City of Women (40 page)

“The tunnel,” Sigrid commands, and heads for the concrete stairwell below the sign that reads
PLAZA PASSAGEWAY TO THE HOTEL EXCELSIOR. SHOPPING IN THE TUNNEL
. The stairwell leads downward to a bustling corridor, dull yellow with the glow of subterranean lighting. Sigrid has a flash of her mother gazing into a dress shop window, while her father frowns at his watch, but the shops are closed now,
NUR ANTRAPPEN
notices in the windows.

“Follow me. Hurry, but don’t run,” Sigrid instructs. But Ericha suddenly seems frozen.

“Frau Weiss,” Sigrid calls, and hands off the little girl to her. “Go straight. We’ll catch up.”

When Sigrid turns back, all Ericha says is, “I can’t.”

“You can and you will, if I must
drag
you, Fräulein Kohl,” Sigrid informs her. “Now,
move
,
please.”

Halfway through the tunnel, Sigrid risks a glance over her shoulder, but there is no sign of the Gestapo. Ahead, a circus clown with a painted red grin is collecting for Winter Relief beside a Party man in full brown regalia and a swastika armband. The clown gives Frau Weiss’s children a jaunty wave, and they gaze back at him widely. “How goes it, little ones?” the clown calls to them. “Can you give up your ice creams today so Mutti can make a donation?” Sigrid quickly intervenes, dropping coins into the collection urn.

“Heil Hitler,” the Party man says, and smiles, flapping her a German salute.

“Heil Hitler, and good afternoon,” Sigrid says, smiling back, but keeps everyone walking, slowing only to pick up the older girl. Good soldier Liesl. The trusting weight of the child in her arms touches something in her, but all she says is, “At the end of the corridor, go left up the steps.”

The stairs leading upward are many, though Sigrid keeps her gaze aimed at the rectangle of hard white daylight waiting for them. As they emerge into the Saarlandstrasse, her eyes search, but only for a instant, before she spots Rudi, crushing out his cigarette on his boot heel, and stuffing the unsmoked butt behind his ear. Flinging open the rear door of his cab, he asks, “Taxi, gnädige Frauen?”

Frau Weiss into the rear first with the little one, and then Sigrid deposits Liesl. “In, please,” she tells Ericha next.

“You knew,”
Ericha concludes in a penetrating whisper; her voice sounds as if it is drilling through a deep fog. “You knew that it was me, didn’t you?”

“You’re aware of the rules,” Sigrid answers. “No questions. Now,
in
,
please,” she repeats.

And this time Ericha offers no resistance.

•   •   •

T
HE DILAPIDATED CANVAS-TOPPED LORRY
sits in the dim recesses of an alley beside a bombed-out Handwerk warehouse on the south side of the canal.

“It was just where you said it would be,” Rudi announces. “An Opel Blitz three-tonner.”

“It meets your high standards, I hope?” Sigrid says

A shrug. “It’s a bit of an ogre. The three-tonner handles like a barge full of rocks. But at least it has new tires. I haven’t seen new tires since 1938.”

“And the papers were in place?”

According to the registration, your driver will be a civilian contractor, with a permit to transport a war widow and her children from Berlin to Lübeck, after the family’s flat was bombed
, Kaspar’s letter to her had read.

“All in order,” Rudi assure her. “Very neat.”

“Yes,” Sigrid nods as she surveys the lorry, thinking of Kaspar as she lightly touches the high, side-view mirror. “Very neat.”

Climbing into the cab, Rudi turns over the engine and leaves it idling, the tailpipe stinking of diesel smoke, and then hops back down to the asphalt. Lowering the rear gate, he shoves back the canvas flaps, revealing a conglomeration of mismatched furnishings.

“So should I ask where all the furniture came from?” Sigrid inquires.

Rudi lifts his eyebrows. “I had a chum help me. If a family is moving, I thought it should look convincing. Which means furniture.” He tosses away the nib of a cigarette. “There’s room up front for the lady and her children,” he says. “And a bench in the rear for the Fräulein. We should load up.”

Sigrid peers into a small shack by the taxis’ shed, where a coffeepot sits on an electric hotplate. Frau Weiss clutching a tin cup, with Liesl on her lap. Little Ruthi with her wooden tiger tapping across the wooden floor. Ericha lowers her cigarette as her eyes rise, but Sigrid still avoids her gaze. “It’s time to go,” is all she says.

Rudi lifts the little girls up onto the front seat. Sigrid watches them scoot to the middle with a mixture of uncertainty and anticipation. Then she speaks to Frau Weiss in a confidential tone, handing her a small envelope. “I picked these up at an apothecary. Sedatives. Mild enough for the girls. It’s a long trip to Lübeck, and it’ll help them sleep.”

“Thank you, Frau Schröder,” the woman replies, gripping Sigrid’s hand, her eyes warming with tears.

“Keep your children close, Frau Weiss,” Sigrid tells her.

“I will.
Thank you
,” she repeats.

“Mama,” the little one calls, and waves the wooden tiger.

“When they reach Lübeck,” Sigrid says, “give them this kiss for me,” she smiles, and carefully kisses the woman’s cheek and watches her climb aboard.

Only now, when there is no other choice, does she look Ericha in the eyes.

“And so it’s you next,” she says. “Come, come. We don’t want the lorry to run out of petrol idling in the alley. Climb aboard.”

“Sigrid.”

“If you’re stopped, which you won’t be, but if you are, tell them that you’re visiting your fiancée in the Kriegsmarine. Heinrich. I think that’s a good name for a fiancée, don’t you? Heinrich Schuler of Third Port Battery Command. Now, climb aboard, or shall I have Rudi lift you up like one of the children? You’d do that for me, wouldn’t you, Rudi? Tell her.”

“I follow the gnädige Frau’s orders,” Rudi confirms. He raises one of the lorry’s hood covers and makes an adjustment, which causes the motor to growl impatiently. “But we must get moving. Lübeck isn’t exactly a Sunday drive.”

“Exactly so. Therefore, no delays, please. I’ve given Rudi your Reisepass along with your travel papers and money for your passage. For once, Fräulein Kohl, just
do as you’re told
. It’ll be a new experience for you.”

“You haven’t answered me,” Ericha says. Her eyes like shattered blue shards of crystal.

“What I
knew
, child, is that I wasn’t going to allow that baby inside of you to be born in a concentration camp. Nothing else. Only that.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes.”

“ I can’t simply
leave
.”

“
Yes
. You
can
. It’s an uncomplicated process. You ride in a lorry till you reach a ship. Then you sail in that ship till you reach the shore of Sweden. And then you are safe.” She feels her eyes heating up. Going damp.

“You think I
want
to be safe?”

“I think that regardless of what you
want
, Fräulein Kohl, we must
have
you safe.”

Ericha stares. “And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yes. Frau Schröder.” She swallows. “What about her?”

“She will continue,” Sigrid answers. She looks away to wipe the tears from her eyes. “What else can she do? Now, there’s nothing more to be said,” she declares, and clasps Ericha close. “Except good-bye.” Her eyes suddenly sting. “Think of me often, my dearest girl,” she whispers as she hugs her so very tightly. “I will always think of you.”

“Ladies,”
Rudi prompts.

Sigrid breaks away and stands back as Ericha accepts a hand from Rudi and climbs into the lorry. Rudi raises the tailgate and chains it shut, and then unlaces the canvas flaps, closing the curtain on the depth of Ericha’s gaze. “Tschüss, Chefin,” he says to Sigrid, as he climbs into the cab.

“Tschüss, Rudi,” she answers. The engine coughs, then turns over, sputtering irritably. But as the old junk heap jerks forward, Ericha parts the canvas flaps. “It’ll never work out,” she calls, tears streaking her face, “between Heinrich and me!”

And Sigrid watches her face as the lorry pulls out into the silvered daylight and turns onto the street.

—

The feature has started as she steps into the mezzanine balcony of the cinema. On the screen, a squad of soldiers is crouched in a circle around a fallen comrade. There are a few faces in the audience, hard to read in silhouette, staring at the screen. She knows she is late, and is ready to believe that he did not wait, though the thought rips at her heart.

But then she spots him. Under the projector in the back row.

“So,” she hears him say in graveled whisper, “pigs fly.”

“I’m only here,” she tells him, her words thickening in her throat. “I am only here to say good-bye.”

“Then, Frau Schröder,” he tells her, “your timing is impeccable.”

As he shifts, she sees his hand pressed against his side. Sees the pain shaping his face in the flickering glow, and the dark stain on his fingers.

“You’re hurt,”
she whispers sharply.

“I suppose one could say that.”

“My
God
, Egon, we must get you to a
doctor.
”

“No.”

“It’s all right. There’s a doctor who keeps his mouth shut. No questions. I know where his surgery is.”

“No, Sigrid. No doctors. This is not a matter for doctors,” he says, and swallows pain as he tries to reach into his coat. “I
can’t
,” he breathes. “I need your help. There’s an envelope.”

“Egon.”

“Please, Sigrid, just
get it
.”

Carefully, she reaches into his coat. Hand brushing across his chest. An intimate dip into the recesses of his clothing. Then there’s the envelope. Wartime paper, rough against her fingertips. She draws it out.

“Don’t open it until you’re somewhere safe. You’ll find a claim ticket inside,” he tells her, then his face twists. He chokes back a cry. “Fucking hell,” he whispers. “That’s the last time I order the Stammgericht at the Kranzler.”

“Tell me what happened. Tell me,” she whispers her command.

“Your young U-boat.”

A flash of the hawkish eyes, and the angry voice in her ear:
Grizmek. I’ve seen you with him
. “He found you,” she breathes.

“Well, his knife blade did.”

“And I led him to you,” she says with damp horror, but Egon shakes his head.

“No. Not you. It was
my
mistake. Like most animals, I’m prone to habit. I foolishly made a return to my old hunting grounds around the Gedächtniskirche, and there he was, waiting. My personal angel of death. He must have spotted me on the street and followed me into the U-Bahn. I didn’t see him till the knife was out.” He nearly smiles. “Justice, isn’t it? A kind of justice? You can’t disagree,” he insists. “Maybe that’s what I was looking for. But never mind. What’s important now is the claim ticket. Take it to the baggage desk at the Bahnhof Zoo. The clerk will give you a leather kit bag in return. Inside of it,” he says, and then must stop to breathe in the pain. “Inside of it,” he repeats, “you’ll find eighty thousand marks.”

“Egon.” She whispers his name. Maybe just to hear it aloud.

“I think, with that kind of wire, you can smuggle out a lot of Jews, don’t you, Frau Schröder? Call it my contribution.” He tries to grin, but then lurches forward for an instant, like a wrestler trying to establish a superior grip on his opponent. When he falls back into the seat, there is blood where he has bitten into his lip. “
Go
, will you?”

“No.”

“Yes.
Please
, Sigrid. It isn’t safe here. Besides. I don’t want you to watch me die. Not like this.”

Tears wet her cheeks. “I won’t leave you.”

“You’ve never
watched
a man die from a belly wound. But I have. It’s ugly. As ugly as it gets. And I’d rather your last memory of me not involve any puking of blood. So, please.
Go
.” He says this as the pain cuts into him again, and he shudders angrily, trying to contain it.
“Go,”
he repeats.

But she knows that for once she will not do what he asks of her. “No, Egon,” she says, and wipes the tears from her eyes efficiently. She has given him her breath and the pulse of her body. Given him her passion, her hatred, and her love, her past and future. Given him all that is essential in her, so that she will never be whole without him. But it hasn’t been enough. She knows she must give him one final gift. His freedom.

“I have something for you. Something that will help,” she tells him gently. She had pinned it into her hair in case she was taken. In case she was tossed into in a prison cell with nothing. The small brass capsule. She removes it from the prong of the hairpin and opens it up. “Something that will act very quickly.”

The film projector mutters above them, beaming sterile, blue-white light. He gazes thickly at the glass vial in the palm of her hand. “Your resourcefulness, Sigrid Schröder, continues to astound me.” Then he raises his eyes to hers. “But I can’t,” he says. “I can’t let you waste it.”

“Waste it,” she repeats.

“What happens. what happens when the day comes that you need it for yourself?”

“It won’t come,” she says.

But he manages to shake his head. “You don’t know that. In fact. If you’ve learned anything—it should be how
easy
it is for people—for people to betray one another. That day may come. And then you’ll have”—he breathes in raggedly—“no way out.”

“I don’t care. I won’t let you suffer like this.”

“Suffer?”
He almost smiles. “It’s the least that I deserve. Ask anyone. Ask yourself. Is the selfish bastard worth it?”

“Yes,” she replies. “That’s my decision. He is. Now, no more argument, if you please, Herr Grizmek.” And then, “Please, Egon,” she whispers. “Let me. Let me help you.”

His eyes have closed.

“Egon.”

When they open again, he says, “My daughters.” Staring ahead. “My daughters. When I close my eyes, I can see their faces.” He says this as if it surprises him, or haunts him. When she speaks his name again, he doesn’t answer her. Only stares ahead and grits his teeth through a spasm. Then blinks his eyes once when it ends. The tears steam her eyes as she carefully parts his lips with her fingers. He does not resist as she inserts the vial into the back of his mouth and whispers heat into his ear.
“I love you. I will love you always.”
The last heat she will ever offer him. He hesitates, infinitesimally, before he bites down. She feels his body flinch. Nothing more than that. A flinch. And then she feels its stillness enter her heart.