Twenty-One
Twenty-One
E verywhere I go, Erna’s there. She’s at school.
She’s at BDM. She watches me with sad, puppy dog eyes.
But I’m not giving in. I’m not ready to forgive her.
The more I think it over, the more certain I become.
I suppose it will make Vati proud of me again, not that I really care what he thinks anymore.
Besides, Erna deserves it. Plus it’s insurance.
In case Ingrid speaks. They’ll never believe Ingrid if I do this.
There will be no doubt where my allegiances lie.
We have a big rally in Leipzig tomorrow. I need to be ready for it. I must feel cleansed. Deserving of the Führer’s praise.
Vati is working at home. I press my ear to the closed door of his study. All is quiet.
“Come in,” his muffled voice answers my soft knock.
“Please may I have a quick word, Vati? This won’t take long.”
He is a busy man. Two jobs and two families. No wonder he looks tired.
“Why, certainly, Miss Herta.” He smiles as I enter the room, waving me to the chair in front of his desk.
He squashes the end of his cigarette into an ashtray full of other recently smoked butts.
Despite the open window, smoke hangs in the air, constricting my throat as I take a deep breath. “Is something bothering you?”
I stare at him for a moment. His round face and baggy skin. His so-familiar pale eyes. I want to scream at him, You and your disgusting Fr?ulein Müller, and that child, that’s what! Is she your Schnuffel now?
“A little, Vati,” I say instead. “Something has been playing on my mind for some time.”
There is rot in my soul. I can feel it growing. Deep in my bones, seeping into my veins. But this will cleanse me. Put me back on the right path. The path of duty, correctness, and obligation. Hitler’s path of selflessness.
I clear my throat. “It’s about a friend of mine, Erna, and her father. I overheard something, and it worried me.” The words spill from my mouth with ease.
“Go on.”
“It’s...” A shadow flits. The body of Tomas’s father, falling from a high prison window. Was it an accident? Nobody will ever know.
“I’m never too busy to hear things that worry you, Herta. It’s important you feel you can come to me,” Vati is saying. “Without good girls like you, where would Herr Himmler and our beloved Führer be, eh?” He smiles again, warm and encouraging.
A ghostly Walter begs me not to do the right thing.
Bloody Hitler. Herr B?cker’s words echo in my mind.
“I heard...”
“And what did you hear exactly, Schnuffel?”
“I heard them say...” Erna’s sloping green eyes swim across my vision. You can trust me to the ends of the earth, Erna. I swallow hard. Vati stares at me, waiting for me to speak.
A kaleidoscope of images flicker: Erna and me in the playground at school; lying on her bed talking endlessly; marching together in the BDM; sharing our deepest hopes and dreams as we huddle side by side in our tent on summer camping trips. Walter. Heavenly, Jewish Walter.
Vati is becoming impatient. He drops his pen onto the paper in front of him and grunts.
“Heard what?” he presses.
I sit up a little straighter. A promise is a promise, Erna. You might have betrayed me, but I shall never do that to you.
“Sorry, Vati... That try as they might, they cannot get front-row tickets for the Annual Celebration of the Hitler Youth.” I feel a sweat break out on my forehead.
“Herr B?cker admires the Führer so very much. It would be the biggest thrill for them if you could, perhaps, pull a few strings and...”
I watch Vati’s face change. He guffaws. “Is that all?”
It’s the best I could do in the moment.
“Well, could you?”
“No, Herta. I cannot pull favors for your friends. The front row is reserved for men of importance and their families.”
“That’s a shame.”
“He really admires the Führer, eh? And the daughter, Erna, isn’t it?
I hear good things about her. I asked your brother about this Erna, as you seemed to be spending a lot of time with her.
He said she is very highly regarded in HJ circles.
These are the sort of friends you should be spending your time with.
Well, I could probably swing an invitation for the evening party.
Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do. ”
“Thank you, Vati. They will be so grateful.”
“Yes, yes, but no promises. Is there anything else?”
“Nothing else.”
“Then you must let me get on. I’ve urgent matters to deal with.” He waves a hand dismissively at me and goes back to the paperwork on his desk. I stare at the top of his head, bent over as he studies his half-written letter. He picks up his pen, the nib scratching as it moves across the page.
You failure, Herta Heinrich. You are no better than a worm, putting your own interests before that of the Fatherland. Once, you pledged yourself to me. And now? Are you a deserter?
A sickness settles at the base of my belly. The rot remains. And I know of only one way I can properly rid myself of it, for good, though I dread it.
Mutti has gone to visit a children’s home in Burghausen. She hopes the SS-run home and school will be a model for her own venture. With Vati working behind the closed door of his study, there is no one; Karl’s absence is stronger than ever.
Restless, I wander into the garden room.
Outside, the colors of summer have gone.
The huge tree has shed its leaves, exposing the great bulk of the treehouse I never visit anymore.
For a moment, I ache to see Erna, but we’ve not spoken since my harsh words in the street over Karl.
I should go and apologize. Come clean and tell her about Walter.
But I can’t, I’m not brave enough. I pick up today’s Leipziger from the table and turn the pages, hoping for a distraction as I scan the headlines.
COUNTRY-WIDE TOUR FOR DUKE AND DUCHESS OF WINDSOR!
NEW CAR COMPANY, VOLKSWAGEN, PLANS AFFORDABLE CAR FOR EVERY MAN IN GERMANY!
brITISH DELEGATION VISIT LEIPZIG, TO ADMIRE SPEED AND EXTENT OF MOTOR-ROAD NETWORK
Then:
ACCLAIMED GERMAN ACTRESS SET TO ROT IN JAIL AFTER CONVICTION OF RASSENSCHANDE
This catches my eye.
The well-known and previously highly regarded actress Dora Heck has been tried and convicted of the heinous crime of Racial Defamation.
It is unusual for a woman to be convicted of such an anti-German crime, given that women are usually the victims of rape or sexual coercion by the perpetrator.
In this case, however, the actress, who was close, our reporters believe, to some of those in the higher echelons of the Party, had traveled to London, under the guise of promoting her latest film.
The Gestapo officers, who secretly followed her having received a tip-off from a concerned member of the public, discovered she was having unauthorized sexual relations with a German Jew now living in London.
Upon her return, she was arrested, tried, and found guilty.
Before she was sent to prison, Fr?ulein Heck was subjected to the humiliation of having her head shaved and being paraded through the city center as a warning to others not to repeat her mistakes. ..
Dear God. Panic rises and I drop the paper on the table as if it had bitten me. True, Walter and I haven’t had sexual relations , but we’ve kissed. Does that count? I’m certain it would. Imagine if Vati were to find out. What if Ingrid alerts the Gestapo to follow me?
There really is no choice now, and I have no time to lose.
M UTTI AND V ATI, resplendent in evening dress, wait in the hallway for their car to collect them. Mutti is brimming with enthusiasm after her visit to the children’s home. She waves a book entitled Raising the Ideal German Child: A Guide for Modern Mothers.
“Full of advice on how to toughen the next generation. This will be most useful for my orphans,” she says.
“Don’t wait up for us, Hetty. After an early dinner with Judge Fuchs, we are going to the opera.
” There is a flurry of sliding on gloves, hats, fur stole, and outdoor shoes, and then they are gone, leaving a faint whiff of smoky cologne and flowery scent behind them.
I fetch the Kafka from beneath my mattress and stare at its cover.
Once, I would have delighted in this book.
Devoured it with hunger. I finger it tentatively, turning to the first page.
I try to read, but I can’t concentrate. The words tumble over themselves on the page.
It’s evidence of my non-German thoughts.
I must be rid of it. Fast. I snap it shut and slip it into my pocket.
I approach the kitchen to collect Kuschi, as always, my excuse to go out. Ingrid is talking.
“I saw it with my own eyes, Bertha, honest to God, it’s true!” Ingrid’s voice is high with indignation. Bertha’s reply is quieter, mumbled so I can’t hear. “Seriously, something should be done. I mean—”
I walk into the room before she can say more. She starts at the sight of me.
“Something should be done about what?” I ask. She’s sitting at the table, her feet up on a chair, a cup in her hand. Bertha’s at the sink, scrubbing potatoes.
“Sorry.” She swings her legs down from the chair, slowly, as though trying to make a point. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
“What was it you were saying?” I probe. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Her cheeks flush and she looks to Bertha for help. Bertha shrugs and goes back to her scrubbing.
“It was just some silly gossip in the fishmonger’s this morning, Fr?ulein Herta. People talk these days, you know. Everyone watching everyone else, you never know who’s going to report on who. Anyone with a grudge. How do you prove it, if you didn’t do anything wrong?”
I burn hot and walk across the room, taking Kuschi’s leash from the hook, bending down to hide my face. I fix the leash to his collar with trembling fingers.