Do you believe me?” he asked. “Do you believe me?” he repeated, desperation on his face and in his voice.

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “No. It sure as hell is not.”

  I pulled my legs up and sat there, studying my hands and the pattern of the covers over my legs. He was still for a long time, then he started wandering around my room. It was strange to have him there, large and male in his uniform. I wished he’d leave me alone to sort out my feelings.

  “You hate me now, don’t you?” he said, picking up a small bottle of perfume from my dressing table, then putting it down.

  “No.” I loved him. I loved him and I had to believe him.

  “But you don’t want me to touch you.”

  “Is it why you want to leave Germany?” I asked softly.

  “It is.”

  “Do they haunt you?” I whispered. He stood at the bookcase next to the door, his back to me. He didn’t move for a long time and when he spoke I could barely hear him.

  “Except when I sleep with you.”

  I bent my head and started to cry.

  “If only we had gotten to Italy,” he said in the saddest voice I’d ever heard. I hated seeing him in such pain.

  “Do you believe me? Please believe me. Not him. Don’t believe him,” he cried.

  “I don’t. Honest. I promise I don�
�t. I believe you. I love you.” I held my arms out, and looking into his eyes, said again, “I believe you.”

  “Thank you,” he said, sitting down, lowering his face to my shoulder. “Thank you.” We stayed like that for a while, then he raised his head. “It’s late, I’d better get back.”

  “You’re working?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “With my mother. Where I was.”

  “Maybe you could move in here, with me?”

  “What about your father?”

  “He won’t mind. He’s alone otherwise. We can ask him.”

  He agreed and got up to leave, but stopped at the door and said, without turning around, “I need you. You can see why.”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “Just give me some time.”

  “Don’t let him win, Sally.”

  “Just a little time.”

  After a moment, he nodded and went out.

  A PROPER SS WIFE

  CHRISTIAN DIDN’T MOVE into my father’s house with me; I moved in with him at his mother’s. A temporary situation, we all agreed. Lisa gave us a large room at the back of the flat, overlooking her garden. It was several rooms away from her, but I felt strange there, getting into bed with her son under her roof.

  That strangeness lasted for two nights. On the first evening, after a pleasant dinner with Lisa, Christian stayed behind to talk and I got ready for bed alone. I pretended to be asleep when he came in.

  I awoke in the middle of the night to feel his hands on me. Half asleep, I lay with nothing in my mind but the pleasure of his caresses. He moved closer against my back. I rubbed against him, as though the sleep he had called me from had robbed me of all inhibitions. He moaned and moved me against him, lifting me so he could enter me, his hands running over my back and fanny, around to my stomach and breasts. I leaned back against him, my head against his neck.

  “Oh, Sally,” he murmured. I could see the pattern of the wallpaper faintly in the dark, shadows of dark and light spilling across the wall like blood. I could hear Christian’s breathing. I needed to see his face, so I moved off him and lay down on my back, wanting him on top of me, wanting the weight of him to obliterate the images that were seeping into my mind.

  He gasped as he entered me. I tried to stay with him, to feel only, not think. But it was no good. In the end, I turned my head into the pillow.

  “What is it? Did I hurt you?” he whispered, his hand on my head.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’m all right. It’s nothing.”

  He was gone by the time I got up the next morning. I lay in bed feeling miserable, thinking of some way I could fix things. If only I could unhear what Heydrich had said.

  That night, we slept on opposite sides of the bed, like strangers. The worst part was that he was so sweet to me. He touched my cheek gently with the back of his curved fingers and said good night without a hint of rancor.

  Sleep would help; sleep will make everything better. I was still exhausted from my terrible train journey. Surely, after I caught up on my sleep, these fantasies would be gone from my mind.

  That night I dreamed that I was waiting in a cell to be shot. The cell was horrible, cold and gray and dripping with dirty water. I sat on a chair in the middle of the square floor, a naked light bulb high above me. I could hear footsteps outside and hear doors slamming. It seemed I waited for hours, my terror growing with each passing minute.

  Finally, the footsteps stopped outside my door. I tried to stand to face whatever was in store for me, but I was so pregnant, I couldn’t get out of the chair.

  My baby. They wouldn’t shoot me because they’d kill my baby.

  I tried to talk, to get out of the chair, to show whomever was behind the door that I was pregnant. I knew he wouldn’t kill me if he knew this. But I was mute and crippled and helpless and with all my energy I tried to scream.

  And I woke myself up with a feeble bleat, which my terrified scream had turned into. It was enough to make me sit up, hunched over my knees, thinking of Heydrich’s gun, of Marlene, of Christian throwing his gun away that day.

  Christian turned over and put his hand on my back.

  “What is it?” he asked in a voice foggy with sleep.

  “A dream,” I told him.

  “A bad dream?” He spoke in German.

  “Yes,” I said, “a bad dream. Someone was trying to kill me. In a cell. Someone was coming for me. I couldn’t see him.”

  He sat up, his arm around me, holding me against him. I let him comfort me, but there was a part of me that couldn’t forgive him for exposing me to this. We didn’t talk anymore. He just held me and then I moved away.

  The next day, as if things weren’t bad enough, I received a telephone call from Lina Heydrich.

  “My dear, you must come to dinner. As soon as possible. I must see you.”

  “Oh, Lina, thank you, but—”

  “I know your mother-in-law is giving a small family party for you, but you must let me do this. It’ll be small. Just us and a few of the younger men who are married. The sort of people you ought to be meeting. For Christian’s career.”

  I couldn’t reply to that.

  “Sally, it is your duty,” she said sternly, then added in a softer tone, “and it would give me so much pleasure.”

  So I agreed and hung up the phone, hoping something would happen before tomorrow night, when I would have to see that man again. I wondered if Lina knew he had said those things to me. She couldn’t. How could she be so friendly to me if she did? I rubbed my hands over my face. My skin felt thin and dry.

  I needed my husband. I needed . . . something. An airline ticket. I almost laughed at that. I leaned my elbow on the little table, my head in my hand.

  “Are you all right?” Lisa Mayr stood at the end of the hall, her eyes full of concern.

  “That was Frau Heydrich. She’s invited Christian and me to dinner tomorrow.”

  “That’s nice.” She came down the hall toward me.

  I took a breath and wiped my face. “No, Lisa, it isn’t. Her husband is a terrible man.”

  “Oh, my dear, surely . . .”

  “He is. And I can’t imagine how I’ll sit through dinner without screaming.”

  Lisa patted me and offered to make me a nice cup of tea and I understood that she didn’t want to believe me. She hoped it was my condition.

  I SAT THROUGH the Heydrich dinner without screaming. I had gotten through another sleepless night, afraid of dreaming, afraid of asking for comfort, lying stiffly on my back, drifting fitfully in and out of sleep.

  I thought I looked tired and old. When I put on my green velvet dress, it seemed to turn my skin gray, and I decided I’d throw it away after this evening.

  There was a welcoming fire in the hearth in the Heydrichs’ sitting room, and the general was mixing drinks, the center of a domestic, cozy scene. Lina bustled in, giving Christian a kiss and me a hug.

  “Hello, darlings,” she said. And led me away, before the other guests arrived, to say good night to Paul. I liked visiting the little boy. He was above all these adult concerns and I hoped his father’s poison would not harm him.

  “Sally,” Lina said, softly, when we were in the hall. “When I heard about your elopement, I wondered if you were expecting. Am I correct? Is this the reason for the elopement?”

  I couldn’t look her in the eye, nor could I deny what she said.

  “Oh, no, my dear. Do not be ashamed. We do not think less of you. No, to the contrary, we applaud your courageous choice—and, I might add”—and she put her arm around my waist, hugging me against her side—“I especially think young Mayr has made a fine choice.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Poor child. Does your father disapprove? Is that why you eloped? Well, you will be living in Germany now, and those old-fashioned ideas are dead here. The generation of your father is not relevant any longer. They and their ideas are empty. Germany honors mothers,” she
said in a low, intense voice. “We give the nation our most precious sons so that the fatherland will be strong.” She squeezed me. I said nothing, hoping she would stop. “Come, let us go down to our men.”

  On the stairs, after she finally let go of me, she told me something else to make me feel better about being pregnant before marriage.

  “In many peasant societies,” she said, “young men won’t marry a young woman until she is pregnant. They cannot have a barren wife, you see?”

  “We are not a peasant society,” I said, as nicely as I could.

  “No, of course not. But that is not to say we should not adopt many of the ideals of that simpler life. Here we are, gentlemen.”

  We entered the sitting room and Heydrich came toward us, a glass in each hand, and handed them to us. But Lina wasn’t finished with the subject. “Poor Sally feels guilty and embarrassed about her fertility. Tell me, my dear, how many times did you and Christian have sex before you became pregnant?” She asked me this amazing question sweetly, as though she were asking what kind of face powder I used.

  I flushed and ducked my head, aware of Heydrich standing next to me. He and Lina and I were a small, tight circle. Where was Christian?

  “Please, Sally,” said the general. “These outmoded bourgeois notions of morality are antiquated and useless. They are not for the likes of you and young Mayr. But don’t worry, we won’t press the issue.” He stepped back, turning to include Christian, who had come up behind me, in the circle.

  “A toast,” Heydrich announced expansively. We all raised our glasses. Lina, standing at her husband’s left, was wearing a dark dress patterned with strange flowers, and coral beads. She gazed up at the general happily, the very picture of a perfect National Socialist wife. She had never recited cant to me before, but now I was part of the inner circle.

  I wondered if Heydrich talked to her about brains and blood and murder.

  Christian’s eyes caught mine, and he smiled slightly. It was the first time our eyes had met in three days and I was grateful for the connection.

  “To your happiness,” said the general. “To your first child; may there be many more.”

  “Now tell them our news, Reini,” said Lina shyly, after we had all taken a drink.