Thirty-Four
Thirty-Four
T he concierge calls up to Erna’s flat. I wait outside in the dank air. Woodsmoke hangs, mingling with the scent of molding leaves.
“I’m so happy to see you.” Erna smiles, as her flame-gold head appears in the doorway.
“I need your help,” I begin, once she joins me on the pavement. If I wait, I might lose courage.
She loops her arm through mine as we walk.
“Ask away,” she says cheerfully.
“It will shock you. You probably won’t like me anymore.”
“Gosh, how intriguing. Can’t wait to hear...”
“No! It’s serious, Erna. Really. You can’t repeat this to anyone . Do you hear?”
“Okay, okay! No need to be quite so fierce. I won’t, I promise.”
“Really promise?”
“Yes, I really promise! For heaven’s sake, what is it, Hett?”
I take a deep breath.
“I... I’ve fallen in love with someone. I mean, really, properly, fallen in love.”
Exhale. My breath, a foggy stream, mingles with the winter air and evaporates.
“Wow... well, that’s wonderful.” She smiles, then frowns. “It’s a bit sudden, though, I mean with Karl and everything.” She looks uncomfortable, then rushes on. “I didn’t mean you shouldn’t. It’s a good thing, to take your mind off—”
“It isn’t sudden. It’s been going on for over a year.”
“What? A year !” She stops walking. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I keep walking and she jogs to catch up.
“I know what you must think after I was so ghastly to you and Karl. I’ve been a terrible friend, and trust me, I feel utterly wretched about it.
But there were good reasons I couldn’t tell.
” I can’t look at her. Head down, I keep my eyes fixed on the wet pavement, stepping between piles of soggy leaves.
“Yes. You’ve been a terrible friend. The worst kind.” She pokes me in the ribs and laughs. “But seriously, who is he? Tell me, and I’ll forgive you everything.”
We walk a few more steps. Do it now.
Deep breath. “He’s a Jew, Erna. I’ve fallen in love with a Jew.”
“You’ve... oh, ha ha, Hetty. What a hoot.”
“No, it’s the truth. His name is Walter Keller.
Perhaps you remember, that day at school when he and Freda.
..” Erna has stopped smiling. She nods.
“A long time ago, he was a friend of Karl’s.
That’s how I knew him. I bumped into him during the summer, last year, when I was walking Kuschi.
I tried to stay away from him, but I couldn’t.
You see, there is no one like him. No one I’ve ever met.
I couldn’t help but fall for him, and him for me.
It feels like we’re meant for each other, even though we aren’t. ”
“For heaven’s sake...”
We reach Nordplatz. The wide green square and tall handsome church are ahead of us. Like a river, I can’t stop the flow, now I’ve started.
“I tried to stop seeing him so many times. He tried. But we just couldn’t. I know that if we get caught—we almost have a few times—it will be disaster for us both. My crime will be equal to his. But I love him so much, Erna.”
I can feel Erna’s fierce gaze at my profile. “So why are you telling me this, now?”
“Someone has reported us. It could have been our maid, who might have seen me with him. She watches me, Erna, and I have to be so careful. Anyway, the Gestapo want him for Rassenschande . He has a visa to go to England, but only if he marries a girl there...”
“Jesus.”
“But,” I rush on, “he can’t leave Germany without a passport and his exit tax paid. I need to help him. And I need an ally.”
“This is... a lot to take in.”
We stop by the church. Near the spot where I declared myself to Walter so long ago.
At last I dare to take a look at Erna’s face. Her eyes are wide. Her skin pale with shock.
“Well, what do you think of me now?” I ask, looking into those deep green pools, where her soul, pure and clean, meets, perhaps in her eyes, my filthy, tarnished one.
For a few ticks, she says nothing. “I can hardly believe it,” she says at last.
“You promised you wouldn’t tell...”
“No! Hetty, never!” She grabs both of my hands. “I love you, you silly old thing. I love you more for this. More than ever...”
An exhaustion engulfs me. I feel so tired, my limbs leaden. As if letting out this secret has finally released me to feel the weight of it.
“You see, Hett...” Erna drops her gaze. “I have a confession of my own.”
“What?”
“I should have confessed before. My father is no blithering old fool. He can be, of course, but he’s much more than that.
He’s a vehement, secret anti-Nazi. He loathes Hitler and all he stands for.
We all do.” She looks around the nearly empty square, dropping her voice to a whisper.
“There is a small network of us in Leipzig. Just a handful. Not enough to make any difference. Everyone is too afraid.”
I shake my head, trying to clear it. Keep it thinking straight, the implications of all this.
“It’s why my father wanted me in the BDM. Encouraged me to do well, to avoid suspicion. He’s convinced the Gestapo are watching.”
“But what about Karl? Why did you walk out with him?”
“Yes. That’s the other part of my confession.
I liked Karl, of course. He was hard not to like, so handsome and sweet.
But I didn’t love him, not the way he loved me.
He was so good to me. I feel ashamed. But I was worried about my father, he can be.
.. indiscreet. I was afraid for him, and I thought, if I was with Karl, it might protect him. Keep suspicion away...”
The ground shifts; the world twists and turns.
Is there anyone who is truly as they appear?
“Being close to Karl and your family has helped,” Erna goes on, but her words spin around my head unheard.
She has used us. Both of us. Karl and me, for her own ends.
I don’t mean any more to her than that, never have.
I always found it hard to understand why anyone as charming, sophisticated, accomplished as her, would want to be my friend.
Well, now it’s clear.
“And don’t go thinking I only became friends with you because my father wanted me to.” She seems to be able to read my mind. “That simply isn’t true. I was friends with you long before I understood any of these things. That’s the truth.”
Is it? I glance up at the tall tower of the church, climbing up into a thin spire, dark against the low, slate-gray sky.
Once, I believed in God. I felt blessed by him and could see my place in his universe.
But I was guided away from church and God.
Mutti and Vati frown on religion. So I grew an unwavering faith in Hitler, and the absolute, indisputable righteousness of our glorious new Reich.
But first Walter and now Erna have shaken the ground beneath my feet.
Karl is gone. There is no perfect German.
Where is my faith now? I’m stripped bare. Rootless.
“We’ll be late for school,” I say at last. Unable to process my jumbled feelings, I don’t know what else to say.
“Hett.” Erna grabs my hand and squeezes it.
“I’m telling you this to show you that your secret is safe with me.
I’d do anything to help you. I don’t judge you, and I hope you won’t judge me, either.
Karl and I never did ‘it.’ He said he would wait.
That I wasn’t ‘ that sort of girl’ and he hoped one day we could even be married.
He said there were plenty of those sorts around, and he would rather spend time with me, just enjoying my company.
So I did nothing to hurt him, and he never knew I felt differently than he did. He didn’t suffer. Not one little bit.”
Perhaps that’s true.
Perhaps Karl was getting his kicks with Ingrid instead.
I bite my lip and we both hurry into school.
Oh, Erna, I hope I have not made a terrible mistake opening my heart to you.
Can it really be true that you’ve always hated the Nazis?
I can picture you, at every BDM meeting; at school; with Karl and me.
You always sang the loudest, saluted with the most vigor.
You led the younger girls in the way only a perfect German could.
How could you be so convincing if you didn’t believe in it?
Or are you the best actor in the world? If it’s the former, then how can I trust that you will not inform on Walter and me?
And if the latter, I’m relieved, but can I truly trust that you are my friend?
Either way, you’ve lied all along. Time alone will prove which of these is the truth.