Page 63 of Hell to Pay
Andrea shot an alarmed look at me—I’ve nearly forgotten about the parure, somehow, though we keep carrying it around. It’s not as if there’s anything to buy! I said, as lightly as I could manage,“Oh, being a modern princess isn’t nearly so glamorous as all that. I spent my days going to school and BDM meetings like everybody else.”
“Except that you lived in a palace,” Frau Biersack said. “And of course a princess doesn’t do the washing, Karin. She had servants for that. Like your late aunt, for example. Ten servants, was it, to look after three people? Or was it twenty?”
“About that,” I said, “lately. Where would they have gone, otherwise? Herr Kolbe, my father’s valet, was quite old; the underbutler, Franz, had lost a leg in Russia; and our butler—” I stopped here in confusion, for I’d just realized that Dr. Becker was meant to be ‘Herr Kolbe.’ Except that he wasn’t, because he was Dr. Becker again now. Oh, this was too confusing. How would the children ever keep it straight if I couldn’t? I went on, “Anyway, I loved them all very much, and it's terrible”—I became overcome, then, and it wasn’t an act. I raised my chin, though, steadied my voice, and went on. “It’s terrible that they’re gone. I left the palace because it burned. All of Dresden burned. There was nothing left.”
“All those rooms burned,” Frau Biersack said flatly.
“I don’t know.” I kept my voice steady with an effort. “I couldn’t see all of them. When I tried to get through the palace, it was on fire, and I nearly burned to death myself.”
“And you escaped—how?” Frau Biersack asked. She was staring at Dr. Becker instead of at me, which made me nervous.
“With Dr. Becker’s help,” I said. “He managed to get me out, and I survived.” Close enough to the truth. “Do you feel I should have died as well?”
I knew I shouldn’t have said it the moment I did. Frau Bierstein’s lips compressed so tightly, they nearly disappeared, and Frau Langbein stood and began to clear the table. I jumped up and said, “Let me help.”
“Nonsense,” Frau Langbein said. “You’re our honored guest.”
“No, seriously,” I said. “I’d prefer to help.”
“With your illness?” Frau Langbein said. “Certainly not.”
“What illness?” Frau Biersack asked.
“The family has that bleeding disease,” Frau Langbein said. “What’s it called?”
The heat was rising in my neck, my cheeks. “Hemophilia. But women are carriers only. I bruise a bit more easily than others do, that’s all.”
“Your poor brothers, though,” Frau Langbein said. “Maria told me. Oh, those dear little boys. It broke her heart when they died. It must have broken your mother’s, too.”
“You have a genetic defect?” Frau Biersack asked sharply. “And you haven’t been?—”
“Elsa!” That was Frau Langbein, and her voice was sharp.
I didn’t move. “I haven’t been what?” I asked, although I knew. Sterilized as unfit to reproduce. Or maybe she meant “killed.”
Frau Biersack said, “Never mind. Although what the Führer would say …”
“Considering that half the royal families of Europe inherited this disease from Queen Victoria,” I said, “that would be a great deal of regicide, don’t you think?”
“Well, the Bolsheviks did it, right enough,” she said.
“Ah,” I said, my temper well and truly up now. “And have the Bolsheviks become the Nazi model now?”
She turned so red, I thought she would pop. I pulled myself together—how hard it is, at times like these, to remember that I’m not a princess anymore and have no privilege!—and said, “I’m sorry. That was terribly rude of me, and as a guest in your house, too. Please forgive me.”
Frau Biersack nodded stiffly and walked out, back rigid, and I knew I’d made an enemy. Why, why can’t I control my temper? After all this time—why?
I felt ashamed even now reading those words, remembering that night. Mostly, during that numbing, wearying period of homeless wandering, I’d felt much older than my years, hardly able to recall the time when I’d been heedless and carefree and trusting. At times like that, though, I’d been uncomfortably reminded that I was sixteen, and still much too impulsive for somebody in my precarious position. I’d apologized to Dr. Becker, of course, and he’d said, “Never mind. Andrea and I slipped ourselves. We’ll all do better now.” He’d looked so weary, though, and I’d spent a troubled night on my couch. Partly for that reason, and partly because of all that meat.
Joe’s perfection, too, slipped a little that week—if one can call drinking champagne imperfect.
April 6, 1945
Dear Dad,
Well, we’re across the Main River and have taken a place calledWestheim, but boy, has it been an effort to get to this point. Faced our most bitter resistance yet here, with civilians joining in with the military, and the police and firemen lending a hand to the battle too. Every house and building had at least one sniper in it. You get kind of a crawling sensation on the back of your neck, knowing those rifles are trained on you. They’d dug tunnels under the streets, too, and you bet you had to watch your back.
We made it to the railway line by the time night had fallen, though, and once we took some prisoners, I found out why they’ve been fighting so hard. The SS told the troops to fight to the last man, then left five thousand of them here to do it and skedaddled—but first they hanged three men who admitted they wanted to surrender! Imagine still executing men when you’re down this far on the board. No wonder they’re losing.
