The Roses Underneath (33 page)

The voice was thick and congealed, with an accent Anna hadn’t heard before. The words came slow and wet, and the talker breathed loudly through his nose. It sounded like the voice of a fat man, Anna thought.

“Major, if you’ll just let me explain, I’m sure I can make you understand my objections to having Schneider work here.” Anna recognized Cooper’s voice. He sounded reasoned and steady even under the attack, but Anna knew he was boiling. “I have real concerns about his story and I respectfully ask that we wait just a few more days until we can check out that what he’s telling us is true.” His voice was taut and airless, as if he was trying to keep it inside a box that was too small.

“Listen, Cooper, I had to come all the way from Frankfurt to get this straightened out. You think I have nothing better to do?” The voice seemed to come closer and Anna ducked.

“Dammit Major, this isn’t a game,” Cooper said. “I take this seriously. Don’t you think there are people who want to get their hands on what we’ve got here? Are you sure when we hire someone that they’re on our side? Did you know that the Germans think we are here to take this art back to the States? That we are going to steal it from them? Have you considered that maybe someone got the idea to steal it back from us first? What’s a few days, just to be sure?”

“Look here, Cooper, I don’t give a damn what the Krauts think. Don’t make it worse. Here’s what’s going to happen: You’ll take a break from all your Lone Ranger bullshit until we get this all sorted out. I’ve found a nice little job for you out at the airfield, supervising incoming supply shipments. No intrigue, no excitement. Consider it a paid vacation courtesy of Uncle Sam. You can get used to following orders again. Once we deal with the highly interesting case of your missing sidearm and everything else you have been up to, we’ll get things moving properly again and maybe we can find a place for you. I know Farmer likes you a lot, and I like Farmer—he’s doing a good job as director—so that counts for something. But I won’t promise anything. For now, you’re out of the game. Consider yourself benched.”

Heavy footsteps approached the top of the stairs, with a second set squeaking alongside. Anna tip-toed down the stairs as fast as she could and made it to the bottom before the footsteps started down from above. She backed up several paces toward the main entry door before reversing course and starting back toward the stairs as if she had just entered the building. She pretended to bump into the two
Amis
as they rounded the bottom of the stairs. Cooper’s face was flushed and sweat beaded on his hairline. His eyes were angry and unsettled, his jaw set. Next to him was not the fat man Anna expected, but a tall, dark-haired man with angular cheekbones and a movie star mustache. He stopped to look at her as if she had no business being there. Anna wondered if she was expected to step aside to let him pass, but she stood her ground. She didn’t like the way he talked to Cooper.

“Frau Klein, good morning,” Cooper coughed. He took a step down to stand between Anna and the other American. “Major Phillips, this is my translator Frau Klein. She’s one of our best civilian workers.” Cooper stared at Anna, trying to convey some message she couldn’t decipher. Anna decided to play dumb.

“A pleasure to meet you, Major. Captain, I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” she said.

“You speak English?” Phillips grunted. Anna shot a look at Cooper, who rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I am the translator, after all.” She smiled through her clenched teeth.

Phillips plowed on, oblivious. “All right, well, Captain Cooper has been relieved of his duties here. I’ll talk to the folks up front about getting you reassigned. Why don’t you go upstairs and get that mess of an office straightened up? I’ll send someone up to get you.” He pushed past her. “Cooper, you come with me. Nice to meet you, Frau Klein.”

Anna stood on the bottom stair and watched the two men walk the length of the gallery, Phillips marching ahead and Cooper following, his back stiff as a board. She waited for Cooper to turn back and give her a look, something to reassure her in his usual way, but he didn’t.

Below the window by Anna’s little table, the trucks pulled into the courtyard, one after the other. She had cleaned up Cooper’s desk and put away all the files and notes and looked once more for the camera in all the places it should have been but wasn’t. After surveying her work, she took Schneider’s file from the drawer, folded in half and put in her bag, although she wasn’t sure what use it was. She wondered what to do now. Pulling out Cooper’s squeaky chair, she sat down and rested her elbows on the desk. Her mind floated back to the events at the Nassauer Hof and she realized with a jolt she had left the painting Cooper had given her back at Madeleine’s apartment. The thought that she had contributed to Cooper’s troubles made her cringe, but then she remembered it had all been his idea. “It will all be okay,” she muttered, affecting Cooper’s round vowels. She wanted to slap him and then herself for going along with his stupid plan. Still, she did mostly believe him and it was obvious that Schneider was, at the very least, a liar. He was clearly used to finding ways around the rules if it suited him. But for Cooper to prove that to Phillips, he would have to confess about the meeting at the Nassauer Hof, and that would be the end of his job for sure. And Anna’s too, she realized. She put her head down on the desk and tried to think. Cooper’s angry face floated in front of her eyes and she tried to push it away.
This is all his fault,
she told herself. But she knew he had kept his mouth shut at least in part to protect her and she softened. It was hard to stay angry with him, which worried her.

The floor in the hallway creaked in the way that usually announced someone’s approach. Anna lifted her head to see Schneider, sweating and looking taken aback, as if he had read her thoughts.

“Frau Klein! I was…I was looking for…” he stammered and looked around. “I think perhaps I am in the wrong place.” He turned to go.

“Are you looking for Captain Cooper?” Anna asked. She stood up from the table and walked around to confront the little man. “He’s not here at the moment.”

Schneider laughed. “Well, as it happens, I am here to meet with Major Phillips. He is visiting from Frankfurt.”

“Ah, yes. That makes sense,” Anna said.

Schneider shrugged innocently. “I received a letter asking me to be here at nine o’clock this morning. So here I am. You’ve met him?”

Anna ignored the questions. “A letter? When?”

“I guess it was yesterday.” As soon as the words left his mouth he tried to reel them back in. He coughed.

Anna nodded slowly. “You knew yesterday that you would be meeting with Phillips here today?” she asked. Now it was clear. Phillips was here to make sure Schneider got the job he had recommended him for. And he had gotten rid of Cooper to pave the way. Anna folded her arms. “You didn’t even need my help to get the job. You knew that yesterday. And yet you let Schenk treat me like some criminal, let him threaten me? That’s not very gentlemanly, Herr Schneider.”

Schneider’s eyes darted left and right. “No, no, not at all my dear. We wanted to help you. Well, I did. Schenk, he’s wound pretty tight, but he’s very good at this sort of thing and really not a bad fellow.” He lowered his voice. “I must tell you he wasn’t happy at all with that…item. He’s convinced you were trying something funny. But I calmed him down, don’t worry. And now I’m here, so it’s all water under the bridge anyway.”

“Why is Phillips so hot for you to work here?” Anna asked. “Why does he give a damn about you? Does it have something to do with the art the
Amis
found at the villa outside of town?”

Schneider stared at her. Anna stared back, holding her breath.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he finally said.

“But you do, of course. I guess you’ve already convinced some
Ami
higher up that the art at the villa is legally yours. I saw it in the paperwork. And we both know who the
Ami
is.”

Schneider began to sputter, but Anna kept going. “Yesterday, I wanted to see if you would recognize the painting I brought you. But you didn’t. It was only your friend who recognized it. That seems strange to me, since I thought it was supposed to be one of your paintings from your gallery inventory. The one from the villa.”

Schneider stepped toward her. “My art? I don’t have any art. I have nothing.” He steadied his beady eyes to underscore his attempt at sincerity but the lie was as obvious and shiny as the sweat on his brow.
For a crook, he is a terrible liar
, Anna thought.
Better to let him go for now.
She tried not to smile as she pretended to backtrack. “Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, you said that before. You ended up with nothing. I thought I saw some papers that said you were placing a claim on the art from the villa. I must be confused. But maybe something of yours will still turn up and the
Amis
can prove it’s rightfully yours.”

Schneider tried a different tack. “So you don’t need money for your husband’s papers?
Because it certainly seemed to me the other day that you were eager to reunite your family. Or was that a lie too?”

“No, that’s no lie,” Anna said. “I am still trying to raise the money to bring my husband here. I will figure something out.”

“It’s possible we can still help you with that,” Schneider said in a lowered voice. “Now that we are all on the same team.”

A pair of GIs squeaked passed them with long strides and Schneider pretended to wind his his watch. “I should probably go.” He coughed. “Frau Klein, I am sure it’s in our mutual interest to keep yesterday’s meeting to ourselves, wouldn’t you say?”

Anna smiled and nodded thoughtfully. “Of course. I would be very grateful to you, Herr Schneider, if you didn’t mention it, since I was quite out of order with my little scheme. I had no business tricking you that way.” She held out her hand. “After all, I do need to keep my job.”

When he was gone, Anna wiped her hand on her pants leg and sat back down.
Bastard
. Maybe she could worm her way into working with Schneider, to align herself with him, at least in appearances, to keep track of him. He seemed to have a soft spot for her. And maybe he knew something about Oskar’s family, if he was so well-connected. She kicked herself for not asking about the boy. Not that Schneider would have told her anything anyway. Still, he might have given some clue if he knew something about how and why the boy came to be there. Now that she was without Cooper at the Collecting Point, she would have to figure out a way to prove his instincts had been correct. She was angry that he had been so unceremoniously dismissed by Phillips. Maybe she could still make herself useful without him.

That notion flew out the window as soon as she saw Frau Obersdorfer’s head come up the stairs and the accompanying body march toward her. The woman’s flushed face could not conceal its owner’s glee in Anna’s demise. Anna put on a defensive smile and leaned back in her chair.

“Frau Klein. You’ll be coming back to the typing pool,” the woman twittered. She pointed to Anna’s table. “Take that typewriter with you. And you’ll need new identity papers. Give me your translator documents, please.” She held out her hand like a mother waiting for a child to return a stolen chocolate bar.

Anna folded her hands in her lap. “I gave those to Captain Phillips. He said he would turn them in.” The lie slid out before she could stop it and she almost smiled.

Frau Obersdorfer sighed and shook her head. “Very well. Get your new papers before you leave today. And, of course, your wages will return to what they were before.” She snorted. “Almost as if none of this foolishness ever happened, isn’t it?” She rocked back on her heels and regarded Anna over her half-moon glasses. “You are lucky. We desperately need typists to record all the pieces in the shipment from the Merkers mine. Otherwise the
Amis
would have sent you packing. I told them they should, but they never listen to me.”

Anna nodded. She picked up her bag and pulled the typewriter off the table. “Yes. That is just my luck,” she said and followed the woman to the stairs.

After lunch Anna sat down at the small table in the back row of the typing pool. She was by the window, which meant she at least got a bit of breeze but also the glare of the afternoon sun, which made her skin burn. The room was stifling. She wiped her forehead with her palm and moved another custody receipt from the right side of the typewriter to the left. Her back had gone from aching to something like numbness and her arms throbbed. She sat up straight and tried to turn her head as far as she could one way and then the other, keeping an eye on Frau Obersdorfer to anticipate the scolding that would come. Her eyes fell down to the street, onto the bench where she had left Amalia the day she met Cooper. It was empty and she recognized the same sentry stationed by the gate. Trucks were still coming at a steady pace and, no doubt, endless numbers of masterpieces were being unloaded right under her nose. A twinge of something—jealousy?—shot through her as she considered her regained position. Two weeks ago she was happy to sit here, type up the
Amis’
reports and go home. Now she was not so sure.

Anna was about to turn back to the typewriter when something caught her eye. By the fence at the corner, near the stationed tank, stood a lone figure. Anna squinted. The jumble of blond hair and the slouched posture were familiar. She leaned toward the window slowly so as to not draw attention to herself. It was Oskar, standing with fingers hooked into the chain link, face pressed against the wire, looking into the courtyard. Anna scanned his surroundings for anyone who might be accompanying him but saw no one. Oskar stood without moving, as if he were looking for something.