David Gillham - City of Women

She shakes her head at the unseeable point of her gaze. “I should have resisted. I should have let them pummel me into a spot of grease. But I didn’t,” she whispers. “I couldn’t . Because all I could think,” she says, and then must restart the sentence. “All I could think was that the baby would never survive the beating. It’s ridiculous , I know. Only a few hours before, I was going to pay a man to scrape it away. But at that instant—I can’t explain. It had come to life inside me.” Turning her head, she suddenly looks Sigrid in the face. “And now, I am a murderer. I have murdered all those who have trusted me. All to save myself and this little tadpole growing in my belly. So you understand. You must go , Sigrid Schröder. Right now. Before I murder you as well.”

Sigrid stares. Then smears a tear from her face. “Becker?” she asks.

“My watchdog. But he’s not alone. I recognize one by the stairs with the newspaper, and another smoking by the news kiosk.”

“That makes three.”

“ Please , Sigrid,” she starts to say, but Sigrid won’t let her finish.

“I’ll handle this now, if you don’t mind, Fräulein Kohl,” she announces. “What do you think they’re going to do with you when their little trap is sprung? Set you loose, or drop you into some hole you’ll never climb out of?”

“They won’t. I’m still of some value to them.”

“And when you’re not?”

Ericha gazes at her with eyes like wind tunnels.

“You’re a fine one for moralizing, Fräulein,” Sigrid continues. “So if you’re going to have this baby, don’t you think you have a moral responsibility to keep its mother out of some godforsaken camp in the marshes of Poland?”

From outside comes the noise of a brassy march struck up by the SA band, an anthem, popular on the radio, called, “Onward to Moscow!” It turns heads and prompts a pattering of applause, which suddenly swell as a company of troops come marching into the concourse with rifles, greatcoats, and full packs.

Sigrid peers starkly. “This man from Prague,” she says, “can the Gestapo identify him?”

“No. Only I have seen his photo.”

“Fine. Where are you supposed to meet him?”

“By the schedule table.”

“And what are supposed to do when you see him?”

“Ask him for a light for my cigarette.”

“All right,” Sigrid says. “Let’s see what we can do with that.” Quickly searching faces, Sigrid picks a stranger from the crowd at random. Just the first male traveler her eyes find, who happens to be standing in the spot where she needs a male traveler to be standing. “Now, do you see that man at the end of the schedule cabinet, smoking his pipe? Go ask him for a light.”

She stares.

“ Go . I’m right behind you.”

The man is a dull Berliner mensch with a bland, midwinter face. He carries a worn valise, and is peering at the schedules with a stiff frown, the stem of his pipe locked between his teeth. He looks at Ericha in a perplexed manner when she asks him for a light for her cigarette. Sets down his valise to search his pockets for a lighter. Sigrid notes a swastika pin attached to his lapel. Even better , she thinks.

“Let’s go,” she says to Ericha, pulling the girl away by the arm, as she spots Becker and a Stapo trench coat by the kiosk closing in. “Just keep walking.”

Behind them, they can hear the anonymous pipe smoker stammering loudly. Protesting his innocence. “This can’t be ! I’m a Party member! A Party member !” he repeats fervently. Then suddenly there is a man in front of them, blocking their way, his eyes hard as steel balls, glaring from beneath his snap-brim fedora. Sigrid can feel Ericha’s urge to break away, her urge to flee, but she holds her arm tightly.

“You have five minutes,” the man hisses, his monkeylike ears flushing red. “I can’t delay them longer.” And then he pushes past.

Ericha looks astonished, but when she starts to speak, Sigrid cuts her off. “No explanations now, please, only action.” The SA band has marched into the station behind the troops, and the drum major has struck up an old military chestnut, “Watch on the Rhine,” squeaky with brass, solemn and ponderous. Sigrid plows straight into the crowd that has gathered to listen, with Ericha in tow, not looking back. The restaurant is crowded with grim-faced patrons, girding themselves for wartime rail travel. Waitresses negotiate the piles of tableside luggage as children wail above the rumble of conversation. Sigrid brushes past the young hostess at the entrance, and starts giving orders. “Come! Come! You’re going to miss the train!”

The expression on Frau Weiss’s face freezes up, but Sigrid is already at their table, handing their suitcases to Ericha. “Is your meal paid for?”

A glance to Ericha from Frau Weiss. “Yes.”

“Then let’s go. You can have a second cup of coffee in Frankfurt. No more dawdling,” she insists, and hoists the youngest girl up into her arms. “Come, little one, to the train. Don’t forget your tiger.”

Outside the restaurant, she sees Becker and his man in the trench coat furiously searching the crowds. “To the boarding platforms,” Sigrid instructs Frau Weiss. “Follow me and don’t stop for anyone.” Behind them a whistle blasts. Someone shouts, “Halt!”

“Keep going!” She is heading for the troops. They are out of formation now, crowding the platform as they are being boarded by harried transport officers. Wives and sweethearts are saying good-bye. Babies are being handed up to the windows to be kissed. BdM girls are decorating the soldiers’ backpacks with flags and tossing handfuls of tiny white swastika confetti.

“Kaspar!” she shouts, and one of the soldiers turns around. He blinks at her, his cap and shoulders dusted with the swastika snowflakes.

“Kiss the little one good-bye,” she prompts.

The man blinks again. But kisses the little girls on the cheek, giving the terrain a soldier’s reconnaissance. “Be good! Do as your mummy says,” he instructs loudly enough for everyone to hear. Sigrid grips him by the collar of his greatcoat. “Now, kiss your wife good-bye,” she tells him. The kiss, in that instant, contains all that she has to give. When she breaks away, she tells him, “They’re behind us.”

The child has started to whine uncomfortably in Sigrid’s grip as they cross the platform to the waiting train. Frau Weiss steps up, carrying her elder daughter, and coos at the child in Sigrid’s grip to reassure her. “It’s all right, Liebchen. It’s all all right.” A pair of rail porters are loading bags from trolleys onto the baggage car.

“Ericha,” Sigrid says, “leave the suitcases and keep walking.”

More whistles blowing behind them. Heads turning. She can hear Kaspar’s voice like a barrier, barring the way of their pursuers. “You pig. You desk coward. You think you can just shove past a frontline soldier without a word?” More voices join in, and a flood of angry invective chafes the air.

“My God,” she hears a woman bleat to her companion. “Did you see? Those soldiers just knocked that man to his knees!”

Sigrid closes her eyes long enough to swallow a beat of her heart, but does not slow. More whistles are blowing. More voices are raised. Track signals clang. “Sigrid, this is the wrong train,” Ericha tells her, with a buried frantic note. “We can’t put them on this train. We don’t have the correct tickets .”

“No one is traveling on this train, child. No one is traveling on any train. Up ahead, you’ll see a certain ticketing superintendent with whom you’ve done business. Only now he’s been paid to open a door. So keep moving.”