The Girl from Krakow (38 page)

“Very impressive, Schulke, but—”

The
Kriminalsekretär
was unable to staunch his subordinate’s enthusiastic report: “Now we have found her
in flagranto delecti
with another woman. And this woman carries the identity papers of another acquaintance of the woman implicated in the attempted assassination of the
Führer
: Dani Nowiki, worked with the Halle woman, left the employ of the Reich Tax Inspectorate in Krakow without leave, now turns up here six months later with the first suspect and is her lover apparently.” Schulke slapped the file of papers on the
Sturmscharführer’s
desk, smiling in triumph. He had finally vindicated himself.

Now the enormity of what was about to happen became clear to Rita. They knew. It was the
Abwehr
—the intelligence department of the German General Staff—that wanted her. That could mean only one thing. Somehow the Germans had learned that she held a secret. She would never have the strength to resist interrogation and torture, to deny what Erich had told her and had warned her could cost not just her life but the Allies the war. Why had he done so? Merely to give her a reason to survive? At the risk of the Germans winning the war? She began to look around her. Was there something she could use quickly to put an end to herself? A window to jump from, the edge of a desk to strike her head on, a letter opener upright in a pencil dish she could impale herself upon? Could she hang herself in the toilet? Anything. But she was handcuffed behind the chair to Dani.

“Very good police work, Schulke. Patient, thorough, all watertight. I am sure you have finally managed to track down some serious enemies of the Reich, at least a couple of Jewesses in hiding.” The
Sturmscharführer
stopped, leaned back in his chair, lit a cigarette, drew in a breath, and blew a series of smoke rings, each perfectly shaped and replaced by another as it dissipated. After an appreciative glance at the paperwork before him, he turned to his subordinate. “Now, unlock those handcuffs and let the nice young ladies go home.”

“What?”

It was said with too much defiance from an
Unterstrumführer
to let it pass unnoticed. “That’s an order,
Unterstrumführer
.
Sofort—
immediately. And don’t ever use that tone with me, even after the surrender.”

Schulke could not respond. He could do nothing but sputter.

“Yes, that’s what I said
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
after the surrender
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
to the
Amis
.” The
Sturmscharführer
looked at him, realizing that the stupid man just couldn’t understand his situation. If he had, he would never have carried this pointless little exercise so far. “Unlock the ladies and sit down; there’s a good fellow.” Wordlessly, Schulke pulled a key from his waistcoat, walked around the two women’s chairs, took off the handcuffs, and returned to his desk, where he slumped into the chair.

“Let me explain,
Unterstrumführer
. The
Amis
are at the Siegfried Line, a hundred kilometers from here.” Calling them
Amis
made the Americans sound almost like friends. “With any luck the war will be over in a few weeks. When it’s over, we’ll be the lucky ones—alive, in one piece, and occupied by the Allies—not the Ivans. About the only thing you and I can do now to lose our particular war is to go around making difficulties for nice young Jewish girls.” Schulke still didn’t get it. “Look, when the Americans get here, people who went out of their way to give the Jews a hard time are going to pay. The people who took their property are going to come in for a beating too. But people who were just following orders—policemen, for example—well, what choice did we have? The
Amis
will understand that. Besides, they’ll need us to keep things running smoothly, just like we are going to need them to eat next winter.

“If, right up to the last minute, you make it your business to ship Jews off to some extermination camp that probably won’t even be working anymore when they get there, well, it won’t be very easy for the
Amis
to overlook that kind of zeal. Understand,
Untersturmführer?
”
He turned to Rita and Dani. “You girls just go home. In fact, I’m going to drive you home. Wouldn’t do to be caught after curfew.”

As the
Kriminalsekretär
drove them away from the station in a
Grosser Mercedes
, Rita couldn’t suppress a swelling feeling of vindication. It was, after all, perfectly clear. The idea that Erich had inoculated her mind with, that had kept her alive for so long, had in the suddenly changed environment of the police station become fatal to her. But then she had been spared by another Darwinian struggle. The bacillus of Nazism was losing the struggle for survival against other parasites in the German mind. It wasn’t kindness or scruple or opportunism she had to thank for the comfortable ride she was getting back to the Lempkes. It was something that had recently taken hold of this man’s mind, something that had displaced what had been there, running his life, for the previous twelve years or so. Something different from Nazism, better in the current circumstances at exploiting his own personal desire for survival, another trait imposed on him by Mother Nature. All that, plus a certain amount of random chance. She was going to survive to be liberated.

Three days later, and liberation did not seem so palpable a thought after all. The
Grossdeutscher Rundfunk
was full of the great breakthrough battle in the Ardennes, on the border with Belgium. At last, the
Führer
’s masterstroke that would divide the
Amis
and the Limeys from the Bolsheviks, bring the war in the west to a standstill, and allow Germany to mass all its strength in the east. Was the complaisant
Sturmscharführer
going to change his mind and send Schulke after Rita and Dani after all?

Frau Lempke kept the radio on all day long, listening for bulletins. Rita was required to maintain a joyful countenance as she went about her work, being called hourly into the parlor to join the family in listening to news of the advance. How could this surprise have overtaken the Allies? Perhaps they didn’t have the German codes after all. Perhaps someone like Rita had known and betrayed them. If so, could the Germans bring the Allies to a standstill in the west?
Perhaps
, Rita thought. But nothing could any longer stop the Soviet onslaught. After a week with no news of any German victories in the east, the same thought must have begun to occur to Frau Lempke.

One afternoon before Christmas, she turned to Rita. “What if the
Amis
stop before they reach the Reich and the Russians sweep all the way to the Rhine? What then? Have they thought about that in Berlin?”

Rita had never been asked to respond to a geopolitical question before. Silence seemed the safest response. The lack of reassurance made Frau L more loquacious. “I thought about your warning. I have purchased poison—cyanide pills—for the children.” She omitted herself, though Rita knew there were enough pills for the children and their mother.

Rita felt the urge to be provocative. “Do you have enough for yourself? Can you spare one for the housemaid?”

“I have thought about it. I cannot take the easy way out. If there is any chance, the
Führer
will need more Germans. I am still young enough to have more children. So I won’t be needing mine. Therefore I have an extra dose I offer you.”

“Thank you.” Rita added a quiet,
“
Heil Hitler
.”

Once the Allies had rolled back the last German offensive to the Siegfried Line at the German border, Frau Lempke began thinking harder about how to cope with the coming western occupation. Barrels were procured, brought up the Schlangenweg by Rita, filled carefully by Frau L with silver, china, her Dresden figurines, crystal, and damask, then carried out to the back garden, there to be buried. Rita made it her business to misremember the exact location of each hole she dug and to scrupulously record the misinformation in Frau L’s little copybook.

In late March, the day after she finished her excavations, the entire family found itself for the first time visiting Rita in the cellar. Apparently, low-level Allied air strikes had set off the air-raid alarms in Heidelberg, almost for the first time in the war. The scream of engines approached and then began to rattle windowpanes. Frau Lempke would not stand on ceremony. She brought her entire brood down for a visit to the cellar. Soon Rita was asked to go up in the kitchen so that there would be enough room for Frau L and the children in the only room without a window in the house. Rita found herself standing alone in the kitchen reflecting on the irony that, after five years of war and almost four years of German bestiality, she was about to be killed by the American Air Force. As the sound died away, she began to see what looked at first like large white snowflakes flitting through the air. Suddenly she realized they were too large for snowflakes. Some caught a tree limb, but most landed across the back garden. Yet they did not melt in the warm sun or in the wet puddles. They were handbills.

Stepping out the back door, Rita could see writing on the papers. In roman script but German language, the pieces of paper called upon civilians in Mannheim to evacuate the city or remain in bomb shelters, basements, or other protected areas. Evidently the leaflet bombers had missed their target, twenty kilometers to the west. Now the children came out of the house and, led by Flossie, began picking up the leaflets and carrying them into the kitchen to burn. Frau L stood before the door. “Did you get every last one, children?”

The next afternoon Dani arrived at the back door. Rita was unsurprised to see her. “The old lady I work for has left town. She forced me to clear out before she locked up her flat. Everyone in Mannheim is getting out.”

“We saw the leaflets. They dropped some here.”

“There’s a
Volks-Sturm—
people’s storm unit—and what’s left of a
Hitler Jungend
brigade defending the city. The
Bürgermeister
tried to surrender the town, but they won’t allow it. There’ll be street-to-street fighting in the ruins. When I left I could see civilians with rifles hiding in wait. It’s going to be like Warsaw.”

“You can stay here, at least for a few days. Go on downstairs. I’ll deal with Frau Lempke.” Just then the parlor bell rang on the kitchen wall.

Rita went upstairs and found the front door open. There was Herr Lempke, whom she had not seen more than twice since she had arrived from Krakow, carrying bags from a government
Opel
into the house. She walked down the front steps, took a valise from his hand, and brought it up to the front door. He nodded at her, and she followed him into the parlor, where he took off his hat and coat and handed them to her.

Frau Lempke was standing at the bellpull. “Ah, Rita. Bring Herr Lempke a pot of tea.”