The Good at Heart

by Ursula Werner

  “No, sir, I don’t believe you have ever told me.”

  “They are, of course, descended from liars and thieves and rebels, but perhaps that is what gives them their greatest strength as a people,” the Führer mused. He was silent, waiting to be urged on.

  Oskar appeased him. “And what is that strength?”

  “Their survival instinct. It is indomitable, really, their will to survive. It allows them to accomplish extraordinary feats with remarkable efficiency.” He paused, petting the kachina’s feathers, again waiting.

  “What feats, mein Führer?”

  “The annihilation of another race.”

  Without warning, images of dead bodies heaped into side alleys flooded Edith’s mind. Berlin citizens, dead from shell fire or bombs or collapsed buildings, and later, starvation or disease. There were so many different ways to die near the end of the first war that the gravediggers couldn’t keep up. Masses of lifeless humans shoveled into mounds. Was that also what was now happening out east? Had Edith been shutting her eyes to that reality, as she had averted her gaze all those years ago back in Berlin? Because the horror was too great to acknowledge? She looked out the window. Dusk was falling. The chestnut tree cast a gloom over the side yard. Edith felt cold, though all her morning baking had made the interior of the house quite warm.

  Oskar sat up straight, his shoulders rigid as if bracing for an assault. It was the same posture he had assumed when sitting for his formal portrait for the Military Academy years earlier: alert, prepared, unyielding. He looked at the Führer deliberately, unwilling now to let any move by his commander escape his notice. The Führer, by contrast, reclined in his seat and continued to scrutinize the doll, as if he were expecting it to give him some sort of answer to an unspoken question. Finally he placed the doll on the table.

  “I want you to have this kachina, General Eberhardt. I want you to keep it where you can see it every day. I want you to be reminded of the Native Americans.” He pushed the doll across the stained oak toward Oskar. “I want you to remember that you are a hunter, and that hunters do not trouble themselves with conscience. They hunt.” Oskar didn’t look at the doll. He remained as before, inert and composed.

  The Führer rose from his chair. Both Oskar and Edith began to rise, but the Führer held up his palm. “No, stay, stay seated. I will leave through the garden, if I may, Frau Eberhardt.” He crossed the room toward the French doors, his gait now more of a shuffle than the majestic step he had assumed upon his entrance. His entourage had reassembled outside on the stone patio, and upon his approach, one of the guards pressed down on the door latch, permitting the door to swing open and allowing the garden’s perfume to sweep in. Edith breathed it in gratefully.

  “General, I will see you tonight,” the Führer announced, his back to both of them. Without turning, he raised his right arm in salute to himself. “Adieu.” The glass doors slammed shut behind him.

  Edith began gathering the plates and cups and putting them on the tray next to the remaining pastries. To her surprise, the Führer’s plate was empty. She didn’t remember seeing him eat the Linzer torte. When had he done that? Edith started to ask Oskar if he’d noticed it, but he looked deep in thought. He was still staring at the kachina. “Oskar?” she began.

  “Leave them, my dear, I will clear them later,” he answered, his voice remote and flat. He did not move. Ignoring his instruction, Edith carried the tray through the swinging door and placed it on the kitchen counter next to the stove. She would put everything away later, she thought. Now she wanted to ask Oskar about the Führer’s strange interest in Marina and his comment about the Native Americans. But when she returned to the living room, Oskar had disappeared. Again.

  – Thirty –

  The floor in the room with the coal pile was very cold. From the rhythmic way her older sister’s stomach moved in and out against Pola’s head, she knew Nadzia had fallen asleep. Pola wished she could go to sleep again too. She wanted to stop thinking about the past week, what had happened to Papa and her baby brother. One minute they were all packing up to leave. Mama and Papa said they were going to a new home in secret. Then before they could go, the soldiers came and took Mama. And the next day the whole town was marched to the marketplace. When they passed the alley where the grocer piled his empty crates, Nadzia had grabbed Pola’s hand and pulled her out of line. She pushed Pola behind the stacks of wood and told her to keep her head down. But Pola heard baby Jakusz crying, and she wanted to go soothe him. Nobody could quiet him like Pola, not even Nadzia, except when she had his bottle. Papa didn’t know how to calm Jakusz.

  The crying got louder and louder, and Pola began to move, but her older sister held her back and shook her head. Angry voices began yelling at Papa in German and Papa said something she couldn’t hear and Jakusz just kept crying and crying and Papa was shouting “Nie! Nie!” and then there was a loud smack, as if someone had thrown a heavy rock against a wall, and Nadzia gave a short stifled cry. After that, everything was very quiet, and Pola tried to peer out to see what was happening, but Nadzia pushed her back and held her down. They stayed there until long after everyone disappeared and darkness fell, and then they ran.

  That day was the last time she heard Papa’s voice. Ever since then, she and Nadzia had been hiding and moving. First they went to the farm that Mama and Papa had said they were going to. The old lady there gave them soup and apologized for how watery it was, but it tasted like a rich stew to Pola. Two nights later, a man came and took them a very long distance in a cart. They had to crouch between chicken cages, and Pola quickly learned to stay away from those beaks. Then there was the woman in the city, and two more men, and lots of walking at night. Pola had been so tired, and scared too, because she and Nadzia had never been alone without Mama and Papa. But she didn’t say anything, she just started sucking on her thumb again. It had been more than a year since she quit, but it didn’t matter because Mama and Papa weren’t there anymore. And Nadzia didn’t stop her either; she kissed Pola on the head when she noticed and said nothing. Finally there was the woman in the royal red hat, and a train. The train ride was long, but Pola didn’t care because she’d never been on a train before, and they had seats. Then a quiet man with wire glasses and a round face picked them up from the train and brought them over to the empty station, and he told them that they could sleep on the benches if they wanted to. His Polish was not very good, but Pola liked him anyway because he asked her the name of her doll. Most people ignored Daiya, but this man looked closely and told her what a good friend she was. Daiya was Pola’s best friend; she could tell her anything and Daiya would listen and understand.

  Pola lifted her head slightly from her sister’s lap and looked at Daiya sitting at the side of the black coal mountain. She was keeping watch for them. Somehow, Daiya’s striped skirt had gotten torn. Pola didn’t remember that happening, but Nadzia knew how to sew and would fix it. Perhaps the lady who had brought them to this house had a sewing kit.

  This new lady was nice, nicer than the lady on the train with the hat. And prettier. This lady had very beautiful hair, very soft- and silky-looking. Like Pola’s mamusia’s. When they’d headed over to this house, the new lady had taken Pola’s hand, and they had walked fast, so fast that at one point Pola could not keep up and the lady picked her up and carried her. Pola felt the lady’s heart beating faster as they approached the house. When they reached the front gate, the lady put her finger to her lips and said something Pola didn’t understand, but she knew she should be quiet. They had walked very slowly then. As they got closer to the front door, the lady kept turning her head from one side to the other. Pola thought she was looking for someone. But no one was there. Instead, Pola smelled cigarette smoke. She thought it was coming from the big bushes to the right of the front door. The lady must have smelled it too, and she smiled. Pola would have liked to stay with the lady, but after they hurried into the house and down to a cellar, she made it clear that Pola and Nadzia shou
ld wait behind the coal pile until she came back. The lady seemed sad about leaving them, though. Maybe that meant she would come back soon.

  A door opened and Pola heard someone flip a switch at the top of the stairs. Nothing happened. The person mumbled something and came down the stairs and rummaged around somewhere in the other room in the darkness. A few minutes later, the lightbulb at the far side of the room suddenly blinked on. For a moment, everything shimmered as Pola’s eyes adjusted to the brightness. Nadzia jolted up and pulled Pola toward her so quickly, she had no time to grab Daiya. She tried to say something, but Nadzia clamped a hand over Pola’s mouth and shook her head. Pola heard heavy footsteps cross the stone floor toward them. She couldn’t tell if Daiya was visible from the other side of the coal pile. Someone put a tin bucket down on the floor and picked up a shovel. Pola heard the steel blade scrape against the stone and felt the echo of the coal pieces as they clattered against the bucket. Scrape, pause, clatter, pause. Scrape, pause, clatter, pause. The sounds went on for a few moments. Then they stopped.

  Nadzia wrapped her arms more tightly around Pola when a hand reached for Daiya and picked her up. The silence in the cellar felt colder than the air. The person on the other side of the coal pile did nothing for a long time. Then the person took three steps and looked around the side of the coal. It was an old man with grayish-white hair, a grayish-white mustache, and thin lips. He peered down at them through small square eyeglasses as though he had difficulty seeing them. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t do anything that made Pola scared. He simply stared at them for a long time. Then he knelt down slowly and looked directly at her. He looked at her as if he knew her, as if he were trying to remember whose family she belonged to, and then he extended his right arm, holding Daiya out in front of him. Cautiously, Pola took Daiya from his hand. The slightest of smiles crossed his mouth. Then he stood, turned to pick up the tin bucket, and ascended the stairs. When he reached the top, he stopped. Pola did not know why he was waiting, but it seemed like an eternity. Then the lightbulb switched off and the cellar was once again dark.

  – Thirty-One –

  In retrospect, allowing the girls to eat Linzer torte in lieu of dinner was probably a mistake, but Edith hadn’t had the energy to prepare anything else. Lara ate two and a half squares of the walnut-and-jam delicacy before retreating to her room, complaining that she would get fat. Sofia and Rosie, on the other hand, managed only two before they began chasing each other around the living room while Edith watched from the sofa, exhausted. After half an hour, Marina corralled them and took them up to bed. Edith promised to join her shortly. She wanted to talk to Oskar before he left for the concert. He was in the cellar getting coal. She waited for him in the kitchen. Last night, she had been too happy to be with him again, too eager to feel his familiar shape against hers in bed, to engage in any serious conversation. She’d luxuriated in the smell of his skin and the weight of his arms around her. Neither of them had wanted to speak.

  But now the need to talk was more urgent. The Führer’s visit had unleashed a maelstrom of troubling questions. What was this kachina doll that the Führer had given her husband? Was the statuette a reward for Oskar’s service and devotion to his commander? If so, what was the point of the Führer’s little speech about loyalty? Oskar was the most loyal person Edith knew. Or did the Führer suspect something? Yesterday, she had been afraid that perhaps Oskar truly believed in the ideals of the Third Reich. Now she found herself terrified that perhaps he didn’t. And the Führer’s interest in Marina chilled her heart. It felt predatory, rapacious. She had no idea what had prompted it, but she was desperate to quell it.

  Oskar entered the kitchen with the coal pail. Edith saw that it wasn’t full. Oskar put the pail down next to the stove and stood still for a moment. He looked like a stunned animal. “Oskar?” He did not answer. “Why did the Führer give you a wooden doll?” Again, no answer. “Oskar!”

  He blinked his eyes and gazed at her distractedly. “Edith, my love, where is Marina?” His voice was edged with panic.

  “Upstairs, putting the girls to bed, remember?” The look of confusion on Oskar’s face was real. She realized that Oskar must also have been affected by the afternoon’s events. Perhaps he too had been unnerved, even excessively. “Oskar, are you all right?”

  “Upstairs, of course,” Oskar said. He turned to the staircase but did not move forward. “I must speak with her immediately.”

  “But you’ll be late for the concert if you don’t leave right away,” Edith said. “You wouldn’t want to give the Führer any reason to question—” She stopped midsentence. Oskar wasn’t listening to her, clearly. He was caught up in some kind of internal turmoil; she could feel his mind churning wildly, but she had no idea why. She rose from the bench and intercepted her husband’s path to the upstairs, blocking his way with her small frame. Oskar blinked a few more times. She gripped his face to make him look at her. Everything collapsed into a single question in her mind, repeating itself over and over. “Oskar, tell me, are you all right?” That brought him back. The touch, the question. He tapped his heels on the floor and straightened his back.

  “The concert,” he said decisively. “Edith, I must go to the concert. But I will be back as quickly as possible. Tell Marina to stay here, I must talk to her.” He grabbed his hat from the coatrack near the front door and placed it on his head as he reached for the latch. “Don’t worry, my dear. You will all be safe. I will do everything necessary to keep you safe.” He gave her a kiss and walked out the door.

  – Thirty-Two –

  Hans Munter hated Klaus Weber’s music. It was pompous, grandiose, and far too loud. All that timpani and reverberating brass was disruptive to digestive flow. Hans much preferred the quiet predictability of Bach or, if he was feeling emotional, perhaps a smattering of Vivaldi. But attending the Weber concert tonight had nothing to do with enjoying the music. Had he been asked about his attendance, Hans would have said, in a small voice, that he had been invited. Then, more loudly, he would have proclaimed his fervent belief that a bürgermeister must faithfully perform his civic duties.

  The soldier who had pounded on his front door early that morning to deliver what Hans chose to think of as an oral invitation to the event had imparted the message through the violence of his knocking and the anger in his voice. A debilitating sense of dread had kept Hans in his pajamas up until two hours ago. He had not expected to attend the concert. He had seen Max Fuchs running around town yesterday morning, dropping off fat envelopes. Later, when he stopped by the Mecklens’ bakery for his afternoon streuselkuchen, he had heard the town magpies gossiping about what Regina should wear. Putting those facts together with comments he’d overheard, Hans realized, as he pulled off his slippers and crawled under his bedcovers last night, that there was a concert, a big concert, and that he had not been invited.

  He wasn’t surprised by the omission. He was, after all, a mere bürgermeister. In the great universe that orbited the Führer, Hans was an insignificant speck of dust hovering at an extreme outer ellipse. He was not unhappy with this remote position. He was perfectly content to maintain his distance from the Führer and went to sleep that night greatly relieved by his exclusion.

  But overnight, his fortune must have corkscrewed, because that battering ram of a soldier made it quite clear that the presence of the bürgermeister at the Weber estate this evening was mandatory. One could not turn down an invitation to a concert in the Führer’s honor, however questionably delivered, without unpleasant repercussions. Nevertheless, all day long Hans desperately wished he could. Fortunately, two hours before the concert, his infallible epicurean instincts came to his rescue and mobilized him out of his house slippers. All it took was one thought to successfully vanquish his fear, or at least allow him to banish it for a time. Food. The realization descended upon him suddenly and unexpectedly, like divine grace: the food at this concert would be exquisite and bounteous. An event celebrating the Great Lea
der of the Realm (or whatever the Führer called himself these days) would undoubtedly have delicacies that were unavailable elsewhere. It was known, for example, that the Führer adored French cuisine. That meant French butter, French cheese, French liqueur. Hans wondered if there would be any French cognac. Thus did his gastronomic fantasies propel him into a three-piece suit and bow tie and launch him from his home toward the Weber estate. His normal Sunday-evening routine—the drafting of congratulatory letters to local octogenarians who were celebrating birthdays in the upcoming week—would have to wait. With his grandfather’s ivory-capped walking stick firmly in hand, Hans made his way lakeward, pausing now and then only to swallow the anticipatory saliva that accumulated with each step.

  By the time he reached the perimeter of the Weber estate, he had convinced himself that he was famished. The dirt driveway leading up to the house was lined with rifle-wielding sentinels who gave no indication that they recognized or even noticed Hans as he strode by, though he had no doubt they were watching every step. He did not intend to test their response times. His plan was to act in an entirely usual manner this evening, to fit in seamlessly with all the other guests, particularly those at the buffet table.