Dirkweiler huffs heavily. Dismisses his secretary who had followed the chaos into the office and tells her to shut the door behind her. The anger in his voice has slackened as quickly as it rose. “Get up, get up,” he tells Angelika, now sounding more put-out than incensed. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,
Dirkweiler steps back behind his desk and plops into his own chair as if deflating. He ignites a cigarette and hands it over to her. “Here. Take it.”
She does, drawing in smoke as her hands tremble.
“You see,
She nods. Nods quickly, spewing the smoke. “Yes. Yes, Herr Kommandant. I apologize…apologize for my outburst. You were right to strike me.”
This appears to mollify the man. He frowns and lights his own cigarette, huffing smoke into the air. “So. This is about the list, yes?” he surmises. “This is the problem?”
“Yes, Herr Kommandant,” she confirms. Meekly now.
“You’re agitated because I put your parents on the list for Poland.”
She cannot answer this. Her words forsake her. She can only keep her eyes down, staring blankly at the desktop cluttered with files.
“You must understand,” he explains, “that it’s really for your own good.”
Her heart thumps heavily, but she does not look up.
“They are an impediment to you,” the man assures her. “Can’t you see? They are an anchor around your neck. You must know it’s true,” he says. “To do your work, you must be
And now her eyes rise.
“Now, I know that even Jews have feelings in such cases,” the Herr Kommandant is willing to admit. “One’s parents,” he says. “But you must be strong. You must be like steel.”
She blinks downward. “Would it… Would it be possible, Herr Kommandant… Could they be sent instead on the train to Theresienstadt?” she asks. “Not to Poland.”
Theresienstadt. The so-called Paradise Camp in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. A showpiece for visitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross. But this request causes the Herr Kommandant to sigh. He taps his cigarette against the edge of a brimming ashtray, frowning again. “
When she leaves Dirkweiler’s office, Fritz Landau is waiting. He takes in her face. The mark of Dirkweiler’s knuckles. But all he asks her is, “Do you want to see them? Before they go?”
She blinks. Then shakes her head. What good would that do? To see them? She couldn’t possibly keep the truth from them. “Let them keep their hope” is all she says.
Fritz nods. He is a man, after all, who can understand the cruelty of truth and the merciful utilities of lies.
A week later, after a day during which she had personally dragged a middle-aged woman from the toilet in the Café Trumpf, she is called into the Kommandant’s office. It is morning. A crisp Berlin day outside. The birds enjoy the greenery of the cemetery across the way. A pair of mourning doves have taken up residence in the trees, and she can hear their cooing. When she enters the office, she finds Dirkweiler hunched over the telephone. He frowns, snapping his fingers and signaling that she should step forward and shut the door behind her, though he is still mumbling into the receiver. She closes the door and waits, standing like a department store mannequin. There is, she notes, a striped dress box with a ribbon sitting on one of the chairs in front of the man’s desk. Still frowning over his conversation, Dirkweiler breaks free of it long enough to order her to open it.
She hesitates but then does so. She recognizes the box. It’s a famous design, those stripes, from a noted Berlin modiste in the Ku’damm. She unties the ribbon, slips off the top, and draws a delicate breath inward. For an instant, she forgets herself and touches the dress’s fabric intimately. Soft as a cloud. Good Saxon merino wool. Berlin blue, dark as midnight, with scarlet tulle-covered satin-weave charmeuse buttons, handmade. Beautiful. But her fingers snap away from it when Dirkweiler’s chair squeaks.
His hand is over the mouthpiece again. “Take it out,” he tells her.