Necessary Lies (38 page)

I laughed. ‘See,' I said. ‘I'm right after all. The shit is still here.'

“William took me by the hand and dragged me out of the
Biergarten
, before I had the time to say anything else. ‘Why don't you say something, William?' I asked. ‘Don't you think I'm right?' He let go of my hand and walked away. ‘Why don't you quote your priest, now?' I shouted after him. By the time I got to the hotel he was gone. He didn't even leave a note.

Ursula is fanning her face with a napkin. Her cheeks are flushed.

“But he called you in December,” Anna says. “Quite a few times. I found the bill.”

“Yes,” Ursula says, smiling. “We were good at reconciliations. Most of the time. He liked to forgive me. It made him feel good.
But I never saw him again.”

She raises to gather the plates, rinse them under the tap before placing them in the dishwasher. Anna scrapes the leftover tahini dip back into the plastic container, covers the rest of the dishes with a plastic wrap. She hands the ceramic bowls to Ursula and they work together, in silence, clearing the kitchen table, wiping its surface, putting things back in the fridge.

“He was better off with you,” Ursula says when they are finished. “With you he didn't have to fight. Or forgive.”

Anna doesn't say anything, but she is no longer fooled by her own magnanimity. She knows that it is only because William is dead that she can be here and listen to Ursula. It is only because William can never come here again, touch either of them, make love to them, that she can even consider liking Ursula, thinking that this woman who moves with such assurance is anything but a rival.

“How did it happen?” Ursula asks. She means the last moments of William's life, the part of the story she must have wondered about. Julia didn't know enough, then, to answer her questions. “Did he suffer much? Did he know what was happening?”

“He was alone. He was already ... gone when I came in,” Anna begins. “The doctor told me that to him it must have seemed like a stroke of lightning.”

This is her William she is talking about, now. The husband she lived with for ten years, the husband who died and whom she will never see again. The husband she misses so badly at times that she wants to bite her hands and howl. It is still January 26, and she is back in her Montreal kitchen, with its scent of a baked apple pie. The door to William's study is still closed and she opens it slowly. She is so slow, so damn slow.

“But why? What did the doctor say?” Ursula has sat down in front of her. She has closed her eyes, but Anna can see that her eyelids are swelling with tears. For a moment, when Anna sees Ursula's tears, for a brief but palpable moment, it seems to her that William might appear, that seeing the two of them, together, would be too much to keep him away.

“Heart failure. The doctor said it could be hereditary.
Asked if I knew how his father died.”

On the floor of his study, Anna can see William's body, his grey hair tousled, glued together with sweat. She can see herself, too, bending over him, dropping her purse, feeling if there is still any warmth left in his face. This other Anna still doesn't register what has happened, cannot believe her own eyes. Why isn't she calling the ambulance? What is she waiting for?

“So sudden? Without any warning?” Ursula asks.

“The doctor said it couldn't have been the first one. There was scar tissue on his heart.”

“He never said anything? Never complained?”

“No,” Anna says, but here she hesitates. “Not to me.”

“No, he wouldn't,” Ursula says. They both know what they are talking about. He was not willing to admit that his body, this wonderful strong body he was so proud of would fail him. Not William.

Anna can feel the cold panic touching the soles of her feet, making its way up, to her heart. It is the same panic that paralysed her then when she was kneeling beside William, stroking his face, feeling the chill set in. She was always too eager to believe him, to let him dispel her fears. For this she has never forgiven herself.

“I should've known,” she tells Ursula, now. “He must have thought the pain would go away. He didn't mention anything to his doctor. There was no record of chest pains in his file ... But I should've known.”

She can see herself talking to him in the morning, still groggy from sleep. William is sitting in bed massaging his left arm. Does it hurt? she asks him. It is a stupid question, he tells her. Of course it hurts. Have you talked to your doctor? she asks. What for? he asks in return. He is already impatient with her, tells her she is always coming up with these thoughts of impending doom. Your murky Polish soul, he laughs and tousles her hair. His left arm hurts and there is a perfectly good reason for it. He has been playing the violin for too long. The last thing he needs now is to have her panic.

“If only I hadn't listened to him,” Anna's voice is breaking when she says it. “If I only I insisted ...”

“NO!”

The bang of steel on the marble tiles startles them both. Ursula must have pushed a knife off the table, as she leaned forward. “No! Anna, don't do that? Don't go this way?”

Anna breathes hard. She mustn't cry, she tells herself. She must stop the choking feeling in her throat.

“Anna, look at me,” Ursula says. “He loved you.” She takes Anna in her arms and rocks her gently. Her freckled hand is smoothing Anna's hair, gently stroking her forehead, her cheeks.

For a split-second Anna is thinking of beach sand, flowing between her fingers. Ursula's touch is surprisingly soothing, and Anna will remember it for a long time, the touch of her hot, dry hand, and the sound of her own voice, murmuring her consent.

On Saturday morning a telephone ring wakes Anna up. “I'm sorry,” Ursula says. “But I've just learned something. It's rather urgent.”

It is Anna's last day in Berlin. The day before Ursula promised to take her to Potsdam.
Schloss Sanssouci
, she said. Sounds exactly what we both need.

“My friend, Lothar,” Ursula says on the phone, “has been nosing about the Stasi archives. He has just called me. Said I should come right away. It has something to do with Willi's grandfather. Can you be ready in half an hour?”

An hour later they are on Normannenstrasse in the Lichtenberg district, Ursula leading the way among the maze of brown concrete buildings. In the lobby of what used to be Stasi headquarters, still decorated with the statues of Lenin and Felix Dzerzhinski, Lothar is already waiting for them. He is a tall, thin man, with an ascetic face. “You'll have to be quick,” he says, shaking Anna's hand and giving Ursula a quick hug. “This is still not quite legal, but someone here owes me a big favour.”

Lothar takes them upstairs, into a small room with padded doors. The room is furnished with a shabby table and three hard wooden chairs. The file on the table is an old-fashioned one, with marble coloured cardboard flaps, tied with a grey ribbon. On the white label, in the old German script, a name.
Claus Herzmann.

“Go ahead” Ursula says, when Anna hesitates. “You open it. I'll translate.”

Anna's hands tremble slightly when she unties the ribbon. William once said he was relieved to know his grandfather was executed by the Nazis. Not a bad thing to know, he said, if you were German. Inside, pinned to a long typewritten report there are prison shots of a man in his fifties, blank eyes staring into space, stubble on his cheeks.

“That's him,” Ursula says, glancing at the report. “Professor Claus Herzmann of the University of Breslau. Executed on May 2, 1945. For high treason.”

“What did he do?” Anna asks, overcome by curiosity. She is looking for a shadow of William in his grandfather's face, but it is not there. “Does it say?”

Ursula picks up the documents from the file. Typewritten reports from interrogations, testimony of witnesses. Photographs. From her purse she takes out her reading glasses and begins to translate.

“Professor Herzmann ... research declared essential for war effort. Address, 7 Gerhart-Hauptmann-Weg, Breslau. Wife, Catholic. One child, Käthe Herzmann, daughter. Member of the National Socialist party from January 1939. Maid, Frieda Gottwald, reported that Professor Herzmann did not purge all the forbidden books from his library and tried to fire her after she became pregnant. She wants it recorded that the father of her child was of pure blood and that she got pregnant in response to the order of her Führer.”

Ursula flips through the files, translating what she glances through. “Professor Herzman's wife frequents Jewish businesses. Dated October 1938. The same Frieda says that her mistress told her to lower the radio volume during the Führer's speech. Professor Herzmann is also alleged to have a Swiss bank account.”

There is an envelope among the papers and Anna opens it to find a studio portrait of Herr Professor and Frau Professor Herzmann. In this picture William's grandfather's face is handsome and distinguished looking. Clean shaven, hair
parted, smoothed with brilliantine. Frau Professor is wearing a small round hat, the muslin veil draped over her forehead.

“Listen to this,” Ursula stands up and paces around the table, neatly typed pages in her hands:
I have told Fraulein Herzmann that Germany will be reborn. We have suffered for a long time, but we shall suffer no longer. Our Fuhrerhas shown us the way. I told her that we are building autobahns. We are planting trees and forests. We've given men work, and with it we have given them their dignity and their honour. But we are such a tiny part of this earth. We have to work hard to conquer our imperfections. I told her that what stops us in this work are old rules and old morality. We have to forget what we, with our limited minds, think is right. We have to let the strong lead us, be ruthless if need be!

I have told her that we have to guard the purity of our blood. Bad blood weakens, dilutes the will. The weak are like disease that has to be contained, like a branch that has to be cut off, so that the tree will grow stronger.

I expressed my disapproval of the school she went to; it was run by the nuns. I told her I didn't like to think of my fiancee kneeling in front of this crucified Jew! I pointed out to her that her father, a scientist, a professor at the University of Breslau should not remain blind to the laws of nature.

When we found out that my fiancee was pregnant, I declared my desire to marry her. I went to her father's home the next evening. Professor Herzmann was celebrating his birthday and there were many people in the room. All of them can be asked to bear witness to what has happened.

Professor and Frau Herzmann were in the living room, where my fiancee took me promptly. She had not told her parents about our plans, wishing me to be the one who would break the news to them. It was in front of these witnesses that I asked for the hand of Fraulein Herzmann in marriage.

Here goes a list of names:
Herr und Frau Stein... Hanemann, Bauer... Strauss.

“She will go with you if that's what she wants, but she'll not have our permission.” These are Frau Herzmann's exact words. “Not that you care for it, not you with your own laws. But whatever you do I want you to know that it is not with my
permission that my daughter will marry a heathen”

I want to report that I was taken aback by Frau Herzmann's statement but I was also absolutely convinced Professor Herzmann would react to it with the severity it demanded. I was quite prepared to recognize that Frau Herzmann was only a high-strung woman, too weak to withstand such a moment. I want it recorded, however, that Professor Herzmann never said a word to his wife and never offered any apology for what had transpired.

Then I turned to my fiancee and I told her that she knew where to find me. I also made it plain to Fraulein Herzmann that I would marry her, but that I would not stay a minute longer under her father's roof. I had reminded her that the rotten branches have to be cut off. Only sacrifice will bring rebirth. I waited two days. When she didn't contact me, I refused to see her or the child again.
Signed:
Helmut Rust, SS-Sturmbannführer.

“SS?” Anna asks. “Are you sure?” The chill of the concrete walls makes her shiver.

Ursula shows her the report. Helmut Rust's signature takes an entire line. A strong, determined script, each letter perfectly legible. There can be no doubt.

“Kadavergehorsam
, cadaver obedience,” Ursula says. “They, the SS were above all judgement. In their schools, stripped to the waist, they were taught to fight off attack dogs with their bare hands. If they took flight, they were shot. They tore cats' eyes out, learning not to feel sorrow. They marched in the heat for hours, without a drop of water to drink, crawled through tunnels, ran over obstacle courses, until there was nothing left in them but rage. When they rose from this rage, they believed they were invincible. That they could achieve anything they put their will to. Walk unmoved over corpses, deaf to cries and pleas. Incorruptible.”

“She said Helmut Rust was an officer,” Anna says, meaning Frau Strauss. “That he and Käthe were in love. That they quarrelled. She never mentioned why.” Quickly she tells Ursula of what she had learned that afternoon, just days before. The trek from Breslau. The horrendous story of escape.

Ursula is not surprised.
“Lebenslüge,”
she says. “This is what you get here, in this country. A lie you live with for so
long that it transforms your life. But also,” she adds after a moment, “a lie that enables you to live.”

“Käthe didn't lie,” Anna says.

“Here is more. Some Wolfgang Hildebrand, the Dean of Chemistry at the University of Breslau, reports” — Ursula keeps translating what she reads — “that Frau Professor Herzmann came to see him. Frau Professor was dressed in black and asked for intercession on her husband's behalf. Which Herr Professor Hildebrand says here he is not going to do. Then some Jürgen Stein reports that Frau Professor Herzmann came to see the rector of the University, asking for his support. The Rector tried to give her money, but she refused to take it... Frau Professor's Berlin address. Her letter to her husband, parts of it blackened with ink. A grandson, Wilhelm Herzmann, born in 1940. Claus Herzmann was executed in the yard of Plötzensee prison, April 13, 1945. No last words were recorded. The widow was not allowed to see the body.”