The Roses Underneath (5 page)

Anna shifted in the chair. “Yes, you see, ours is just a very small town and the hospital is really more of a clinic. He escaped attention. We kept to ourselves, mostly.” A bead of sweat ran between her shoulder blades and she found herself longing for the relative pleasantries of Frau Obersdorfer.

“Hmm.” Cooper wrinkled his brow and cocked his head. Anna bit her lip and waited.

“Thuringia belongs to the Ivans since Truman gave it back to Stalin. How does your husband plan to get out? He should probably hurry before things get locked down and
no one
gets out.”

“Oh, I am sure he has a plan.” She shrugged. “I guess you just set out and keep going, one foot in front of the other. That’s what everyone does, right?” A nervous laugh gave her away.

“Well, you had better hope he gets out soon. Things are rough over there. And a kid needs her dad, especially if she’s lucky enough to still have one. Anything I can do to help? If he needs a job, I am sure one can be arranged. I mean if he’s really clean like you say. I can’t do much if he was a Party member.”

Anna felt a twinge of defensiveness, but decided to bury it somewhere under her discomfort and desperation. “No, no. Thank you, Captain. We can manage.” She leaned forward. “Is that all? I must get back to work.”

“Actually, no. I wanted to talk to you for a minute. I don’t think you know about everything that’s going on around here. You see the custody receipts up there in the typing pool, but do you understand what it is we are trying to do here?”

Anna shrugged. “You are gathering all the lost and misplaced valuables in case people come looking for their belongings.”

“Well, yes, but it’s more than that. You have heard that a lot of art was stolen and hidden during the war?”

Anna nodded. “Yes. You mean stolen from the Jews, here in Germany?”

“I mean from everyone and everywhere.”

“I know Hitler had ideas for that museum of his in Linz,” Anna said. “And he had that atrocious exhibition of German art every year. The art got worse every time. It was a joke by the end. All the good artists were gone by then. He had terrible taste in art.” She smiled, mostly at the fact that she could say such a thing to a man in a uniform now.

Cooper nodded. “So that’s what we’re about. Retrieving the art the Nazis stole. And also safeguarding the monuments and buildings, checking for damage and getting them fixed up.”

Anna felt something surge somewhere in her gut and fly out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Oh yes, first you bomb us, then you fix us, is that right? That’s very clever. I suppose this is a way to create lots of jobs and give yourself something to do now.”

Cooper’s face hardened. “You can thank us for the bombs later. After all, if it hadn’t been for them, you probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” he said. The rebuke lay on the desk between them like a cold stone. Anna threw it back at him.

“No, I wouldn’t be sitting here now, you are right, Captain. I might be dead, I might be a prisoner, or be learning to speak Russian. My mother might even still be alive, but she is not and I am here, working for you, and trying to build a life that I don’t recognize. And for that, I think I am grateful. I just don’t know if this is better than any of those alternatives. So if you don’t mind, I think I will thank you another time.” She closed her mouth and tried to determine if the outburst had made her feel any better.
If I lose the job now, so be it.
She was tired and hungry. And now she was angry. No, she didn’t feel any better.

Cooper leaned onto his forearms and looked at her. For a long time they sat, Anna looking out the window to avoid his stare. She tried to anticipate his next words and wondered how he was going to fire her. He would probably be friendly about it. After a long pause, Cooper inhaled loudly and she shifted her eyes toward him. He looked solemn.

“Let’s leave this for another day, shall we? I know things can seem very black and white on this side of the table. Right now we have work to do and I need your help. I’m heading out to survey some buildings next week so I won’t be around much.”

“Buildings?” Anna said, relieved to move on.

Cooper nodded. “Churches, monasteries, historic stuff. Survey for damage and also check for valuables. It’ll take all week to cover the sector they assigned me. I’m the only architect at the Collecting Point right now, so it’s all on me.”

“You are an architect? I thought you were all museum people or something.”

“Lots are, but there are also artists and academics. Basically if you knew anything about any kind of art, you qualified. I guess that includes guys like me. The Army doesn’t really know what to do with us. Anyway, I’m glad you found a place for the duchess because I’ll be driving around the Rhineland every day.” He paused. “And so will you. I need a translator to help me with the locals and I’ve put in for you to accompany me. So I’ll see you at 0800 Monday morning and we’ll head out. Meet me in the courtyard, Okay? And wear something comfortable.” He gave a big smile. Anna felt the air leave her body.

The sun glowed overhead when Anna left the building for lunch. Amalia was lying on her stomach on the bench, resting her head in her hands and looking at her book when Anna approached.

“Is this little Maus hungry?” she asked as she tickled the girl’s ribs. But as soon as Anna touched her daughter, she knew something was wrong.

Amalia sat up. “Mama do I still have to come here every day? I don’t feel good.” Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes hollow. Her arms had turned the color of smoked salmon. The day was hotter than normal and the humidity stuck the heat to them like a rancid warm washcloth. Anna felt Amalia’s head. It was burning. She sat down on the bench and pulled the girl closer. Amalia put her head in her mother’s lap and Anna felt her daughter’s heat seep into her own skin.

“She doesn’t look so good.”

Anna looked up to see a man, hands shoved into the pockets of his baggy wool pants as if he were trying to hold them up from the inside. She squinted into the sun at his back.

“Excuse me?”

“Heat stroke. I’ve been watching her this morning. It’s just too hot for her to sit here. I tried to get her to move into the shade but she refused. Told me her mama made her promise not to move. I guess that’s you?”

He sat down. Anna stroked Amalia’s hair. Somewhere a car backfired, making her jump. She wanted to run away, take Amalia with her and never come back. But she couldn’t find the energy to move.

Anna recognized him now. He had walked past Cooper’s desk earlier. He had been the one who stared at her. With his blond hair and cool eyes he might once have been the poster boy for Aryan masculinity, before the front had aged his baby face. He was maybe twenty years old but carried his withered body like an old man, hunched and depleted. Lines sprouted from around his eyes and mouth and a hollowness in his cheeks gave him a fragility that all the young men seemed to sport these days. It was the price they paid for being alive.

“Are you all right?” He smiled.

She nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ll get her home and get her temperature down. She’ll feel better soon.” She made to stand but Amalia’s limp body weighed her down.

“What’s her name?”

“This is Amalia.” She looked at him. “And you are?”

“Oh, I am sorry. Schilling. Emil,” he said. “I am pleased to meet you, Frau…?”

“Klein. Do you work here?”

Emil nodded. “I was working on the plumbing, but now that it’s all fixed I’ve been assigned to create perimeter lighting for security. There’s a big shipment of art coming in a week. We have to have the place locked down by then. And you?”

“Typist. On the third floor.”

“So she waits for you here all day?” He pointed his chin toward Amalia.

As Anna embarked on her explanation, she found her defensiveness had turned into anguish. “I have no one to leave her with during the day. The woman we are living with is in the hospital. The kindergartens don’t open for at least another month if we’re lucky. I have to bring her
with me and let the
Amis
do a bit of childcare. But it’s not really a good solution.”

“I can see that,” said Emil. “I mean, this is no place for a child.”

“I am aware of that,” Anna snapped. “I will find another solution this weekend. Surely the Red Cross or someone has made arrangements for people like me?”

“Oh you don’t want to do that,” he said. “That’s no good.
All the bureaucracy and papers and forms. Getting through them will take days and then what? She’ll end up in one of those horrible American Army places. And anyway, I know somewhere she can go.”

Anna exhaled. “And where is that?”

“My sister has been watching children of other workers from the Collecting Point while they get settled. At our house—my family’s house. It’s just up there.” He waved a hand toward the hills that protected the eastern side of the city. “I am sure she’ll be happy to take one more.”

Anna shifted her weight. “Well, I don’t have any money. I can’t really pay.”

Emil waved a hand. “She’ll trade food from your rations as payment. Just to have enough to feed the children.”

More food
, Anna thought.
I am always running after a carrot, like a dog on a track. Even when I get one carrot, I have to get the next one.
She sighed. “Oh I don’t know. Amalia has always been with me, and I. . .”

She stopped as Amalia lifted her head and tried to say something before she vomited into Anna’s lap, retching a few times and clutching her stomach.

“Mama?” she whimpered. “I want to go home.” She began to cry, her body contorting into a bony ball. Anna stood and lifted Amalia to her shoulder.

“Yes Maus, we are going home now. Please excuse us, Herr Schilling.”

“She can’t stay here,” Emil said, his head shaking. “Look at her. I am only trying to help. I understand, of course, you don’t know a thing about me. Why don’t you come visit tomorrow and meet my sister and see for yourself? I promise it’s all well and good. Please, at least take a look.” He looked concerned, which Anna resented. She hated that she needed help. But she knew she could no longer afford the luxury of pride.

She exhaled again. “When, shall we say?”

“How about tomorrow afternoon, at four o’clock? Do you have a bicycle?”

“Yes, I can get one.”

“Good. I will give you directions.”

By the time Anna got Amalia home, the lunch hour was well over. Frau Obersdorfer would be wondering where she was. As she laid her daughter on the bed and began to pull off her dress, Anna debated what to do. She couldn’t leave Amalia here alone—the girl was burning up. She dabbed her forehead with a cool rag.

“Here, Maus. Drink a little water.” She held a glass to Amalia’s lips and propped her head up.

“Mama, my head hurts so much,” the girl wailed.

“You have sunstroke. It will be all right, we just have to wait for it to pass.”

“But I feel too sick.”

“I know Maus, I know. Just lie down and try to be still. You will feel better soon.” She lifted the girl’s head and turned the pillow over to the cooler side.

Amalia offered a weak smile. “That feels good.” She reached for Anna. “Mama, will you lie down with me?”

Anna smiled and lay down next to her daughter, pulling her into the crook of her arm. For a while they lay in silence. The thought of Heide Gerber, her neighbor in Kappellendorf, floated into her consciousness. An enthusiastic young mother with three little ones and a husband on the front, Heide often shared her rations with Anna, bringing over an extra pat of butter or cup of flour. The children—two boys and a girl, all under five—were a handful, but they also brought valuable extra rations along with a useless commendation from the Führer. The boys played with Amalia in the garden and up and down the narrow street while Anna and Heide sat and talked on their front steps. When the news came that her beloved Herbert, a garrulous twenty-four-year-old with a crooked smile, had been shot through the head on a field in the Ukraine, Heide was stoic. Once, Anna heard her crying through the open kitchen window and sent Amalia over to fetch the children, so Heide could be alone. Amalia ran into the garden and returned with a bunch of wildflowers and her favorite green blanket in hand. When she came back without either, she told her mother that she had given the blanket to Frau Gerber to make her feel better. Six months later, in the nightmare January of 1945, when the food had run out and snow threatened to smother them as they froze, Heide had covered the bodies of her dead children with the same blanket. Then she lay on the floor alongside them and took the poison she had already fed them in a spoonful of honey. They lay there a whole day before Anna found them, silent and cold, and for a flash she had envied their peaceful escape. For them, it was over. Thomas had taken the bodies to the morgue and Anna had lied to Amalia, saying they had left to live with family in the city. Anna could see the shadow of doubt behind her daughter’s eyes darken with every lie she told, the girl playing along with an adult game that made no sense to her.

She wondered what Thomas was doing at that moment. Maybe if she was very still and focused all her energy, she could make him appear at the door. Maybe right now he was walking down the Adolfsallee, tired and hungry, looking for number 45. If he were here, she might not need the job with the Americans, or a place for Amalia to go, or even to live in this one room with its one sad window and its dirty bed. If he were here, she would not feel lonely and they could be a family again. She would have her husband back. A physical pain rose somewhere in the back of her throat, a tightening that always signaled tears. She stopped herself. There was no sense in thinking that way. Things were the way they were, and nothing she wished for would change that. She closed her eyes and focused on Amalia’s breathing, slow and restful now, like little waves of air caught in a tide pool, trying to escape into the ocean but always sucked back inside. She adjusted her breath to match the rhythm and, within moments, she was asleep, too.