And then I saw a girl I knew. Oh, I didn't know her very well, but when we were little we had played together. Rebecca was her name, and although I had not spoken to her in some time I recognized her by this gesture she had. She had very curly hair, beautiful dark curls, and when she was nervous she would twirl one curl, like so, around her finger. I remembered this from school, how when she was called on and didn't know the answer she would twist her curl around her finger in just this way.
She was standing a little apart from the rest, close to me and very calm, although tears were running down her face and she was twirling her hair. And I remember thinking, oh, you think such stupid things at times like that, thinking something like, I should have played with her more or gotten to know her better and now it's too late, or something like this, I don't know what I was thinking. But then she turned and looked at me, just as if she had heard me, and I was so stupid, I don't know what came over me, but I was thinking, It is so hot, so hot to be standing there like that with no clothes, no hat, nothing, and I held out the basket of berries. As if, I don't know, I could give them to her and they would ease her thirst a bit before-I don't know what I was thinking.
But she started walking toward me, very slowly, so as not to be seen.
But she was seen. One of the Einsatzgruppen, this officer, saw her and yelled, Halt! And she did. Just froze there. Everybody did, for this officer called, Halt! again and held up his hand. The rest of them stopped shooting and the officer looked at Rebecca and saw what she was looking at and he came walking toward me. Strolling, really, as if he were on a city street or had all the time in the world.
Well, I would have turned and ran, but I was frozen too. I had no feeling in my legs or the rest of me either. I remember that I dropped the basket and that the bread fell out on the ground and the berries too, and they rolled to a stop next to his feet in front of me, and that his boots were very shiny like mirrors so I could almost see my face in them.
What is your name? he asked.
Well, of course I could not say a word.
What is your name? he asked again.
I looked up at him then. He was very big and tall with eyes like a wolf, and very fine he thought he was too. While the rest of them were in their shirtsleeves, he was wearing his full uniform, even his hat, and it was cocked at a certain angle, like so. But I could see him sweating, big big drops rolling down the side of his face.
What are you doing here, little girl? he asked me. Don't you know you're not supposed to be here? Or are you on a mission of mercy, a little Jew-loving Rotkäppchen, Red Riding Hood bringing food to the Jews?
Some of the other Einsatzgruppen laughed then, ha ha ha ha ha, like this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. And this didn't please the officer at all. He was not a man who was used to being laughed at, I suppose, even if he invited it. He took his pistol from his belt and yelled, Shut up! and fired it into the air. Some of the women screamed, I remember. But still they did not try to run away.
The officer put his gun under my chin-I still remember how it felt there, how cold it was when everything else was so hot.
What is your name, little Jew-lover? he asked a third time.
And when I still could not answer, he made a disgusted sound and waved over one of his men who was standing near the car. He called something to him that I to this day do not remember, he said it maybe too fast or I was not thinking clearly. But he must have said something like, Bring the medical kit, for that is what the man brought over and the officer took something from it and I couldn't see what it was except that it was shiny, and he did it so quickly I didn't have time to react.
But anyway, what he took from the kit was a pin, and before I could do anything he pushed it into my right eye. Which popped just like a grape, except that unlike a grape it deflated and there was all this liquid running down my face, blood and whatnot. And of course there was pain, the worst pain you can imagine, and I threw my hands over my eye and screamed. And the officer turned to Rebecca and shot her, and some other women too, bang bang bang bang bang, except I didn't realize it until a minute later because all I felt was the pain and I couldn't believe this had happened to me-it was so quick-that in one second this strange man had blinded me and destroyed my face.
Ja, I heard him say, there, that will teach you not to be so nosy, my little Jew-lover. Now run along home. And I heard his feet gritting in the dust as he turned and walked back to the car.
So I did. I ran and ran and didn't stop until I got home, where as you can imagine my mother screamed at the sight of me and she and my father cried and sent my younger brother Günter for the doctor… But of course it was too late. There was nothing he could do. And you know, this is strange, but after this day we never referred to what had happened. We were still so scared. Even more than before. Scared of what the Nazis could do, for no rhyme or reason, whenever they wanted.
So now you know what happened to my eye. This is something I have never told anyone… Because I am still so ashamed, you see. I often think it is fitting punishment for all the times I could have helped that girl before that terrible day, or helped others get into the woods, or hidden them in the barn without my parents knowing. But I did not. I turned a blind eye, yes? And as the Bible says… Well, I just think it is appropriate.
27
LATER THAT EVENING TRUDY IS IN THE SHOWER, WITH THE hot water turned up as high as it can go. She scrubs herself all over with a stiff-bristled brush, then stands letting the spray needle her skin. This routine has become her post-interview necessity-this, and the consumption of a large snifter of brandy. Maybe tonight she will permit herself two, Trudy thinks, for Rose-Grete's tale has been an especially grim one. Perhaps the combination of liquor and a pill will finally have the desired effect.
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, Trudy mumbles as she wrenches the faucets off and climbs from the tub. She wishes it would come and knit her up. She is feeling distinctly unraveled.
She whisks a towel from the rack and begins to briskly rub herself dry. Then she catches sight of movement in her peripheral vision, the pumping of her elbows in the full-length mirror hung on the door. She turns to it; she reaches out and wipes a clear swath in the steam. Then she lets the towel drop.
She has not seen her naked body in its entirety for some time-nor has anybody else, for that matter. She is used to seeing herself in bits and pieces, those demanding the most attention: her face, when she cold-creams it. Her calves, when she bothers to shave. Her hair, which she wears in a short no-nonsense style that requires only a cursory combing before she leaves the house. It's true that Trudy has never had to watch her weight, that people have always told her, I bet you're one of those who can eat whatever she wants and not gain an ounce. She has escaped the hammock of soft flesh that wobbles from the undersides of her contemporaries' arms, the fat bulging over their waistbands and the bra straps bisecting their backs. Trudy rarely bothers with a bra at all. But there is a downside to this: she is starting, Trudy thinks, to get the tendony look particular to thin women of a certain age. Stringy. Like an underfed chicken. And Trudy has always thought of herself as a poor, skinny excuse for a woman. Women are meant to be soft. Like Anna. Like Anna in the bath, the gleaming white skin and floating freckled breasts. Anna rolling a stocking up one sturdy thigh. Anna in her slip, the deep generous curves of hip and bosom. Verboten images, gleaned by a younger Trudy from behind various doors, of enduring femininity.