Listen, she says rapidly. I need to pick your brains about your Remembrance Project. How you organized it, exactly how you're going to find subjects, where you're going to get your videographers-
Does this mean I'm going to have a shiksa interviewer? Ruth interrupts.
Trudy laughs. She is shaking all over with excitement.
No, she says. I'm afraid not. But I have a proposal for you, and I'm going to need your help. Because I've got my own Project to do.
Anna and Mathilde, Weimar, 1940-1942
"Backe, backe Kuchen!"
der Bäcker hat gerufen.
"Wer will guten Kuchen backen,
Der muss haben sieben Sachen:
Butter und Salz,
Zucker und Schmalz,
Milch und Mehl,
und Eier machen den Kuchen gel'."
"Bake, bake a cake!"
the baker called out.
"Whoever wants to make a good cake,
He must have seven things:
Butter and salt,
Sugar and lard,
Milk and flour,
and eggs to make the cake gold."
12
ANNA HAS BEEN AT THE BAKERY FOR A WEEK BEFORE SHE ventures upstairs. Or perhaps it is more than a week. She doesn't know for certain; she has lost track of time. As she lies on the pallet in the bakery cellar, she stares at the ragged black marks on the damp wall next to her head. Somebody hidden here before her has obviously charted the duration of his stay with a lump of coaclass="underline" about a month, all told. Anna could do the same. But she rejects the idea as involving too much effort, and in any case, the passage of time means little to her.
She curls on the cot like the embryo within her, drifting in and out of sleep. Sometimes when she wakes, she hears the wooden soles of the bakery's patrons clocking overhead, the meaningless snippets of their conversations. At other times, she opens her eyes to a darkness so complete that it seems to press on her with the weight of a mattress. It is only then that Anna can bring herself to choke down the food Mathilde has left for her, in a covered tray at the foot of the treacherous wooden staircase.
Since Anna's arrival, mindful of Anna's delicate condition and the cellar's lack of amenities, the baker has implored Anna to move into her own living quarters above the storefront. But Anna cannot stomach the thought of lying beneath a braid of Mathilde's long-dead mother's hair, surrounded by dried flower arrangements and gay photographs of Mathilde's deceased husband Fritzi. The claustrophobia of the basement suits Anna much better; it is as close as she can come to the conditions Max must be enduring. Cupping her swollen breasts, Anna relishes the ropy rasp of rat tails across the floor with a penitent's zeal. She is grateful to cough in the fine black dust that the delivery of coal into the nearby chute raises each morning. The rank smell of fear from the others Mathilde has concealed here comforts Anna; with her eyes closed, she might be in the maid's staircase in the Elternhaus.
One evening, however, when Anna wakes from her doze, she bolts upright as if in response to an interior command: Enough. The movement is too abrupt; minnows of light dart across her vision. Anna waits for them to disperse, then climbs from the pallet and up the steps to the kitchen. Even this simple act requires enormous will; her limbs are filled with wet cement rather than blood. Anna recalls this same sensation from the days after her mother's death. Grief is heavy. Perhaps a new anguish invokes the physical symptoms of an older one.
She sways in the doorway of the kitchen, shading her eyes with a hand.
Mathilde, she says, her voice a croak. What day is it?
The baker doesn't hear her. She is attacking the vast wooden worktable with a butter knife, dislodging flour paste from its cracks. Merely watching her makes Anna tired.
Mathilde, she says again.
The baker starts, breathing hard.
Well, well, she says. Sleeping Beauty awakes.
Is tomorrow Sunday? I haven't heard churchbells. Have I been here longer than a week?
It's August, Mathilde says.
She continues her task. Her buzzing voice, trapped in layers of fat like a fly in a bottle, is punctuated with small gasps of effort when she asks, And how is our princess this evening?
Wunderbar, Anna says.
She makes her way to the sink, which is enormous and double-sided, like the laundry basin in the Elternhaus. She pumps water into it, then drinks some from her cupped hands. It tastes of the iron in the pipes. Her hair, hanging over her shoulders, has separated into oily ropes, and she is suddenly aware of how she must smell. She sniffs the crook of her elbow: a bit sour, salty and creamy, like buttermilk. Since conceiving the baby, Anna's own scent is strange to her.
I hope I've not been too much of a burden, she says.
Mathilde snorts. Hardly. Hardly even knew you were down there.
Anna sizes up the baker as she bustles about: the bulk constrained by an apron; the tiny doll's head, its thin dark hair combed in such severe lines that it appears painted on; the scalp shining between the furrows; the suspicious black eyes embedded in flesh.
I'm no princess, Anna tells her. I'm ready to start earning my keep.
Mathilde gives Anna an incredulous look.
Shit, she mutters, brushing past Anna to soak a rag with water. Returning to the worktable, she says as she scrubs: Your papers are still good, you know. You could still go to Switzerland, have your baby there.
No, says Anna. I'm not leaving Weimar.
Oh, you're a princess all right, used to getting your own way. Have you thought about what it'll be like for you here? Your father alone could make your life miserable.
I don't intend to have any contact with him, Anna says. He doesn't know where I am, and if he finds out, I don't care. He turned Max in to the Gestapo himself.
Of course he did. Who else? I'm surprised he didn't turn you in too. No father likes to think of his daughter rutting with anyone, let alone a Jew. But I suppose he spared you on account of the baby.
I didn't tell him about the baby, Anna says.
This earns Anna a second startled glance.
Hiding a Jew he could forgive, if he could still keep me in the house until he marries me off, Anna explains. But my condition will show soon enough, and he couldn't turn a blind eye to that. Not only would I be worthless goods, it would make him a laughingstock among his friends. They might even accuse him of condoning Rassenschande under his own roof. He would have to turn me in.
Mathilde gives the table a sweeping stroke.
Don't you have a nice auntie in some other city, she asks, somewhere else you could go, away from this mess?
No. And I wouldn't go if I did. I must be where I can get news of Max. Have you heard anything? Have they-taken him to the camp?
The baker nods, rubbing at a floury patch with a fingernail.
He won't last long up there, she says, skinny as he is.
Tears spring to Anna's eyes at this blunt statement. She longs so to slap Mathilde that she can see the reddening mark her hand would leave on the older woman's face. By nature, Anna is not given to anger, and the fury that has paralyzed her for days frightens her. There is an irony in it: having finally escaped Gerhard's rage, she is now enslaved by his emotional legacy. Like father, like daughter. But the feeling is now useful, steeling her spine to deal with Mathilde. If there is any belated lesson that Gerhard has taught Anna, it is that the only way to earn a bully's respect is to respond in kind.
She walks over to the table. Then I'll carry on the work Max was doing, she tells Mathilde. I'll take his place.