Those Who Save Us (30 page)

Trudy, March 1997

44

EVER SINCE THE BEGINNING OF MARCH, ANNA HAS BEEN acting strangely, although Trudy doesn’t notice it at first. It is only in retrospect that she realizes her mother’s walks around the lake are growing longer; that Anna returns somewhat disheveled, her hair mussed from her plastic rain scarf and with a blank staring look about the eyes; that she cleans the house obsessively and with astonishing thoroughness: beating the rugs, scrubbing the walls with watered-down Clorox, endlessly washing the sheets and—as she disdains Trudy’s dryer but lacks a clothesline in the yard—hanging them from her bedroom window like flags of surrender. It is true that Trudy is a bit taken aback by Anna’s ferocity, but she shrugs it off as spring cleaning, to which Anna annually subjected the farmhouse as well. At least Anna is keeping busy.

But then toward the end of the month, as Easter decorations appear in the neighbors’ windows and crocuses thrust purple heads through dirty crusts of snow, Anna begins to bake.

She bakes in earnest and with a vengeance, starting early in the morning before it is light and continuing until well after dark. She bakes with fierce and silent concentration. She bakes as if being forced to do so at gunpoint, as if her life depends upon how much she produces, and she begins with bread. Black bread, white bread, marble bread, rye; loaf after loaf pulled from the oven and set to cool on the counters, the table, the windowsills. Trays of dinner rolls. Batches of
Brötchen,
enough to feed an army. And then the pastries start.
Eissplittertorte
and
Erdbeertorte,
ice-chip and strawberry tarts.
Honigkuchen, Käsekuchen, Napfkuchen, Pflaumenkuchen
: honey, sweet cheese, pound, and plum, respectively. Buttercream cake.
Windbeutel
—cream horns. They flow from the kitchen as if on an assembly line, so quickly overwhelming the refrigerator and cupboards that Trudy takes to leaving them wrapped on her neighbors’ doorsteps in the middle of the night. Yet the floury Anna continues to bustle about the kitchen, bits of dough stuck to her cheeks and crusted in her hair. She shows no sign of stopping. And Trudy, dizzy from sugar and a nonsense jingle she cannot get out of her head—
Backe backe Kuchen! der Bäcker hat gerufen. Backe backe Kuchen! der Bäcker hat gerufen—
starts to wonder if Anna’s ulterior motive isn’t really to drive her from the house. Or to drive her mad.

She complains as much to Rainer one night in his dining room, where they are lingering over Anna’s latest confection, a
Kirschentorte.
They have already decimated a chicken dinner purchased—at Trudy’s suggestion, since she recalls all too well the tough roast of her first night here—from the Lunds on Fiftieth Street. This was a meal Trudy was more than ready for, as prior to it she and Rainer walked three times around Lake Harriet. Rainer insists upon these bracing constitutionals: Human beings are animals, after all, he booms over Trudy’s objections, and to deny oneself exercise is to ignore a basic need. So while he forges stolidly ahead, she scurries after him on the sleety paths, breathless and panting and keeping his fedora in her line of sight as a focal point. It is a shame, she thinks, that more men don’t wear hats these days.

Now Rainer reaches for the decanter of Grand Marnier and poises its lip over Trudy’s tumbler.

No thanks, Trudy says.

Rainer refills her glass and helps himself to a second slice of torte.

Perhaps you are overreacting, he says, returning to the subject at hand; perhaps your mother simply likes to bake.

Well, yes, she does...Trudy huddles in her chair. But this is different. It has a—a frantic quality, as if she’s preparing for a disaster. She’s clearly disturbed by something.

Rainer shrugs.

If that is the case, you should let her alone. The activity is no doubt soothing to her. She is coping with her troubles in the Old World way, denial and physical labor; would you rather she vegetate in her room, as so many elderly do?

No, says Trudy.

There you are.

But—

At least we are being well fed as a result, Rainer says.

He attacks his dessert, savaging the pastry with a fork. Trudy looks down at her own. Cherry filling pools beneath the crust like clotting blood. Trudy closes her eyes and focuses instead on the music Rainer has selected: Brahms’ Second Concerto, her favorite. But tonight the solemn horns, instead of producing an ache in the throat, raise a chill in Trudy, along with the odd nagging feeling that she has forgotten something vitally important.

Rainer sets down his silverware in surprise.

What is the matter with you? he asks. You usually have the appetite of a horse.

Trudy rubs her arms, which have rashed in gooseflesh beneath her sweater.

I guess I’m just not that hungry, she says.

What a shame, says Rainer, and pulls Trudy’s plate toward him. He spears a cherry, which bursts in a spray of juice. Trudy looks away.

Did you have a difficult day? Rainer asks.

No more so than any other. I taught this morning, of course. The kids are all sick, coughing and sneezing and spraying germs everywhere— Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot your allergy to students. You don’t want to hear about that.

You’re right. I don’t. Could you please pass the sugar?

Trudy obliges, and Rainer pours a neat pyramid of crystals on the remains of Trudy’s appropriated torte.

Then I had a faculty lunch, and after that an interview. With a native of your hometown, in fact. A Mrs. Appelkind, from Berlin.

Rainer merely grunts and keeps shoveling in his food. It is naturally something of a touchy topic between them, Trudy’s Project. But she doesn’t see why she should have to hide it. It is important to her, after all. And he has asked about her day.

So Trudy continues, You should have seen this woman, Rainer. Three hundred pounds if she weighed an ounce. She ate the entire time we were talking, even on camera. She was so red in the face I was afraid she would have a stroke. And she did have high blood pressure, she told me, but she said that ever since the war she can’t seem to get enough to eat...Are you listening to me?

Rainer doesn’t answer. He hunches over his pastry, chewing quickly as a rabbit, the grape-sized muscles along his jawline appearing and disappearing as they clench.

When he is done, he pushes the plate aside and regards Trudy through narrowed eyes. Trudy braces herself for a disparaging remark, or at least for Rainer to ask her why on earth she keeps bringing up her little Project, as it holds absolutely no interest for him.

But instead Rainer says, Why do you always wear black?

Trudy plucks at the sleeve of her turtleneck.

This? You need to clean your glasses. This is navy blue.

Navy blue, black, gray, it is all the same. You look like a walking bruise.

I like dark colors, Trudy retorts. They lend me a certain sophistication.

Rainer snorts and refreshes his drink.

Women should wear bright clothes, he pronounces. Pink, for instance. Or fuchsia. You are not entirely unattractive, despite being mulish and argumentative, and it does not suit you to appear to be constantly in mourning.

Is this Rainer’s idea of a compliment? Trudy raises her eyebrows and takes a sip of her liqueur.

Rainer settles back in his chair and laces his hands across his stomach, studying her.

I’m curious, he adds. What has caused you to be this way?

Now
what are you talking about?

Your demeanor, your clothing, the way you carry yourself. It is as if you are ashamed of something and wish to be invisible.

Stung, Trudy laughs again and jerks her chin toward the window, beyond which, although they can’t see it in the dark, it is snowing.

If that were true and I really wanted to blend in, she says cleverly, I would wear white.

Rainer impatiently waves this away.

What is it you are ashamed of? he asks.

Trudy’s smile slips.

This is an absurd conversation, she tells him. Also boring.

I don’t think so, says Rainer. I find it exceedingly interesting. You strike me as being representative of that large segment of the population who believes that there is no nobler achievement than self-awareness. So I repeat, Dr. Swenson. Tell me. What has made you this way?

Trudy rolls her eyes.

That is a question unworthy of a man of your intelligence, she says. You know it’s impossible to answer. The variables are infinite: upbringing, genetics, defining incidents in childhood and adulthood, God knows what—

Rainer salutes her with his glass.

A valiant effort to dodge the question, he says, and perhaps acceptable in certain circles. But quite untrue. Psychological pablum. I do not buy it for a second. Nor do you, in fact; it contradicts your own theory, or at least your avowal as to why you conduct these interviews: trying to determine what factors made the Germans act in the ways they did. This, of course, does not interest me. What does is why you are so interested in them.

I’ve
told
you, Trudy says sharply, exasperated. Do you think I have as little intellectual curiosity as my students? What I’m doing will be an invaluable addition to the study of contemporary German history—Again, untrue. Or rather, I don’t doubt the validity of your eventual contribution, but you are being slippery, Dr. Swenson. What is the real reason behind your compulsion? This project is so dear to you that it surely must be a personal one. Perhaps it is somehow connected to the German mother whose excellent pastries we devour . . . ?

Trudy pushes away from the table.

I’m going home now, she says. Thank you for a lovely evening.

Rainer smiles at her.

I see. So you can come into a stranger’s home and expect him to regurgitate his secrets, but it is beneath you to do the same, is that it?

I have had quite enough, snaps Trudy, and stands to leave.

But Rainer leans forward and grabs her wrist, pinioning it to the table.

Wait, Dr. Swenson, he says, eyes glinting. Don’t go just yet. Please, be seated.

Trudy glowers at him.

Please, Rainer repeats, and indicates her chair.

Trudy sits.

That is better, Rainer says, releasing her arm. You must not be so quick to take offense.

He lifts his tumbler, cupping it in his palm and thoughtfully swirling the amber liquid.

It is true, he says, that I consider this project of yours misguided on many levels. First, that the Germans should be allowed to speak of what they did: this is wrong. Why should they be permitted the cleansing of conscience that accompanies confession? It is analogous to adultery: the guilty party, far from spilling out his misdeeds and easing his mind while injuring the innocent other, should have to live with the knowledge of what he has done. A very particular kind of torture, subtle but ongoing. Let the punishment fit the crime—although, of course, if we were to take that as an absolute, so many Germans would deserve so much worse.

Trudy shifts in her chair.

Yes, but—

Rainer holds out a large palm.
Furthermore,
he booms, even if I thought it morally right to invite such confessions, I would find your project offensive on the level of its naïveté. It is an offshoot of the American concept that it is somehow attractive to air one’s dirty laundry in public. It is everywhere, this ideology: your talk shows, your radio hosts encouraging people to call in and whine and gripe and pick their little scabs. You are such a young and childish country, believing that one can better understand the injuries of the past by wallowing in them and analyzing their causes. You do not know enough to understand that the only way to heal a wound is to leave it alone. To let sleeping dogs lie, as it were, rather than enthusiastically kicking them as you do.

Trudy, enraged, would like to point out that this is not only unfair but ridiculous: Rainer is just as assimilated as anyone else. He has lived in this country for decades; he has made a living here, taught its children, raised a family—

You drive a Buick, for God’s sake! she bursts out.

Rainer ignores this. He frowns at his glass, which he is rotating on its coaster.

Yet I must admit, he tells it, that I admired your courage when you first bludgeoned your way in here. Thoughtless and headstrong, yes, but brave. For I have never been able to tell my own story to anyone. Not my wife nor my daughter nor even a stranger in a bar. Not a soul. And when the university contacted me to ask whether I would participate in your sister study, the Remembrance Project . . .

He smiles tightly at the tumbler.

Other Jews are telling their stories, I told myself; why not you? But . . . I could not. I simply could not bring myself to do it. Then I saw your flyer and thought, Now even the Germans are talking.

Rainer drains his glass and sets it down with a bang.

So I called you, he says, and I played a nasty trick on you. Cruel and cowardly. I am ashamed of that now.

Trudy looks at him. He sits tall and rigid, his posture Prussian.

And yet you came back, Rainer says. I have often wondered why. The only conclusion I can draw is that you are a true masochist, a glutton for punishment.

He glares at Trudy over his bifocals.

Trudy bends her head to inspect her wrist, which she has been rubbing against her trousers under the table. The skin Rainer’s fingers have braceleted is tingling, as though it has been asleep and is just starting to wake up. She smiles secretly down at it.

I suppose I am, she tells him.

45

WHEN TRUDY LATER LETS HERSELF IN HER BACK DOOR, humming the opening bars of the Brahms, she is agreeably surprised to find that Anna is not in the kitchen. What a pleasant night this has turned out to be! True, the results of Anna’s afternoon labors crowd the counters, cakes and pies exquisitely decorated and suffocating beneath airless shrouds of Saran Wrap. A more recent product, a
Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte,
awaits similar treatment on the stove. But Anna has apparently succumbed to either exhaustion or sanity, for there is no sign of her. She must have hung up the apron at a decent hour, Trudy thinks, and gone to bed like a normal person for a change.

The
Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte
will go stale if left out until morning, so Trudy rips off an arm’s length of plastic wrap and drapes it over the cake. The smell of chocolate frosting drifts up to her, rich and nauseating, reminding Trudy of skin that has been licked. Yet even this cannot spoil her good mood. The cake duly protected, Trudy shuts off the lights and walks down the hall to her study, still humming under her breath. She wants to watch Rainer’s interview. Or rather, not to play the whole thing, but just insert the tape and put it on Pause, so she can see him once more before bed and say good night.

But somebody has beaten her to it, for in Trudy’s study Anna is huddled on the couch, staring across the room at Rainer on the television. Her expression is one of unadulterated horror. And because of this, and her long white nightgown, and the fact that her hair is in a single braid down her back, she reminds Trudy both of Bluebeard’s wife—how that new bride must have looked when she opened the forbidden door to discover the severed heads of her husband’s former curious spouses—and a child listening to the tale, too terrifying to be believed.

Trudy sags against the jamb, suddenly bone-tired. Then she walks into the room and sits quietly next to her mother on the sofa.

Oh, Mama, she says, closing her eyes. What are we going to do with you?

She feels Anna reach past her for the remote. This Anna must have been practicing with, for abruptly, as Rainer is saying,
They will burn your brain with its magnificent network of neurons,
his voice cuts out. Trudy opens her eyes and looks at his large, square, rather florid face on the screen. His bifocals are slipping down his nose, his mouth open. He might be yawning, or reading a menu.

Anna clutches the couch cushions for leverage as she starts to get up.

Once more I am sorry, Trudy, she says. I will go to bed.

No, that’s all right, Mama. Sit if you want to.

Trudy sighs and massages her eyes. Then she says, Don’t you think it’s time we stopped all this? Aren’t you tired of it, Mama? Aren’t you sick to death of it? I know I am. Why don’t you just tell me about him.

In her peripheral vision she sees Anna’s hands—small, rough, hard-knuckled, the only parts of her that are not beautiful—tighten on the sofa.

Who? I do not know what you—

Oh, come on, Mama. Don’t feed me that same old party line...Trudy waves toward the frozen Rainer. You’re obviously drawn to watch these tapes for a reason. And I don’t think it’s just because you want to know what happened to others during the war. It’s a kind of expiation, isn’t it? A penance. But the guilt is never going to go away unless you talk about it. So tell me, Mama. Tell me about the officer.

Anna pushes herself off the couch and heads toward the dim safety of the hall.

Not this again, Trudy, she says. It is absurd. I will not hear this. I am going to bed.

Trudy leaps up and rushes past Anna, blocking her path. She pulls the door closed and leans against it.

Not yet, you’re not, Trudy says. Not until you tell me something about him.

Anna folds her arms, and in the muted light from the television Trudy sees the stubborn set of her jaw.

But Trudy persists, Because I remember him, Mama. I
remember
him, don’t you get it? . . .Her voice, an octave lower than usual, quavers; she is close to tears. I
dream
about him, she says. A big huge guy with jowls and dark hair and very light eyes. Calls himself Saint Nikolaus. And he’s always in uniform—he holds a fairly high rank, I think. A
Hauptsturmführer
?
Sturmbannführer
? Maybe an
Obersturmführer—

You shut your mouth, Anna says. You know nothing.

Well, that’s certainly true, retorts Trudy. And whose fault is that? You never would tell me. All my life I’ve asked you about him and you’ve given me nothing in return. So who was he, Mama? Who was this man whose mistress you were?

Shut your mouth, Anna repeats, more loudly. As it always does when she is upset, her accent has thickened: the A’s broadening to E’s, the S’s slurring to Z’s. I do not know how you have gotten such ideas into your head, but—

Because I was
there,
Mama. I
saw
things. I
remember.
And what I want to know is: How could you do it?

Anna is breathing hard now, snorting air through her nose like a bull. Trudy can feel it, warm and damp, on her cheeks.

Oh, I understand intellectually, Trudy continues. The old adage about desperate times calling for desperate measures—I know that was true. I’ve studied it for decades, read all the case histories—

Case histories, Anna scoffs. You would never understand.
Du kannst nicht.

But I
would,
if you’d explain it to me.
Help
me understand, Mama! Did he force you? What were the circumstances? Tell me how it was so I can
understand,
in my heart of hearts, how you could have been with such a man!

I will not discuss this, says Anna.

She reaches past Trudy for the doorknob. Trudy puts her own hand over it.

Or maybe he didn’t force you after all, she continues. Or maybe he did in the beginning, but then you grew...fond of him. Is that why you never talk about it, Mama? Is that why you kept the photograph all these years?

Anna’s arm drops to her side.

What photograph, she says.

Of you and him, Trudy says triumphantly. And me, on your lap. It was in your dresser at the farmhouse. And now I have it upstairs in my sock drawer.

Anna looks horrified.

That, she whispers.

Yes, that. I’ve known about it since I was a little girl. And why else would you have kept it all this time if you didn’t care for him? If you didn’t love him—

Anna leans forward and slaps Trudy across the face with all her might.

Trudy, stunned, gasps to regain her breath. But before she can, Anna takes a step closer and grabs her by the chin, forcing Trudy to look at her, even as she did when Trudy was a child.

How dare you say such a thing, Anna says. Now you will listen to me. I will tell you this once, and once only: I did it for you, Trudy. Anything I ever did, it was all for you.

Anna stares steadily at Trudy for another long moment. Then she releases her.

And that is all I will say about such things, she says. I have closed the door on that time and I will never open it. Not even for you. Now you will excuse me. I am going to bed.

Anna reaches for the knob again and this time the dazed Trudy moves aside to let her pass. She stands rubbing the tender spots Anna’s fingers have left, listening to Anna ascend the stairs, as slowly as a queen.

Anything I ever did, it was all for you.

Right, says Trudy.

She looks around the darkened study and gives a hopeless little laugh. For how can one argue with that?

Then guilt rushes in to fill the vacuum of shock, a crushing thing whose tangible weight takes Trudy’s breath away. She runs up the stairs after her mother and stands in front of Anna’s closed door. All is quiet behind it.

Mama, Trudy calls. She taps on the door. Mama?

No response.

I’m sorry, Mama, says Trudy.

Silence.

Trudy hugs herself, waiting.

Did you hear me, Mama? I said I was sorry . . .

Eventually Trudy trails down the hall to her own room, where she sits on the edge of the bed. Tentatively, she brings her hands to her face in the dark. Her cheeks are bruised and swelling where Anna has gripped them. And wet.