David Gillham - City of Women

“You have no right to address me in this way,” Sigrid says, suddenly angry. “You are so incredibly naïve.”

“Really?” the girl says, steaming. “Because I value morality?”

“Because you think that choices are all yes or no , and that there’s no room in between.”

“Untrue,” Ericha says. “I have learned that fact quite well. Compromise is the lesson of the day. It’s easy to do. A pregnant woman with a yellow star must walk in the freezing rain because Jews are barred from public transport. Just don’t look. A man is beaten by the police in front of his children. Don’t look. The SS march a column of skeletons, in filthy striped rags, down the middle of the goddamned street . But don’t look ,” she whispers roughly. “You avert your eyes enough times, and finally you go blind. You don’t actually see anything any longer.”

“ Enough . I’ve had enough of this.” Sigrid starts to turn away, but the girl grips her by the arm. “Let go of me, please,” she commands tightly.

“Do you listen to the BBC, Frau Schröder? If you do , then you must know what’s in store for the people in Auntie’s attic, if the Gestapo lay their mitts on them.”

Sigrid feels her breath constrict. “The British have always been full of atrocity stories,” she replies. “In the last war, too. It’s part of their propaganda.”

Ericha fixes her closely with overcharged eyes, as if to examine Sigrid from the inside out. “ Now who’s being naïve?” the girl asks.

Sigrid gazes back at her, blinking raindrops from her eyes.

“Make your choice, Frau Schröder. Unlike those in the attic, you still have that privilege. Yes,” she says, “or no.”

THAT NIGHT, SIGRID gazes into the darkness above the bed, and the darkness stares back.

Egon had continued to use her for his black market exchanges. Different places each time. Different faces, too. A tubby Berliner mensch in a greasy hat waiting on the Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn station. A gaunt fellow with very thick eyeglasses and a cloth cap at the Kottbusser Tor stop, squinting at a copy of the Deutsche Illustrierte with a wounded infantry Landser on the cover. A whiskered old man who smelled of sour cabbage, waiting on the Prinzenstrasse platform. Always men and always stops on the U1 B line.

“I try to make it convenient for you,” he told her. She had delivered another sack of rock sugar, but this time had been handed a simple kraft paper envelope, filled with twenty-mark notes.

“You must be rich by now,” she’d said, crouched behind him on the bed, unbuttoning his shirt.

“All Jews are rich. Don’t you know that by now?”

She frowned. “Don’t take it that way. It was only a joke.”

“Would you like me to be rich?” he asked, allowing her to remove his shirt.

“I don’t care,” she answered, brushing her lips across his skin from his neck to his shoulder. “I don’t care about money.” She could feel him breathe in and then out.

“That’s quite a luxury. It’s all I can think about.”

She stopped. Did not pull away, but felt something clench inside. It hurt that she wasn’t all he could think about. But more than that, it reminded her of the family he must be feeding and clothing with the money she collected for him in these U-Bahn transactions. The family that was None of Her Business, yet laid a deep and secret claim to him.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she answered. But when he shifted toward her and stroked the hair from her face, she did not let him catch her eyes, for fear that he could too easily read the thoughts that were written in them.

“Do you love me?” she whispered with heat into his ear, when he was inside her.

“I love you,” he huffed.

“And you choose me? You choose me over her?”

“I choose you,” he told her, a growl in his throat as he increased the rhythm of his advance. “You.”

But even as she gripped him. Even as she tried to draw him so deeply inside of her that he would never escape her embrace. She knew that his choice was only a breath of air.

“FRAU SCHRÖDER. Heil Hitler and good morning.”

Sigrid turns at the awkward sound of that particular combination, and is faced with the Frau Obersturmführer’s dimpled smile and pregnant belly. “Yes. Good morning,” she replies, issuing a smile in return. “And Heil Hitler,” she adds for good measure.

“You’re going out?” the young woman inquires smilingly. She is wearing a simple but well-cut dressing gown. Blond locks drape her shoulders. Just looking at her makes Sigrid feel like an old rag.

“Yes. To work,” Sigrid says, and locks the door with the key.

“So I understand that you met my brother, Wolfram.”

Sigrid feels something staple her into place. She thinks of the lean man with the gun-sight gaze. “Yes,” she says. “I did.”

“Well”—and this is said delicately—“I hope he didn’t impinge upon you.”

“Impinge upon me?”

“Yes. I hope he didn’t impose upon your good nature.”

“My good nature.” Sigrid raises her eyebrows. “No, no, he neither impinged nor imposed.”

“It’s just that Wolfram, the poor man, it’s just that he’s been through quite a lot,” the Frau Obersturmführer informs her.

“Yes. His leg.” Sigrid nods. But the woman squints back at her.

“Oh, yes. His leg. That, too. In any case, if you ever feel that he’s been presumptuous in some way, please don’t hesitate to inform me. Will you promise?”

“I promise,” Sigrid says, maintaining an even tone.

The woman’s blazing smile returns. “Wonderful. I feel so much better now that we’ve had our little talk. This Sunday, you should stop by in the afternoon for coffee. That is, if you’re not otherwise engaged. I’m sure I would find your company most enjoyable.”

“Really?” She hears herself ask the question.

“I shall expect you at one,” the Frau Obersturmführer informs her.

AT THEIR MIDDAY BREAK, she tells Renate, “I’ll have to miss our lunch today.”

“Really?” Renate arches an eyebrow. “Should I be jealous?”

“Only of the war effort,” Sigrid replies. “I promised my mother-in-law I would volunteer at the Party office to help sort out clothes from the collections.”

“Ah, yes. She’s a member of the club, isn’t she?”

“The lady pays her dues. That’s all I know.”

“Doesn’t that entitle you to a few more ration coupons?’

“Oh, yes. One shoe more per year. Color of my choice, as long as it’s brown.”

“Well. At least sorting through coats might help some poor front-liner keep warm.”

“That’s the idea,” Sigrid says, sighing, and shifts the weight of her armload of files. Warm under a blanket. She can feel his body next to her, still. Smell the scent of sex mixed with the musty wool. The deception of peace in her heart. She had fallen in love with Egon while he slept.

Renate pauses. Files a folder and then gives her a look. “Do you miss him?”

Sigrid flinches. Caught. The flash of Egon’s face across the back of her eyes. “Miss him?”

“Kaspar,” says Renate.

Kaspar. Sigrid opens her mouth but nothing sensible seems to come out of it, and Renate waves her off. “Never mind, never mind. A stupid question to ask. I’m sorry,” she says. But for a moment, her expression has let slip its usual bravado. “It’s only that I surprise myself. I mean, I know that my darling husband is likely screwing everything in and out of a skirt. But sometimes I’m still just frantic for him.” She frowns, then shrugs it off. “Never mind. Makes no sense,” she announces, and then frowns again. “Women are such goddamned idiots,” she whispers bitterly.