Chapter 45 Over the Sausage and Turnips #2
“For baking,” I said. “Yeast is very difficult now. And soap, too. Not for baking, but … My mother used Yardley English Lavender Soap when I was growing up. She was so sad when she used up her store of it, because of course one couldn’t get it after 1939.
Or Pears, if Yardley’s isn’t available. Real soap …
that would be wonderful.” I was talking too much, nearly babbling.
Why should I be nervous now? I hadn’t been a bit nervous when Joe had been lying on my bed and I’d been sleeping on the floor beside it, and how much more intimate was that?
“Oh!” I realized, and flushed. “I can repay you for all those things, of course. I have a little money.”
“Nope,” Joe said, and pulled out a pencil and small notebook. “This one’s on me. It would take an awful lot of tea and soap to pay back what I owe you. I’m making a note. What else?”
I should have been insisting on paying, but in my lust for comforts, I’m afraid I forgot. “A jar of Pond’s cold cream, if one can still get it. That would be a real luxury. And—oh, paper. Paper, please.”
“Paper?” Joe said.
“Paper,” Dr. Müller said, “is very difficult to come by. Toilet paper in particular.”
“OK, then,” Joe said, making another note. “I didn’t realize that. And for you, sir? What can I bring you, besides toilet paper and tea?”
“Oh, the books,” Dr. Müller said. “Absolutely, the books. And a bit of writing paper, if you can manage it.”
“And pipe tobacco, maybe?” Joe asked.
Dr. Müller looked up. “How did you know?”
“Well, sir,” Joe said, “you seem like a professor to me. I’ve only had one year at the university, but in my experience, professors tend to like a pipe. Good for contemplation, I suppose. Do you smoke cigarettes, too?”
“Not anymore,” Dr. Müller said. “I cannot get them, you see. They are hard to find, and very dear.”
Joe reached into his pocket, pulled out a cellophane-wrapped packet of four cigarettes, and held them out. “I get them in my rations, but I don’t smoke. If you’d take them off my hands …”
Dr. Müller made no move to take them, but said, “If you’d really like to help Fr?ulein Glücksburg, you’ll give them to her. One can buy many things with cigarettes these days. Cigarettes and sugar. Some women, one hears, are perhaps …” He stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s improper of me to mention,” Dr. Müller said. “They are willing to trade too much for such things, let us just say. And Fr?ulein Glücksburg is alone in the world.”
“Now, wait just a minute,” Joe said. For once, his eyes didn’t look kind. “Daisy doesn’t have to do one single thing to get me to bring her back a few bars of soap and a jar of cold cream, and I’m pretty offended you’d suggest it.”
“Your compatriots,” Dr. Müller said, “are not always so high-minded. And neither, it must be said, is every German woman. A dress? Lipstick? Nylons?” He spread his hands. “You see how it looks.”
“Well, I’m not my compatriots,” Joe said, “and Daisy’s not every German woman. She saved my life. Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t respect it? Do you imagine I’d ever hurt her?”
We were speaking English, and I was devoutly glad of it, for I saw some heads turn. Joe wasn’t shouting, but he definitely sounded angry.
Dr. Müller didn’t rise to the bait. He said, “That’s all very well, but I can’t conceive of any way she could have saved your life. You’re sounding rather overwrought, don’t you think?”
Joe looked at me. There was a flush on his cheeks, and I was sure mine must be flaming. He asked, “Where’s the doctor? Dr. Becker? And the kids?”
“How do you—” Dr. Müller began.
I said, “They’ve gone to a displaced persons’ camp south of Munich. A place specially for Jewish refugees. He was most eager, and the children, too. They can go to school, you know, and eat, and be safe, and he can work again, which I believe he’s missed most of all.”
“Oh,” Joe said. “Well, that’s good, though I’d like to have thanked him. But they’ve left you alone.”
“Yes,” I said. “But I’m fine, of course. I’m very well here.”
Joe said, “Huh.” Then he told Dr. Müller, “What happened? Pretty simple. I was wounded, and Dr. Becker fixed me up and Daisy here nursed me. All very aboveboard.” He didn’t say when it had happened, which was diplomatic of him.
I was just thinking that when Dr. Müller said, “But how could such a thing have occurred? Did they …” He gestured. “Come across you somewhere? Ambushed, perhaps? Without your comrades? No, I cannot imagine it. Please explain.”
I said, “If we do, it must go no further. I may not have behaved with—” I stopped, groped for the words, and finished, “with proper patriotism.”
Joe said, “Well, probably not.” He was smiling, though. “I’d say definitely not. But thanks anyway.”
Dr. Müller said, “I won’t speak of it unless I judge that I must, but as you have no family …
I am a childless man, and a widower, but I care very much for you.
I don’t want to see you do something you’ll regret, that will affect your future.
These are difficult times, but you can get through them without compromising yourself.
If you need help, I hope you will come to me. ”
I said, “Thank you. Sincerely. You’ve been a great comfort to me.
I miss Dr. Becker and the children so …” I had to stop and take a breath.
“So very much. I miss my parents even more, and the … my friends.” I hadn’t told him who I was, and I didn’t want to.
It would change things, and anyway, I wasn’t a princess anymore.
Not in any sense. “You’ve helped me feel less … less alone. So thank you.”
Joe had his hand on mine again. Right out there on the table, where anyone could see, but I drew comfort from it anyway. He said, “I’ll tell him, if you like.”
“No,” I said. “The decision was mine, and I’m not ashamed of it.” I told Dr. Müller, “It was during the battle. The boy Axel, who lives across the street from the bakery—”
“The blond boy,” Dr. Müller said. “Very badly behaved. He needs his father.”
“Yes. He shot Joe before my eyes, and he was about to shoot him again. To kill him. I couldn’t let that happen, not for Joe, and not for Axel, either. So I pulled Joe inside, and Dr. Becker and I cared for his wounds. That’s what happened. That’s all that happened.”
“Ah,” Dr. Müller said. “Commendable in one sense, but …”
“Yes,” I said. “Not something I particularly wish to advertise.”
“Well,” Dr. Müller said, “I see no reason why I need to speak of this matter. We will consider it closed, shall we? But you should know,” he told Joe, “that although I am old, poor, and not strong, I will protect Fr?ulein Glücksburg to the best of my ability.” He might have looked ridiculous saying it, with his skinny frame, his persistent cough, and his threadbare suit, but he didn’t.
Dignity, he had still. Dignity, one cannot take away.
Joe said, “I appreciate that, sir.” He was still holding my hand, and his voice was level. He was young, but oh, was he strong in himself. “And you should know that I’ll be doing exactly the same thing.”