David Gillham - City of Women

Her mother formed an odd smile shaped around something sharp and painful. “Liebchen,” she began, drowsily, then spewed out smoke. “That would never happen.”

“Why?” Sigrid had demanded. “Because he doesn’t love you?”

And now a flash of pain colored her mother’s eyes. “Oh, no. I’m sure he loves me.”

“Then why ?” Sigrid was a little afraid now. Afraid of what was coming.

“Because of you, of course.”

“Me?”

“He’s a Jew, child.” And then her voice became blandly incredulous. “I could never permit a Jew to become your father.”

Sigrid saw Fabian perhaps a week later, standing out in the street in front of their flat. But her mother only closed the shades. “I’ve spoken to Frau Schultz across the street. She needs help with her housework, and will pay two marks a day.”

“Frau Schultz?”

“The money will come in handy. Look at you, you’re growing out of your clothes,” her mother observed with a dim reproach informing her voice. “Soon you’ll be popping out of our blouse.”

“But Frau Schultz is mean ,” Sigrid complained. “And she has that nasty dog who always nips my ankles.”

“You’ll learn to live with it. I’ve learned to live with plenty worse, believe me. She’s expecting you to start tomorrow.”

“I don’t think Fabian ever loved you,” Sigrid announced. “And neither did Poppa.” Her eyes were suddenly burning with tears. It was the cruelest thing she could think of to say. Her mother only gazed back at her with a kind of wretched disdain, but all she said was, “Don’t make any problems for old lady Schultz. Or it’ll be my bite you have to worry about.”

Good. For once you are staying out of trouble , Sigrid hears herself observe. Returning home from the patent office, she has met Fräulein Kohl outside the building, shepherding Granzinger’s two middle girls up the steps. She finds that she is inexplicably happy to see the young woman, though she does not dare show it.

“Go on. Go on up,” the Fräulein directs the children without sympathy. “You know the way, I think, by now.”

“Mutti will be cross if you leave us alone again,” the piggy-faced child points out.

“And I’ll be cross if you don’t do as you’re told, and we don’t want that , do we? Now go. I want a word with Frau Schröder.”

The little piglet frowns. She looks like she might want to challenge her orders, but decides not to, and the two children bounce up the steps.

“A word?” Sigrid asks.

“Will you do something for me? Frau Schröder?”

“You mean something else ?”

The girl removes a parcel from her pocket, tightly wrapped in brown butcher’s paper and tied with twine. “Would you hold this for me? Just for a few days.”

“Hold it?” Sigrid feels a small pinch in her belly. “What does that mean, ‘hold it’? Hold it for what? What is it?”

“Something that I would prefer not to have just anyone open. I have very little privacy, you see. Frau Granzinger is regularly searching through my things.”

“And how do you know I won’t open it as well? Because of your intuition again?”

“No. I think you might open it. But better you than her. Anyway, it won’t be long,” she says. “I’ll take it back in a few days.”

“No. No, this doesn’t feel correct.”

“It’s not correct, Frau Schröder. In fact, it’s very in correct. But never mind,” the girl tells her, and replaces the parcel into her pocket. “Never mind. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” She turns her back to Sigrid and heads up the steps.

“Wait. Child. You needn’t simply walk away,” Sigrid points out.

But the girl only shrugs as she opens the doors to the foyer. “No? Why not? Either you do something or you don’t. That’s what I’ve learned,” she says, and disappears into the building.

Climbing the steps alone toward 11G, Sigrid fills her head with a memory. The first time Egon asked her to deliver an envelope for him, they had just made love. Afterward, she lay collapsed on her back, her head on the mattress. Where had the pillow gone? He reached over to retrieve his cigarettes from the end table, and then lit up, leaning beside her on one elbow.

“Don’t tell me your husband has ever done that for you,” he said, exhaling smoke in a stream. “That takes some true craftsmanship.” She didn’t answer, and he didn’t seem to expect her to. “So, Frau Schröder. There’s something you can do for me ,” he told her.

She let her head roll over so that she was looking into his face. “In payment for your fine craftsmanship?” she asked.

“Tomorrow at noon, there will be a man waiting on the main platform of Schlesischer Bahnhof. I’d like you to exchange packages with him.”

“Packages,” Sigrid repeated.

“Yes. I’ll give you the package for him. You bring back his package for me.”

A stare.

“Very simple, actually,” Egon told her. “It won’t take you thirty minutes. You can do it on your midday break.”

She took the cigarette from his fingers. “Am I permitted to ask questions?”

“It’s a small business transaction. That’s all.”

“But illegal,” she said, and inhaled smoke.

“Will you do it?”

Exhaled. The smoke plumed upward. “Of course I’ll do it. I think you know that I’ll do anything you ask of me.”

“Good,” he said, and reclaimed his cigarette.

THE PACKAGE ITSELF was a sack of Karneval brand rock sugar candy. When she looked at Egon for an explanation, he simply said, “Don’t eat any. You could break a tooth.” When she opened the drawstring and shook a sample of the contents into her palm, a shard of glimmer appeared among bits of the amber rock sugar. She had never owned a diamond, but assumed that this is what one looked like.

When she gave Egon the box of Weike Garde cigars, which she had received in return for the sack of rock sugar candy, he dropped the box on the end table and sat on the bed, pulling off his shoes.

“No trouble?”

“No,” she answered, draping her coat over the flimsy cane-back chair. “The gentleman was just where you’d said he would be.”

One shoe hit the floor. “Good. What did he look like?” The other shoe hit the floor.

“Skinny. Head shaved. A black Homburg and a gray mustache that was waxed.”

Egon nodded to himself. “Good,” he said again, yanking out the tail of his shirt, then peeling it, still buttoned, over his head.

“So. What’s in the cigar box? Cigars?”

“You didn’t look?” he asked. Then shrugged. “Only money. A few marks to get by on.” And then he asked, “Did you enjoy it?”

“You mean my secret mission?” she asked, unbuttoning her dress.

“If we were mobsters in Chicago, you’d be called my ‘bagman.’”

“‘Bagman’?” Sigrid repeats. Incomprehensible. “So we’re mobsters now?

“Tell me the truth. It didn’t give you a thrill, Frau Schröder, to be disobeying the rules?”

In fact, it had. Her heart had pumped excitedly as she had made the exchange. It had happened so fast, she had barely realized that it was over when the skinny Berliner disappeared into the crowd on the platform. But all she tells Egon is, “I’m already disobeying the rules. With you, you great monster.”

Egon grinned, and stood long enough to unbuckle his belt and drop his trousers. “So you’ll do it again?” he asked.

But Sigrid didn’t answer him. They both knew the answer to his question. So instead she turned her back to him and showed him the clasp of her brassiere. “Undo me,” she whispered lightly.