by Louise Fein
There really is no choice now, and I have no time to lose.
MUTTI AND VATI, resplendent in evening dress, wait in the hallway for their car to collect them. Mutti is brimming with enthusiasm after her visit to the children’s home. She waves a book entitled Raising the Ideal German Child: A Guide for Modern Mothers.
“Full of advice on how to toughen the next generation. This will be most useful for my orphans,” she says. “Don’t wait up for us, Hetty. After an early dinner with Judge Fuchs, we are going to the opera.” There is a flurry of sliding on gloves, hats, fur stole, and outdoor shoes, and then they are gone, leaving a faint whiff of smoky cologne and flowery scent behind them.
I fetch the Kafka from beneath my mattress and stare at its cover. Once, I would have delighted in this book. Devoured it with hunger. I finger it tentatively, turning to the first page. I try to read, but I can’t concentrate. The words tumble over themselves on the page. It’s evidence of my non-German thoughts. I must be rid of it. Fast. I snap it shut and slip it into my pocket.
I approach the kitchen to collect Kuschi, as always, my excuse to go out. Ingrid is talking.
“I saw it with my own eyes, Bertha, honest to God, it’s true!” Ingrid’s voice is high with indignation. Bertha’s reply is quieter, mumbled so I can’t hear. “Seriously, something should be done. I mean—”
I walk into the room before she can say more. She starts at the sight of me.
“Something should be done about what?” I ask. She’s sitting at the table, her feet up on a chair, a cup in her hand. Bertha’s at the sink, scrubbing potatoes.
“Sorry.” She swings her legs down from the chair, slowly, as though trying to make a point. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
“What was it you were saying?” I probe. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Her cheeks flush and she looks to Bertha for help. Bertha shrugs and goes back to her scrubbing.
“It was just some silly gossip in the fishmonger’s this morning, Fräulein Herta. People talk these days, you know. Everyone watching everyone else, you never know who’s going to report on who. Anyone with a grudge. How do you prove it, if you didn’t do anything wrong?”
I burn hot and walk across the room, taking Kuschi’s leash from the hook, bending down to hide my face. I fix the leash to his collar with trembling fingers.
“No one will have anything to worry about if they abide by the law. Only those with something to hide have a reason to fear,” I say at last, looking her straight in the eye. “I’m going for a walk with the dog. Not sure when I’ll be back.”
“What, in the dark?” Ingrid reacts.
“Oh, Fräulein Herta, I’m not sure your father would like that,” Bertha cautions.
“I’m just walking around the lamp-lit roads of Gohlis,” I tell her firmly. “What harm can come to me in a respectable neighborhood like this?”
I shouldn’t need permission from a cook or a maid to leave my own house.
I walk quickly. Like an invisible magnet, I can’t resist the pull of him. I have no real plan except to go to the place he lives. Walk the pavements he walks. Breathe the air he breathes. Aching with the knowledge of what I must do. Kuschi’s paws click on the pavement at my side.
We cross the little stone bridge, the river flowing smooth beneath my feet. I stop for a moment and lean over the wall. I can smell its dank wetness as it gushes and churns around the ancient arches of the bridge. My head swims and for a second, I think I might pitch forward into its depths. I spring away and walk fast down the dark lane, anxious to be back on the main roads with their bustle and streetlights.
The northern end of Hindenburgstrasse is a wide, busy, tree-lined avenue. Large and imposing buildings line each side. I walk slowly past a little row of shops: a haberdasher’s, a grocer, a café, and a butcher’s. All are shut except the café and a florist at the end of the row, where a man and a boy wearing aprons are dismantling displays of flowers and taking them into the shop.
“That’s all I can let you have this evening, I’m afraid,” the man calls to someone inside. “I might have some more leftovers tomorrow, if you want to come by at closing then . . .”
They clear the door and someone wearing a hat pulled low over his forehead exits, holding a bunch of lilacs wrapped in brown paper. He strides away, the flowers tucked under his arm.
All other movement in the street freezes.
The pavement lists.
It cannot be.
“Walter?”
He turns, and stares, wide-eyed and openmouthed. Flashes of Ingrid, the Gestapo. I wasn’t prepared to see him now. Should I run? But I’m frozen in time and space and he comes to me.
“Hetty . . . How did you find me?” He seems hesitant, restrained.
“I never thought I’d actually see you . . .”
“Oh . . .”
“I mean, what were the chances?” I whisper.
There’s an awkwardness between us and he shrinks back, rests his shoulder against the wall.
“Why haven’t you come the last two Sundays?” he asks after a beat, and suddenly I understand his distant reception.
“I wanted to. But so much has happened since we met in the city.” I stop. We’re so exposed, here on this main thoroughfare. “Is there anywhere we can talk? Properly talk? There’s something you should know.” I remember my resolve. But somehow, in Walter’s presence, everything solid turns to liquid, and I feel it slipping away.
Walter nods and shrugs himself off the wall. “I know a place. My friend Lena, her family owns a café. She’s completely trustworthy,” he adds, turning and walking quickly down the street.
I trail after him. We turn off the main street and after a couple more turns, we’re standing in a shabby backstreet with ramshackle old houses and a run-down-looking café on the corner. A bell tinkles as Walter pushes open the door. I tie Kuschi to a lamppost and follow Walter.
A solitary man sits smoking at one of the tables, his head hidden behind a newspaper. The only other person inside is a dark-skinned young woman of suspect racial origins, serving behind the bar. Walter indicates for me to sit opposite him at one of the tables.
“Good evening.” He smiles at the girl. “Two teas, Lena, please,” he calls.
“I’ll be right with you,” she answers, clattering around behind the counter.
Walter glances at the smoking man and leans across the table. His face softens. “Tell me, why didn’t you come on Sunday?”
“I was afraid we’d been seen in Salamander’s. Now I’m sure we were.”
“Who saw us?” His words are calm, but his body tenses.
“Our maid, Ingrid.”
“Shit.”
“Yes.” We stare across the table at each other.
“I don’t suppose she remembers you. And even if she does, she doesn’t know you’re a . . .” My words fade out.
I think about my resolve. Now. Do it now.
“Actually, Walter.” I take a deep breath. “I-I think we should put a stop to all this.”
His face falls. I look away and squeeze my hands together in my lap. Stay strong.
I tell him about the story I read in the Leipziger about the actress.
Walter says nothing and picks at some loose skin next to his thumbnail.
“It’s too dangerous, for both of us.” I fish the Kafka from my pocket. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t read this.”
“Hetty . . .”
He slides the book across the table and shoves it into his jacket pocket. He looks at me now and there is so much hurt in his eyes. I let my fingers brush his hand lying on the table. A lump forms in my throat as I imagine a future without our Sunday mornings. Without the warmth of his hand in mine, the touch of his lips, or the smell of him. This and the events of the past week—first Vati, and now Erna and Karl—are suddenly an unbearable weight, crushing me.
Lena approaches the table carrying a tray and I pull my hand away. She places the teacups and teapot in front of us, giving
me a sideways look with her dark eyes, and then retreats behind the counter. She begins to polish it, paying close attention to the area near to where we sit. Walter notices me staring at her.
“I promise,” he says, “you can trust Lena with your life and mine. She has as much to lose as us. She’d never tell a soul.”
I feel my shoulders relax. I try again. “Walter, you must know this isn’t what I want . . .”
He gazes at me, then pours the tea.
Such a simple task, but I have never once seen Vati pour tea for Mutti. I watch Walter’s hands move, strong yet gentle.
I take a sip of tea and meet his eyes over the rim of my teacup.
He looks away and I see the muscles twitching in his jaw. “You know,” he says, his voice cracking. “We’ve had so much taken away from us. So much. I thought I’d found some happiness with you. I’d decided, damn them, the Nazis. I’ll fall in love with whoever I choose. How dare they, with their disgusting laws, consider me inferior. How dare they declare me not good enough for you, if you consider me to be.” He sits back in his chair. “And now it looks like they’ve won, after all.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He slumps in his chair, deflated. As though all the fight has gone out of him. I search for something to say, to break the silence.
“I’ve found out Vati has a mistress,” I blurt out. “They have a child together. A little girl.”
Walter puts down his cup.
“Oh God. That’s awful.”
“I saw them together.”
He reaches out and strokes my hand, just once, with his fingertips, then leaves his hand on the table, close to mine. “Those Nazi Party bastards. They all have mistresses.”
His words are like a punch in the belly and something scrunches up inside.
“Why do you think this has anything to do with him being a Nazi . . . Don’t you forget, Walter Keller, I am one too!”
A foreign creature is in control of my mind, forcing the words from my mouth.
Walter rocks back on his chair. His eyes bore into me and I shrivel.
“I don’t understand; whose side are you on?”
“Whose side? This isn’t a question of sides. I’m on our side. Yours. No—I mean, I don’t know.”
I look around the café. The man has left, his newspaper folded on the table. No one else has come in.
“I went to Vati today. I thought that, if Ingrid finds out who you are and should let slip, well, it would be her word against mine, wouldn’t it? There must be no doubt in my father’s mind where my loyalties lie, so I decided to tell him that I’d once overheard Erna’s father make an anti-Hitler rant only—”
“Hetty! How could you! Don’t you make me an excuse for doing something so despicable!”
“Shh!”
He looks around. Lena is still behind the counter. And there is nobody else in the café.
“I’m not,” I whisper, leaning toward him. “But I wanted to tell you the truth.”
I begin to sweat. I was meant to be finishing things with Walter, not baring my soul and then falling out with him. Who exactly am I? A Nazi and a Jew sympathizer? Is that even possible? Is it just Walter, or all of them? Pain thuds again in my temples.
“I don’t understand,” he says, his face contorting. “You call yourself a Nazi. Yet you seem happy to meet with me, to listen to what I think of the Nazis. To kiss me. Then you defend them. Have I totally misunderstood you, Hetty?” A fire is lit behind his eyes. “Are you going to tell your father of my opinions too?”
“Of course not!”
“How can I be sure? Why do you make an exception for me?”
My skin feels hot.
“You haven’t misunderstood me. The truth is, and I want to be entirely truthful with you . . .” I place my hand on top of his, but he pulls it away. “I don’t agree with everything Hitler says. But if you think about it, lots of it makes sense, too. To put the good of all before individual self-gratification. Our nation, our future, is the most important thing. Isn’t he, being ‘married to Germany,’ the very epitome of that? No class divisions, prosperity for all, law and order—they are all good, aren’t they? Taming the chaos in the world, eradicating disease and mental illness. Controlling it. Science to make us better, to further our advancement. How can any of it be wrong? Besides, he is the first man in history to recognize the equal importance of women, to recognize the mother and housewife as a profession in the highest order—”
“But these are just words, Hetty. Manipulative, deceitful, duplicitous words. Look at his actions, at the consequences. Don’t listen to his poison. Think about it. It’s all too simple!”
I don’t know, I want to scream at him. I don’t know anything anymore!
“Think of what is happening in reality.” Walter presses on. “All this fear, the informing, nobody trusting their friends. There is no freedom anymore. Freedom to speak, to think, to feel. He wants to control it all. He insults ‘the masses’ by doubting any capacity for intellect. He sees only one way: to crush, to force, to divide, to dictate. And you women? Oh, he celebrates women. He speaks of your crucial role in the Thousand Year Reich, and yet, that role can only be as mother and homemaker. You are not permitted to be anything else. You are certainly not expected to use your mind. Preferable if you don’t have one at all. And you, Hetty, with your deep thinking, your quick wit, and your independent spirit. You will be utterly wasted.”
“Stop it.” My head is swelling. Hotter and hotter. The thudding in my temples is growing to a thunder. “Just stop,” I say again, putting my head in my hands.
Walter is watching me. Waiting. His face is twisted. He’s angry with me.
“I don’t want to hear any more of this,” I say. “I’m leaving—”
He grabs my hands. “Just imagine how it would be to live in a free country. One where nobody watches you to see if you are having un-German thoughts. Where you could say anything you like.”
“It would be chaos,” I say, spitting the words at him. “There would be violence and street fighting, like the mobs who used to roam the streets before the Führer—”
The door jangles and an elderly couple come in. Walter and I freeze in silence, bodies stiff with conflict. The waitress reappears from the back.
“Good evening, Lena, my dear,” says the bespectacled lady as she removes her hat. “We were hoping for a nice slice of your apfelstrudel if you have some.”
“Of course. Take a seat, anywhere you like,” Lena says, giving us a quick glance.
Walter pours some more tea from the pot. It’s lukewarm when I take a mouthful.
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” he says quietly. “You could be whatever you want, Jew or non-Jew. Scientist. Lawyer. Doctor. Friends with whoever you want. Marry who you want.”
His words are seductive, just like Hitler’s. Different words. Different promises. I feel like a butterfly tossed in a stiff breeze.
“I’ve never been away from here. I have no idea what it would be like. Have you?”
“No.” He shakes his head and slumps in his seat.
Who is right? And who is wrong?
Lena is back.
“Can I get you anything else?” Her dark eyes are troubled.
“No. All fine, Lena, thank you,” Walter says without taking his eyes off me.
I stare back into Walter’s flecked and beautiful eyes. The seduction of them. They pull me in so irresistibly, but I must resist. I have to stop this before I fall, completely.
“I should go.” I push my teacup to the center of the table and stand up.
I try to see Walter for what he is. No ordinary boy, but a Jew who has tried to seduce me.
“Yes” is all he says, sweeping a hand through his unruly hair.
“I probably won’t come on Sunday. I think it would be for the best.”
“Yes,” he says again, not meeting my eyes. “As you say. It would probably be for the best.”
“And j
ust so you know,” I whisper as I pass him by, “I never did tell Vati about Erna’s father. I didn’t have the guts.”
Twenty-Two
November 3, 1937
I know I shouldn’t care. I shall probably never see you again. But I hate that you should think badly of me. Why does it even matter so much? You’re a Jew. You have no right to my heart. I’m worth more than you could ever be. You are pigheaded. You see things only from your side. You’re underhanded and devious, the way you have wriggled yourself into my heart and soul. Into my head. I can think of nothing but you, and how I’m desperate to be with you, but know I shan’t ever be again. You turn everything I’ve ever known on its head, and you make me think about things I shouldn’t have to think about. I was happy, before. I knew right from wrong. Now everything is confused and broken. I want to hate you for it, Walter Keller. But I can’t. Could it be that I’ve fallen in love? Is this how it feels?
When I arrive at the afternoon’s BDM gathering, the first person I see is Erna, rolling bandages. She sees me, too, and quickly looks away, rolling with great attention to her work. It will have to be me who makes the first move. What to say? I have missed you dreadfully, dearest friend. I’ve been such a fool. Oh, and I’ve kept a much worse truth from you than you kept from me. Can you forgive me?
“Hello, Erna. How have you been?”
She looks up at me. Her green eyes lack their usual sparkle; her skin is paler than ever.
“Oh, Hett . . .” She glances around her, lowering her voice. “I’ve missed you so much. Have you forgiven me?”
“Have I forgiven you?”
“I’m so sorry for not telling you about Karl and me.”
“Oh, Erna. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I totally overreacted. I’ve been so silly . . .”
She shakes her head, her eyes moist with tears.
“I shouldn’t have lied. I’ve been a rotten friend.”
I think how close I came to informing on her father, and my insides curdle.
Erna places the rolled bandages neatly in the bandage box and closes the lid. She wipes her eyes and I see her hands are trembling.
I watch in silence as big fat tears roll down Erna’s porcelain cheeks.
