Those Who Save Us (36 page)

57

AS IF CONSPIRING TO FOIL ANNA’S ESCAPE FROM THE church, in its lot the farm truck again refuses to start. Jack pumps the gas pedal and talks to the engine, which turns over sluggishly but dies time after time.

Come on, Jack mutters. Come on, that’s it . . . Shitfire!

Anna huddles against Trudie, the two of them shaking helplessly. This is another thing Anna cannot get used to, this cold. She has given up trying to convert the temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit, not because the mathematics are beyond her but because the results are surreal. Thirty below freezing, forty-five below—it is preposterous! Anna has heard that a dish of water, thrown skyward, will solidify before it hits the ground; that one’s eyeballs, if left unprotected, will freeze. Prone as these Americans are to tall tales, Anna believes it. Such conditions are almost enough to make one nostalgic for the relatively tame trials of chilblains and aching joints, the damp Weimarian winters. Anna draws Trudie closer to her side.

Keep your scarf over your face, she reminds the girl.

Damn it, Jack says. Goddamnit—there we go! All right then.

He smiles sheepishly at Anna.

We’ll just give her another minute or two to warm up, he says.

Anna nods, her teeth chattering.

Jack pushes his cap back on his head and ruffles the flattened hair there with a wrist, then cranes forward to examine the night sky through the windshield.

Least it’s too cold to snow, he comments; that’s one good thing.

Anna is too cold to answer. Instead, as they wait, she clears a small circle on her window with the side of her gloved fist. Jack has entreated her to wear mittens as Trudie does, explaining that they are more practical as the fingers are kept together for warmth, but here Anna has drawn the line. The bulky, childish things remind her of pot holders. She peers through the hole she has rubbed in the delicate fishbones of frost, watching the church. The reception is breaking up, the townsfolk coming through the door in twos and threes. Some of the women gather around the minister as he pauses on the step to secure the earflaps of his cap under his chin. Others inch toward their cars in pairs, arms slung around one another’s waists, laughing at their halting progress over the ice in their spectator pumps.

Jack grunts. Be lucky they don’t break their damn necks, he grumbles. Bet you’re glad you wore your boots, huh, Annie?

Then he looks at Anna and his voice changes.

Oh, honey, he says. Oh, honey, don’t. Don’t cry.

Anna turns away.

I am not crying, she tells him. It is the cold. It is making my eyes to water.

It’s
water,
not
to water,
just
water,
says Jack.

He blows out a breath and flexes his hands on the steering wheel.

You have to learn not to take it personally, he says. They don’t mean to treat you wrong. It’s just that— Well, the war being so recent and all. Give them some time to get used to you. They’ll come around if you make a little effort. They’re basically good folks, you know.

Anna nods. There is some truth to what Jack says. They are not inherently bad, these New Heidelburgers. They are simply reacting to her own strangeness. The way her bones, even after months of beef and milk, are still too prominent in her face. The fact that her dresses don’t hang right. The white spots and ridges in her nails, the pallor of her skin. Her clumsy English, uttered in an accent so thick that her tongue feels like a useless lump of meat in her mouth. Anna knows that despite the town’s Teutonic name and the primarily German heritage of its citizens, they are Americans through and through, at least two generations removed from their original homeland. And thus Anna’s mere existence in their midst must offend them by reminding them of what they have just lost. Almost every front window in New Heidelburg boasts a gold star or two, honoring the memory of beloved sons who have given their lives in service of their country, and from long experience Anna recognizes widow’s black. No, she doesn’t condemn these people for the way they treat her. If the situation were reversed, might she not do the same?

But Anna also knows that although the women may someday pretend acceptance, it is useless to
make a little effort,
for they will never truly
come around.
She has not told Jack what happened at the sole social function she attended, a few weeks after her arrival, a
bridge party
at the house of the banker’s wife. Oh, the women were solicitous enough at first, insisting that Anna have the seat of honor on the
davenport
and making much of her pretty scarf, the elaborate coil of braids in which she wears her hair. Most of this took place in dumb show, naturally, although the women also brayed incomprehensibly in Anna’s face—speaking loudly, as Jack initially did, as though Anna were not foreign but deaf. Yet Anna did understand some of what they said, thanks to Jack’s insistence that only English be spoken at home, and indeed she comprehended perhaps more than they thought. For once their obligation to her was attended to, they withdrew to leave Anna on the
davenport
next to a plastic plant, a slice of
upside-down pineapple cake
in her lap for company, and as they chattered over their strange game of cards at tables of four, Anna heard the hostess utter the word
simple.
Glances in her direction.
Shhh! She’ll hear you.
Then again, a statement this time, louder in agreement:
Well, sure she tricked him into marrying her, that poor simple man. Who else’d have him?

Anna looks sideways at her husband. It is true that Jack is
simple
in that he requires only life’s basic gifts to be content: a pretty wife, a lively child, healthy livestock and a well-run farm. But in the sense these women have meant it—befuddled, easily misled—Jack is not
simple.
He is shy, yet he is far from stupid. How much, Anna wonders, did he hear of Frau Hochmeier’s denunciation at the Buchenwald gates? He keeps to himself, her husband, and this is one trait Anna understands and appreciates. Jack has never mentioned the scene, and Anna is certainly not about to ask him.

Whatever Jack suspects, however, there is one thing Anna is certain he does not: the other wives know about the
Obersturm-führer.
Has Anna really been so foolish as to think she can escape him simply by crossing an ocean and half a continent? No. She knows what the women were sniffing for earlier. They may not have the specific facts at their disposal, but with the instincts peculiar to her gender, the wives can smell the
Obersturmführer
on Anna, even here.

Yet to cry further over this will be to risk the freezing eyeballs and upset Jack, so Anna summons a wan smile and picks up the thread of the conversation, winding it back to its source.

I will try better not to take it to heart, she assures him. Now can we speak of happier things? It is Christmas, after all.

Jack looks relieved, and Anna takes momentary advantage of his concern to slip into her own language, the ease of which is like a bath.

Did you see the jelly with the white things in it? she asks. Horrible! Like a science experiment.

Jack laughs.

Ambrosia, he says mysteriously.

He pats Anna’s arm and shifts into gear, jolting the truck out of the lot.

Trudie, who has been dozing, stirs and nuzzles her head against Anna’s coat.

What time is it, Mama? she asks. Is it Christmas yet? When is Saint Nikolaus coming?

Anna sits up straighter.

Saint Nikolaus doesn’t come here, she says rapidly in German. In America we have Santa Claus, remember?

Yes, but I want Saint Nikolaus, Trudie says, and Anna’s stomach goes cold.

Hush, Trudie, she says. Do not distract your father’s driving. You will make us go into a ditch.

She waits fearfully for the child to say something else, but Trudie just shudders and yawns.

Somebody’s ready for Santa, all right, says Jack.

On the county road the truck jounces over ruts of ice a half-meter deep. A
foot,
Anna reminds herself, her teeth clacking together; a
foot.
Already uneasy, she has to restrain herself from yelping when the truck fishtails on a curve; she tries to mimic Jack, whose expression remains unperturbed as he cranks the wheel in the direction of the spin. Anna bites the inside of her cheek and watches the headlights slice through the dark to reveal the icy road, the drifts and fencing on either side. She wonders, not for the first time, what on earth enticed people to carve out lives on this frozen plain. If she still believed in the religious teachings of her girlhood, Anna thinks, she would pray for two things: that they reach the farmhouse in one piece and that the child should hold her tongue until she can be put to sleep.

Devout or not, Anna is granted both wishes, and the truck is soon parked in the dooryard without mishap. Jack rouses Trudie and slings her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, jogging with her up the porch steps. Anna follows with her gloved fist to her mouth, feeling sick as the child shrieks with delight at this familiar game.

Can’t I stay up just a little longer? Trudie begs. Please? Pleeeeeease—

Do you know what becomes of clever little girls who steal other
people’s
names?
asks the
Obersturmführer. They must go straight to bed.

Trudie, behave, Anna calls. She knocks snow off her boots onto the plastic mat. Mind your father.

She holds her breath, but the only response is a drift of giggles from upstairs.

Frowning, Anna moves about the living room, picking up scarves and coats and hanging them in the closet. She wriggles her nyloned toes on the thick beige carpet and looks around at the Christmas tree with its gaudy bulbs, her own
davenport
with its new slipcover, the phonograph Jack brought home in September when soybean prices went
through the roof.
There is none of the shabby elegance of the
Elternhaus
in this room, nor the
gemütlich
trappings of the
Gasthof
in Berchtesgaden. And it is the furthest thing from the deprivation of the bakery. Life in this place is soft, made more so by wondrous amenities such as
deepfreeze units
and washing machines,
vacuum cleaners
and central heat. Anna wants for nothing. Nothing material, in any case.

In the kitchen, Anna sets out breakfast things on the Formica table: plates, mugs, sugar, jam. Returning to the front room, she stuffs Trudie’s stocking with oranges and candy and clothes for her doll. She unplugs the lights of the Christmas tree so as not to start a fire. Then she switches off the floor lamp as well and stands in the dark, listening for noise from above.

But all is quiet. Anna taps her knuckles thoughtfully against her lips. What did the child really mean by her question? It is the first time Trudie has mentioned Saint Nikolaus since leaving Germany. How much does she remember? The numbing blow Saint Nikolaus dealt her, the marching song he taught her, the tale they spun about the rabbits in the
Trog
? His clownish conducting of Brahms on the riverbank of the Ilm? The showering candlesticks and crashing china, the boot thudding on the wall near her head, Saint Nikolaus’s stomach slick with her mother’s blood? Playing in the kitchen, the cellar, the bakery dooryard, all the while listening to Anna’s stifled cries.

Anna climbs the steps to the second story and pauses before Trudie’s room. She taps on the door and pushes it open, shutting it quietly behind her. At first she thinks the girl is asleep, but then a sniffle comes from the huddled little ball on the bed, and then another, and when Anna sits on the edge of the mattress and feels for Trudie’s face, her fingers come away wet.

So, says Anna. So. What is all this? Shhhhh. Hush now. You should be happy tonight of all nights. And you must go to sleep, for how will Santa ever come to bring your presents if you do not?

She strokes the girl’s hair until Trudie stops crying and lies quietly, though her body still quivers beneath Anna’s hand. Then there comes a sad mumble, muffled by the pillow.

What did you say, little rabbit? Anna asks, bending over her.

I don’t want Santa, the child says. I want Saint Nikolaus.

Well, you cannot have him, Trudie. He will never come again. So you must not think of him any more.

But I want him, the girl wails. Where is he, Mama? Why isn’t he here with us? I miss him—

Be quiet, Trudie! Do you want Jack to hear you? Now I will tell you something very important. You must never say such things in this house. You must never speak of that man at all. You must never even think of him. Never. Do you understand?

But I don’t want Jack. I want
him—
Anna grips Trudie’s face on either side of the jaw.

I said you will not speak of him. He no longer exists. He belongs to the past, to that other place and time, and all of that is dead. Do you hear? The past is dead, and better it remain so.

Anna gives Trudie’s chin a shake for emphasis, her fingers digging into the child’s soft flesh. She despises herself for it—she would rather take a blade to her own face than hurt her daughter this way. But it must be done. The girl must be made to understand.

Never, Anna repeats. Do you hear?

Trudie tries to nod.

Yes, Mama.

That is my good girl.

Slowly, Anna relaxes her grasp. She touches the child’s cheeks in the dark, then kisses her on the forehead.

Now we will not talk of it any more. You will sleep, and morning will be here before you know it, and then you may open your gifts. Won’t that be nice?

Yes, Mama.

Well then.

Anna rises and makes her way to the door.

Sweet dreams, little rabbit, she says, as she closes it.

Then, legs weak, she wobbles the few steps to the window at the end of the hallway and stands clutching her elbows to stop their shaking. There is the dooryard. There is the truck, a dark shape against high snowbanks, its metallic womanly curves gleaming faintly in the light of pinprick stars. There are the pines standing guard along the drive, planted by Jack’s grandfather shortly after the man emigrated to this country from a similar farm in Germany—from Rothenburg ob der Tauber, in fact. And beyond their silent boughs, there is only snow, stretching unbroken for kilometers in every direction.
Miles.