And then I saw a girl I knew. Oh, I didn’t know her very well, but when we were little we had played together. Rebecca was her name, and although I had not spoken to her in some time I recognized her by this gesture she had. She had very curly hair, beautiful dark curls, and when she was nervous she would twirl one curl, like so, around her finger. I remembered this from school, how when she was called on and didn’t know the answer she would twist her curl around her finger in just this way.
She was standing a little apart from the rest, close to me and very calm, although tears were running down her face and she was twirling her hair. And I remember thinking, oh, you think such stupid things at times like that, thinking something like, I should have played with her more or gotten to know her better and now it’s too late, or something like this, I don’t know what I was thinking. But then she turned and looked at me, just as if she had heard me, and I was so stupid, I don’t know what came over me, but I was thinking, It is so hot, so hot to be standing there like that with no clothes, no hat, nothing, and I held out the basket of berries. As if, I don’t know, I could give them to her and they would ease her thirst a bit before— I don’t know what I was thinking.
But she started walking toward me, very slowly, so as not to be seen.
But she was seen. One of the Einsatzgruppen, this officer, saw her and yelled, Halt! And she did. Just froze there. Everybody did, for this officer called, Halt! again and held up his hand. The rest of them stopped shooting and the officer looked at Rebecca and saw what she was looking at and he came walking toward me. Strolling, really, as if he were on a city street or had all the time in the world.
Well, I would have turned and ran, but I was frozen too. I had no feeling in my legs or the rest of me either. I remember that I dropped the basket and that the bread fell out on the ground and the berries too, and they rolled to a stop next to his feet in front of me, and that his boots were very shiny like mirrors so I could almost see my face in them.
What is your name? he asked.
Well, of course I could not say a word.
What is your name? he asked again.
I looked up at him then. He was very big and tall with eyes like a wolf, and very fine he thought he was too. While the rest of them were in their shirtsleeves, he was wearing his full uniform, even his hat, and it was cocked at a certain angle, like so. But I could see him sweating, big big drops rolling down the side of his face.
What are you doing here, little girl? he asked me. Don’t you know you’re not supposed to be here? Or are you on a mission of mercy, a little Jew-loving Rotkäppchen, Red Riding Hood bringing food to the Jews?
Some of the other Einsatzgruppen laughed then, ha ha ha ha ha, like this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. And this didn’t please the officer at all. He was not a man who was used to being laughed at, I suppose, even if he invited it. He took his pistol from his belt and yelled, Shut up! and fired it into the air. Some of the women screamed, I remember. But still they did not try to run away.
The officer put his gun under my chin—I still remember how it felt there, how cold it was when everything else was so hot.
What is your name, little Jew-lover? he asked a third time.
And when I still could not answer, he made a disgusted sound and waved over one of his men who was standing near the car. He called something to him that I to this day do not remember, he said it maybe too fast or I was not thinking clearly. But he must have said something like, Bring the medical kit, for that is what the man brought over and the officer took something from it and I couldn’t see what it was except that it was shiny, and he did it so quickly I didn’t have time to react.
But anyway, what he took from the kit was a pin, and before I could do anything he pushed it into my right eye. Which popped just like a grape, except that unlike a grape it deflated and there was all this liquid running down my face, blood and whatnot. And of course there was pain, the worst pain you can imagine, and I threw my hands over my eye and screamed. And the officer turned to Rebecca and shot her, and some other women too, bang bang bang bang bang , except I didn’t realize it until a minute later because all I felt was the pain and I couldn’t believe this had happened to me—it was so quick—that in one second this strange man had blinded me and destroyed my face.
Ja, I heard him say, there, that will teach you not to be so nosy, my little Jew-lover. Now run along home. And I heard his feet gritting in the dust as he turned and walked back to the car.
So I did. I ran and ran and didn’t stop until I got home, where as you can imagine my mother screamed at the sight of me and she and my father cried and sent my younger brother Günter for the doctor . . . But of course it was too late. There was nothing he could do. And you know, this is strange, but after this day we never referred to what had happened. We were still so scared. Even more than before. Scared of what the Nazis could do, for no rhyme or reason, whenever they wanted.
So now you know what happened to my eye. This is something I have never told anyone . . . Because I am still so ashamed, you see. I often think it is fitting punishment for all the times I could have helped that girl before that terrible day, or helped others get into the woods, or hidden them in the barn without my parents knowing. But I did not. I turned a blind eye, yes? And as the Bible says...Well, I just think it is appropriate.
27
LATER THAT EVENING TRUDY IS IN THE SHOWER, WITH THE hot water turned up as high as it can go. She scrubs herself all over with a stiff-bristled brush, then stands letting the spray needle her skin. This routine has become her post-interview necessity—this, and the consumption of a large snifter of brandy. Maybe tonight she will permit herself two, Trudy thinks, for Rose-Grete’s tale has been an especially grim one. Perhaps the combination of liquor and a pill will finally have the desired effect.
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care, Trudy mumbles as she wrenches the faucets off and climbs from the tub. She wishes it would come and knit her up. She is feeling distinctly unraveled.
She whisks a towel from the rack and begins to briskly rub herself dry. Then she catches sight of movement in her peripheral vision, the pumping of her elbows in the full-length mirror hung on the door. She turns to it; she reaches out and wipes a clear swath in the steam. Then she lets the towel drop.
She has not seen her naked body in its entirety for some time—nor has anybody else, for that matter. She is used to seeing herself in bits and pieces, those demanding the most at-tention: her face, when she cold-creams it. Her calves, when she bothers to shave. Her hair, which she wears in a short no-nonsense style that requires only a cursory combing before she leaves the house. It’s true that Trudy has never had to watch her weight, that people have always told her, I bet you’re one of those who can eat whatever she wants and not gain an ounce. She has escaped the hammock of soft flesh that wobbles from the undersides of her contemporaries’ arms, the fat bulging over their waistbands and the bra straps bisecting their backs. Trudy rarely bothers with a bra at all. But there is a downside to this: she is starting, Trudy thinks, to get the tendony look particular to thin women of a certain age. Stringy. Like an underfed chicken. And Trudy has always thought of herself as a poor, skinny excuse for a woman. Women are meant to be soft. Like Anna. Like Anna in the bath, the gleaming white skin and floating freckled breasts. Anna rolling a stocking up one sturdy thigh. Anna in her slip, the deep generous curves of hip and bosom. Verboten images, gleaned by a younger Trudy from behind various doors, of enduring femininity.
These memories still induce in Trudy, as does her nudity, a distinct shame. For Anna has schooled her—by implication, as she would never speak directly of such things—that nice people are not supposed to loiter about in states of undress. Baths should be taken solely for the sake of cleanliness and washcloths always used, to prevent skin touching skin. Once out of the tub, clothes should be donned as quickly as possible. Lovemaking should occur for procreative purposes only and always in the dark,
and one’s female functions must be referred to only when necessary, for medical reasons, and then in code: The Monthly Visitor. The Curse. The Change. It is a messy, humiliating, secretive business, this being a woman. Slippery creams and sanitary pads, rituals conducted in closets and behind bathroom doors and never, God forbid, mentioned in front of one’s husband. Trudy can’t imagine Anna ever lingering before a mirror for this length of time. Or letting anyone else see her nude.
The shame of it.
The shame of it, the women and the children naked with the men, I had never seen such a thing.
Trudy looks at herself and tries to imagine her various imperfections exposed in broad daylight, in front of all those others. Those men. But of course, Trudy would not have been in this position. She would have been safely home in the village with the rest of the Germans, moving quietly behind shuttered windows and locked doors.
A mottled flush rises on her chest and neck, on skin already pink from vigorous scrubbing.
Her pale flesh. Her father’s flesh. Her milk-white, translucent, Aryan skin.
Trudy makes a little noise in her throat.
Then from down the hall the phone shrills, and Trudy starts and grabs her robe. God in heaven, what is she doing, standing around staring at herself ? She is even more unraveled than she thought. Trudy pictures Anna’s reaction to this foolishness, and then Ruth’s, and then her students’, and she is still smiling over this last as she runs toward her bedroom, leaving evaporating footprints.
She scoops up the receiver on the fifth ring; it is probably Rose-Grete, whom Trudy has asked to call and check in if the aftermath of her interview proves traumatic.
Hello, says Trudy, shrugging on her bathrobe. Rose-Grete? How are you doing?
But it is not Rose-Grete. It is Ancy Heligson, the manager from the New Heidelburg Good Samaritan Center. She ignores small-town pleasantries and gets straight to the point, speaking with urgency. And to Trudy, cinching her robe tight as if the woman were in the room and could see her, it seems as though what is happening is her fault, as if she has somehow conjured Anna up merely by thinking of her. Or is being punished for having disobeyed Anna’s dictates about modesty. For the manager’s news is not good. Listening, Trudy leans against the bureau for support. She closes her eyes.
28
AND SO IT IS THAT THE NEXT MORNING, A SUNDAY WHILE most good Minnesotans are in church, Trudy is making another pilgrimage to the New Heidelburg Good Samaritan Center. She arrives at the nursing home in record time and parks beneath the billboard on the far side of its lot. LET US ALL REMEMBER THE AGED, it commands. YES, EVEN YOU ARE GETTING OLD!!! Normally Trudy can’t help a wry smile at this; it is as though the staff wants to ensure that visiting a loved one here is as depressing an experience as possible. But at the moment she is in no mood to find anything funny.
Trudy bursts through the sliding doors at a near-run, the tails of her black wool coat belling behind her, and skids across the slick linoleum to the reception desk.
Excuse me, she says to the aide behind it. I’m here to see Mrs. Heligson.
The aide, who is on the phone, shows no sign of interrupting her conversation. Trudy draws herself up to her full height and gives the girl her most imperious look, the one she uses in class to quell obstreperous students. This has little effect. The aide, who is about the same age as Trudy’s pupils, with a sweet, puddingy face, flashes her an apologetic smile but keeps on talking.
Trudy leans over the desk and joggles the phone’s cutoff button.
Hey! the aide says, her mouth dropping open in protest. Then her nail-bitten hand flies to cover it.
Oh, Mrs. Swenson, I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you—
Get Mrs. Heligson, says Trudy. Right. Now.
The aide jumps up.
Sure. You bet.
She backs toward a door bearing a plaque marked MANAGER and bolts inside. Through the thin plywood Trudy hears the aide’s high excited voice and Mrs. Heligson’s lower, slower responses. Trudy waits, breathing shallowly through her mouth to avoid taking in too much of the Center’s smell of Lysol and urine and bland mashed food. The Center’s more ambulatory residents are here, slipping sideways on mismatched couches or locked into wheelchairs behind metal trays. Under ordinary circumstances, Anna, more compos mentis than these poor husks, would be among them, picking at her lunch or staring with a faded lack of interest through the picture window at the two-lane road. But she is nowhere to be seen.
Eventually the door to the manager’s office flies open and Mrs. Heligson hurries out. The aide, trailing behind her, resumes her position behind the desk and begins dividing pills into Dixie cups with a vindicated, businesslike air. This doesn’t fool Trudy for a second. She knows the girl will be straining to catch every last word of this encounter, which will be discussed and analyzed among the nurses with great relish for months to come.
Trudy walks a few feet away into a corridor, leaving the manager no choice but to switch direction and follow her. She folds her arms and watches the woman’s waddling progress, gimlet-eyed.
Where is my mother? she asks when Mrs. Heligson reaches her.
Now, I know you’re angry, Mrs. Swenson, and I don’t blame you. But let’s stay calm here. Your mom’s in her room, and she’s doing just fine.
Trudy lets out a snort.
I find it hard to believe she’s just fine. How could you let her get away like that? What were you people doing, watching talk shows while my seventy-six-year-old mother was wandering down the highway in her nightgown?
Mrs. Heligson’s mouth compresses into a hot-pink line.
Well, it wasn’t just her nightie, she says. She had her coat on over it . . . Then, as Trudy boggles at her in astonishment, she adds hastily, Of course we were keeping a close eye on her. We do our best to monitor all our old folks. But you have to understand something: Your mom’s still got it up here—
Mrs. Heligson taps her temple.
—and whenever she makes up her mind to get out, she gets out. There’s really not much we can—
Wait, says Trudy. Wait just a minute. Am I to understand from what you’ve just said that this isn’t the first time she’s run away?
Well. Well, no. It’s the third. But—And you didn’t see fit to inform me of this?
Trudy is so aghast that she waves her hands about as though fighting off a swarm of bees. You couldn’t have called? Or when I was here at Christmastime—
Mrs. Heligson holds up a fat palm.
Now just a minute, she says. I did call you. I called a bunch of times.
Trudy is belatedly reminded of the blinking red light on her answering machine and how she hit Save without listening to the messages, vowing to return them when she had fewer interviews and more sleep.
And as for Christmas...Mrs. Heligson shakes her head. We did try our best to contain her, she says.
Mrs. Heligson, says Trudy, then stops to regain control of her voice. Mrs. Heligson, are you familiar with the phrase criminally negligent ?
The manager bridles and crosses her arms beneath her prodigious bosom.
We are not at fault here, she says stiffly, and you won’t find a single judge in the country who’ll think otherwise. Your mother has been trouble from the start. Not eating, not talking, running away...Well. Like I said on the phone, we just can’t be responsible for her anymore. I’m so sorry.
Trudy glares at her. Mrs. Heligson looks anything but sorry. In fact, she appears decidedly smug. There is a subtext here: Trudy knows that Mrs. Heligson knows that Trudy remembers when Mrs. Heligson was still Ancy Fladager, one of nine Fladagers living in a trailer down by Deer Creek—those no-account Fladagers, everyone called them; those shanty Irish. And Trudy also recalls all too well when Ancy, only a grade ahead of her but a foot taller, pushed Trudy into the dirt on the playground and ripped off her skirt, to see if Trudy really had a swastika birthmark, as rumored; and how, finding none, she spat on Trudy and raced off, yelling, Stupid Kraut! Perhaps A
nna hasn’t really run away at all. Perhaps Ancy Heligson, now the buxom embodiment of New Heidel-burg respectability, has contrived a way to finally eject Anna from the town, even as the body will try to rid itself of any foreign object.
I wouldn’t let my mother stay here if you paid me, Trudy tells Mrs. Heligson coolly. In fact, I’ll be taking her with me right now. Today.
Well, I think that’s best.
And before you get too relieved, Mrs. Heligson, let me tell you that I’ll be lodging a complaint with the county health board. And the state. The way you run this place is a disgrace. Now, you said my mother is in her room?
Mrs. Heligson manages to nod, her chins quivering with affront.
Thank you.
Trudy turns on her heel and stalks off to the Alzheimer’s wing. Anna doesn’t have the disease, of course, but this was the only single Trudy could procure for her. It is the caboose of the ward, the very last room, and the only one whose door is bare of Hallmark cards, Bible verses, fuzzy and unflattering Polaroids of its inhabitant. There is just an oaktag name card: MRS. JACK SCHLEMMER (ANNA). Trudy knocks, waits a polite interval for a response she knows is not forthcoming, and enters.
That the first thing Trudy sees is her mother’s back comes as no surprise to her; she sometimes thinks that after Anna dies the most enduring memory Trudy will have of her will be this pose. She takes off her coat and lays it on the hospital bed. The room is a small gray box with cinderblock walls, its reek of disinfectant not doing much to disguise the urine of its previous occupant. Anna is sitting in a plastic chair by the window, looking out at the view: a field scoured bare by the insistent wind from the Dakotas. Corn husks protruding from frozen clods of earth. Anna appears to be studying the sole demarcation line, a fence. She gives no indication that she has heard Trudy come in.