At the Wolf's Table Read online

  “Get up,” she said.

  It came in handy to her, the two hundred marks I was earning each month.

  “Please.” She felt around the covers in search of my hand and stroked it through the fabric.

  An SS guard burst into the room. “Sauer.”

  We all cringed.

  “Heil Hitler,” Herta said mechanically, then added: “Apologies. My daughter-in-law was unwell last night. She’ll get dressed now and go.”

  I didn’t get up. It wasn’t rebellion, it was lack of strength.

  Behind the guard, Joseph stole a concerned glance at me. Herta walked over to the uniformed guest. “Meanwhile, may I offer you something to drink?” This time she remembered to play the hostess. “Come now, Rosa. Hurry up.”

  I stared at the ceiling.

  “Rosa,” Herta pleaded.

  “I can’t. I swear I can’t. Joseph, you tell him.”

  “Rosa,” Joseph pleaded.

  “I’m tired.” I turned my head and looked at the guard. “Especially of all of you.”

  The man shoved Herta aside, threw back the covers, grabbed me by the arm, yanked me out of bed and across the floor with one hand, the other hand clamped to his holster. Not a peep from the hens, they sensed no danger.

  “Put on your shoes,” the guard ordered, releasing his grip on my arm, “unless you want to go barefoot.”

  “Forgive her, she hasn’t been well,” Joseph hazarded.

  “Quiet, or I’ll teach all three of you a lesson.”

  What would he do?

  I wanted to die, now that Gregor was gone. Missing, I had told Herta, not dead, do you understand? But during the night I had convinced myself that he too had abandoned me, like my mother. I hadn’t planned to go absent without leave—was that what I was doing? It wasn’t like I was a soldier, wasn’t like we were an army. Germany’s cannon fodder, Gregor once said. I fight for Germany, but no longer because I believe in it, no longer because I love it. I’m shooting because I’m afraid.

  I hadn’t imagined the potential consequences: a summary trial, a summary execution? I too wanted to disappear, that was all.

  “Please,” Herta whimpered, huddling up, “my daughter-in-law is delirious. My son was just declared missing. I’ll come in her place today. I’ll taste the food for—”

  “Quiet, I said!” The guard struck Herta, elbowed her violently, pistol-whipped her, I don’t know, I didn’t see it—all I saw was my mother-in-law huddling up even more than before. She doubled over, a hand on her rib cage, Joseph supported her, I stifled a scream and grabbed my shoes, trembling, put them on, felt my heartbeat hammering in my throat, got up, was shoved by the guard toward the coat rack, grabbed my jacket, put it on. Herta didn’t raise her head. I called to her, wanted to say I was sorry. Joseph silently cradled her in his arms. They were waiting for me to leave before they groaned, fainted from the pain, or went back to bed, changed the lock, never again to open the door to me. I don’t deserve anything except what I do: eating Hitler’s food, eating for Germany, not because I love it, or even out of fear. I eat Hitler’s food because it’s what I deserve, it’s what I am.

  * * *

  “DID THE LITTLE girl throw a tantrum?” the driver said, smirking, when his colleague shoved me into a seat. Theodora, in the front row as always, didn’t say hello. Nor did Beate and Heike dare to, that morning. Then, as the others pretended to be asleep, Augustine called to me in a whisper. She was sitting two rows in front of me on the left. Her nervous, shifting profile was a blurry splotch in my line of vision. I didn’t reply.

  Leni got on board and headed toward me. She hesitated. The sight of me with my coat over my nightgown must have frightened her. She didn’t know my mother had died dressed this way, that to me this clothing signaled the end. I had put my shoes on without stockings, felt a chill on my legs, my toes numb beneath the leather. They were the shoes I used to wear in Berlin, at the office where Gregor was my boss and I his delight, Where are you going with those heels on? Herta would say to me, but this morning she had a broken rib, or a fractured one, she couldn’t speak, Where are you going with those heels on, Leni must have thought, heels with a nightgown, it’s insane. She blinked her green eyes several times, then sat down beside me.

  I would get blisters, would pinch them between my fingernails until they burst, a power wielded over my body by me and me alone. Leni took my hand and just then I realized it had been resting on my thigh. “Rosa, what happened?” she said, and Augustine turned around. A splotch, a blur in my vision. Gregor said, I see butterflies, gnats buzzing around, spiderwebs; I told him, Look at me, my love, concentrate.

  “Rosa.” Leni gently held my hand in hers. She looked inquisitively at Augustine, who shook her head. The splotch danced, my sight gave out. I lacked the strength.

  A person can cease to exist even when alive. Gregor might have been alive, but he no longer existed, not to me. The Reich carried on fighting, designed Wunderwaffen, believed in miracles, but I had never believed in them. The war will continue until Göring manages to put on Goebbels’s trousers, Joseph said. It seemed the war would have to last forever, but I decided not to fight anymore, I mutinied, not against the SS—against life. I ceased to exist, sitting there on the bus as it drove me toward the lunchroom table in Krausendorf, the altar of the Kingdom.

  * * *

  THE DRIVER WAS pulling over again. Through the window I saw Elfriede waiting at the side of the road, one hand in her coat pocket, cigarette in the other. Her eyes met mine and her cheekbones flickered beneath her skin. Staring at me steadily, she crushed the cigarette under her shoe, got on board.

  She came toward us. I don’t know if Leni motioned to her or Augustine told her something or if it was my eyes; she sat down in the seat across the narrow aisle from Leni, said, “Good morning.”

  Leni sheepishly mumbled hello. It wasn’t a good morning, hadn’t Elfriede realized that?

  “What’s with her?”

  “I don’t know,” Leni replied.

  “What did they do to her?”

  Leni said nothing. But then again, Elfriede wasn’t talking to her. She was addressing me, but I no longer existed.

  Elfriede cleared her throat. “So, Berliner, I see you gave yourself a ‘bomb shelter’ hairdo this morning.”

  The women giggled. Only Leni held back.

  I thought, I can’t, Elfriede. I swear, I can’t.

  “Ulla, what do you say about her hairstyle? Do you approve?”

  “Better than braids,” Ulla said shyly.

  “Must be the latest trend in Berlin.”

  “Elfriede,” Leni said reproachfully.

  “The outfit’s pretty daring too, Berliner. Not even Zarah Leander would be so bold.”

  Augustine let out a few loud coughs. Maybe it was a signal to Elfriede, Don’t push it, don’t go too far, maybe she understood—she, who had lost her husband in the war and had decided to wear mourning clothes forever.

  “What would you know, Augustine? You’re a country girl. The Berliner here even braves the cold in the name of fashion. Teach her a thing or two, Berliner!”

  I stared at the roof of the bus, hoping it would crash down on me.

  “Seems we aren’t worthy of even a peep from her.”

  Why was she doing it? Why was she tormenting me? And again all the fuss about my clothes. A word of advice: mind your own business, she had said. Why wouldn’t she leave me alone today?

  “Leni, have you ever read The Stubbornhead?”

  “Yes … as a little girl.”

  “Nice story, isn’t it? I think we’ll call Rosa that from now on. The Stubbornhead.”

  “Cut it out,” Leni begged her, squeezing my hand. I pulled it away, dug my fingers into my thigh until it hurt.

  “Right. The enemy is listening, like Goebbels always says.”

  I shot my gaze toward Elfriede. “What is it you want, anyway?”

  Leni pinched her nose between her thumb and forefinger, as i
f about to jump into water. It was how she calmed her nerves.

  “Move,” I told her.

  She let me pass. I got out of my seat, stood in front of Elfriede, leaned over her. “What the hell do you want?”

  Elfriede touched my knee. “You have goose bumps.”

  I slapped her face. She shot to her feet, shoved me, I threw her to the floor and in a flash was on top of her. Thick veins bulged from her neck like taut cords to pluck, to yank out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the woman. Hate, my history teacher at high school had said, we German women must know how to hate. Elfriede gritted her teeth, struggled to break free, to flip me over. I breathed raggedly against her breath.

  “Have you vented enough?” she suddenly asked. I had loosened my grip without realizing it.

  Before I could answer, the guard grabbed me by the collar, dragged me down the aisle of the bus just as he had done to me at home, kicked my sides, my bare legs, over and over again, yanked me to my feet, and forced me into a seat up front, in the spot behind the driver, next to Theodora, in the same row as Gertrude and Sabine. Theodora had plugged her ears. She hadn’t expected that the SS would be allowed to beat us—not us, Hitler’s food tasters, Such an important task, a question of life or death, Corporal, sir, a bit of respect. Or maybe she was used to it, maybe her husband beat her regularly, and not only when he drank too much beer. The bigger the man, the more insignificant the woman must be, even Hitler says that. And so, Fanatic, get off your high horse, remember your place.

  After me it was Elfriede’s turn. I heard the impact of his boot against her bones but not even one whimper.

  * * *

  IN THE LUNCHROOM I could barely get anything down. I forced myself, not because I was afraid of the SS—I was hoping for poison. If I could swallow just one mouthful of it I would be delivered to death without having to seek it myself, would be relieved of at least that task. But the food was safe and I didn’t die.

  For months my companions hadn’t seen their husbands or boyfriends. Though Augustine was the only official widow, we had all been alone for quite a while. I couldn’t claim exclusive rights to grief, they wouldn’t have allowed me to. Maybe that was why I didn’t say anything, not even to Leni, not even to Elfriede, neither of whom had a husband or a boyfriend.

  Leni spoke of love with the dreamy naïveté of someone who’d read about it in serial novels but didn’t really understand what it was. She hadn’t experienced emotional dependence on another human being, one who didn’t produce you, one who hadn’t been there when you were born. She had never left her father and mother to cleave to a stranger.

  One time Augustine had said, Leni wants the war to end because she’s afraid if it doesn’t it’ll be too late for her to marry. She was searching for true love, was saving herself until she found it.

  Don’t make fun of me, Leni had peeped.

  But then the war broke out, Augustine went on, and the men disappeared.

  Leni defended herself: I’m not the only spinster.

  But you aren’t a spinster, I reassured her, you’re so young.

  Elfriede isn’t married either, Leni said, and she’s always alone.

  Elfriede heard that. She raised her fist to her mouth as if to block her words. Her lips touched her ring finger.

  * * *

  ALL ALONE IN the world, with no one to wait for, no one to lose, Elfriede ate with her head bowed, one forkful after the other. When she finished, she asked permission to go to the washroom. The Beanpole wasn’t there, nor was the one who had beaten us on the bus. As one of the guards turned to escort her, I said, “I need to go too,” and just then Elfriede almost stopped in her tracks.

  She locked herself in a stall. I went up to her door. “It’s all my fault,” I said, resting my forehead against the whitewashed wood. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t hear her tinkling, moving, anything. “Gregor was declared missing. That’s what happened. He might be dead, Elfriede.”

  The lock turned, the door began to open outward. I stepped back and stood there, waiting for it to be completely open. Elfriede came out, her eyes hard, her cheekbones angular. She rushed at me. I didn’t move.

  She embraced me in a hug. She had never done that before. I clung to her body full of sharp edges. It wasn’t waiting for anyone, that body, it could offer refuge to mine. It was so warm, so welcoming, that the sobs welled up in my chest until they overflowed. Since the moment I had received the letter, I hadn’t yet wept. It was months since I had last hugged anyone.

  * * *

  HERTA STOPPED BAKING bread, collecting eggs in the morning for breakfast with Joseph, chatting in the evening with us as she knit. She unraveled the scarf she had made for Gregor and threw away the skein. Zart found it in the trash bin in the back room and played with it all through the house, unrolling the yarn, which tangled around the legs of the chairs and table. Wool fibers floated through the air, stuck to everything. Maybe the mischief would have once amused us. Maybe now it reminded Herta of her son’s childhood mischief and it was to banish the thought that she sent the cat outside with a feeble kick.

  Joseph didn’t stop listening to the radio after dinner, or smoking his pipe. In fact, he searched for foreign stations more doggedly than before, almost as if expecting to intercept Gregor’s voice: I’m alive, I’m in Russia, come get me. But it wasn’t a treasure hunt—no map, the only clues the increasingly alarming news reports.

  As for me, I stopped making jam with Herta and working in the vegetable garden with Joseph. Before, when picking vegetables I had put on the galoshes Gregor had worn as a boy. His father had found them in the cellar. They were only a little tight on me. My heart had been warmed by the tenderness of my husband’s childhood feet, feet I had never seen, never touched. But now they tormented me.

  I decided to write to him every day, write what was going through my head, a diary of me missing him. When he returned we would read it together, he would tease me by pointing out the saddest passages or the overly sentimental ones, and I would slap him on the chest, but only in jest. I tried. But I couldn’t write anything, there was nothing for me to talk about.

  I didn’t go into the woods anymore, didn’t spot empty stork nests, didn’t go all the way to Moy Lake to crouch at the water’s edge and sing. I had lost all desire to sing.

  Leni awkwardly tried to console me, was the only one to do so. “I’m sure he’s still alive,” she declared with unbearable optimism. “Maybe he deserted and is on his way home now.”

  The fact that widowhood—be it actual or potential—was a common condition was no consolation. I had never imagined it could happen to me. Gregor had come into my life to make me happy, that was his role. Anything else was a betrayal, made me feel tricked.

  Elfriede might have sensed this. That was why she didn’t even try to comfort me. Want a cigarette? she asked me once. You know I don’t smoke, I said. You see? You’re stronger than I am, she said, smiling. For a second, that smile, of which only I was worthy, reestablished order. For a second, a merciful feeling of half sleep spread through my body. Elfriede hadn’t even checked the bruises on her thighs during the days following the beating, had mentally archived them before they even faded, I was sure of it.

  Unlike her, I studied mine every morning. When I pressed my finger against them they throbbed, and it was as though Gregor weren’t entirely lost. The bruises were a sign of a rebellion still being waged. When that physical pain was gone, never again would my skin present any sign of my husband’s presence on earth.

  * * *

  ONE DAY HERTA woke up, her eyes less puffy than usual, and decided Gregor was fine. He would turn up at the door one morning at dawn, identical to how he was when he enlisted, but with a much heartier appetite. Imitating her, I tried to convince myself of it too.

  I would seek him out in the last picture in the photo album, the one of him in uniform. I would speak to him, and it was like a bedtime prayer. That he existed was a wager; that I believed it, a habit.
The first years of our relationship, my every organ would yield to him, I would succumb like a child. Now at night I tossed and turned, slept in fits and starts. Gregor was missing, perhaps dead, and I continued to love him. It was an adolescent, unequivocal love that needed no reciprocation—only stubbornness, trusting patience.

  * * *

  USING HIS OLD address in America, I wrote Franz a long letter. I so needed to talk to someone from my family, someone who had chased after me on a bicycle, who had taken baths with me before mass on Sundays, someone I had known since his birth, since he had slept in his cradle and wailed until he was blue in the face because I had bitten his hand—my brother.

  I wrote to him that I had no longer heard anything from Gregor, just as I hadn’t heard from him. It was a nonsensical letter, and only as I was writing it did I realize I could no longer see Franz’s features clearly in my mind. I saw his broad back clad in a caban jacket, his bowed legs carrying him off, but I couldn’t picture his face. Did he have a mustache now? Did he still get cold sores on his lip? Had he needed to buy glasses? Franz as an adult was unknown to me. When I thought of my brother, when I read the word “brother” in a book or heard it spoken, in my mind I saw his knobby knees covered with abrasions, his legs streaked with scratches—they were what triggered in me the longing to hug him again.

  For months I hoped for a reply, but no letter from Franz arrived. No one wrote to me anymore.

  Of those months I remember nothing, apart from the day on which the purple clover in the fields, glimpsed from the window of the bus on the way to Krausendorf, awakened me from my monastic everyday existence. Spring had arrived, and a vague feeling of nostalgia swept over me. It wasn’t only that I missed Gregor, it was that I missed life.

  Part

  TWO

  13