Anna sighs. In the time before the Reich, she would have been able to revisit the Doktor with some conjured malady. She might even, with careful planning, have encountered him socially. But now? Anna has no excuse whatever to visit a Jewish physician; in fact it is, as the Doktor himself has reminded her, forbidden. Not that Anna has ever paid much attention to such things.
She takes a disheartened bite of cake, and Spaetzle barks again.
Shut up, Anna tells him absently.
Then she looks down at the dog. Encouraged by Anna's thoughtful expression, he begins to wriggle and whine. Anna smiles at him and slices another piece off the cake, somewhat larger this time. She hesitates for a moment, the chocolate softening in her palm. Then she says, Here, boy, and drops it to the floor.
2
CHECK, THE DOKTOR SAYS.
Anna frowns at the chessboard, at the constellation of battered pieces on their cream and oak squares. This set, Max has told her, belonged to his father, and his father before him. One of the original black pawns has vanished, replaced by a stub of charcoal, and Anna's queen is missing her crown. She is also boxed into a corner.
Anna is not a complete novice at the game; she learned its rudiments as a girl, on the knees of her maternal grandfather. But Max's tutelage during the past four months has enabled her to better understand the logical ways in which the pieces move together, the clever geometric mesh. He has reintroduced her, too, to the keen joy of unadulterated learning, which Anna hasn't experienced since studying languages at Gymnasium. Now, as Anna falls asleep at night, she sees the board tattooed on her eyelids, rearranges the pieces into endless configurations. And she is improving.
But Max is so much better than she! Each match is still an exercise in humiliation. As, Anna is coming to feel, are her clandestine evenings here. Max is more complicated than the games they share. It is true that whenever Anna appears uninvited on his back doorstep, Max seems pleased to see her, invariably exclaiming, Anna, isn't it funny? I had a feeling you might stop by. And Anna has caught him assessing her with the healthy masculine admiration to which she is accustomed. But Max confines his compliments to sartorial observations, commenting on a new dress Anna is wearing or a silk scarf that brings out the blue of her eyes. His behavior is that of a fond uncle. It is maddening.
He watches her now over the rims of his spectacles, amused.
Are you willing to concede? he asks.
Not yet, Anna tells him.
She studies the board. Her hand hovers over one of her knights. Then she gets up and goes to the stove, which exudes tired whiffs of gas.
May I make more tea? she asks, reaching for the canister on the top shelf. The movement causes her skirt to rise a good three inches above the knee. It is an outdated garment, the Pencil silhouette long since out of fashion, but it is also the shortest she owns.
You're still in check, Anna, says Max. You wouldn't by any chance be trying to distract me with that fetching skirt, would you?
Anna glances back at him.
Is it working?
Max laughs.
That reminds me of a joke my father's rabbi used to tell, he says. Why does a Jew always answer a question with a question?
I don't know, says Anna, busying herself with the tea. Why?
Why not?
Anna makes a face at Max and looks around his kitchen while she waits for the water to boil. Like the rest of his rooms behind the clinic, it is small but neat, each cup hanging from its proper hook, the spices alphabetized in the cupboard, the floor swept. There are even plants on a step-laddered rack against one wall, yearning toward a strange lamp that emits a cold purple-white light. But there are some housekeeping tasks that Max has either neglected or hasn't spied at alclass="underline" the diamond-shaped panes in the mullioned windows could use a good cleaning with newspaper and vinegar, and a finger run over the sill would come up furred with dust. Things only a woman would notice; this is definitely a bachelor establishment, Anna thinks, and she smiles fondly at her chipped teacup.
As the teakettle stubbornly refuses to sing, adhering to the maxim about the watched pot, Anna turns her back on the stove and wanders to the plants.
What is this one called? she asks, bending over a dark green leaf.
She hears the scrape of Max's chair as he comes from the table to stand behind her.
That's Monstera deliciosa, he tells her, the Swiss cheese plant.
Ah. And to think I thought cheese came from dairy farms. And this one?
Max puts a casual hand on Anna's shoulder as they lean forward together. Anna catches her breath and looks sidelong at it, the long dexterous fingers with their square clipped nails.
An asparagus fern, says Max. A. densiflorus sprengerii.
Anna stares at a single frond questing toward the light, blind and sensitive and quivering under the onslaught of their mingled breath. When Max takes his hand away she fancies she can still feel its warmth, as though it has left a radiating imprint.
He points to another specimen with striped leaves.
Now this one, he says, glancing at Anna over the wire rims of his spectacles, is Zebrina pendula, otherwise known as a Wandering Jew. A donation from a former patient who is now, I believe, in Canada. Aptly named, don't you think?
Anna retreats a few steps.
I suppose, she says.
She resumes her position at the chessboard. Is Max smiling as he does the same? Anna moves her rook quickly, without forethought.
Max pushes his spectacles up onto his forehead as though he has another set of eyes there.
That's done it, he says, sighing. You've completely foiled my plan, young lady.
Anna watches him covertly as he canvasses the board, holding his head, hands plunged into his undisciplined light hair. He puts a forefinger on his rook.
Tell me something, he says. Your father. Is he a member of the Partei?
He has leanings in that direction, yes, says Anna carefully.
Max rubs his chin.
As I thought, he says. He impressed me as being the sort who would. He's an-opinionated fellow, yes?
You could say that.
Mmmm. And tell me something else, dear Anna. I've been wondering. Has it been very difficult for you, living alone with him these past five years? You seem so very… isolated.
The room is quiet enough that Anna can hear the bubble of the water in the pot. Despite the astonishing ease of these evening conversations, which Anna reviews each night as she lies in her childhood bed, this is the first time Max has asked her something this personal. She would like to answer. But her response remains bottled in her throat.
Max strokes the rook.
The death of a parent, he says to it, is a profoundly lifealtering experience, isn't it? When I was a child, I often had this feeling of God's in his Heaven: All's right with the world-that's Robert Browning. An English poet. But ever since my father died in the last war, I've awakened each morning knowing that I'll never again feel that absolute security. Nothing is ever quite right, is it, after a parent dies? No matter how well things go, something always feels slightly off…
As Max talks, Anna is paralyzed by simultaneous realizations, the first being that nobody, since her mother's death, has ever spoken of it. At first, neighbors came bearing platitudes and platters of food, and there were well-meaning invitations from distant relatives to spend holidays in their homes, summers at their country houses. But nobody has ever had the courage, the simple human kindness, to ask her how she feels in the wake of the loss. To approach the matter directly.