It is over within minutes. A drop of sweat falls on Anna's forehead, and another, and one in her eye, stinging. Max whispers, Anna… and goes slack on top of her. He is still for what seems a very long time. Then he rolls back onto the landing and Anna can breathe again.
Eventually Max draws Anna to him. They lie side by side, blinking into the column of light. Then Max props himself up on one elbow to look at her. Stretching his hand, he touches Anna's nipples with thumb and ring finger.
Like cherries, he says. Cherries in the snow.
Anna smiles.
Is there still snow on the ground outside? Max asks.
Some, Anna tells him. But it's melting.
Max nods and sinks back down, resting his head on her chest. Anna strokes his damp hair, marveling at how soft it is over the fragile cradle of bone. She holds him this way, in meditative quiet, until the crunch of gravel on the drive signifies Gerhard's return home.
6
IT IS MAY, AND HOT. IN THE ROOM BEHIND THE STAIRS, Anna and Max lie naked, panting like mongrels. The atmosphere is too close to allow them to hold one another in comfort, so Anna settles for lacing her fingers through Max's and hooking a friendly ankle over his. She gazes up into the stairwell. With the passage of months, the sun's position has changed, and a concentrated beam of light pierces the gloom as if in a cathedral. Its angle lets Anna know that she has only a few more minutes to spend here, listening to Max talk. He craves conversation, which, Anna occasionally thinks with some guilt, she prefers to more physical intimacies.
Max traces the length of her arm with a forefinger. You know what I love? he asks.
Tell me.
These freckles. So dark on such light skin. Like sprinkles of chocolate.
Anna rolls her eyes.
Why, thank you, she says. My other lovers like them too.
Ah, your other lovers, says Max. His grip tightens on her waist. We'll just have to do something to take your mind off them, won't we? Come here.
Anna obliges. A passionate tussle ensues but is interrupted when Max starts to sneeze. He hunches into a quivering ball, sneezing and sneezing. Eventually he stops and blinks miserably at Anna, who sees, even in this dim light, that his face has gone persimmon red.
Dear sweet loving God, Max says, sniffling. There is nothing more wretched than a summer cold.
How on earth could you have caught a cold?
I suppose it could be the dust.
Perhaps, Anna agrees. Or perhaps you're allergic to the idea of my other lovers.
She feels for her slip and wriggles into it, an awkward process in this small a space.
Speaking of which, she adds, it's time for me to go put the finishing touches on dinner. My father has another festive evening planned.
Max helps her fasten a garter. More suitors? he asks.
An endless supply of them. Hauptsturmführers, Obersturmführers, who knows what rank Vati's managed to dig up this time. He has such high aspirations for me.
Max sneezes again as Anna stands and smoothes her skirt, and she looks at him with concern. I wish I could get a doctor for you, she says.
He waves this away. I am a doctor, and it's nothing, believe me. But Anna, all joking aside, you must tell Mathilde to hurry with the papers. I can't stay here much longer.
I know. Just until the end of the war.
Max shakes his head. Please, Anna. Promise me you'll see Mathilde tomorrow.
I promise, says Anna, and begins to climb the steps.
I mean it, Anna.
So do I, she whispers down to him. Don't worry.
She smiles at Max and shuts the inner door on his imploring face.
As she steps into the hallway, Anna is assaulted by a wave of vertigo. She leans against the wall and presses her forehead with her fingertips. They are freezing despite the heat, and when she takes them away, they are slick with sweat. She too must be reacting to the air in the room behind the stairs, which is hardly fresh. But how peculiar that she should feel ill only upon leaving it! Perhaps Max is right; the pressure of hiding him here is taking a physical toll on both of them. What a pair they are, sneezing and reeling. Anna walks shakily to her bedroom.
Here a rapid transformation occurs. Anna exchanges her housedress for one of blue silk, splashes her face with water from the basin on the bureau, and pins her long dark hair, wavy with perspiration, into a chignon. Then she assesses herself in the full-length mirror and sighs. As it is widely held that praise spoils children, Anna has rarely been told outright that she is beautiful, but she knows she is from the effect her looks have had on others: covert admiration, shyness, envy. She knows too that vanity is wrong, but she has always taken a secret pride in her slim waist and high round breasts, the pale eyes and curious light streaks in her hair that for as long as she can remember have won exclamations and candy from strangers. Since entering young womanhood, however, Anna has found this more bother than benefit, given Gerhard's constant parading of her before prospective marital candidates. And now Anna would pay a high price to be plain, for her looks pose an ever-greater danger to both herself and Max. If only she were ugly, Gerhard would not persist in bringing this new species of suitors to the house, hoping to further his own ambitions by pawning Anna off to a highranking Nazi husband.
However, Anna knows enough of what is expected of her to play her part, and what matters most at the moment is that no sign of how she has spent the afternoon shows on her face. Anna frowns at her reflection, counting to one hundred, until the feverish color has receded from her cheeks. Then she descends to the kitchen, where she garnishes the chilled soup with sprigs of parsley. She surveys the place settings in the dining room and tweaks a rose in the centerpiece vase. She sits in one of the chairs, folds her hands in her lap, and waits. By the time Gerhard and his friends arrive, Anna's demeanor is one of docile, vapid composure.
There are two guests this evening. Anna has never seen the big blond officer before; he is handsome enough, but he has the skewed nose and pugnacious stance of a boxer. She thinks, smiling sweetly at him, that he would have been a street brawler in the unsettled period between the wars, the sort who would have ended up in prison without the Partei. His lips are full, like halved peaches, obscene in that block of a face.
SS Unterscharführer Gustav Wagner, Gerhard announces; Gustav, my daughter Anna.
As Wagner bows over her hand, Anna asks, Are you perhaps related to the musician?
She sees the wet flash of Wagner's eyes as he glances up at her.
No, Fräulein, but I appreciate beauty in any form, musical or otherwise, he says, and Anna feels the flick of his tongue on her skin. She longs to rap him on his oiled hair.
And you have already met Hauptsturmführer von Schoener, Gerhard continues, turning to the other officer. On two occasions, I believe?
Three-von Schoener corrects him. His voice is a weak rasp, the result, Anna knows, of exposure to gas in the trenches of the first war. He coughs into a handkerchief and gazes at Anna with watering brown eyes. Anna has always been uneasy around dark-eyed men. She would rather that he, too, lick her proffered hand than stare at her this way. But von Schoener continues to stand stiffly to one side of the quartet, projecting longing at her from a distance.
If you'll be seated, dinner is ready, says Anna. Unless you'd care for a drink first?
Gerhard laughs.
No, my dear, we're quite lubricated enough already, he says. Gentlemen, this way.
With an expansive gesture that falls just short of a bow, he ushers the officers into the dining room. Anna escapes to the kitchen. As she does, she hears Wagner say, Well, Gerhard, I'd heard you were hiding a little treasure here, but I never expected anything like this. She has the face of an angel! and Gerhard's modest reply: Yes, she is rather fetching, if I do say so myself… But hiding her, Gustav? Such a dramatic accusation! I'm merely keeping her safe until the right fellow comes along. She'll make some lucky man a good wife…