Yes, it's wonderful, murmurs Anna, shouldering her way through the cheerful throng in Frau Staudt's bakery. Yes, yes, I couldn't agree more; it's splendid news.
Once outside, she takes a deep breath, relieved to be free of the pungent stink caused by the rationing of bathwater and her own hypocrisy. Anna has always been impatient with the gloating over Reich triumphs, and never more so than today, when she has quite different news to impart to Max. She sets off for home at a trot, ignoring the Rathaus bells tolling yet another Luftwaffe victory behind her. How will she tell him? Not an hour ago, Anna will say, Frau Staudt informed me that the new identity cards and passes are ready-two sets, not one. You and I, my dear Max, will cease to exist, but Stefan and Emilie Mitterhauser will be traveling to Switzerland, where they can make their paper marriage real in a quiet ceremony.
No warm beach or fried seafood, then: instead and more appealing at the moment, the breezes of Interlaken. A simple suite of rooms, perhaps overlooking the deep quiet lake, the mountains ringing it with their snowcapped peaks. cool and sweet and quite a contrast with the afternoon through which Anna walks, more slowly now. To move through this air is like fighting one's way through a dream: all Weimar gasps for breath in heat heavy as cotton wadding, the motionless atmosphere that precedes a thunderstorm.
Gerhard's car is not in the drive when Anna reaches the Elternhaus, so she goes straight to the Christmas closet.
Hello, Herr Mitterhauser, she calls, shutting the outer door behind her. How do you feel about a holiday in the mountains?
Her attempt at gaiety is muffled in the cramped space, as though the stagnant air has swallowed it. Without warning, the dizziness and attendant nausea attacks her. Anna puts a hand on the wall and waits.
When it has passed, she flicks sweat from her forehead and opens the inner door. You'd better start packing, she says. We leave tonight-
Then the feeble light from the high window penetrates the stairwell, and the strength runs from her legs like water.
For there are no sheets, with which Anna has replaced Max's blankets when the days grew hot. There are no scraps of verse pinned to the walls. No empty plates. No chamber pot. There is nothing, in fact, to indicate that anyone has ever been in the hiding space at all, except for the olfactory ghost of Max's perspiration and their lovemaking, a salty smell curiously reminiscent of onions.
When Anna hears the scratch of Gerhard's key in the front door, it is nearly eight o'clock. She sits in his study, in his chair behind his desk, a position forbidden to her. She toys with Gerhard's letter opener as she waits for him, turning it over and over in her hands. The instrument is embossed with a family crest-not the Brandts', though Gerhard claims it is. Anna runs her forefinger over the curving blade, which is sharp enough to draw blood. The weather has broken; thunder rolls overhead, and as Anna has not bothered with the lamps the fading light that trickles into the room is wet and green.
Eventually Gerhard throws open the door to his study.
There you are, he says. Haven't you heard me calling you? Isn't it about time for dinner?
He fumbles for his pocket watch and makes a great show of checking the hour. Anna watches him. His pores ooze whiskey; his thinning hair has escaped its pomade and hangs in strands over his forehead. Under the influences of his new friends, Gerhard, once a teetotaler, has taken to emptying a bottle nightly. To the casual observer, he would appear a harmless buffoon.
Yet of course Anna knows Gerhard is anything but, and despite her current resolution to remain calm, her hand clenches on the letter opener. The blade slips, slicing the tender meat beneath her fingernail.
She sets the knife down and inspects the welling bead of blood.
I didn't make dinner, she says. And you know why.
Then she flinches, steeling herself for the tirade she knows will follow. But Gerhard-predictable only in his unpredictability-surprises her by saying nothing as he sinks into one the armchairs usually reserved for his clients.
How did you know? Anna asks.
Gerhard smothers a belch.
How?
The whiskers in the shaving basin, Gerhard says, were blond.
You took him to the Gestapo. To be exterminated, as Wagner suggested. Like any other vermin-isn't that right?
Gerhard's mouth drops open as if he is shocked and aggrieved by this accusation.
I did it for you, Anchen, he says.
At his use of her childhood name, Anna feels another surge of nausea. Her blouse and the roots of her hair are instantly soaked with perspiration. She stands and paces with one hand cupped over her nose, hoping that the comforting smell of her own skin will assuage the sickness. Behind her, Gerhard reclaims his throne.
How much did they pay you, your friends? Anna asks, rounding on him. Or did it merely increase your cache in their eyes? Did it cement your social position, bringing him into Gestapo headquarters? Did they award you a Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords?
She starts to weep, and her tears, coming at such an inappropriate time, make her even angrier.
You've killed him, she says, killed him as surely as if you put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger yourself-
Gerhard crashes a fist down on the desk blotter.
Enough! he bellows. Stop sniveling, you repulsive slut. You stupid, stupid girl! You're not only a whore, you're a stupid whore. Of all the men you could have spread your legs for, you chose a Jew?
Anna tries to defend herself but produces only a squeak. Ah, here is the tempest, no less powerful for being belated.
And to hide him here, here of all places, Gerhard shouts. While all along I was thinking only of you! Your safety. Your future. I should let you rot. Better yet, I should turn you in as well. In fact, I think I will. We'll go to the Gestapo right now-
He lunges from behind his desk and clamps a hand on Anna's shoulder.
Come along, he says; we'll go this instant. Is that what you want? Is that what you want, Anna?
The muscles in Anna's neck seize as her father's fingers dig into them.
No, Vati, she gasps. Please-
Gerhard puts his face an inch from hers. It is what you deserve, whore, he says. His spittle, smelling of liquor and herring, peppers Anna's cheeks. He pushes her away.
Did you ever once stop to think? he demands. Did you ever once consider the consequences for me? When you were discovered-and it was only a matter of time, believe me-you would have been taken into protective custody along with that filthy Jew, and what would happen to your old father then? Living alone with nobody to care for him, afflicted by chronic ulcers?
Anna braves a look at her father, a tall man running to fat, his head lowered bullishly as he glares. Max would have been no match for him. She feels in her stomach, as if it were Max's, the lift of anticipation when the door to the stairwell opened and then, when it revealed Gerhard instead of her, the catapult of dread. She grasps an end table and screws her eyes shut, trying not to vomit.
All right, says Gerhard. All right, that's enough.
Having assured himself of his victory, he can now afford to be magnanimous; his voice drops into the confiding register he uses when, having cowed a jury with the forceful oratorical tactics he has borrowed from the Führer, he wishes to befriend them.
You're damaged goods now, he tells Anna, tainted by that Jew, but nobody need know, thank God. We'll put the best face on things. Yes, we must think only of the future. Hauptsturmführer von Schoener-he is your future. He may be a weakling, but he is a kind man. Think of all he has already done for you! Who but Joachim spared you being assigned Land Service in some Godforsaken place? He knows the value of family, of keeping a family together. He would marry you tomorrow.