David Gillham - City of Women

“Do you feel that?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“Then you know what it’s for.”

Her memory, at that instant, is disrupted by an intrusion. Some piece of the present forcing itself into her consciousness. She is aware that someone has filled the seat beside her, though she does not immediately open her eyes. It’s a problem these days. A woman by herself. Soldiers off duty. Usually it’s nothing much to rebuff them. A few pointed words, and if words don’t work, she’s started carrying a fish knife. She makes an attempt to hold on to the heat of the past, but when she hears the girl’s pressured whisper, her eyes snap open.

“Please say that we came here together.”

“What?” Sigrid blinks.

“ Please , Frau Schröder. Say we came here together. That we’ve both been here since the beginning of the film.”

It’s Frau Granzinger’s duty-year girl. What is her name ? A thin, long-limbed specimen with an oval face and soot black hair under a wool beret. Her eyes are so overtly charged that they give off an electrical shock. Sigrid starts to speak, but something prevents her. Maybe it’s the sight of the two men marching around the horseshoe of the auditorium below, their electric torches slicing up the darkness of the aisle. Several members of the audience complain when the beams hit them in the face, till one of the men shouts, “Sicherheitspolizei! Lights up!”

A grumble broadens across the theater as the house lights are raised and the film shudders to a halt, but it quickly dies when the men start checking papers.

The door to the balcony opens and a figure enters. Inside the borders of the Reich, the security police wear plain clothes. In this case, a long khaki raincoat and a slouch hat. He wakes the sleeping usher unceremoniously, and the old man staggers to his feet, spluttering, “Yes, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar,” and “No, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.” The Sipo man dismisses him with a wave and examines the papers of a young Fräulein who had been necking with her boyfriend, a callow Luftwaffe Flakhelfer. “What’s this about ?” the Flakhelfer demands to know, in order to exhibit his bravery in uniform, but the Sipo man simply ignores him, and the boy’s bravery ends there. A glance down, and then a glance up, and the Herr Kommissar heads straight for the row where Sigrid and the girl are installed. Sigrid feels the girl grasp her hand tightly, but breaks the grip. “Take this,” she whispers, pressing her ticket stub on the girl. “ Quickly . Put it into your pocket.”

GEHEIME STAATSPOLIZEI.

That’s what’s stamped on the small aluminum warrant disk hanging from a chain. It’s what all agents of the Gestapo carry. The man allows it to dangle over his fingers just long enough for its meaning to sink in, and then flips it back into his palm. He has a hard jaw, and not unhandsome features, but there is a kind of animal fatigue entrenched in his face. A sleeplessness in his eyes, as if they have been burned open. “Papers,” he says, talking to the girl first. She says nothing but digs out her identification from her shoulder bag and hands it over. The man squints at it. Does not hand it back. “Papers,” he says to Sigrid, extending an open hand.

Sigrid swallows as she opens her bag. Once, on an electric tram going up the Friedrichstrasse, it took her three minutes to find her identification in order to satisfy some glowering police sergeant. It was the longest three minutes of her life. But this time she has no trouble. Her identity booklet has become slightly dog-eared from overuse. When she hands it over, she makes sure that she touches the Herr Kommissar’s finger with her own. Just a graze of contact, but enough to elicit the snap of a glance from the man, before he trains his attention on her photograph stapled to the gray cardboard. “Frau Schröder.”

“Yes,” Sigrid confirms.

“You know this young female?” he asks with a nod toward the girl wedged in beside her.

Does she hesitate? She seems to hear the words before she realizes that she is speaking them. “Yes. She’s serving her duty year with my downstairs neighbor.”

“Her duty year?”

“Surely you’re aware, Herr Kommissar, of the requirements for youth these days? She’s found work as a domestic, caring for the children of a mother of six. A recipient of the Mother’s Cross.”

“Really? How commendable,” the man replies flatly. “And I suppose that the two of you have been sitting here since the beginning of the film?”

“We have,” Sigrid replies simply.

“And the ticket window will recall selling you your tickets together?”

“We purchased our tickets separately, Herr Kommissar. She paid for hers, I for mine. I can’t tell you what the ticket window will or will not recall about it.”

A frown shadows the Sipo man’s face. Then he looks down at the girl. “May I see your ticket stub, please? Fräulein?” His voice is not polite.

But the girl does not blink. She removes Sigrid’s ticket stub from her pocket and hands it over. He examines it without altering the shape of his frown, and checks it against the number of the next empty seat. “Frau Schröder,” he says to Sigrid without expression, “this young lady is in the wrong seat.”

“Is she?” Sigrid responds innocently. “Well, to be truthful, Herr Kommissar, we preferred these seats in the rear rather than those down front, so we could chat and not disturb anyone. I know it’s against the rules, but we women do like to chat, so we moved.” She gives a lightly pleasant shrug. “Is that the crime you’re investigating, Herr Kommissar?” she inquires. “Shall we move back down to our original seats?”

His eyes lock onto hers, and she knows she must hold his gaze without hesitation.

“Tell me, Frau Schröder,” the Sipo man begins, with only the barest edge to his voice. “What is this young woman’s name?”

Sigrid does not budge. “Her name?”

“Yes.” He nods. “She works for your neighbor. You’ve come to see a film together. Surely you know her name.”

Sigrid’s mind speeds back to Frau Granzinger’s introduction of the girl on the stairs of their apartment block. There must be a name stuck somewhere in her head.

“Frau Schröder?” the Sipo man prompts.

“Fräulein Kohl,” she announces. The name pops out of her mouth.

The Herr Kommissar’s eyes flick up from the girl’s identity card, still in his hand. A muscle in his jawline grows taut as calculations are made behind his eyes. “And her given name?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Sigrid answers. “Child, what is your given name?”

“Ericha,” the girl replies tersely.

“ Ericha, Herr Kommissar,” Sigrid informs the man. “To answer your question.”

A pause. Again the calculations are made behind the shield of his gaze. Another plainclothes man swings open the balcony door. When the Herr Kommissar looks at him, the fellow shrugs loosely. No luck. The Sipo man’s frown gains definition for a moment. But then he swallows a breath. Sigrid feels the painful force of his eyes for only an instant before he hands back their papers. “Enjoy the show, ladies,” he tells them, and then marches from the balcony with his man trailing.

Sigrid exhales deeply. She realizes that even in the drafty theater, she is clammy with sweat. This time it’s she who clenches the girl’s hand, and it is the girl who breaks away.

“Thank you,” the Fräulein says, as if the words might choke her if she does not dislodge them quickly.

“Don’t thank me,” Sigrid informs her.

“No, I must.”

“Actually, what you must do is tell me what this is about.”