David Gillham - City of Women

Wilhelmina von Hohenhoff peers up from behind her camera. “Concentrate!” she snaps, then follows their eyes. Her face is still as imperious as a hussar’s when she glares at Sigrid’s intrusion. “That door was locked ,” she declares.

“Someone,” Sigrid answers, “gave me the key.” And that’s when Ericha shows herself. For a hard moment, the woman’s stare does not lessen, until she turns back to her camera.

“One more shot,” she announces.

“SO YOU’RE JUDGING ME?”

“What, Herr Kozig?” Sigrid says.

The female model has dressed and departed, but Herr Kozig is still in his postal uniform, tugging uncomfortably at the collar. “The photographic pose,” he answers. “The young woman in undress. I saw the look on your face.”

“And what look did you see, Herr Kozig, exactly?”

“You’re not my rabbi, gnädige Frau. This lady,” he says with a hand in the direction of Fräulein von Hohenhoff, “this lady has generously agreed to give me a place to sleep. I was only repaying her kindness by assisting her in her work.”

“Of course you were, Herr Kozig. And such demanding work, too.”

Herr Kozig frowns sheepishly, but then Fräulein von Hohenhoff claps her hands for attention. She has rolled out a rack of clothing into the center of the room. Dresses, coats, hats on hooks, shoes on the bottom rack. “I have nothing that will fit the children, but if anyone is in need, they should feel free to take.” Sigrid notes that the woman has yet to speak directly to Ericha, but rather skirts her, including her only in the nonspecific plural. If anyone is in need . Frau Weiss steps up to the rack, and touches a coat sleeve. “Oh, this is so lovely. It’s been years since I’ve seen something stylish. I can’t imagine.”

“You like it? It’s yours,” Fräulein von Hohenhoff announces without fanfare, and opens up a tall white photographer’s scrim. “That stool, please, over here,” she directs Kozig, who quickly obeys. “The children,” she directs, “must sit very still. No fidgeting. And no talking.”

And then each face is frozen by an instant of flash. Face forward. No left ears showing. Frau Weiss looking exhausted, the little girls obedient and blank. Herr Kozig, in uniform, scowls bureaucratically back at the camera. Sigrid looks at her watch, her belly full of acid.

“You’re next,” Sigrid tells Ericha.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re not exactly going to get very far under your own name any longer, so you’re next .”

“And what about you?”

“What about me? I’m a kriegsfrau . My papers have all been properly issued. What else do I need?”

Ericha looks at her with suspicion. But then steps in front of the scrim.

Fräulein von Hohenhoff raises her eye from the camera’s viewfinder long enough to peer at her. Then sinks back down. “Eyes open,” she warns, and then pulls the trigger on the flashgun. Ericha meets the burst of sharp white light without blinking.

“Thank you,” Sigrid hears. She turns and faces Frau Weiss. The two girls are holding on to her, eyes large, their mother’s hands petting their heads. “I know that sounds like such a small thing to say, considering what you are doing for us. What you are risking. But I don’t know how else to put it.”

Sigrid gazes back into the woman’s face. A woman from Vienna and her two daughters. Strangers. No longer part of the story she has been telling herself. “You’re welcome. I wish I could say it was because it’s the right thing to do. That’s why she does it,” she says, nodding to where Ericha is seated on a chair, covertly trying on a new pair of shoes. “But me? I’m not sure. Guilt, maybe. Hope. I don’t know.”

Frau Weiss nods with thoughtful eyes. “Well,” she replies, “whatever the reason. You’re doing it. Which is more than most can say.” The littlest, with the tiger, tugs on her mother’s sleeve and whispers. “Ah,” her mother tells her. “Yes. A good idea for all of us. Is there a WC?” she asks.

“WHEN WILL THEY BE READY?”

Sigrid has stepped up to Fräulein von Hohenhoff as she is lifting the scrim. “The photographs.”

“I’ll print them tonight.”

“Good. I’ll be by in the morning to collect them.” Then, “What about him ? Your new model?” she inquires, glancing at “Postman” Kozig, who is examining his official identity in one of the floor-length mirrors, his chin clean-shaven now, his postage-stamp mustache neatly trimmed. Shed, temporarily, of the U-boat shoddiness he wore in Auntie’s attic.

“He snores. Loudly. I can hear him through the wall. For that reason alone, I want him out. But he can’t stay past tonight, in any case. Tomorrow evening there are people coming to my studio.”

“People?”

“Clients. Some of them Party members. I doubt I will be able to convince them that he is the butler.”

“I understand. I’ll collect him along with the photos. Has he said anything?”

“Such as?”

“Such as anything.”

“No, I put him to work.”

“So I saw.”

“Everyone works,” she answers in a mildly distracted way. “There is no free ride. Everyone earns their keep.”

“Well, he hardly seems to have objected ,” Sigrid observes.

But the tone of Fräulein von Hohenhoff’s voice changes. “Do you mind, may I speak with you for a moment?” she asks. Sigrid follows her over to the screened-off area where the photographs of the schnauzers watch with blunt canine inquiry as Fräulein von Hohenhoff lights a cigarette. “I’d like a realistic assessment,” she declares.

“Of what?”

“Of their chances.”

“Realistically? I don’t know. Possibly their chances are not very good. There are certainly plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong. But one hopes otherwise. One must believe otherwise. What else can be done?”

“And what about her ?”

“Her?”

“You know who.”

Sigrid can only answer, “I cannot tell the future, Fräulein von Hohenhoff.”

“Then what use are you?” she breathes, but then shakes her head. “Look, all I can do is give money. I can’t give it to her, but I can give it to you,” she says, and presses a pearl gray stationery envelope into Sigrid’s palm.

“Thank you. It will help,” Sigrid tells her, but Fräulein von Hohenhoff only shakes her head, and glares furiously at the smoke she expels from her cigarette, her eyes gone wet. “It’s a fucking crime,” she whispers. “How a creature like that can burrow into you, so you can’t get her out . It’s just a fucking crime .”

Down in the stairwell, waiting for Frau Weiss and her children, Ericha lights another cigarette. She has picked out a new coat and new shoes from the rack, and looks better, less disheveled. But her eyes are still oven pits. “I’m going tomorrow,” she says. “To the address you gave me.”

“I’ll come with you,” Sigrid says.

“No. I know I asked you to, but I’ve changed my mind. This is something… It’s my problem. I’d rather just do it alone.”

Voices at the top of the stairs. The children descending with their mother.

“Ericha,” Sigrid whispers. “You sound as if you’re punishing yourself.”

“I’ll contact you soon,” Ericha replies quickly, and opens the door to the street. “All is clear,” she says, and steps out onto the sidewalk.

The next morning is Saturday. Sigrid is making breakfast. Ersatz coffee. Powdered eggs as tasty as powdered laundry soap. Stale bread that she toasts in the oven for Kaspar. Her mother-in-law has left early. She has volunteered to accompany Mundt once a week to the Party office in the Jägerstrasse to sort through the mountains of clothes, shoes, combs, stockings, and coats collected for the frontline troops and for bombing victims.