Those Who Save Us (40 page)

Q:
Stop the tape. Stop the tape. Stop the tape!

All right, Trudy, says Thomas, it’s off, the camera’s off. What is it? What’s wrong?

Trudy shakes the contents of her purse onto Mr. Pfeffer’s coffee table and seizes her wallet. Her hand is trembling so that she tears the photograph when she extracts it from its plastic sleeve. But it is still intact enough to show Anna at its center, Anna in 1952 with Jack and Trudy on the farmhouse porch, on the Fourth of July.

Trudy thrusts the snapshot toward Mr. Pfeffer.

Is this the woman you saw? she demands. Is this the apprentice Angel?

Mr. Pfeffer holds the photograph at arm’s length.

I cannot be sure, he admits. It was so many years ago...But there is a striking resemblance. I’m fairly certain this is her.

How certain?

Mr. Pfeffer purses his lips and lets out a
pssssh
of air.

Oh, I’d say, perhaps eighty percent?

He hands the photograph to Trudy, but she makes no move to take it. She stares at the rippling sun crescents on the wall over Mr. Pfeffer’s shoulder.

My God, she says. My God.

Trudy, what is it? Thomas asks again.

After a minute Trudy shakes her head.

I’m not sure yet, she answers. But let’s pack it up for now, okay?

To Mr. Pfeffer, who is observing her with keen interest, she adds, The woman in the photograph is my mother.

Mr. Pfeffer smiles.

Ah, yes, he says. I had surmised as much.

Would you mind terribly if we finished your interview another day? I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed . . .

Of course. I completely understand.

And if you have time, I’d so appreciate it if you’d come home with me—just for a little while—

You wish, naturally, to see whether I recognize your mother, says Mr. Pfeffer.

He produces a heavy gold pocketwatch and flicks back the cover.

I do have a dinner engagement, he says, but there is plenty of time. Until then, dear, I am all yours.

He stands, shakes out the creases in his trousers, and offers an arm to Trudy. They adjourn to the front steps to wait while Thomas disassembles his equipment. Mr. Pfeffer examines the sky and removes his suitjacket, then blots his forehead with his silk handkerchief. The sun is at its zenith, and the day has grown hot.

Trudy gazes across the lawn and notices a border of lilacs at the edge of the property, a hundred yards away. It is extraordinary, really: a solid wall of flowers over twenty feet high, all shades of purple and white. She wanders a ways toward it, stopping in the center of the grass. There are little wooden doors set at intervals in the hedge, presumably to allow one to walk inside it. Trudy thinks of her
Trog ,
of blinking up in wonder through similar interlacing branches at the pale German sun. Her vision blurs with tears.

There are paths in the hedgerow, calls Mr. Pfeffer. The bushes are over a century old.

Trudy nods to show she has heard.

Their scent is powerfully nostalgic, is it not? It is the sole untarnished memory I have of Germany. Weimar was lovely in lilac time.

I know, Trudy thinks.

When she has collected herself, she returns to Mr. Pfeffer.

I have one last question for you, if you don’t mind, she says.

Mr. Pfeffer inclines his head.

What happened to the Good
Doktor
?

Mr. Pfeffer turns and looks over at the drive, where Thomas is loading the last of the tripods into the van.

Whom you suspect to be your father, says Mr. Pfeffer. If your mother is indeed the apprentice Angel.

Yes. What became of him?

Mr. Pfeffer doesn’t answer immediately. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his trousers and bounces a few times on the balls of his feet. In the distance there is a somnolent buzz, of a mower perhaps, a gardener tending a lawn, or of an airplane, or of bees.

Mr. Pfeffer?

Mr. Pfeffer clears his throat.

He was hanged, I’m afraid, he says finally. Poor fellow. Von Steuern himself kicked the chair away, then left the Good
Dok-tor
on the gallows for the crows to pick, as a lesson to us all.

61

THOMAS LETS TRUDY AND MR. PFEFFER OFF AT HER HOUSE twenty minutes later, and Trudy again accepts Mr. Pfeffer’s arm to guide her up her own front walk. She leans on him a little: her legs are shaking, her hamstrings weak. Inside, the living room, though in shade at this time of day, is as stuffy as if it were August, the furniture releasing the scent of wood in the sudden heat. There is also the smell of fresh-baked bread and some sort of boiled meat. Bratwurst, Trudy guesses. She leads Mr. Pfeffer to the kitchen, where Anna is sawing furiously away at a long loaf of dark pumpernickel, a wave of loose hair swinging in her face.

Mama, says Trudy. I’ve brought somebody to meet you.

She beckons Mr. Pfeffer from the doorway, where he is standing with his hands clasped behind his back like a maître d’.

Anna looks up. The sight of Trudy’s urbane guest must startle her, for the serrated knife clatters to the floor.

Oh! she says. Her face, already pink from steam and exertion, flushes strawberry red. Forgive me, Trudy. I did not know you were having company. I will go upstairs—

Trudy bends to pick up the knife. She wipes it on her trousers and sets it on the breadboard.

No, please don’t, Mama, she says. Mr. Pfeffer is here to see you. Mr. Pfeffer, this is Mrs. Anna Schlemmer, my mother. Mama, Mr. Felix Pfeffer.

She watches Mr. Pfeffer carefully for any sign of recognition, but Mr. Pfeffer merely smiles.

Enchanted, he says.

Anna, flustered, holds out a hand and then hastily retracts it and wipes it on her apron. When she extends it a second time, Mr. Pfeffer grasps it and bows low over it in the European fashion.

Will you join us for lunch, Mr. Pfeffer? asks Anna, once she has reclaimed her hand. We have more than enough. I will set another place at the table.

She turns to the cupboard, but Trudy takes her arm, staying her from the plates.

Leave it for now, Mama, she says. We’ll eat later. In the meantime, could you come sit down for a minute? Mr. Pfeffer wants to talk to you.

Me? says Anna.

She pushes the damp tendrils from her forehead with a wrist, looking quizzically from Trudy to Mr. Pfeffer.

I cannot imagine—, she says.

But she obediently follows Trudy into the living room, Mr. Pfeffer courteously bringing up the rear.

No sooner have the three settled themselves, Mr. Pfeffer in the wing chair across from the two women on the couch, than Anna gets up again.

At least let me bring your guest some coffee, Trudy, she says. Or he would perhaps prefer something more refreshing, some iced tea—

Please, madam, says Mr. Pfeffer. I appreciate the offer. You are too kind. But please do sit. What I have to say won’t take long.

Bewildered, Anna subsides onto the sofa, smoothing her apron over her knees.

Mr. Pfeffer studies her for a moment. Then he glances at Trudy and gives an infinitesimal nod. Trudy’s breath catches in her throat.

Mama, she says. Mr. Pfeffer thinks—

But her voice breaks. Mr. Pfeffer waits politely for Trudy to continue; then, understanding, he splays his hands out before him, admiring the handsome signet ring on his little finger.

Your daughter tells me, he says, addressing it, that you lived in Weimar during the war?

Anna’s face closes.

Yes, she says warily.

And that you worked in a bakery there?

Yes.

Mr. Pfeffer exhales on his ring.

I too am a native of Weimar, madam, he says, polishing the stone on his trousers. And before my incarceration in KZ Buchenwald, I came to know there a woman who owned a particular bakery, one Mathilde Staudt. A very brave woman, this Frau Staudt. She and her assistant risked their lives to leave bread for us, the prisoners, by the stone quarry in which we were forced to work. Furthermore, these two women couriered information back and forth from the camp to the Resistance. The film they smuggled out led to the Allied bombing of Buchen-wald in August 1944. They saved many lives—including, obviously, mine.

Anna, who has been growing whiter by the second, flattens her palms on the couch cushions as if poised for flight.

Yes? she says. And?

Madam, says Mr. Pfeffer, one of those women was you.

A tiny muscle jumps at the corner of Anna’s mouth, then is still.

I saw you, you see, Mr. Pfeffer adds. On several occasions, but the first time on the day
Unterscharführer
Hinkelmann murdered an inmate in the quarry, an atrocity both you and I witnessed. I saw you standing by the tree in which you left the bread. After all these years, that sight has never left me. It inspired in me the will to survive. It gave me hope.

Anna stares at him. She doesn’t appear to be breathing. Only her hands, rolling and unrolling the hem of her apron, betray her.

Finally Anna says, Obviously you have mistaken me for somebody else.

Mr. Pfeffer smiles.

That is not the case, madam, I assure you. Yours is not a face one forgets.

Forgive me, but you are wrong. I know nothing of this.

Don’t you?

Anna gives a small shrug.

Hinkelmann, Blank, Staudt—these names mean nothing to me. I did work in a bakery, yes. But there were several bakeries in Weimar. I never did a thing out of the ordinary. I did only what I could to feed myself and my daughter and keep us safe. Nothing else. Nothing.

Mr. Pfeffer examines her closely.

Ah, he says after a few moments. I see.

In fact, I remember very little of what happened in those days, Anna adds, getting to her feet. My memory is not what it once was.

Mr. Pfeffer rises as well.

Some would call that a blessing, he says. I’m sorry to have troubled you.

Anna bends to tuck the slipcover of the couch back into place.

It is no trouble, she says. I am sorry I am not the woman you are seeking. Perhaps I can compensate for your disappointment by giving you some lunch?

I would be delighted, Mrs. Schlemmer—if I may. We will talk of happier things.

Very good, says Anna, and walks off toward the kitchen.

Mama, wait, Trudy calls.

She is crying. Not with the dignity of an adult, tears trickling down her face, but sobbing like a child, gasping and openmouthed, hands helpless on her thighs.

Now, now, says Mr. Pfeffer. What is all this?

I’m sorry, Trudy says. I’ll be all right in a minute—

A yellow silk handkerchief appears before her. Trudy gropes for it but doesn’t use it. It seems a shame to spoil it by getting it wet. She twists it in her lap.

She is the woman you saw, she says to Mr. Pfeffer. The apprentice Angel.

Yes. I haven’t the slightest doubt.

Trudy nods, head lowered. Tears spot the silk in her fist and the linen of her trousers. She is humiliated to be carrying on in such a way—in front of Mr. Pfeffer, no less. For what has she expected, really? That after all this time Anna would suddenly confess everything, simply because she is confronted by somebody who shared her experience, somebody who was there? Well, yes, apparently. Part of Trudy—the girl still carried within her, puzzled and stubbornly persistent—has been hoping exactly that.

But as Trudy sits trying to calm her breathing, she also remembers what Rainer has said:
Let the punishment fit the crime.
Anna has taken the burden of silence upon herself. It is her decision not to speak of the things she has done, valiant or otherwise. It is in fact her prerogative as a hero. And in another way, whether she is a hero or not is immaterial. Each person has this choice to make about how to live with the past, this dignity, this inviolable right.

Mr. Pfeffer puts a kindly hand on Trudy’s shoulder. Trudy brings the handkerchief to her face. She wonders about him too, this man who gambled his life to help others. Perhaps his cavalier attitude about having done so is also not what it seems.

Better? Mr. Pfeffer asks.

Yes. Thank you.

Blow your nose, he commands.

Trudy laughs shakily and obeys.

There, Mr. Pfeffer says.

He stands and readjusts the cuffs of his trousers.

Now then, he says. Your mother has graciously extended an invitation to lunch, and I for one am going to accept. Won’t you?

He strides with purpose toward the kitchen, where, from the sound of it, Anna is stacking a tray with plates.

After a time, Trudy gets up, walks quietly through the dining room past Anna and Mr. Pfeffer, and goes upstairs to the bathroom. She looks in the mirror over the basin and sees a stranger: eyes wide and astonished, tears clinging to the lashes. She washes her face and comes back down to join the other two, sitting and unfolding her napkin without saying a word. The afternoon sun falls in mild rectangles on the tablecloth. Mr. Pfeffer compliments the chef, who demurs and smiles, her cheeks again flushing bright pink. The three discuss Anna’s views of what she hears on MPR, Trudy’s summer classes, the weather’s sudden change for the better. They eat the food that Anna has set before them: bratwurst and other sliced meats fanned on a platter, a sweet red cabbage salad, chilled cucumber soup. A dish of pickles. Bread.

62

AFTER LUNCH IS CLEARED FROM THE TABLE, ANNA SERVES iced coffee and tea and
Sachertorte,
over which she and Trudy and Mr. Pfeffer linger until well into the afternoon. By the time Mr. Pfeffer flips his watch open and exclaims at the hour, Anna is concealing yawns behind a napkin. She excuses herself to wash the dishes before retiring to her room for a rest, and at this announcement Mr. Pfeffer leaps up to help her pull back her chair. He thanks Anna profusely, again bowing low over her hand and then kissing it, and Trudy, watching, thinks that the rosiness of Anna’s cheeks has to do with reasons other than drowsy post-prandial contentment and the warmth of the day.

Once this elaborate ritual of leave-taking has been concluded, Trudy drives Mr. Pfeffer to Minnetonka. In the car he seems happy to sit and watch the suburbs pass, attempting no small talk except, as they are setting out, to praise Anna’s skills as a cook and to thank Trudy for her hospitality, comments that require no lengthy response. Trudy is grateful. She is tired now and empty, her face still tight from her earlier tears. She wants only to be alone and quiet, to sit and think and digest the events of the day.

So she says nothing until they reach Mr. Pfeffer’s house, and then she says simply, Thank you, Felix.

Mr. Pfeffer smiles at his house, its glass walls and gravity-defying angles, with sleepy satisfaction.

It has been my pleasure, he says. I so enjoyed making your mother’s acquaintance. Or, I should say, making it a second time.

Taking his suitjacket from the back of the seat, he drapes it over his arm and opens the door.

I’ll be in touch about finishing your interview, Trudy tells him as he climbs from the car.

Hmmmm?
says Mr. Pfeffer. Ah, yes. Please do.

He walks away a few steps, then suddenly turns on his heel and comes back.

With your permission, he says, ducking to look at Trudy through the window, I should like to visit your mother again.

Trudy nods.

I think she’d like that.

Do you? says Mr. Pfeffer. Good. That was the impression I received as well. I will call on her next week.

He winks at Trudy, the merest flicker of an eyelid. Then he pats the roof of the car in farewell and strides jauntily off across the lawn, whistling, his jacket slung over one shoulder.

Trudy watches him disappear into the house. Then, with a last wistful glance at the lilac border, she reverses into the lane and drives back the way she has come.

The winding tree-lined streets of Minnetonka give way to flat land and open sky once Trudy hits 394, and she cranks the window down to feel the breeze. It carries to her the smells of tar and cut grass, roses, cooking meat and charcoal from people’s backyard barbecues. She can hear their lives, too, a mother calling, a dog barking, children shouting at play. A fragmented melody from a piano somewhere. The whistle of a train coming in from the prairie. The light is changing as the sun begins its descent, becoming sharp and pure, the shadows long and blue. All of this stirs in Trudy an exquisite melancholy that makes her throat ache. This evening, she thinks, she will go to her study and open the windows to the warm night, and then she may allow herself the luxury of calling Rainer. She wants to tell him all that has happened, that she better understands now how he must have felt when he first came to this country, stepping off the boat with land-shy legs and gazing about in fear and wonder, having left the freight of everything he thought he knew behind.

But not right away. Not yet. At the moment, Trudy wants to extend this odd feeling as long as possible. To prolong this sad and peaceful vacuum between one part of life ending and another coming to take its place.

So as the skyline appears before her, its simple building-block shapes refracting arrows of light into the car, Trudy passes the exit that would take her to her house. Then the next, which would bring her to Rainer’s. Farther on, the turnoff that would lead her to Le P’tit, slumbering at this hour beneath its awnings while the waiters scramble to prepare dinner inside. Trudy turns onto the ring road and circles the city to the other side, emerging in the shade of the skyscrapers. The Mississippi flows beneath her to her left, its currents so slow and powerful that it doesn’t appear to be moving at all. Across it is the university, its art gallery a blinding structure of crumpled tinfoil in the setting sun, the History Department behind it. At stoplights, Trudy inhales grease from fat fryers, exhaust, the heat rising from the sidewalks. People laughing, sitting at outdoor cafés with glasses of wine. Cars honking. The tinny
beat-beat-beat
of pop music from distant radios. All of this pushing, insistent life.

Finally, when the sun is touching the horizon, Trudy turns back toward the river, her mood dissipating. She drives onto the Nicollet Island Bridge with a mingled sense of regret and relief. She is halfway across it when she suddenly swerves to the side and parks. Something about the view has struck her as extraordinary. Something about the light. Trudy pops the hazards on and gets out, then walks to the railing to watch.

A front is moving in, towering cumulus whose tops glow cream and gold and pink. Its underside is dark blue, its edge as straight as if drawn by a ruler except for the curtain of rain that is slowly swallowing the skyline. From this vantage point, the city is all tension wires and smokestacks and turrets, girders and railyard warehouses and drab industrial buildings. It looks much, Trudy thinks, like German cities once did: Heidelburg, Dresden, Berlin. Weimar. Perhaps they still do. The sun makes one last valiant effort to shine through the mist, and for a few seconds everything steams, yellow and gray. Then the rain sweeps in and it is gone.