Dutifully, her head lowered like a good wife, Anna walks behind the Obersturmführer to the staircase. Only when she has gauged from his pace that he will not turn and catch her does she make a wide-eyed face of amazement at his broad gray back.
32
IF THE RECEPTION AREA OF THE GASTHOF MIMICS A BARO-nial castle, its sleeping quarters are undeniably gemütlich. When the innkeeper unlocks their brightly painted door, there is another behind it, reminding Anna of an Advent calendar. Since she is in the Obersturmführer ’s world now, Anna half expects this second door to reveal a scene of dismemberment rather than the chocolate she found as a child. Instead, it opens into a little room that could belong to a maiden aunt: the furniture is sturdy pine, the bed heaped with a white eiderdown, the only wall decoration a sampler featuring a boy in lederhosen and a girl in a dirndl, holding hands.
Anna moves to the window and pushes aside the lace curtains. Downstairs, the SS strut in pomp and circumstance, but here they clearly prefer the plainer comforts of childhood. Max would have borrowed a term from Herr Doktor Freud to describe it, Anna thinks, staring toward the mountains she knows are there but cannot see; what is the word? Schizophrenic. Or perhaps Mathilde’s explanation is more apt: At heart, Anna, men are all babies, wanting nothing more than to suckle at the tit.
A pity about that flat tire, the Obersturmführer says from behind her; we would have arrived in daylight otherwise. The view is stupendous.
I can imagine, Anna says, without turning.
Have you everything you need? he asks. I would order dinner brought to us, but at this hour—
No, it’s perfectly all right, Anna says. Having not eaten since morning, she has arrived at the stage beyond hunger, in which the stomach feels like a rock.
We’ll have a fine breakfast, the Obersturmführer assures her. They provide quite a repast, if memory serves.
His footsteps creak on the floorboards and Anna braces herself for his touch, but then she hears the snick of a latch and understands that he has gone instead to the WC. She releases her breath and fetches her bag, which has been deposited with the Obersturmführer ’s by the bureau. Anna digs through her daytime clothes to the lingerie beneath. What is the Obersturmführer ’s current inclination? Which would he prefer, the diaphanous red negligee, the garters? Although the tags are missing from every item he brings her, their cut indicates that they are French. She has long stopped trying to picture whom they belonged to before. The embroidered children smile at her from the wall.
The door to the WC opens and Anna turns, straps dangling from her hands. Which—, she begins, and then words fail her: the Obersturmführer has emerged in yellow paisley pajamas.
Anna’s face works madly. She bites her lip, but it is no use. Laughter explodes from her, and the more she tries to choke it back, the more helpless she becomes. She laughs and laughs, and the muscles of her diaphragm, unaccustomed to such exercise, ache as though she has just been sick. It is a delicious feeling.
Eventually she regains control and lowers her hands. The Obersturmführer is climbing into bed with great dignity, wearing a wounded expression.
I’m sorry, Anna says. Really, I apologize. I don’t know what came over me.
Perhaps the altitude, the Obersturmführer suggests.
That must be it, says Anna. She coughs into a fist to conceal a final giggle.
Please, could you— The Obersturmführer jerks his chin toward the lamp.
Oh, of course, Anna says. But do you want me to—?
She holds up the lingerie.
No, it’s— No.
Bemused, Anna shuts off the light. She strips to her brassiere and slip, modest garments designed for comfort rather than seduction; then she settles into the bed, pulling the eiderdown to her chin. The Obersturmführer lies stiffly on his portion of the mattress, his limbs not touching hers. Between them, there is a zone of cool air.
He shifts toward her and again Anna tenses, but he merely places a kiss on her cheek.
Good night, he says.
Good night.
Anna’s vision has adjusted; she can discern the window’s outline, a faint gray rectangle on the wall. If the Obersturmführer is watching her, he will see her smiling, so she turns on her side to hide it. She fights to stay awake, for it is heavenly to be lying in this wide bed, revered as a wife, unmolested. She must not waste it. It must be too good to be true.
It is: an indeterminate time later, Anna is yanked to consciousness by the Obersturmführer thrusting against her from behind, pushing her insistently across the mattress. Anna has to grab the edge of the bed to keep from tumbling to the floor. At some point he must have removed the pajamas, for his hair grates against her skin. He entangles one hand in Anna’s braids and pulls; with the other, he tugs up her slip.
Anna remains in a fetal position. She feels like a snail who, believing the outside world to be safe, pokes its soft head from its shell only to be prodded once again; she curls inward both mentally and physically. As the Obersturmführer wedges a knee between hers, she thinks how very unpleasant it is to be awakened this way, worse almost than the Obersturmführer ’s regular visits by dint of its being unexpected. She thinks, Let him get on with it and then we can go back to sleep. She twists onto her back and makes noises to encourage him, scissoring her legs around his waist. The Obersturmführer ’s breath steepens. He cups Anna’s buttocks and lifts her against him, and then her cries become involuntary.
It is nearly dawn. A tinny churchbell begins to clang just outside the window, tolling the hour. The Obersturmführer thrusts in perfect, solemn rhythm. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. He hisses like a goose in Anna’s ear, as he always does near climax, but this time he says, Anna! . . . Then she feels the telltale trickle, as though she is being tickled internally. The Obersturmführer collapses, trembling.
Anna turns her head toward the window and receives her first visual confirmation that they are in the Alps: gray and white peaks rear sawtoothed into the sky. She waits for the Obersturmführer to roll off her, but he stays as he is, lying on her like a dead thing, his weight pressing her into the mattress. His sweat slicks them, or is it Anna’s? Anna is unable to take a full breath; she can’t tell whether the heartbeat that thuds against her ribs is the Obersturmführer ’s or her own.
33
BY MIDMORNING, THE WEATHER HAS TAKEN A TURN FOR the worse. From the dining room, Anna watches a fog roll across the mountains, first snagging on the peaks and then cloaking all Berchtesgaden in a dense shroud. The Obersturmführer is disappointed; he has envisioned a rigorous hike in the foothills, lunching like Tristan and Isolde beneath the trees. But the conditions permit neither picnicking nor perambulation, so after their breakfast, they return to their room.
Anna sits astride the Obersturmführer on the bed, straddling his buttocks; he lies on his stomach, his dark head turned sideways on the pillow. He wears only his briefs. His wounded shoulder, he tells Anna, reacts poorly to the cold and damp; it often troubles him in the camp, but it is a misery to him here. I am a human barometer, he says ruefully, his voice muffled. Anna doesn’t have the breath to answer. Massaging the muscles around the wound, as he has instructed her to do, is a vigorous business.
The Obersturmführer gazes sadly toward the window. The fog, a swirling gray mass, is so heavy that one cannot see the church opposite.
The Gods conspire against us, Anna, he sighs. And I so wished to show you the trails. The excursion up the Höhe Göll is especially magnificent.
Hummm, Anna murmurs. She is drugged, gravid with food. As the Obersturmführer promised, breakfast here is a veritable feast: eggs! cheese! yogurt with muesli, and, a small miracle, jam! Her overladen stomach groans. Even the Obersturmführer ’s back reminds her of unbaked bread. His wound is a saucer-sized crater near the right shoulderblade, the scar tissue stiff and shiny, but the flesh around it is elastic as dough. Anna plucks it between thumb and forefinger, watching fascinated as it slowly sinks, reddened, back into pl
ace. The Obersturmführer is getting fat.
And the Berghof, the Obersturmführer adds. The Berghof and the Kehlsteinhaus, the Führer ’s private retreat—a marvel, truly!
As Anna probes an obstinate tendon, he grunts and closes his eyes.
I was there only once, in 1938, when Koch and I were summoned, he continues. We SS stayed in the Hotel zum Türken, of course; only the biggest wheels slept at the Kehlsteinhaus. But I never forgot the view—one could see into Austria!—nor the grounds. Just think, Anna. Among those inhospitable peaks, Bormann has created Utopia as a gift for the Führer : a greenhouse, a mushroom farm, beehives, and birdhouses. Salt licks for the Führer ’s deer.
It sounds quite opulent, Anna says, unable to prevent a note of sarcasm.
Oh, yes, you can’t imagine...The Obersturmführer chuckles. Just reaching the place is an engineering exhibition. First the drive up the mountain, a nightmare of a road, hairpin turns every hundred meters or so. And when the road stops, one drives straight into the heart of the Höhe Göll and then is whisked to the top by a lift. I have never been fond of heights, but Koch’s face—it was absolutely green, I can tell you.
He laughs again.
One can drive into the mountain? Anna asks, intrigued despite herself.
Bormann ordered a tunnel blasted through the rock with dynamite. Ingenious . . .
The Obersturmführer grows pensive. The laborers were all criminals, of course, he says; rapists and murderers. But I must admit, I felt some sympathy for them, clinging to the mountainside like goats. The explosives and exposure did away with quite a few. And to look down from that height is to see oneself falling into the abyss, to envision one’s own death...However, they were well-treated. There was even a cinema where they could watch films once the day’s work was done.
Suddenly the Obersturmführer stiffens, drawing air through gritted teeth.
Achhh, he says, not so hard!
Anna forces her hands to unclench.
I think it’s revolting, she hears herself say.
After a pause, the Obersturmführer replies thoughtfully, Yes, I suppose you’re right. Such decadence when even gasoline was declared a national resource—yes, it shows poor judgment.
Anna resumes her work, pummeling harder than necessary, her hair swinging on either side of her face.
Between us, says the Obersturmführer, this sort of thing is rampant within the higher levels of the Reich, this . . . corrosive decadence. It troubles me. It corrupted Koch, you know.
The Obersturmführer flexes his arms backward. His spine cracks. I myself am no angel, he says; at the front, I . . . In any case, some adolescent behavior is to be expected, given our demanding work. One seeks spiritual release in the physical. But one would think the Kommandant, at least, to be above such behavior—More on the left shoulder, please.
Anna obliges. The Obersturmführer groans: Koch, what a Dummkopf ! That he contracted syphilis—stupid, but understandable. To want to hide it—who wouldn’t, in his shoes? Ha! Frau Koch would have had his head on a platter had she known. To order the extermination of the doctors who treated him—just covering his tracks. But to record the whole business in writing! Unpardonable stupidity! The decadence dimmed his thought processes, you see. The incessant parties, the orgies; exactly the sort of degenerate behavior that riddled the Weimar Republic, which one was led to believe the Reich would stamp out.
Anna tries to picture the Obersturmführer participating in an orgy and fails. It seems more likely that he has learned his dexterity from whores. In a group activity, she imagines, he would have stood to one side, watching.
The Obersturmführer sighs. Kommandant Pister runs a tighter ship, which is a relief. But he has given me Section II duties, whereas Koch never would have wasted a deputy Kommandant’s time with paperwork! I haven’t much nostalgia for the early days, but . . . without Koch, you see, I’ll never be . . . more than a small cog in a big machine. I don’t have the . . . the stand-out quality; I do my job well, but . . . I don’t possess the . . . the requisite . . .
As he struggles for the words to express his inadequacies, a man unacquainted with introspection, Anna thinks she can almost hear the dirt gritting between the gears of his own strange clockwork. She has never seen him this preoccupied, vulnerable, dreamy. How many camp inmates, how many members of the Resistance, would give their lives to catch the Obersturmführer in such a state? Anna’s hands tremble on the whorl of moles between his shoulderblades. How many people could she save by shooting him in the center of this natural target? His pistol lies within reach, on the bureau with his dagger. All she has to do is cross the room.
Instantly, Anna thinks of all the reasons why this is impossible. She would be arrested. There would be reprisals, not only her own death and Trudie’s but within the camp. And even if, as in a fairy tale, she could escape undetected, another officer would take the Obersturmführer’s place. The rations and provisions for bread, the lifeline upon which she and her daughter depend, would be cut off. On a simpler, pragmatic level, Anna has never fired a gun, nor so much as held one.
Yet beneath these concerns exists another. It revolts Anna to feel any understanding for this creature. How is it possible? But that morning, the Obersturmführer hesitated in the doorway of the breakfast room. He must have heard, as Anna did, the sarcastic stage whisper of the officer who applauded his actions the night before: Look, it’s the hero with his little . . . wife. For a moment, watching the Obersturmführer ’s face sag, Anna glimpsed him as a small boy: wary, ridiculed by his peers, never quite comprehending why. Then, nodding icily, he guided her to a table on the opposite side of the room.
The despair within Anna over her own cowardice, her instant of fellow feeling for this man, is so great that it seems to have an accompanying sound, a desolate internal whistle. She lowers her forehead and touches it briefly to the blotch of dark spots on the Obersturmführer ’s back.
The Obersturmführer heaves galvanically beneath her, turning over. He takes her hands in his.
My masseuse, he says. Such strong hands, like those of a pianist, or a farm girl.
It’s from working with bread, Anna tells him.
He catches one of her fingers between his teeth and nibbles.
And what astounding things you do with these demure little hands, he murmurs, mouth full. You—
Without any forethought whatsoever, shocking herself, Anna asks, Do you have a wife?
The Obersturmführer thrusts her hand aside and swears. He frowns in the direction of the sampler. Anna doesn’t dare look at him. She stares instead at her lap, split in a Y because she is still straddling his waist.
After a time he snaps, Yes, I have a wife. She’s a spoiled, fat, wretched woman who suffers agoraphobia; she hasn’t left the house in years. She lives with her mother in Wartburg. Does that answer your question?
Yes, Anna whispers.
She senses rather than sees the Obersturmführer ’s gaze on her. Then his index finger is on her chin, forcing her to look at him. He has mistaken her surprise for heartbreak, for he bestows a smile upon her, rich and reassuring.
But I never expected to meet somebody like you, the Ober-sturmführer says. Do you know, you alone save me. Your purity, your values—our shared values—they elevate me above the filth that surrounds me every day.
He grasps Anna’s hands again and gives them a small shake.
You are my savior, he says. After all, if not for you, I might have been pulled into Koch’s decadence, and then I too would have been removed from my post. We might never have met, Anna! I often think of that.
As do I, says Anna. As do I.
34
THE OBERSTURMFÜHRER DEPOSITS ANNA AT THE BAKERY late Sunday afternoon. She stands watching his car pull away, realizing belatedly that she could have asked for transport to collect Trudie. The thought never so much as crossed her mind; the less people know about her arrangement with the Obersturm-führer, the better for all concerned.
No matter; it is a fine, mild evening, and the sun now holds some warmth even as it sets. Yet Anna wants to grizzle like a child as she trudges along. She is exhausted from the Obersturm-führer ’s revelations and nocturnal demands. How much faster this journey could be in the Obersturmführer ’s car! Anna finds that she would like to slap herself for such a thought, but it persists nonetheless. She vows not to look away if she encounters a labor detachment; she will give the pastries in her handbag to anyone wearing the yellow star. But the streets are deserted. And no wonder: it is dinner hour on Easter Sunday.
Indeed, when Anna knocks on the door of the butcher shop, Mother Buchholtz and her flock are just sitting down to eat. The butcher’s widow leads Anna behind the store into the kitchen, where her children are gathered around the table. All sounds of slurping and chewing cease as Anna enters; the children inspect her traveling suit, its warm nubbly tweed, with awe.
Mama! Trudie calls. She has been stuffed into a highchair far too small for her, and she struggles to escape.
Just a minute, little one, Anna says.
She makes a face of chagrin at Frau Buchholtz. I’m sorry to have interrupted your meal, she says.
Frau Buchholtz averts her eyes.
That’s all right, she says to the corner.
Her hands wander to the Mother’s Cross pinned to her shirtwaist, her reward for having produced six children for the Reich. Its silver glints as though she polishes it every day. Perhaps she does.
Anna unfastens Trudie from the chair, planting a kiss on the child’s head where the parting divides into the fair braids. In preparation for Trudie’s stay here, Anna has carefully selected the child’s shabbiest clothes, only those of the Obersturmführer ’s gifts that have stood the most wear. Even so, the difference between Anna’s daughter and the Buchholtz children is all too evi-dent: Trudie, though spindly for a girl of two and a half, has good color and a shine to her hair, while the wrist bones of the Buchholtz brood look as if they will soon break the skin. Their eyes, staring at Anna over plates of bread spread with lard, appear simultaneously sunken and too large.