Resistance Women Page 5

  Mildred knew then that outspoken, independent women made up one more class of undesirables that must be suppressed if the Nazis were to remake Germany in their own image.

  Chapter Five

  September 1931–January 1932

  Greta

  For months after their furious parting, Adam sent Greta pained, apologetic letters begging forgiveness for not immediately revealing the truth about his complicated relationship with the sisters Marie and Gertrud Viehmeyer, his first wife and second. “I swear I would have told you before we became lovers if our relationship had proceeded at a normal pace,” he wrote, “but our passion overwhelmed us both. I fell for you so quickly, and afterward, I was desperate not to lose you.”

  His letters provoked arousing memories of their passionate months together, but she forcibly pushed them aside. “There’s no point in explaining your domestic entanglements now,” she wrote back. “I have no interest in joining your ménage à trois.”

  It occurred to her after she posted her letter that she might have made her point more emphatically by not responding at all, but she was angry and wanted to rebuke him.

  “It isn’t a ménage à trois,” he protested in his reply. “Marie and I are divorced. I married Gertrud later. Marie is my former wife, the mother of my only child, and my sister-in-law, but we are absolutely not romantically involved. We’ve remained friends because it’s in our professional interest to do so, but more importantly, because it’s in our son’s best interest.”

  Greta fired back, “None of this makes you any less married to Gertrud.”

  His reply confounded her. “Darling, you’re right to say that my marriage, albeit unconventional, is indeed a marriage.” Then, as if that would resolve everything to any reasonable person’s satisfaction, he changed the subject, describing at length a new project he hoped to begin soon with Günther Weisenborn, the brilliant author of the antiwar play U-Boot S4, which the National Socialists had denounced as pacifist propaganda when it premiered in 1928.

  Adam concluded on a regretful note: “Unfortunately, I think our collaboration will be deferred until Weisenborn finishes adapting Gorky’s Die Mutter for Piscator. Brecht is set to direct and Helene Weigel to star. If you forgive me by then, I would love to escort you to the premiere. If you’re still angry, come anyway, and take pleasure in my suffering as I burn with jealousy that I had no part in the production.”

  Very much annoyed, Greta wanted to fling the letter aside, but she could not resist devouring every word. Weisenborn was one of the most promising playwrights in Germany, Erwin Piscator one of the most skilled, radical, and influential producers and directors. Bertolt Brecht—playwright, dramaturge, winner of the prestigious Kleist Prize for drama, and the man Adam considered his chief rival—had been lauded by critics for transforming German literature, giving their postwar era “a new tone, a new melody, a new vision.” Helene Weigel was his astonishingly talented Austrian Jewish wife, a rising star and unapologetic Communist.

  How could Greta not be enthralled by a letter that tossed their names about with such casual familiarity? Adam knew everyone Greta longed to meet, thrived in the world she yearned to make her own. She imagined him holding the stage door open and beckoning her across the threshold. She could join him there, but at what price?

  She tried to lose herself in her own work instead of dwelling starry-eyed upon his, but curiosity won out every time her landlady slipped a new envelope beneath her door. Finally, after months of sending deliberately abrupt replies to his increasingly detailed and compelling letters, Greta agreed to meet him for coffee.

  More than a year had passed since their two-month affair, and she hoped that the intense attraction she had once felt for him would have faded with time. But the moment she entered the café and spotted him seated at a table near the window, all the old feelings surged through her anew. She had to pause to compose herself before she could cross the room to join him. She wondered how long he had been waiting for her. Then she wondered whether he had kissed his wife goodbye that morning and told her whom he was meeting later, and her heart hardened.

  He rose quickly as she approached, and although she had intended to treat this as a strictly professional meeting, before she knew it he had taken her hands and pulled her close to kiss her cheek. For a moment she froze, overcome by wistful longing, but then she pulled her hands free, murmured a greeting, and sat down. He managed a smile as he seated himself, but she could tell her coldness disappointed him.

  “How have you been?” he asked, leaning forward and searching her face.

  She remembered the intensity of his gaze, how it had once warmed every inch of her. “Well enough,” she said, scanning the menu. If she held his gaze too long, her resolve would evaporate like mist in sunlight. “Are you as busy as your letters suggest?”

  “Busier. Have you been working on your novel?”

  She was so surprised she laughed. “No. What novel?”

  “The one you said you hope to write someday.”

  “Well, someday.” She shook her head slightly and turned her wrist, a gesture signifying the folly of attempting to predict the future.

  “But you have been writing, I hope.”

  “Well—” She hesitated. “I jot down my thoughts and observations whenever inspiration strikes. Then I’m struck by the realization that one must actually accomplish something to merit a memoir, and that I’m a twenty-eight-year-old former prodigy with very little to show for all my early promise, and I fling down my pen and shove my papers away in disgust.”

  His brow furrowed. “You’re much too hard on yourself. Keep it up, and whatever you do, don’t destroy whatever it is you’ve already written. There are always gems in the dross, waiting to be found and polished.”

  She shrugged, eyes downcast, making no promises.

  He craned his neck to catch her eye. “But you are working?”

  “A bit of copywriting, some editing, tutoring university students in English. Enough to pay my bills and send a bit home to my parents each month. But it’s never enough.”

  She glanced up as the waiter approached, grateful that her complaint had been cut off. After he left with their orders, she inquired about Adam’s current productions at the Staatstheater, determined to say nothing more about her diminishing prospects.

  Soon she almost forgot that they were estranged. His tales of the theater were so fascinating, his obvious interest in her perspective so flattering, that her icy reserve melted, and once again she felt as exhilarated in his company as she had in Hamburg, as if they had been friends for ages but could always look forward to discovering something new, unexpected, and delightful in the other.

  The afternoon passed too swiftly. Greta had stayed hours longer than she had intended and had drunk more coffee than was good for her, but when she glanced a third time at her wristwatch, Adam took her hand across the table. “Greta, darling,” he said, his hand warm and firm around hers. “My feelings for you haven’t changed. I love you.”

  “Adam, please.” She glanced around, but to her relief, saw no one she knew. “Let’s not have this conversation here.”

  “Agreed. Let me come home with you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Are you afraid we won’t talk?”

  Afraid was not the word for it, not when she wanted more than anything to taste his mouth and feels his hands on her skin. “It wouldn’t be wise.”

  “Perhaps not, but it would be wonderful.”

  “Adam, you’re a married man. We could never be more than friends and colleagues.”

  “Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll never again suggest we be more.”

  She inhaled deeply and sat back in her chair, unwilling to lie.

  “I knew it,” he said quietly, but with so much elation that he might as well have shouted.

  “My feelings change nothing,” she said sharply. “You’re married. That’s the end of it.”

  “Greta, I’m of
fering you my heart and asking for nothing in return but your love. What more do you want?”

  What did she want? What she didn’t want was to be his mistress, his young bit on the side, a cliché. She wanted a true partnership fueled by intellect and creativity, respect and desire. She wanted steadfast integrity, enduring faithfulness, love. She wanted what her friend Mildred had with Arvid, something true and real and lasting, not a stage prop, something that only served for the moment in the proper lighting if one did not examine it too closely.

  “If you really want to be with me,” she said, “get a divorce.”

  His expression clouded over. “So you want a husband, is that it?”

  “Is that too bourgeois? It’s more that I don’t want someone else’s husband.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said, shaking his head. “It would crush her. It would destroy the friendship we four have built so carefully—Gertrud, Marie, Otto, and I. Do you think Marie would continue to let me be a part of my son’s life if I hurt her sister?”

  “I couldn’t say. I’ve never met Marie. As for hurting Gertrud, aren’t you doing that already?” Abruptly she shouldered her purse and rose, unable to bear another moment. “Goodbye, Adam. I can’t see you anymore.”

  He called after her as she fled the café, but she did not look back.

  Weeks passed before she heard from him again. In late autumn he sent her a brief letter—an apology for the heartache he had caused her, a wistful hope that she might reconsider, and then, in a postscript, the name and phone number of an editor at Rote Fahne, the largest Communist newspaper in Germany, who, Adam said, was seeking an assistant and was expecting her call.

  Greta did not write back, nor did she contact the editor. She was not a Communist and had never worked for a newspaper, so she was fairly confident her only real qualification for the job was that Adam had recommended her. She did not want to feel any more indebted to him than she already was, even though she was always one paycheck away from eviction. Somehow good freelance opportunities continued to come her way, as one satisfied client recommended her to another. By the first snowfall of the season, she had begun to suspect that Adam was behind most of the unsolicited job offers, but she did not ask. She could not afford to turn down any more work out of pride, so it was better not to know.

  She spent the Christmas holidays with her family in Frankfurt an der Oder, but she returned to Berlin in time to attend a New Year’s Eve party at the Charlottenburg town house of an old college friend. At first she had declined the invitation because she dreaded the thought of admitting to former classmates, in response to the inevitable question, that she teetered on the brink of unemployment. Kerstin had refused to accept that excuse. “Everyone else is struggling too,” she had said one evening when Greta came for dinner. “We’re all poor these days.”

  “You’re not,” Greta said pointedly, gesturing left and right to indicate Kerstin’s lovely home.

  “I’m a civil servant,” Kerstin replied airily. “I pay for my comfort by enduring endless tedium in a stifling office. Anyway, who knows how much longer I’ll hold on to my job with the Brownshirts marching around demanding that women stay home to cook dinner and make babies. Let’s celebrate while we can. What’s the alternative?”

  Greta had no good answer for that, so she accepted the invitation.

  When she arrived at ten o’clock on the last night of the year, the party was well under way. Jazz played on the phonograph, bursts of laughter punctuated lively conversations, and scents of perfume and cigarettes intertwined with woodsmoke from the hearth. She had scarcely removed her hat and coat when several acquaintances she had not seen in ages called out greetings or crossed the room to embrace her. Her dread swiftly vanished as one friend poured her a beer and another dragged her off to introduce her to a group of aspiring artists. Kerstin had not exaggerated; several of her old friends were gainfully employed, but more ruefully admitted that they too were barely making ends meet. They cracked wry jokes about taking in waistlines and patching the patches on worn-out shoes, and they shared advice about the best shops to find cheap but edible cuts of meat and day-old bread for mere pennies. And yet Greta sensed—and suspected they did not—that they perceived their similar straitened circumstances very differently. She was a metalworker’s daughter, accustomed to poverty; these children of architects and dentists considered it a bemusing novelty. They took for granted that their situation was only temporary, and that the money would flow their way again when the economy improved. Greta knew that anyone could be one illness, one estrangement, one job loss away from utter ruin.

  Sometime later, Kerstin found Greta in the crowd and steered her into the dining room, where her mouth watered at the sight of the wonderful spread and she grew dizzy taking in the savory aromas of lentil soup, roast pork with apples, and sauerkraut—finely chopped, the first mouthful revealed, mildly flavored, and thickened with barley. She polished off her first serving, had just finished her beer, and was unabashedly loading up her plate a second time when Kerstin sailed past with a tray of Pfannkuchen. “Felix is at the fireplace making Feuerzangenbowle if you need something to wash that down with,” she called over the din.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Greta replied, but then the name registered. “Felix Henrich from university?”

  Kerstin laughed. “Who else?”

  Immediately Greta set off to find him, nibbling from her carefully balanced plate as she worked her way through the crowd. She found him at the fireside attending a black kettle suspended over the flames by an iron hook. Steam rose as Felix stirred the mixture with a long wooden spoon, the delicious aromas of red wine, the spicy notes of cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, and the sweet, fruity fragrances of lemon and orange wafting on the air. He was almost comically homely, small of stature, with jug ears and an enormous Adam’s apple, but he was a brilliant scholar, one of the best in their class, and one of the kindest, most generous people Greta had ever met. From university he had gone on to law school and immediately thereafter had been hired at the most prestigious law firm in Berlin. Greta had heard that he had married the beautiful daughter of one of the founding partners and had two delightful young children. No one deserved such happiness more than Felix.

  She set down her plate, drew closer to the hearth, and spoke his name in an undertone. His face lit up at the sight of her. “Greta!” he shouted, dropping the spoon into the kettle, seizing her hand, and pumping it vigorously. “I had heard you were back in Berlin. How good it is to see you! How did you like America?”

  “I liked it very much,” she said, pulling up a chair near his.

  “Felix, the punch!” someone exclaimed.

  “Oh, yes, yes.” Rolling up his sleeve, Felix carefully reached into the kettle and grasped the end of the spoon, careful not to touch the sides of the pot or the simmering liquid. “You must tell me all about it. You were in Wisconsin, yes?”

  “That’s right,” said Greta, pleased that he remembered. As he tended the punch, she gave him the brief, cheerful version of her Madison story, taking care not to sound too wistful or homesick, mindful of the other guests standing nearby, eagerly anticipating a taste of the hot drink.

  Soon Felix traded the long-handled spoon for a sturdy pair of tongs, grasped a sugar cone in the pincers, and held it above the kettle. With his free hand, he slowly poured rum over the Zuckerhut and waited for the liquor to soak into the fine, compressed sugar. “Greta,” he said, tilting his head to indicate a basket of wooden skewers on the floor nearby, “would you do the honors?”

  Greta took a skewer from the basket, held the tip into the flames, and raised the burning end to the Zuckerhut, setting it afire. The people nearby murmured appreciation as the bluish flame danced across the sugar cone and caramelized the sugar, which dripped into the steaming punch below. When the flame threatened to flicker out, Felix poured more rum over the Zuckerhut until the bottle was empty and the sugar melted away. With a sigh of anticipated pleasure, the gu
ests pressed forward with cups as Felix picked up the ladle and began to serve.

  Cradling her mug in her hands, glowing from the warmth of the fire and the wine and rum, Greta listened as her companions shared hopes and plans for the New Year. She raised her cup and chimed in fervently whenever someone offered a toast to a better, more prosperous, and more peaceful year ahead.

  Eventually Felix relinquished his duties as master of the punch, passed the ladle on, and drew Greta aside into a quieter room. “How have things been for you since you returned from Germany?”

  The usual bland assurances sprang to mind, but before she could speak, his expression told her that he already suspected the truth. “Not well,” she confessed. “I tried to get into a university, any university, either as teacher or student, but I failed. I’ve been patching together some work, teaching and editing, mostly.” She forced a laugh. “Maybe I should have gone to law school instead, like you.”

  “Kerstin told me that you worked at a theater, organizing a script library.”

  “Yes. I quite enjoyed that job too, while it lasted.”

  “I have a proposition for you, but promise me you won’t decline until you think it over.”

  Greta shrugged and drained the last of her punch. “I promise.”

  “In spring, I’m being transferred to our firm’s offices in Zurich. Julia loves Switzerland and we’re both very pleased, but—” He shook his head. “Setting up a new household is daunting, and I’ll be busy with my cases.”

  “Of course,” said Greta, curious how she fit in.

  “I wondered if you would consider coming along. I have a large private library that will need to be unpacked and organized, and I’d also like the girls to learn English. You’ll have a salary, of course, and a large private suite where you can write undisturbed, and we’ll insist that you consider yourself a member of the family.”