Those Who Save Us (6 page)

5

A WEEK LATER, HAVING FINISHED HER ERRANDS, ANNA IS standing in her coat in the upstairs hallway, before a small door. Behind it is what Anna has always thought of as the Christmas closet, since her mother used to store gifts for the holiday in this crawlspace. As a child, Anna was often unable to resist stealing the key from her mother’s sewing kit and taking it to this door, which she would eye with a curiosity matched only by fear of the consequences should she be caught opening it. She waits in front of it now gripped by much the same emotions, the key clutched in her slippery hand.

She is counting slowly to five hundred, Gerhard’s car having left the drive a few minutes earlier. Anna cannot be too cautious, although there is little chance that he will return and even less that he would find her if he does, once she has entered the closet. Anna is fairly certain that Gerhard doesn’t even know of its existence. The
Elternhaus
is full of architectural oddities that its current owner has forgotten. Initially conceived of as a hunting lodge, it was never intended to be more than a seasonal outpost from which its builder, Gerhard’s great-grandfather, could ride to hounds. But with each successive male Brandt the wheel of the family’s fortune has spun further downward, and subsequent generations, camped full-time in the
Elternhaus,
have added their personal touches to its original sprawling floorplan.

And Anna, during her tenure as housekeeper, has cleaned every inch of it, often on stepladders or on her hands and knees. In the days following her mother’s death, she sometimes had help in doing so: a series of maids hired by Gerhard—all named, oddly, either Grete or Hilde. But every Grete-Hilde departed within a month of arrival, perhaps owing as much to Gerhard’s fickle attitude toward payment as to his tempers: when he was in pocket, he would dole out wages with the air of conferring a great favor; when not, promises. And by the time his financial situation became more stable—his legal practice bolstered by new friends he had made among the ranks of the Reich—Anna had fulfilled the positions of maid, cook, and laundress so nicely that Gerhard apparently never considered it necessary to seek more staff.

Therefore the unexpected breezes in the
Elternhaus
corridors, the ominous gurgles of its plumbing, are as familiar to Anna as the workings of her own body. She would be able to describe each idiosyncrasy of the house if marched through it blindfolded: the windowseats where there are no windows, the halls that lead nowhere, the hearts carved in the banisters by a fey great-uncle. And Anna knows about something else that she believes Gerhard, given his general neglect of his property, does not. She shifts from foot to foot; she has reached four hundred now, and she bounces the key in her palm. It is true that once Gerhard has left for his office in the city, he usually does not return until evening—and then accompanied by supposed clients, drunken fellows wearing the Nazi armband who shout and sing until all hours of the night. But better to be safe than sorry.

Finally, when two more minutes have passed and the only sound is that of water pattering from the eaves, Anna unlocks the door to the Christmas closet and steps inside. To her left is a wall with a high window that allows a dusty shaft of light to fall on another little door to her right. This conceals a maids’ staircase connecting the upper stories of the
Elternhaus
to the kitchen, once enabling servants to scurry behind the wall to answer their masters’ demands while remaining out of sight. Now, of course, Anna is using it for a different purpose. She knocks on the interior door, three soft raps, and pushes it open.

A few meters down, on the landing, Max shields his eyes with a hand. Even such indirect light is painful to him after hours in the dark. His upturned face is a pallid circle, and Anna pityingly thinks, as she gropes her way along the steps, of creatures living in caves so deep beneath the sea that they have never seen the sun and are white and blind in consequence.

Max rearranges his nest of blankets to make room for Anna.

You have brought spring with you, he says. I can smell the wind in your hair.

The landing is barely big enough for two. Anna wedges herself in beside Max, feeling the bony jut of his hip against her own, and removes her coat with some difficulty. Max buries his face in the cloth.

The past few days have been warmer, she tells him. The gutters are rushing like waterfalls.

I know, says Max. I listen to them at night.

Are you hungry?

Max laughs. Perpetually. But please, don’t run off to the kitchen just yet. I’m more starved for company than food.

He puts an arm around her, and Anna imagines that, were he unclothed, she would be able to see his bones through his skin. He eats next to nothing of what she brings him. His stomach, he has apologetically explained, roils with nerves.

They sit in comfortable silence, Max rubbing a thumb over Anna’s collarbone. It amazes Anna: she spends much of her time in this dim, elongated box, fusty with years of disuse and the unlovely exhalations of Max’s chamber pot, and so, on a physical level, Anna’s life has shrunk to its confined proportions. Yet here, in the dark, she feels herself expanding. For years Anna has trudged through her days like an automaton with only her daydreams to occupy her, paying no mind to what happens around her unless it hinders her routine in some way. Now, as she walks beneath dripping trees and visits shops, she observes her surroundings with as much keen interest as if she were a visitor to a foreign land. She embroiders and rehearses overheard conversations for Max, hoping to be rewarded by his barking laugh; she lays anecdotes at his feet like treasure. Her personal landscape has never been brighter nor her mental horizons wider.

I went back to the bakery today, Anna tells Max now. Frau Staudt has a terrible hacking cough. You should see the black looks the customers give her as she handles their bread.

Any news? Max asks, smiling at Anna’s scowling imitation.

We didn’t have much time alone. Only a few minutes. But new papers are being drawn up for you so you can be moved to Switzerland. Frau Staudt says to be patient; these things take time, she said. And money. They are trying to raise the money.

Max takes his arm from Anna’s shoulders and stretches, wincing.

And the film?

She hasn’t mentioned it since I passed it to her on Thursday. But I’m sure she would have told me if something had gone wrong.

Max sighs.

Dear Anna, he says. My sole regret about what I’ve done is having to involve you.

Anna performs a complicated wriggling maneuver that ends with her sitting behind Max, his back to her chest.

How many times do I have to tell you I don’t mind? she says in his ear.

Max doesn’t answer. As best she can in the gloom, Anna studies his profile. She yearns to toy with his hair, which has grown long enough to relax into curls above his collar. Observing the way it wings back from his fine, bony face, Anna imagines Max wearing tails, attending an opera in Vienna, perhaps, or Berlin. She feels a sudden wretched longing for the things they will never know together.

You need a haircut, she says lightly, yanking a wayward blond tuft.

I’m sure I do, Max replies. Next time you go to town, why don’t you bring a barber back with you?

No need for that. Tomorrow, when I sneak you out for your shave, I’ll do it myself.

Thank you, but no. I’d rather grow it to my knees.

Anna rears up indignantly.

I cut my father’s hair every fortnight! she reminds him.

I know. I’ve seen the results. I’ll wait until I reach Switzerland.

Anna slaps Max on the shoulder. He turns, cringing exaggeratedly, holding a protective arm up over his face.

Ouch, he says. That hurt, you little brute.

Not half so much as you deserve.

Is that so, Max says.

Suddenly he grips Anna’s biceps and pulls her forward, kissing her with the same desperate intensity she remembers from the January evening in his house. He hasn’t permitted anything of the sort since then, so Anna is taken completely by surprise as he pushes her into a reclining position against the steps. He rips open her dress, buttons popping off and scattering into the stairwell, and tugs a cup of her brassiere to one side, and Anna gasps at the slipperiness and the nip of his teeth, which, in his enthusiasm, he uses a bit too hard.

Straining against her, Max fumbles to undo his trousers, and Anna feels a draft on her thighs as he lifts her skirt to her waist. She inhales sharply when he enters her. There is some pain, but not much. Anna wonders if she will bleed, as she has heard sometimes happens. She is not frightened at the prospect of surrendering her virginity, although she has always thought this would occur on her wedding night and hopefully to a Siegfried-like bridegroom, rather than a doctor whose ribs, clashing against her own, have no more meat than those of a washboard. Later, in the bath, she will discover a dark raspberry on one breast and that her pubic bone feels bruised. But now, as Max drives into her, knocking her head against a riser and uttering small whimpers, Anna repeats to herself that this is Max, her Max, and is grateful.

It is over within minutes. A drop of sweat falls on Anna’s forehead, and another, and one in her eye, stinging. Max whispers, Anna . . .and goes slack on top of her. He is still for what seems a very long time. Then he rolls back onto the landing and Anna can breathe again.

Eventually Max draws Anna to him. They lie side by side, blinking into the column of light. Then Max props himself up on one elbow to look at her. Stretching his hand, he touches Anna’s nipples with thumb and ring finger.

Like cherries, he says. Cherries in the snow.

Anna smiles.

Is there still snow on the ground outside? Max asks.

Some, Anna tells him. But it’s melting.

Max nods and sinks back down, resting his head on her chest. Anna strokes his damp hair, marveling at how soft it is over the fragile cradle of bone. She holds him this way, in meditative quiet, until the crunch of gravel on the drive signifies Gerhard’s return home.

6

IT IS MAY, AND HOT. IN THE ROOM BEHIND THE STAIRS, Anna and Max lie naked, panting like mongrels. The atmosphere is too close to allow them to hold one another in comfort, so Anna settles for lacing her fingers through Max’s and hooking a friendly ankle over his. She gazes up into the stairwell. With the passage of months, the sun’s position has changed, and a concentrated beam of light pierces the gloom as if in a cathedral. Its angle lets Anna know that she has only a few more minutes to spend here, listening to Max talk. He craves conversation, which, Anna occasionally thinks with some guilt, she prefers to more physical intimacies.

Max traces the length of her arm with a forefinger. You know what I love? he asks.

Tell me.

These freckles. So dark on such light skin. Like sprinkles of chocolate.

Anna rolls her eyes.

Why, thank you, she says. My other lovers like them too.

Ah, your other lovers, says Max. His grip tightens on her waist. We’ll just have to do something to take your mind off them, won’t we? Come here.

Anna obliges. A passionate tussle ensues but is interrupted when Max starts to sneeze. He hunches into a quivering ball, sneezing and sneezing. Eventually he stops and blinks miserably at Anna, who sees, even in this dim light, that his face has gone persimmon red.

Dear sweet loving God, Max says, sniffling. There is nothing more wretched than a summer cold.

How on earth could you have caught a cold?

I suppose it could be the dust.

Perhaps, Anna agrees. Or perhaps you’re allergic to the idea of my other lovers.

She feels for her slip and wriggles into it, an awkward process in this small a space.

Speaking of which, she adds, it’s time for me to go put the finishing touches on dinner. My father has another festive evening planned.

Max helps her fasten a garter. More suitors? he asks.

An endless supply of them.
Hauptsturmführers, Obersturm-führers,
who knows what rank Vati’s managed to dig up this time. He has such high aspirations for me.

Max sneezes again as Anna stands and smoothes her skirt, and she looks at him with concern. I wish I could get a doctor for you, she says.

He waves this away. I am a doctor, and it’s nothing, believe me. But Anna, all joking aside, you must tell Mathilde to hurry with the papers. I can’t stay here much longer.

I know. Just until the end of the war.

Max shakes his head. Please, Anna. Promise me you’ll see Mathilde tomorrow.

I promise, says Anna, and begins to climb the steps.

I mean it, Anna.

So do I, she whispers down to him. Don’t worry.

She smiles at Max and shuts the inner door on his imploring face.

As she steps into the hallway, Anna is assaulted by a wave of vertigo. She leans against the wall and presses her forehead with her fingertips. They are freezing despite the heat, and when she takes them away, they are slick with sweat. She too must be reacting to the air in the room behind the stairs, which is hardly fresh. But how peculiar that she should feel ill only upon leaving it! Perhaps Max is right; the pressure of hiding him here is taking a physical toll on both of them. What a pair they are, sneezing and reeling. Anna walks shakily to her bedroom.

Here a rapid transformation occurs. Anna exchanges her housedress for one of blue silk, splashes her face with water from the basin on the bureau, and pins her long dark hair, wavy with perspiration, into a chignon. Then she assesses herself in the full-length mirror and sighs. As it is widely held that praise spoils children, Anna has rarely been told outright that she is beautiful, but she knows she is from the effect her looks have had on others: covert admiration, shyness, envy. She knows too that vanity is wrong, but she has always taken a secret pride in her slim waist and high round breasts, the pale eyes and curious light streaks in her hair that for as long as she can remember have won exclamations and candy from strangers. Since entering young womanhood, however, Anna has found this more bother than benefit, given Gerhard’s constant parading of her before prospective marital candidates. And now Anna would pay a high price to be plain, for her looks pose an ever-greater danger to both herself and Max. If only she were ugly, Gerhard would not persist in bringing this new species of suitors to the house, hoping to further his own ambitions by pawning Anna off to a high-ranking Nazi husband.

However, Anna knows enough of what is expected of her to play her part, and what matters most at the moment is that no sign of how she has spent the afternoon shows on her face. Anna frowns at her reflection, counting to one hundred, until the feverish color has receded from her cheeks. Then she descends to the kitchen, where she garnishes the chilled soup with sprigs of parsley. She surveys the place settings in the dining room and tweaks a rose in the centerpiece vase. She sits in one of the chairs, folds her hands in her lap, and waits. By the time Gerhard and his friends arrive, Anna’s demeanor is one of docile, vapid composure.

There are two guests this evening. Anna has never seen the big blond officer before; he is handsome enough, but he has the skewed nose and pugnacious stance of a boxer. She thinks, smiling sweetly at him, that he would have been a street brawler in the unsettled period between the wars, the sort who would have ended up in prison without the
Partei.
His lips are full, like halved peaches, obscene in that block of a face.

SS
Unterscharführer
Gustav Wagner, Gerhard announces; Gustav, my daughter Anna.

As Wagner bows over her hand, Anna asks, Are you perhaps related to the musician?

She sees the wet flash of Wagner’s eyes as he glances up at her.

No, Fräulein, but I appreciate beauty in any form, musical or otherwise, he says, and Anna feels the flick of his tongue on her skin. She longs to rap him on his oiled hair.

And you have already met
Hauptsturmführer
von Schoener, Gerhard continues, turning to the other officer. On two occasions, I believe?

Three— von Schoener corrects him. His voice is a weak rasp, the result, Anna knows, of exposure to gas in the trenches of the first war. He coughs into a handkerchief and gazes at Anna with watering brown eyes. Anna has always been uneasy around dark-eyed men. She would rather that he, too, lick her proffered hand than stare at her this way. But von Schoener continues to stand stiffly to one side of the quartet, projecting longing at her from a distance.

If you’ll be seated, dinner is ready, says Anna. Unless you’d care for a drink first?

Gerhard laughs.

No, my dear, we’re quite lubricated enough already, he says. Gentlemen, this way.

With an expansive gesture that falls just short of a bow, he ushers the officers into the dining room. Anna escapes to the kitchen. As she does, she hears Wagner say, Well, Gerhard, I’d heard you were hiding a little treasure here, but I never expected anything like this. She has the face of an angel! and Gerhard’s modest reply: Yes, she is rather fetching, if I do say so myself . . . But hiding her, Gustav? Such a dramatic accusation! I’m merely keeping her safe until the right fellow comes along. She’ll make some lucky man a good wife . . .

Anna, fighting another swell of nausea, lets the door swing shut behind her. When she re-emerges, carrying the tureen of soup, the three men have seated themselves in the dining room, Gerhard at the head of the table, the other two to either side. Wagner lounges in his chair, but von Schoener sits upright, a mismatched bookend. He presses his handkerchief to his lips, watching Anna’s every movement as she serves him.

Is this watercress? Wagner asks, dipping his spoon into his bowl.

Cucumber, Anna tells him. An antidote to the warm weather.

It’s nice, Fräulein. A local recipe? They have nothing like this where I’m from.

And where would that be? Anna asks, taking her seat opposite Gerhard.

A small town in East Prussia. You probably haven’t heard of it.

Anna revamps her image of the pre-war Wagner: he would have been a farmhand, then, tormenting the animals and perhaps the younger, weaker boys.

Wagner laughs nastily.

I’ve never understood why everybody considers East Prussia so backwards, he says. I see you now think I’m a hayseed, Fräulein.

Of course not, Anna murmurs.

Let’s hope the
Führer
never asks you to be a spy, says Wagner. He slides the spoon over his lower lip, tonguing the silver concavity. You’d make a very bad one. I can see your every thought on your face.

Anna prays this isn’t true. She forces herself to take some soup. Though she is normally fond of cucumber, the liquid coats her mouth, slimy as algae.

And have you left your family behind to fulfill your duties here? she asks, looking pointedly at Wagner’s left hand, where a slim silver ring glints on his wedding finger.

Wagner’s grin fades.

Yes, my whole family. This ring is— It belonged to my grandmother.

Really, says Anna.

Wagner applies himself to his soup.

We must all make sacrifices for the Reich, Gerhard says. His voice, sonorous from years of courtroom appearances, is modulated, but Anna knows that he is furious with her, as he has been ever since she told him that Spaetzle ran away. He conceals his anger well, even as his silver mustache hides a harelip; like many of his imperfections, it is invisible to the casual observer. But can’t even these officers, acquaintances of a few months, see Gerhard’s conceit, his sycophancy, the foppishness of his cravat and handmade shoes?

Apparently not, for Wagner tells Gerhard, I like your waistcoat.

Gerhard looks modestly down at the garment, which, embroidered with a hunting scene, would be more appropriate hung on a wall.

And this room—! Wagner waves his spoon, scattering green droplets. That chandelier is magnificent. Did you kill the deer yourself ?

Of course, Gerhard says of the configuration of antlers above the table. He reaches for the decanter. I am an avid hunter, he adds carelessly, though Anna knows he has never so much as held a rifle.

The acrid smell of the officers’ boot polish is suddenly overwhelming. Swallowing bile, Anna collects the empty bowls, sets her own full one atop the rest, and excuses herself to attend to the main course. She arranges the slices of venison on a silver platter with distaste: the flesh glistens, the pink of a healing burn, causing her stomach to perform an even more lively set of calisthenics. Averting her eyes, holding her breath, Anna brings the meat out to the men.

Do you know, she says to
Hauptsturmführer
von Schoener, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you what brings you to Weimar. What is it you do here, specifically?

The
Hauptsturmführer
blinks. Tears trickle down his face, which otherwise remains immobile.

Desk work— mostly— he gasps. He coughs into his handkerchief, inspects the contents, then folds it into a small square. I’m really— no more than— a bureaucrat— I wouldn’t dream— of boring you— with a detailed— description—

He again brings the handkerchief to his mouth, gazing at Anna over the linen.

False modesty is a bad habit, Joachim, Gerhard booms. He spears a slice of venison and sends Anna a significant look from eyes as small and greedy as a bear’s. Translated, his glance means: This one is good husband material; his lineage is impeccable and his valor demonstrated, but because of his injuries, he will never leave you to be summoned to the front!

Anna doesn’t return her father’s smile. Having fulfilled her duties as a hostess, she is now free to eat without participating in the conversation. She focuses on cutting her meat and dropping it into the napkin on her lap, listening for useful tidbits that Frau Staudt might pass on to others in the Resistance. But the men don’t oblige her. Rather than discussing the camp—with which, as SS, they are obviously affiliated—they analyze the
Führer
’s brilliance during the recent offensive into France. Anna would glean more information from the
Völkischer Beobachter,
the local paper.

Suddenly
Hauptsturmführer
von Schoener breaks off mid-gasp.

What is it, Herr
Hauptsturmführer,
Anna asks. Would you like more wine?

I thought— I heard— something— he says.

The group freezes, Wagner’s fork halfway to his fleshy lips. From near the ceiling, from the direction of the hidden maid’s staircase, there is a muffled thump—the sort of sound produced, for instance, by a person sneezing so violently that he has knocked his head against the wall.

Immediately Anna bends over her plate, coughing. The men turn in her direction, Gerhard annoyed, Wagner startled, von Schoener concerned. And Anna meanwhile finds that her act has become real: there is no morsel of food lodged in her throat, of course, but she can’t catch her breath. In his consternation von Schoener starts to cough too, and the table begins to sound like the percussive section of a human orchestra.

Then Wagner is behind Anna, seizing her arms and raising them above her head.

Breathe, he commands. Deeply. That’s it.

He reaches over her shoulder for a glass.

Drink this.

Anna obeys. A last convulsion forces some of the wine into her nose, but she is finally able to draw a shallow breath. As Wagner releases her and resumes his seat, she nods her thanks and daubs her tearstained face on her sleeve.

That’s how we East Prussian hayseeds stop choking fits, Wagner says.

The men chuckle. Anna laughs weakly along with them. Her energetic charade has expelled Max’s fluids, and she feels them sliding like egg whites between her thighs.

Anyone for seconds? Gerhard asks. He crooks a finger at Anna.

Anna doesn’t move. The officers will have to wait or serve themselves. She fears she has stained her dress.

I couldn’t—eat—another bite—says von Schoener. My—compliments, Fräulein—Again, from behind the wall, there is a bump.

What
is
that? Wagner asks.

Mice, perhaps, suggests Gerhard. I suppose this house has its share of them, like all old houses. This one was built in 1767, you know, as a summer home for the Kaiser.