David Gillham - City of Women

Ericha touches her on the shoulder. “It’s time,” she tells her.

At the door, Sigrid gazes at her fretfully. “Where are they?”

“They?”

“The woman and her two girls. Where are they? Were they caught ?” She asks the questions from the back of her throat, as if she would rather swallow the words than speak them.

“You liked them, did you?”

“I just expected to see them here.”

“Don’t worry. They’re safe enough. Auntie’s is not the only place we use. There are others willing to lend us a room or a bed or an attic for a night or two when necessary. I had to move them to accommodate this lot we just took in.”

“So they won’t be coming back ?”

“That all depends on how things work out,” Ericha tells her. And then she says, buttoning her coat, “I’d be careful, if I were you.”

“Careful of what?”

“Careful of your emotions. You can’t afford to form attachments.”

Going down the steps of the stairwell to the street level, Sigrid catches a shadow of a glance. “What?” she inquires.

“Nothing,” says Ericha.

“No, you gave me a look. What is it?”

“It’s nothing. Only sometimes I wonder about your motives.”

“My motives? What on earth do you mean by that?”

“I mean you’re getting older.”

“Why, thank you, little one. How kind of you to note that.”

“Well, you are. You must be close to thirty by now, and without any children. Perhaps you need to be a mother, even if it’s only to strangers.”

“And perhaps you need to concentrate less on nonsense. You’re so smart that you think yourself into knots. Besides. Just ask anyone. I haven’t a germ of maternal instinct. So no more theories, please.”

“You never talk about your husband,” Ericha says.

Sigrid swallows sharply. “I do.”

“No. You don’t. Other women talk about their husbands constantly. So it makes me curious that you don’t.”

“I suppose I am not ‘other women.’ What’s private to me is private.”

Ericha gives a drilling look. Then turns away, and unlocks the door that leads to the street. “I’m sorry. I won’t ask again. Did you bring the parcel?”

Sigrid looks back blankly. “Did I?”

“From the laundry room.”

“Oh. Yes. Remind me to give you a groschen for the next time. I had the devil’s own time finding your penny scratch.” She reaches into her coat pocket, and retrieves a parcel in brown paper. “What is it?”

Ericha unties the twine as her answer. Then pushes aside the brown paper to reveal a stack of worn and crinkled bank notes of varied denominations that have been passed, well used, from hand to hand. “A withdrawal from our bank,” she says.

Sigrid stares in the pale wattage of the stairwell bulb. “Where did this come from?”

“People who make donations to us rather than Winter Relief.”

“There must be close to three hundred marks here.”

Ericha does not respond to this. Instead, she says, “You should have a key.”

“What?”

“A key to Auntie’s door.”

“And I’m sure your Auntie would be less than pleased at that idea.”

“Don’t misjudge her just because she can be thorny. It’s her way. Believe me, if she didn’t find you trustworthy, she wouldn’t be letting you past the landing,” Ericha tells her.

“Is this a test?”

“No.”

“Is this your way of measuring my commitment?”

“No. It’s not a test.”

“It is, because with Ericha Kohl, everything is a test.”

Ericha shakes her head. “Never mind. If you don’t want the responsibility, then you don’t.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t say one thing or the other.”

“Fine. If you give me a key, I will take a key.”

Ericha reties the parcel of bills.

“What’s it for?” Sigrid asks.

“A bribe. An important document.” After tightening her knot on the parcel, the girl replaces it in Sigrid’s handbag.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving it back to you. You’ll need it. Our contact will be waiting for you in the cinema tonight at quarter past seven. Rear mezzanine.”

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

“I’m not sure I wish to do this,” Sigrid says.

“Maybe not. But you’ll do it anyway,” Ericha tells her confidently.

“Oh, you think so?”

“Yes. Because it’s a test. And you can’t resist passing tests.”

Sigrid frowns. “Why can’t you do it?”

“Because the man you’ll be meeting knows me. I was in the BdM with his daughter.”

“His daughter?”

“His brainless daughter. I bloodied her nose.”

“I won’t ask why.”

“So, you’ll do it.”

Sigrid takes in a sharp breath. “My God, I’m going to be late getting back to work.”

“So, you’ll do it,” Ericha repeats.

“Yes, yes, I’ll do it,” she squawks. “Now, open the door,” Sigrid commands. “Quickly.”

SHE IS ONLY a few seconds short of returning late to the patent office. Fräulein Kretchmar gazes at her, as she quickly removes the cover of her typewriter. The woman’s mouth opens, as if she might speak, but then she doesn’t. Sigrid breathes in, then breathes out.

Coming home at the end of the day, she finds her mother-in-law down on her hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor, plunging a stiff-bristled brush into a pail of dirty water with a sickly-sweet odor.

“My God.” Sigrid frowns. “What is that smell?”

“Pine needles,” the old woman replies, slapping the brush onto the floor. “Stewed pine needles. It was on one of my radio programs.”

“Well, at least it’s not the soup. Have you put it on yet?”

“Just now. Watch where you’re stepping, will you? If you leave footprints, you’ll have to clean them. Not I.”

Sigrid enters the kitchen. Lifts the lid on the soup pot, sniffs the contents, then replaces it. No meat. A little over half a kilo per week per person permitted by their allotted ration Marken does not allow for many meaty soups. But she can smell the aroma of cigarette tobacco. And not the odorous ersatz brands, either, but the real thing. Renate’s gift. She considers mentioning it, just to wheedle, when the old lady suddenly announces, “Your new friend stopped by.”

She steps out of the kitchen. “Friend?”

“The Frau Obersturmführer Junger,” her mother pronounces archly. “She asked if you could come at two on Sunday, rather than one.” A pointed glance out of the corner of her eye as she scrubs. “I told her you’d be delighted .”

After supper, she informs Mother Schröder that she is going to the cinema as she walks out, closing the door behind her before any argument can slow her down. She clatters down the steps, listening to the noise of her flat-heeled shoes on the worn wooden planks, and bursts out the door as the twilight glooms the streets. The air is stiff with cold, but she breathes it in with a mix of relief and trepidation. In her bag is the parcel of banknotes.

She has stolen one of her mother-in-law’s Aristons from the packet, and lights it with a match from a paper box as she walks. The tobacco is so bitter that at first she feels she might retch. She pauses by a poplar tree to overcome her light-headedness, and then forces down another drag. This time the smoke sticks to her throat. Then, as she expels it, she spots the figure in the bleakness.

A man across the street.

It’s not that she recognizes his face. His face is obscured by the down-turned hat brim and the upturned collar. Perhaps it’s his posture that causes her heartbeat to shorten. The slightly dangerous slouch. Hands hidden in his pockets. The tilt of the head. And most of all his stillness. That stillness within him that she could never quite touch.