by Andie Newton
‘But what about Claudia?’ I put my head in my hands. ‘What is to become of her now? She was worried we’d never see each other again, hugging me very tightly the night she left with Sarah.’
He shook his head. ‘We’ll have to wait it out.’
I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting. Claudia’s father had probably abandoned her and her mother was too drunk to search on her own. I was all she had. ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘She’s like a sister to me, Max.’
‘Do you have a choice? It’s not safe to go back to Nuremberg.’
I walked to the window and peeked onto the square, tapping my fingers on the sill, thinking about Claudia sitting all alone someplace dark, hoping someone would rescue her. A young couple danced without music not that far away, and when they spun around I saw that it was Alex. I ducked, thinking he’d seen me, and that was the last thing I wanted, but then I threw open the curtains.
I turned to Max, smiling.
‘I have an idea.’
13
I pulled my yellow scarf from a wooden box I bought the day I arrived in Munich. It smelled like ash and clove and had started to look more ragged than Auntie ever would have liked. I thought about the night Claudia asked me to wear it, and the request she asked of me. She’d never ask me to do what I thought of next, but she wouldn’t stop me either.
‘Can you teach me to dance?’
He looked at me strangely, standing up. ‘Why?’
‘I’m going to get in with the Reich,’ I said, and Max helped me loop the scarf around my wrist.
‘Then what are you going to do?’ We each grabbed an end and slowly tied a knot.
‘I’m going to find Claudia.’
‘With a dance?’ he said.
‘Alex invited me to the NSDAP dance tomorrow. It’s my best shot. My only shot.’ I spun around in place as if dancing, but I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to. Max motioned for me to come toward him.
‘Let me show you.’ He smiled, taking my hand in his, and then slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me in close. ‘Now move this leg back,’ he said, touching his right knee to my left, ‘and move like you’re drawing a box with your feet in steps.’ He smoothed his hair back with one swipe, and then wrapped his arm back around my waist, his hand a little tighter, fingers gripping. ‘Like this.’
We danced to no music, then he twirled me unexpectedly, and I yelped with excitement and let out a little laugh. Next thing I knew we were in each other’s arms, ever so close and still. I felt his heart beating in his chest.
He pecked me on the lips and I gasped, delightedly surprised.
‘Ella, I didn’t mean to—’ He pulled away sharply, looking quite nervous, but I pulled him back, and we looked at each other, not knowing what to say or do, standing in a dance position and not moving.
‘Should I put some music on?’ I said.
I turned the radio on low to a crackling instrumental melody, and we danced the rest of the night together in my flat, our bodies touching in a very anti-Nazi way.
*
The next night was the NSDAP party and, for once, Alex was right. There wasn’t a song that went by without a young man taking my hand and leading me out to the dance floor. By the end of the night, I was dizzy and my ankles had blisters from dancing so stiffly, over and over again, stepping the same pattern; no twirls, no dips, and absolutely no swings. When I took my dress off that night, a dark red line appeared on my back where my zipper had chaffed my skin.
The next morning, Alex said he had an opportunity for both of us and to meet him at the Ratskeller. I hurried down, on a Sunday. He looked unusually tidy sitting in our regular booth next to the window. He even stood up to greet me. ‘Ella,’ he said, smiling. ‘This is Erwin Hoffmann.’
I tried to hide my disappointment. He was chubby, this Erwin, with speckly arms and wet lips. ‘Hello,’ I said, and he leaned over the table to shake my hand, which was fleshy-warm.
‘I saw you at the dance,’ he said. ‘I tried to be your partner, but you were always taken.’
He had an awful whine to his voice, and I took a breath, looking up at Alex. ‘You boys just out for a drink?’ I played dumb.
The barmaid came by with their free beers before asking me what I wanted.
‘Alex said you needed a job,’ Erwin said.
I sat up tall. ‘Oh?’
Alex twiddled his fingers, looking at Erwin look at me. Alex had already benefitted from introducing me to his NSDAP friends. With every dance I gave away, he gained a new friend. And new friends in the NSDAP were a big deal.
‘Everyone’s talking about the new girl at the dance,’ Erwin said, licking beer froth from his upper lip.
‘In a good way, I hope,’ I said. ‘A respectable way.’
‘Oh yes,’ Alex said, looking at Erwin. ‘Of course, of course.’
‘A good German,’ Erwin said.
‘Yes.’
We drank our beers without talking for a minute or so. ‘I have a job offer for you,’ Erwin finally said. ‘A prestigious job.’
‘A job? Where is it?’
‘It’s for my uncle, Friedrich Hoffmann, the NSDAP Document Director in the Verwaltungsbau building.’
My stomach fluttered with butterflies—Hoffmann was part of the Reich’s administration. I tried to hide my smile. ‘I know where the V-building is!’ I said, but then I didn’t want to sound too excited or available. ‘But I’m not sure… That’s a long walk from my building.’ I took a drink.
Erwin looked at Alex, a little huff coming from his nose, and Alex piped up, stumbling over some of his words. ‘You need a… a job!’ he said. ‘Don’t be obtuse. If you’re not here for marrying, then you should do your part for the Reich in another way.’ He turned to Erwin, but he was looking at me.
‘What do I have to do to be considered?’ I said.
‘You’re doing it right now.’ Erwin and Alex exchanged laughs.
‘Oh.’ I took another drink. ‘This is an interview?’
‘My uncle trusts me,’ Erwin said. ‘He’s too busy to find a secretary of his own. Of course, a good job like this…’ My eyes flicked to Alex. ‘Well, it would require a few dances at the next party,’ Erwin said. ‘Long sets, too. Not the tail end of a song.’
I took a drink of my beer, fully ready to tell him I’d accept, but then got distracted by a man walking unassumingly across the square with the Gestapo running up behind him. I rose up in my seat, looking over Erwin’s head, eyes widening, as they jumped him from behind and threw him into a car. The woman he was with had chased after them with her arms waving crazily in the air. People on the street walked around her, pretending she didn’t exist—just another hysterical woman—as she watched the Gestapo’s car exhaust burn off in the street.
‘Ella?’ Erwin said, before looking over his shoulders. ‘What are you looking at?’
Alex waved his hand in my face, but then Erwin stood up sharply from the booth.
‘I don’t have time for this, Alex. I’m important,’ he said, and I was stunned to see how little it took to upset him. ‘I’m leaving.’
Alex looked like he was going to vomit. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ he moaned, putting his head in his hands. I chased Erwin into the square the best I could with fresh blisters on my toes. When I grabbed his shoulder, the skin under his shirt was warm and sweaty.
‘Erwin,’ I said. ‘Please, don’t misunderstand.’
His shoulders puffed with his chest, and his wetted lips protruded from his face in a pout. ‘I was doing something nice for Alex.’ He flicked his chin at me. ‘And for you. You should be chasing me around, not the other way around. I’m important.’
‘I am chasing you,’ I said, out of breath from the quick sprint.
Erwin smiled priggishly, and I thought up a lie to tell him, one that he’d believe. ‘I only hesitated because I wasn’t sure if I’d be good enough. I don’t want to embarrass Alex… or you.’ I looked to the ground, pretending to be
shy and unworthy all of a sudden.
His shoulders stopped puffing, and he dropped his folded arms. The Nazi flag hanging from my building waved and flicked behind him. Erwin was right. He was important—important to me. I took a deep breath. ‘All right… Erwin?’
He held out his hand and I shook it. ‘Meet me tomorrow morning in the foyer of the V-building,’ he said.
I nodded simply, which he followed up with a reminder about the next NSDAP dance.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘Looking forward to it.’
*
I met Erwin as instructed the next morning. After a quick guard check, he led me into his uncle’s office, up two flights of stairs, and through a secretarial space with its own frosted glass door. ‘This is the one I told you about, Uncle.’
Hoffmann pushed his chair away from his desk, started to get up, but then sat back down, hand to his head. ‘Can you start today?’ he said, before flicking his chin at the door. ‘Shut the door.’
I looked at Erwin, and Erwin looked at me. I shut the door that separated our offices, and Hoffmann reached under his desk for a bottle of whisky and poured himself a glass. ‘Well…’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can start now, if you like.’
He slugged back the whisky, and then thanked Erwin for finding me. ‘I’ve interviewed many secretaries, but nobody came with such a glowing recommendation.’ He winked at Erwin. ‘Why don’t you tell Louise Milch I’ve selected my assistant,’ he said to Erwin. ‘She’s on the third floor.’
Erwin whined, crossing his freckled arms.
‘I can do it,’ I said.
‘I need you here,’ Hoffmann said. ‘Erwin can do it.’
Erwin left, but not without getting a peck on his plump cheek. ‘Thanks again,’ I said, ‘for the job.’
‘Remember,’ he said, crinkling his nose, ‘you owe me a dance for this.’
I smiled, but inside I was cringing thinking about his sweaty hand in mine, dancing the night away at another stiff NSDAP dance. ‘I know.’
With Erwin gone and just me and Hoffmann in his office alone, I wasn’t sure what to say or do until he told me. After he poured himself another glass of whisky, he swung around in his chair and pointed to a set of boxes with file folders that needed to be sorted.
‘We are the auditor of file folders—all important information, I assure you, but you’ll be doing a lot of filing and organizing. Are you sure you’re up for this?’ He looked me up and down. ‘A young woman such as yourself might find it boring.’
‘I enjoy organizing,’ I said. ‘I promise you, I won’t get bored.’
‘Very well, arrange those alphabetically,’ he said, but then his voice trailed off and I heard snoring. His head had slung back, but his drink was still in his hands. Then he snorted loudly and woke himself up. ‘Bring me those,’ he said about the folders in my hands.
‘Not these,’ he said, after taking a closer look. ‘Louise files these herself.’
The folders were solid grey, different than the Wehrmacht green ones he told me to alphabetize. ‘Wait,’ he said, as I started putting them back into the box. ‘You’re my secretary now. You should be in charge of all the document department’s files. I’ll tell Louise.’
‘All right,’ I said, flipping them open. ‘Are they special?’
He coughed, putting his hand out to stop me from opening them. ‘No need to open them. The files under our control contain information on our enemies. It is all right to know this, but it is not all right to read the reports inside. Just file them in the tunnel file cabinets. You’ll see where they go. File cabinet fifty-six. It’s grey like the folders.’
I put them on the counter with the rest of the folders I was sorting. ‘All right.’
Hoffmann had started snoring again. This time I crept over to his chair, where he had tilted back, and looked at his closed eyes. He was passed out, I was sure of it; his breath had more proof in it than his glass.
I had finished organizing the files when there was a rattling knock on my secretarial door. ‘Ella, are you in there?’ a woman’s voice said. By the time I had left Hoffmann’s office and reached the door, she had knocked again. ‘Ella. It’s me, Louise from the third floor.’
I put my hand on the knob, looked back at Hoffmann in his office with his head flopped back, and then opened my door, standing in such a way so she couldn’t see into the room. ‘Hello, Louise.’
‘I’m not intruding on your lunch, am I? It’s just,’ she said, tapping her watch, ‘I don’t have much time today, and I need to give you a building tour.’ She stroked a single strand of pearls strung tightly around her neck and shifted her weight back and forth between her feet.
‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘I’d love to go—’ I took one more look at Hoffmann who was still out cold ‘—but I’m in a meeting. I should be done in a half hour. Can we reschedule?’
She stopped moving and stood very straight. She gave me a moment to reconsider my rejection, and that’s when I realized, looking at her thinning lips, that she was used to getting what she wanted. Her cheeks reddened. ‘Certainly.’ Her high heels clicked all the way back down the corridor with her stockings scratching between her thighs like two strips of sandpaper.
I waited until she had turned to go up to the third floor before flying back into Hoffmann’s office, but then skidded to a stop in the doorframe.
He was up and walking around.
He stopped in front of the sorting table, his body swaying side to side. One hand rubbed his eyes, the other rested on his hip, his thumb hooked into his waistband.
‘Director Hoffmann, you are…’
He flipped through the stacks, saying words, and slurring badly. ‘Well, Ellwa,’ he slurred, ‘looks like youse took care of everythings here.’ His eyes wandered to mine. ‘I’m glad my nephews Erwin… introduced us.’
He took a pair of bent spectacles from his front pocket and held them at a distance, looking through the lenses. It was then that I noticed how old Hoffmann really was, much older than an uncle should be. He rubbed the frame in between his fingers, trying to adjust the bend back into place, breathing with his mouth open. After a few moments, he grumbled and then slid them back into his pocket. ‘Take alls this to the tunnel.’
‘Where’s the tunnel?’
He took a gulping drink of water and then suddenly sounded much better. ‘Louise will show you, get you a key.’ He scribbled a note to Louise saying I was now in charge of cabinet number fifty-six. ‘In case she gives you grief,’ he said, handing me the note, ‘and she will.’ He slung his coat over his arm and headed for the door. ‘Have a good night, Ella’
Night? It was still lunchtime.
I raced to the door ahead of him and snagged his hat off the rack. ‘You too, sir,’ I said as he took the hat from my hand. I watched him make his way down the corridor. He gripped the railing to hold his gait and walked steadily toward the stairs.
*
I sat in a low-legged chair across from Louise’s desk with my knees pushed into my chest, waiting for her to finish typing a letter. Her red painted nails pounded on the keys like a hundred Wehrmacht boots marching up the Königsplatz. When she finished, she ripped the page out of the typewriter, crumpled it into a ball, and then threw it into the rubbish. With a loud, long sigh, she took an emery board out of her desk and filed her pinky nail with a pinched eye. An occasional glance let me know she hadn’t forgotten me. I wanted to ask her why she had a tin of coffee on her shelf when she had no percolator to brew it in, and what she was going to do with the stack of Fraeun Warte magazines she had stashed under her desk—but when I made a noise, she seemed to go slower. So, I swallowed her bitter pill and remained still, Hoffmann’s documents on a dolly next to my feet.
Louise’s supervisor was the Director of the Central Office, and even more important than Hoffmann, though much younger and very blond. He stopped just outside her door and talked to a small group of men more than twice his age about someth
ing I couldn’t make out. Louise dropped the emery board when she heard his voice, and then fiddled with her typewriter as he walked in. He stood next to Louise’s desk and stared at me with deep blue, ocean-set eyes. ‘Is this Hoffmann’s new girl?’
‘Umm hum,’ Louise said with a high-pitched squeal.
I guessed by his smooth skin he was closer to thirty then he was forty. I stood up and offered my hand. He hesitated, looking at my fingers as if they weren’t clean, before giving me a cold, stiff shake. ‘Erik Koch,’ he said.
He told me his name, but he was all ice to me. I pulled my hand back, rubbing them together for warmth.
Louise read off a laundry list of items she had finished while he was out. As she talked, she sealed an envelope, dusted Hitler’s portrait on her wall and stacked papers on her desk. Erik nodded as she spoke, murmuring ‘yes’ every few seconds as if to hurry her up. When her telephone rang, he walked into his office and shut the door. After a short conversation on the phone, Louise took a deep breath and gave me a white-toothed smile. ‘Are you ready?’
Louise got me a building badge before taking me down into the basement to show me where my folders needed to be filed. We took the elevator first, and then passed through three solid steel doors before encountering our first guard.
He brushed his thumb over my badge, tilting it for inspection.
‘She’s new,’ Louise said, curtly. ‘Expect her from now on.’
She walked on, and I followed her down a stone corridor, walking as best I could in the clunky work heels I had on, lugging the dolly behind me. ‘Don’t worry about the guards,’ she said as I struggled behind her. ‘Treat them like shit and they’ll get to know you soon enough.’
We descended down a ramp, going deeper underground. At the bottom, another guard stood at attention. He checked our badges and waved us through the last of the doors. On the other side, a simple table covered with green folders and hastily stacked papers had been shoved against the wall. One bald-headed watchman with a sour eye and no eyebrows sat cross-legged sipping his coffee. He pushed a clipboard at Louise.
