Rosella Postorino - The Women at Hitler’s Table

Translated from the Italian by Leah Janeczko

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Originally published in Italy as ‘Le Assaggiatrici’ by Feltrinelli, 2018

First published in the USA as ‘At the Wolf’s Table’ by Flatiron Books, New York 2019

Copyright © Rosella Postorino 2018

Translation copyright © Leah Janeczko 2019

Rosella Postorino asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008377274

Ebook Edition © 2019 ISBN: 9780008377298

Version: 2019-07-29

A man can only live by absolutely forgetting he’s a man like other folk.

—BERTOLT BRECHT, THE THREEPENNY OPERA

Contents

Cover

Title Page THE WOMEN AT HITLER’S TABLE Rosella Postorino Translated from the Italian by Leah Janeczko

Copyright

Epigraph

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Part Two

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Part Three

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Notes and Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

We entered one at a time. We had waited for hours outside, lined up in the hallway. The room was large, its walls white. In the center of it, a long wooden table already laid out. They gestured for us to sit.

I sat with my hands clasped on my belly. In front of me, a white ceramic plate. I was hungry.

The other women had taken their places without a sound. There were ten of us. Some sat up straight and poised, their hair pulled into buns. Others glanced around. The girl across from me nibbled at her hangnails, mincing them between her front teeth. She had doughy, blotchy cheeks. She was hungry.

By eleven in the morning we were already hungry. It wasn’t because of the country air or the journey by bus—the feeling in our stomachs was fear. For years we had lived with this hunger, this fear, and when the smell of the cooked food was under our noses, our heartbeats throbbed in our temples, our mouths watered. I looked over at the girl with blotchy skin. We shared the same longing.

THE STRING BEANS were served with melted butter. I hadn’t had butter since my wedding day. The aroma of the roasted peppers tickled my nostrils. My plate was piled high. I couldn’t stop staring at it. The plate of the girl across from me was filled with rice and peas.

“Eat,” they told us from the corner of the room, more an invitation than an order. They could see it, the longing in our eyes.

Mouths sagged open, breathing quickened. We hesitated. No one had wished us bon appétit, so maybe there was still time to stand up, say thank you, the hens were generous this morning, an egg will be enough for me today.

Again I counted the women around the table. There were ten of us. It wasn’t the Last Supper.

“Eat!” they repeated from the corner, but I was already sucking on a string bean and felt the blood surging up to the roots of my hair and down to the tips of my toes, felt my heartbeat slowing. What a feast you’ve prepared for me —these peppers are so sweet— what a feast for me, on a wooden table, not even a cloth covering it, ceramic dishes from Aachen, and ten women. If we were wearing veils we would look like nuns, a refectory of nuns who’ve taken vows of silence.