B004U2USMY EBOK (16 page)

“More money than you can imagine. Not that a
major like me would see any of it. It’s just my job, I don’t make
a profit.”

“You look like you’re doing pretty well.”

“I have access to a few nice things. That’s
different.” He must have misunderstood her question, because he
added quickly. “I’m not poor or anything, you understand.”

“Of course not.”

Ball bearings, money, big trainloads of
goods. The major’s lavish lifestyle. Possible motives for Gestapo
interest in Alfonse’s affairs came into focus.

And Helmut von Cratz, who seemed positioned
between Alfonse and Colonel Hoekman. Which side was he working
for?

She decided to push for that last bit of
critical information. “One more thing, I was wondering about. I
never see any of these other men you work with. You’re a major? Is
that important?”

“Of course. There are higher ranks, sure, but
I have my hands in everything. Many men answer to me.”

“Officers
and
enlisted men?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you ever have much contact with any of
the simple soldiers?” Gabriela said it casually,
simples
soldats,
in a way that might mean any lower rank. She
watched his reaction.

“As little as possible,” he answered with a
smile. “The privates, corporals and the like are good for a strong
back and a weak mind. They respond best to shouts and threats.”
If she’d aroused any suspicion, he didn’t show it. Alfonse’s face
betrayed nothing except his usual boastful attitude, mingled with
exhaustion from the previous evening’s debauchery.

She’d asked. Now what was she supposed to do?

Chapter Twelve:

Helmut wasn’t used to the naked vulnerability
in his wife’s face. He’d phoned Loise as soon as Gemeiner let him
go, then stayed in a hotel last night so as to allow her a chance
to adjust to the idea. It hadn’t been enough.

“Please, come in,” she said stiffly as he
stepped into the big foyer, as if inviting in a guest instead of
the owner of the house. “I’d take your jacket, but you’ll want to
keep it on, I’m afraid.”

He stepped inside and understood what she
meant. His breath came out in puffs. Loise wore a sweater and
heavy wool trousers.

“How are you, my dear?” he asked.

“As good as can be expected.”

Helmut looked around the front hallway, noted
a pair of children’s boots, a brightly colored umbrella, and a box
with some building blocks. “You have guests?”

She followed his gaze. “Ah, that would be
Della and Jarvis. Their parents work in Leipzig and they’ve been
evacuated.”

“Are the British and the Americans bombing
that far inland?” he asked, surprised.

“I don’t know, I don’t think so. Not yet.”

“It’s only a matter of time.”

“Yes.”

“And the children are difficult, or no?”

“No more difficult than any other child. But
I don’t always miss them when they go off to school.”

If the moment hadn’t already been awkward
enough, the mention of children made it doubly so. They stood and
looked at each other for a long moment before she cleared her
throat. “Well, they’re at school now, we have the house to
ourselves. Come in, please.”

She led him further into the house. Her gait
shuffled and he caught a grimace of pain. It was dark in the
house; most of the windows had blankets nailed over the frame to
cut down on drafts. Loise led him into the salon and shut the door
behind them. She made to shovel coal into the fireplace. “Let’s
warm things up and then I’ll make some coffee.”

“Let me do that, you get the coffee.” He took
the shovel and their hands met. Hers felt like ice. “You’ve had
trouble getting coal?”

“No, you’ve sent plenty. But it doesn’t look
good to have smoke pouring out of the chimney when we’ve seen coal
rations cut three times since October. I gave some of it away.
Discretely, of course, don’t worry.”

“And the oranges?” He smiled. “Please tell me
you didn’t give those to the neighbors.”

“Oh, god, were they good. I shared them with
the children, and Della actually started crying. I ate more than
my share, I confess. I took a little sugar and used the peel to
make cookies. Here, I still have two left, let me get them. We can
have them with the coffee.”

The cookies were good, the coffee weak, and
the conversation stilted. Loise was a beautiful woman, blonde and
with blue eyes; Helmut had been prodded many times about all the
beautiful little Aryans they were sure to produce. Alas, this
particular bloodline of the Master Race had apparently run its
course.

When the conversation sputtered and died,
Helmut picked up the newspaper Loise had left on the coffee table.
It was full of the usual propaganda, wishful thinking, and
outright lies. So many British bombers shot down, this many
American ships torpedoed. The usual stories of Soviet atrocities,
which may have been true enough, except for the part about the
valiant efforts of Germans to spread peace and prosperity
throughout Eastern Europe.

“I can’t read this rubbish,” he said at last
and tossed down the paper.

“Have you been following the news from the
Eastern Front?” Loise asked.

“This doesn’t exactly qualify as news.”

“Some of it is true.”

“Not enough,” he said.

“Maybe not, but you can learn a lot even from
what they don’t say.” She picked up the paper and flipped to the
third page. “The Fuhrer is talking about the great sacrifice of
the Sixth Army and how they’ll be known as heroes.”

“Sacrifice?”

“Exactly. Nothing about victory or pushing
the Soviets into the Volga River like what they were going on
about last fall.”

Helmut nodded. It was an exceptionally grim
sign.

“You know what I think?” Loise said. “I think
they’ve given up the Sixth Army for lost. The Bolsheviks have them
surrounded, that much is clear. There’s some nonsense about
holding out until spring and a massive new push. An air bridge,
reinforcements, a counter-attack, all that sort of nonsense. But
then you see that some of the generals have been airlifted out of
the army. Why would you do that?”

“Because you think the cause is lost.”

“And what then? Is the war turning against
us, Helmut? You see these things, you have to know.”

“We’ve lost the momentum,” he admitted. “And
there are so many of them. But it all depends on whether or not
the Soviets can sustain an offensive.”

“Do you know
Frau
Schneider?” she asked.

“The lady with all the dogs?”

“Not so many dogs anymore, but yes,” Loise
said. “She has a Ukrainian servant girl. The girl’s brothers are
volunteers with the Wehrmacht and she volunteered to come work in
Germany.”

“The Reich is full of foreign volunteers
these days.”

“So this girl said that when the Bolsheviks
recaptured her village, they committed outrages against every
woman and girl in town. The soldiers were Mongolians and Cossacks.
And Russians, too, of course.”

“Our troops have not always behaved in an
upright manner, either,” Helmut pointed out.

“You wouldn’t catch Germans behaving like
animals,” she protested, to which he said nothing. “And this was a
Ukrainian village! The Bolsheviks were liberating it and they
still committed outrages. There was a baby. Six months old. They
took her and—no, I can’t even say it. The stories were horrible,
awful.”

“You can’t think about that. It’s far away
and you can’t help by worrying about it.”

“We simply must win this war.”

“You can’t worry about that.”

“And if we don’t? If we lose?”

“If we lose, it won’t be to the Soviets.
Don’t forget about the Americans.”

Loise got up to check the fire, returned to
her seat. “I don’t know, I just don’t know what to believe
anymore. They don’t tell us anything, they’re trying to protect
us, I know, but I just want to know the truth. How can I prepare
myself if I don’t?”

Helmut made a sudden decision. “I have
business in Switzerland in two weeks. Would you like to come?”

“A vacation, now? What would we do in
Switzerland?”

“No, not a vacation. A vacation has limited
duration.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh. And you would come
with me?”

“Of course. At least at first, to help you
get settled.”

“I see. Then what’s the point?”

“You’ll be safe, that’s the point.”

“Helmut, Switzerland isn’t safe either.
Nowhere is safe.”

“There are safer places than here.”

“No, I can’t do it, not now. Maybe. . .” Her
voice trailed out. “Maybe if the Bolsheviks come here, then—no,
that is impossible. I just can’t believe it will come to that.
This is all temporary. We just need to work out a truce with the
Americans and British and then we can win this war. We can still
win, don’t you think? Don’t you think so? Helmut?”

He looked down at his empty cup. After a
long, awkward silence, he said, “May I please have some more
coffee?”

She got up wordlessly and took the cup. It
was a relief when she left the room.

#

They made love that night. Rather, tried to.

Loise had warmed the bed with the pan and
then heaped the bed with extra blankets before going down to the
WC. The electricity was out, so she took the lamp. Helmut wore
socks, woolen underwear, and a hat. He resisted the urge to stoke
the stove and throw off some of the blankets. Instead, he climbed
in and waited in the dark.

The children had seemed intimidated by his
presence at the dinner table. They shyly waited until he gave them
permission to eat, then only spoke in whispers when they wanted
something. Normally, he might have brought a tin of cookies to
break down their defenses, but given the circumstances of his
arrival, he didn’t have so much as a piece of chocolate to share
between the two. It took almost until bedtime to break them out of
their shells, when Helmut sat at the piano and played old Bavarian
folk songs, while Loise joined him in singing. By
“
Mir Ham’s Vom Sauerkraut,”
they were laughing
and clapping.

Loise returned from the bathroom wearing a
nightie. She stood by the door, shivering, with the lamp held
unsteadily in one hand.

“Is something wrong?”

“You look beautiful,” he said, truthfully.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

He tried to erase whatever expression he’d
been wearing. “I was surprised is all. I thought it would be too
difficult.”

“To make love to my husband? I’m not so sick
as that, just a little uncomfortable.”

And yet Loise gave a distinct grimace of pain
as she sat on the edge of the bed and extinguished the lamp. She
moved like an old woman as she stretched herself beneath the
covers. “I’ll feel better once I’m warmed up a little. Want to
help?”

It was stupid to get his hopes up, but in
spite of the pain, of everything, at the first touch he wanted
her. It had been so long. He needed her so badly he was
shuddering. She kissed him and touched him and helped him out of
his clothes and everything seemed to be just perfect. But when the
time came to enter her, one, two, three movements and she was
stiffening in pain. He tried to stop, but she begged him to
continue and he did so until at last he knew she couldn’t stand it
anymore and he couldn’t stand knowing she couldn’t, so he pulled
away and rolled onto his side. The ache was almost too much to
bear.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“No, no it’s okay.” He just needed to regain
control. It would only take a minute.

“Let me touch you, let me do it that way. I
can still do it for you, you understand.”

“Loise.”

She put her hand between his legs. “Shh, just
let me, please. Let me try.”

He didn’t think it would be possible, but he
was a man, after all, and it had been months. Within a few minutes
it was over. She had a handkerchief by the lamp, which she used to
clean him up. And then she leaned her head on his chest.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Thank me? I didn’t do anything. But maybe I
could—”

She put a hand on his lips. “Shhh. No, maybe
later. I just need to relax and it will feel better.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know.”

They lay in silence for several minutes, but
just when he thought she was asleep, she said, “France is a long
way from home. It’s almost another world.”

“France is a lot like here. Just people,
struggling. Things are getting the same way everywhere.”

“Is it hard for them?” Loise asked.

“They’re enduring the war. Hungry. My
employees are so thin, are always talking about food and recipes.
Their children are even thinner and hungrier. It’s heartbreaking.”

“You should help them.”

“Oh, I do, believe me, whenever I can. Last
week alone I gave out two hundred loaves, three hundred kilos of
flour, plus cooking oil, potatoes, beans, coffee, and even some
dried apples. Some weeks I can get more, some less, but it’s
always something, whatever I can get. But they’re still hungry. I
don’t know how someone would survive on official rations, it’s
just not possible.”

“I’m glad you can help. You’re a good man.”
She put her hand on his face and stroked it. “You’ve got a whole
separate life there, don’t you? But I’m grateful you come to visit
when you can.”

There was something else she was saying, but
he couldn’t pin it down. “You need to stop worrying about the war.
We’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

“No. I mean, yes, I worry. But you’ve made a
different life, you have to. An apartment, contacts. You probably
live your life thinking in French half the time.”

“Well, sure, that’s just natural. I’m
speaking it so much.”