Page 114 of Hell to Pay
“Yes,” I said. “Hitler was an evil person, I think—does one believe in good and evil? I think I do. I think I must. And an evil person, especially one with power, surely attracts other evil people. If goodness feeds on itself, why not evil? That’s so simple a label to attach to a person, but if it’s true of anyone, it’s true of him. So you see—I had to hide my condition, and I also couldn’t have married under the Third Reich. One had to provide a certificate of fitness from the public health authorities, and I wouldn’t have been able to obtain such a thing. Our doctor, too, should have reported my mother’s illness and mine to the Reich, but it was Dr. Becker, who was treating us in secret for all our sakes, so he didn’t. But I was cautioned never to reveal my condition to friends, much less to teachers. Even when I had pain, I mustn’t let on. Except that for—formeine Tage—” I didn’t want to say the word in English—“That’s something other women also suffer, so that, I didn’t have to hide. Except, of course, that I did.” I tried to laugh. “As it isn’t a subject of which one speaks.”
“Except that I just did,” Joe said. “And I’ve got an idea.”
“What?” The wind had picked up and there was a hint of October in the air, and I was shivering a bit.
“My idea is,” Joe said, “that I walk you home and then go get you that hot-water bottle, and I come back tomorrow and, if you’re feeling better, have tea with you and the professor and make a plan for those books. How does that sound? Or is that too soon to want to see me again?”
I raised my head, which I’m afraid I’d allowed to sink onto his shoulder. He was a slim person, but he had a goodshoulder all the same. “Is that why you didn’t come yesterday? Because it was too soon?”
His smile was sheepish. “Yeah.”
“Isn’t your leave only another week?”
“Yes.”
“Then please,” I said, “come every day. And every day you can after that. Come and read with us. Please.”
“Oma,” Alix said with delight. “You were so forward!”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m afraid I was. But with Joe, the rules didn’t seem to apply. You won’t realize how inappropriate it was for him to mention such things to me, but I couldn’t imagine a German man ever saying something like that. It was freeing, after guarding my tongue about everything for so long, to meet such a person.”
“Did he really ride all the way back and get you a hot-water bottle, though?” Ben asked. “And then have to ride all the way there and backagain?”
“Yes. He really did.” I sighed. “He was a very good man.”
48
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY
We went on with the story in my suite after breakfast, for now that I’d started the telling, I felt a great urgency to finish it. Ashleigh and Ben were still producing their “bites,” and although I still wasn’t watching them—mostly, I’m afraid, due to vanity; it’s very difficult to feel sixty-five when looking at a video of one’s shrunken, wrinkled self —I felt an obligation to tell the story. Not my story so much, but Germany’s, and Joe’s, and finally, the story of Nuremberg.
“You can’t imagine,” I said, sitting as upright as possible on a gold-upholstered chair as Ashleigh filmed, “what a new thing such a trial was. Oh, how angry the defendants were! To be accused after the fact of crimes that had never been set down as such in law—this angered many Germans, not just the Nazis. And to put on trial not just concentration-camp commandants and the governors of captured states, who would have ordered atrocities directly, but also generals merely accused of waging aggressive war while being aware of those atrocities, was quite controversial. And it was all done extremely quickly. In October, Joe was assigned to interpret for one of the investigators, a captain in ArmyIntelligence, and the trial began in early November and lasted almost a year, with the investigation proceeding alongside it.”
Alix said, “How can you start a trial when you haven’t even investigated the crimes yet?”
“Well, the Nazis helped,” I said. “Much of the evidence was already in Allied hands, for the Nazis were meticulous recordkeepers. Efficiency and organization are very German traits, even when put to evil use. The SS did try to destroy records at the concentration camps there at the end, but they weren’t very successful, and as for everything else? How can the judges believe that the director of theReichsbankknew nothing of what was going on when they watch a film of the bank’s vaults full of Jewish treasure, including a chest of gold teeth and fillings taken from the mouths of murdered Jews? What other explanation is there for that?”
“Oh, my God,” Alix said.
“Yes,” I said. “It was a story that I believe needed to be told. But his part in uncovering these deeds was hard on Joe. Very hard.”
“I’ll bet it wasn’t any picnic for you, either,” Sebastian said.
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t.”
December was very cold that year. I was sitting in the little room off the bread kitchen—the warmest place in the house—one snowy afternoon, readingBrideshead Revisited.I confess I found it rather tough going, and I was both a Catholic and an aristocrat! But our little book-discussion group was delving into it next week at Dr. Müller’s flat, and he was too experienced a professor not to know when one hadn’t read the material. I’d tried it once, with a tedious and extremely depressing American play calledLong Day’s Journey Into Night—Joe was an expert now in procuring books from his fellow soldiers—and had quickly been found out.
People were being unfaithful in my chapter and planning divorces left and right—this book was nearly as depressing as that play—when angry voices from the shop had me pulling an old cardigan over my dress and hurrying out there.
I found quite a tableau. Frau Lindemann was standing at the counter in a combative pose. Behind her in the queue was Frau Braun from the hotel, and behindherwere two soldiers. One was in a peaked cap and had two silver bars on each of his shoulders. The other one was Joe.
Frau Adelberg held a loaf of wheat-rye bread—my contacts with the farmers had come along by leaps and bounds—but Frau Lindemann wasn’t taking it from her. Instead, she was saying, “Every time I come into this shop, I see Americans, probably the same ones persecuting Germans in the Palace of Justice. We all know that Fräulein Glücksburg has no shame, but I’d have thought better of you. With your husband, like mine, still a prisoner of these people, too! What must he think of you?” She’d clearly forgotten that Joe spoke German—he’d spoken English in the shop since that first day. He said it was more interesting that way, as he could hear what people were talking about, especially since they were mostly talking about the trial. There were over a thousand participants from the Allied nations in the city now, and the news of the trial still dominated the front page two months on.
“She hasn’t written her husband anything about these Americans, I expect,” said Frau Braun.“Na ja,some women no doubt find it more convenient to consort with the enemy.” Her small brown eyes ran over me, her lips thinning as she stared.
I should probably have gone back to my reading. Alas, I was raised to be a princess, and I was tired of the whispers.How could I turn away from a direct attack? I said, “Perhaps you’ll allow me to take over here, Frau Adelberg.”
Frau Adelberg flung up her hands and said, “Here I am, a loyal German, my husband a prisoner, my oldest son fallen at Stalingrad for the Fatherland, forced to carry on by myself. My bread is the best in the city, and what thanks do I get? None. Only abuse. Really, it’s too much. Working one’s fingers to the bone for this?” Which was a bit rich. I wasn’t complaining, because my home with her was the best security I could have now, butshewasn’t the one working her fingers to the bone here.
