David Gillham - City of Women

“My God, is that —” He simply can’t believe it. “Is that what this is? A woman’s jealousy ? You make me ill, Frau Schröder.”

“You’re a murderer .”

“ No. I’m an animal. A simple human animal. If I kill, it’s for the sake of survival.”

“You mean your survival.”

“Yes, my survival!” he blasts her. “You know, you are so thick . Such a fucking hausfrau. I think I would like to crack your stupid skull open! Do you know that ?” he hisses, and then freezes up.

She watches his expression go rigid. Her breathing deepens. “Do you feel that?” she asks him.

He stares. “Yes.”

“Then you know what it’s for,” she says, pressing the muzzle of Kozig’s revolver into his belly.

“You won’t use it,” he assures her. “Though I wish to God you would.”

“Take a step back,” she commands.

He waits, but then steps back. She digs something out of her pocket and then drops it on the damp black paving stones. A brown envelope and a fold of Reichsmarks fastened together with a thick elastic. “That’s for you. A Reisepass, a new Arbeitsbuch, a commercial registry card, and travel permit, plus a letter of exemption from military service due to your essential war work. Your name is Hans Richter. You’re an assessor for the National Insurance Office,” she says, still gripping the revolver. “Everything you’ll need to get to where you’re going, including two hundred marks and an up-to-date subscription record for the Völkischer Beobachter .”

“May I pick it up?” he asks grimly.

“Yes.”

He does so, stuffing the envelope into his coat pocket. “Two hundred marks,” he says, “isn’t going to get me far.”

“It’s what you’ve got. You should count yourself lucky that you’re traveling west instead of east.”

“And what if I were to push you against this wall right now, and kiss you hard on the mouth?”

“First you want to kill me, then you want to kiss me. You should make a decision, Egon.”

“You’re the one who is aiding my escape with one hand, while pointing a pistol at me with the other. I think it’s you who should make a decision.”

She stares into his darkened face. Then thumbs back the revolver’s hammer. “I don’t know much about guns,” she admits. “But I believe the next step is to squeeze the trigger.”

Egon lifts his eyes from the pistol. “Becoming a killer takes courage, Frau Schröder. Not fairy-tale courage, but the courage to leave it all behind. To become a different sort of creature.” For a moment, he gazes at her. “I’m not sure you’ve reached that point yet.”

She tightens her grip on the revolver’s handle. She knows that if he tried, he could wrench the thing from her hand. She wonders if he knows it, too. His gaze tells her nothing. It is like staring into a face cut from stone. Then a noise comes from the end of the alley. The Polish scrub girl opens a door and dumps her pail of dirty water. She looks up at them, holding her bucket, and pauses. Speaks a word in Polish. Egon frowns. “Next time,” he tells her, “you’ll have to be stronger,” and then gathers his coat closed and stalks away.

WHEN SHE ENTERS the flat in the Uhlandstrasse, she finds it empty. The door to 11G creaks open into silence. She takes off her scarf and hangs it up. Slips off the coat and hangs it up, too. The wind rattles the taped window glass briefly. She smooths her skirt as she surveys the room’s emptiness. Then walks over to the stove. Drops in three briquettes of coal with the shuttle, and strikes a match. The fire catches. It burns evenly, obediently. She feels the heat on her face grow.

In the bedroom, she checks the mirror. Touches the spot on her cheek where he struck her. A pinkish imprint of the force of his knuckles. It hurts, but she feels numb to the pain. She turns away and retrieves the cigarette tin. She wonders for a moment if Kaspar has ever discovered the tin’s contents. She certainly hadn’t made much of an effort to hide them, even after her run-in with Mother Schröder. A few pairs of flannel stockings, and a nylon chemise in a drawer constitute their only camouflage.

The stove is hot by now, emitting a stinging heat into the air. She must lift the lid with the iron tongs. A bright orange fire fills the stove’s belly. Sigrid opens the tin, and tugs open the ribbon binding the packet of letters. She opens the flap on the top envelope, revealing the heated upstroke of his handwriting. The words without mercy are all she can read. Then she closes the flap and drops the letter into the stove. The envelope writhes, then blackens as she watches it disintegrate in flames.

It takes only a matter of minutes before all of them are ashes.

SHE SPIES THE MAN with the monkey ears and the snap-brim brown fedora on the train. After the Nollendorfplatz, she sees him, standing a few meters away, a newspaper tucked under an arm, as he clings to the handrail, intentionally paying her not a whit of attention. When she leaves the train at the Hallesches Tor, she catches him briefly behind her, but then he disappears.

Inside the patent office, she hurries past the old guard, who must call her back to look at her identity card. She is late. Impatiently waiting. When she enters the stenographic room, there is a brief cessation of typewriter chatter. When Fräulein Kretchmar calls her into the office in the corner, all eyes remain locked in their proper places, and the rattle of keys on the paper sounds like a kind of thunder. Only Renate lifts a glance from her desk, but her eyes are expressionless.

In the office, Fräulein Kretchmar closes the door and seats herself behind a steel desk. “Sit, Frau Schröder,” she instructs.

“No, I don’t think I will, thank you,” Sigrid answers.

The woman gazes morosely at her through the lenses of the pince-nez adorning her nose. “Very well, as you wish. I’m afraid I must inform you, Frau Schröder, that I have been directed by Herr Esterwegen to dismiss you from your position. This to take effect immediately. If you have any personal effects, you may retrieve them from your desk.”

“And may I inquire, Fräulein Kretchmar,” Sigrid asks thickly, “as to the reason for my dismissal?”

“It has been determined by those in superior positions that your continued employment by the Reichspatentamt would be a detriment to productivity, and a risk to the good name of the office.”

“I see,” Sigrid says dully. “And is that your opinion as well?”

But Kretchmar only shakes her head, her mouth clamped in a tight line. Choosing a rubber stamp from a rack, she thumps the file on her blotter. “Take this to the second floor,” she says, handing it over. “Your final wages will be issued to you.”

Sigrid pauses only an instant before accepting the file.

Kretchmar’s attention turns to the papers stacked on her desktop. A vein pulses in her neck as she says, “Best of luck to you, Frau Schröder. Heil Hitler.” But then, as Sigrid turns her back on the woman and slips her hand onto the door handle, Fräulein Kretchmar finds the words she could not speak a moment before. “You understand ,” she says, “you understand that I had no say in this matter. The decision was made by higher authorities. I can only do as I’ve been instructed.”

“I understand , Fräulein Kretchmar, that someday,” Sigrid replies, “someday you will open up your eyes and wonder what has become of your life. And the only answer will be that you have squandered it, trying to prove something to these men. These higher authorities of yours. Trying to elicit from them some minuscule measure of respect or equality, which you will never receive. Not ever.”