The Roses Underneath (2 page)

Before she knew it, Anna had completed fifty forms and was ready for a new pile.

“Frau Klein.” The voice pierced Anna’s concentration and she jumped. Frau Obersdorfer loomed over her. With her was an American Anna had not seen before. She had not even seen them approach.

“Yes?” Anna stood up, out of habit.

“Frau Klein, Captain Cooper needs to speak to you,” said Frau Obersdorfer. She turned on her heel and was gone. She did not abide interruptions well. Anna’s stomach knotted up with a familiar, dull cramp. Any unexpected turn of events was almost always bad news, especially when it involved someone in a military uniform. She looked up at the soldier, who gestured for her to step out into the hall. She obliged and he followed, closing the door to the typing pool behind him.

“Anna Klein? You speak English?” he said, peering at her through eyes squinting with either anger or anticipation, she could not tell. She nodded.

“You have a daughter?” The American’s voice was soft, but carried some force. His palms turned upward in a frustrated, questioning gesture. He was quite tall, so she felt at a disadvantage right away, but unlike so many of the Americans, he did not take up a lot of space, either with his voice or his demeanor. His hair was a mix of dirty blond and brown, and his features sat easily on a well-proportioned face. He was older—maybe close to forty—and looked like he had not been “in-country” for too long. Most of the Monuments Men didn’t look like regular soldiers. This man looked rested and clean, like he’d been waiting in the wings of the great theater of operations for the last four years before making his entrance.

“Yes,” said Anna in perfect English, the one enduring legacy she still carried from the secretarial school in London that had been her home until the Anschluss in 1938. Then Herr Hitler and Mr. Chamberlain had agreed, each in his own way, it was time for her to come home, only Hitler had decided her new home was Germany, not Austria. The annexation of her homeland into the German Reich had been a foregone conclusion that most of her neighbors welcomed. But Anna’s mother never got over the insult, and until she died, she refused to call herself a German. Anna had not seen the distinction herself. As far as she could tell, she and people like her were nothings, just pieces of a board game, beholden to some greater will they did not control.

She focused on the American’s stare, trying to appear calm. “Has something happened?”

“You left her waiting outside the front gate?” His heavy eyebrows darted upwards, wrinkling his forehead.

“Has something happened to her?” Anna’s heartbeat shifted into a higher gear, and she immediately thought the worst. The blood rushed in her ears and she cursed herself for making such a stupid decision.

“Listen, ma’am, you can’t just leave a little girl sitting out on the street all day. It’s just not safe.
Are you understanding me? What kind of mother does such a thing?” He glared.

Anna nodded. “I understand. Captain, please tell me, what has happened?”

“Nothing happened.” He gave the second word a generous dollop of sarcasm. “She is perfectly fine. She’s just sitting there, bored out of her little mind. But I am telling you, it’s not right to leave her there. She’s just a kid. What were you thinking?”

“You are right. I am sorry, sir. But I had no choice. You see, I had nowhere to take her today and I thought at least this way she would be close by.” Anna wished he would go away. Why was it his concern what she did with Amalia?

The captain’s hands moved to his hips and he cocked his head. “Well the United States Army is a lot of things but it is not a babysitting service. This will not do at all. Don’t leave her there again. This is no place for a kid.” Having made his point, his body language softened, revealing something that could be nervousness. He was squinting at her again as if she were a puzzle he was trying to solve.

“Don’t you know anyone at all who can take care of her?” he asked.

“Yes of course, I will find someone. I won’t bring her again,” Anna lied. Madeleine was in the hospital for at least another week. Even on a good day, it was a lot to ask of the old woman to keep up with a six-year-old.

“All right, see that you don’t.” Captain Cooper took a step back to indicate that the conversation was finished. Anna didn’t know if she was supposed to go back to work or go fetch Amalia. She pointed at the door to the typing pool. “Shall I?”

“Yes, yes, go ahead,” Cooper said with irritation. “I’ve got an eye on her for now. But just for today, you understand?” He turned and strode down the hall in that military way, his shiny boots squeaking on the stone floor.

“Thank you, sir,” she called after him.

Cooper raised a hand in an acknowledging wave. “Just for today,” he shouted over his shoulder.

She opened the door and walked back to her desk, avoiding the smirking stares of the other girls in the pool.

Sitting down she realized that she had sweated through the back of her blouse. Her heart was still pounding. She stood back up, pretending to straighten her skirt, and stole a glance down to the bench outside. Amalia was slouching with her head resting on her hand. She was bored. So far, so good.

“Mama, what is this?” Amalia stirred the murky, tepid liquid in the tin bowl, her nose wrinkled at its briny smell. Her cheeks were flushed from sitting in the sun all morning. Several curls had escaped her braids and stood wiry along her hairline. The dank, heavy air of the mess hall had managed to dampen Anna’s constant appetite.

“It’s bouillon, Maus. Beef, I think,” said Anna, peering into her own bowl. Dipping her spoon in, she recoiled at the lukewarm saltwater taste. “Yes, beef bouillon. It’s yummy, so you better eat yours all up before I do.” She smiled and threatened to swipe a spoonful from Amalia’s bowl.

They sat at a long table inside the civilian mess hall, which Anna heard the American director of the Collecting Point—a Captain Farmer whom she had never seen for herself—had set up for his German workers. The dilapidated storefront on the Wilhelmstrasse had been furnished with rows of old tables and benches, mismatched and mistreated. Plaster peeled off the walls and electrical wires draped across the room like low-rent Christmas decorations. The one window that was not boarded up conceded a sliver of sunlight, but Anna sat too close to the makeshift kitchen at the back of the room to get any benefit. Steam from giant vats boiling on an ancient wood-burning stove wafted overhead and created a haze that might have reminded Anna of her early school mornings in England, if those mornings had been inside a sauna.

People began flowing through the front door and forming a line along the wall: young women in simple skirts and blouses whose fabrics bore tell-tale signs of their first incarnations as towels or bed sheets, and men in old trousers held on bony frames by suspenders or in hand-me down U.S. Army fatigues with the insignia torn off. It seems Captain Farmer had seen the sorry state of his workers and made a best attempt at clothing and feeding them with the limited resources available—a noble gesture that Anna wasn’t sure they deserved.

She was glad they had arrived early. The lunch often ran out and since she had no food for dinner, she wanted Amalia to at least eat something. She watched her daughter drink up the rest of the soup and then pushed her own bowl across the table.

“Here, have mine too.” She lit herself a cigarette instead.

Amalia took the offer without a word and scooped the soup with focused determination. Anna tried to think about dinner. She had three stamps left on her ration card; maybe there would be some bread today. The card had to last until Saturday—still three days away—but if there was any bread today she would use them up. They would cross tomorrow’s bridge when they came to it. Maybe Madeleine still had some points left on her card.

“Mama? An American came and talked to me. He spoke German. He asked me my name, except he sounded funny when he said it.” Amalia imitated an American accent, her mouth contorting around the exaggerated vowels. “I told him Amalia, but he said it Ameeelia. So I said no, Amaaahlia. I told him, like the
Herzogin
. He didn’t understand me. How do you say
Herzogin
in American?”

“It’s English, Maus, not American. And you say duchess.”

“Duchess,” Amalia said. “Duchess Amalia.” She paused a beat as a shadow crossed her face. “When is Papa coming?” She asked this question every day, usually right after something good had happened, as if she wanted to tell him right away.

“Soon, I hope, Maus. We’ll see him soon.” Anna squirmed. Another lie. She no more knew where Thomas was—much less if he was safe—than she knew where the next meal was coming from. And he didn’t know where they were either. Anna found it hard to believe it had only been two months since she left their little village, her house and her husband. The almighty Allies, puffed up in their Yalta armchairs, delivered them all into the hands of the Russians. Thomas had been against their leaving. There had been a big fight that Amalia had overheard, even though Anna and Thomas hissed at each other over the dirty dinner plates like two snakes trapped in a bag. In the end, Anna bartered all their firewood and rations, and even some of Thomas’s medicines for an old truck and drove west. After two days the truck’s axel broke and she and Amalia walked 20 kilometers to Wiesbaden, abandoning all but one bag of a few clothes and belongings along the way.

“Papa says we have to take care of each other.” Amalia threw this accusation at Anna now whenever she wanted to get her way. Amalia, like Thomas, loved people, and liked to help others—a trait Anna did not possess in any conspicuous quantity. Where Anna was suspicious, Thomas was trusting, where she was cynical, he was hopeful. When she wanted to flee Germany, he wanted to stay and help. Anna had admired his affirming outlook when they met, but as the war brought monsters she never knew existed into their home, her opinion began to shift. It was slow at first, but one day, there it was, wholly formed, the new sentiment: She could not count on Thomas any longer. The knot gripped her stomach again and then gave a twist for good measure.

“I know, Maus. We will see Papa soon. I know he misses us, too.” She stood. “Come on, let’s go for a walk before I have to go back to work. The fresh air will do us some good!”

Back at her small table, Anna examined the new stack of custody cards that had appeared during her break. Frau Obersdorfer was known to not take a lunch, preferring to reload all her typists with fresh ammunition so that no time was wasted in the afternoon. She presided over the typing pool as her own fiefdom, setting and amending rules at will and appeasing the great American overlords, most of whom seemed happy to stay out of her way. She was not unfriendly; she just had no time for the messiness of people’s characters or lives that tended to impede her progress. Short and round, with her bottle-dyed Aryan-blonde hair tied into a tight bun, she was always flushed as if she had been running, even when she was sitting at her desk, surveying her realm, which she did now.

“Did you have a nice lunch, Frau Klein?” she asked. With only the two of them in the room, the older woman took the chance to make conversation. “What are they serving today in the mess hall?”

“Beef bouillon, after a fashion.”

“I hear the director’s wife sends the cubes from America. Hot soup is quite the treat.”

Anna wondered if this was a joke. The saltwater soup a treat? Frau Obersdorfer was looking at her papers and displayed no expression.

“Yes, my daughter was very hungry,” she replied, but before she finished speaking, she regretted mentioning Amalia.

Frau Obersdorfer looked up. Her puffy little eyes stared at Anna over the half-moon glasses that hung around her neck from an old piece of cord. “Ah yes, your daughter. How is the little one? She came with you today?”

Anna paused. “Yes, she is waiting outside by the sentry. She’s quite all right. It’s just for today.” She tried to cover all potential criticisms before they could be articulated. “I mean, I know sitting there is boring for her, but I will find a better arrangement.”

“Yes. See that you do. Captain Cooper was quite distressed about her presence. He asked me if this was how we treat our children. I had to assure him as best I could that we Germans love our children as much as anyone. We aren’t Russians, after all. Sadistic heathens.” She straightened a stack of forms by slamming the edges on the table.

Anna tried to think of what to say. “Yes, the Russians, terrible,” was the most she could muster. The door opened and three young women entered, chatting and laughing.

Grateful that the conversation with Frau Obersdorfer was at an end, Anna stood up to check on Amalia, whom she had left at the same spot. The sentry shift had changed so Anna had to explain the whole situation all over again and convince the new soldier, who did not seem any more pleased than the short Corporal Long from the morning. Amalia was still on the bench, but now a soldier was sitting and talking to her. The two of them were hunched over, elbows on knees. At first she thought maybe Amalia was sick, but then she realized they were looking at something on the ground. After a few moments the man straightened and turned to point up at the window. It was that Captain Cooper. Anna ducked down, even though he could not possibly have seen her. What was he doing? She straightened and peered over the windowsill. Now Amalia looked up and waved too. The Captain held something up and Anna squinted to see. It was Lulu, Amalia’s doll. He waved the doll’s floppy arm and smiled. Then they both turned around and resumed their conspiracy.