“I have no idea of what I’m doing,” Irena said.
After the major returned to his office, Irena locked the front door of the villa. Then she locked the salon and bedroom doors leading into the garden. She drew the heavy curtains shut, went to the kitchen, bolted its door, and opened the trapdoor that led into the cellar.
After she gathered her eleven Jewish friends and told them all that had transpired, there was silence in the dank cellar.
Finally, Fanka, the shyest of the bunch, said, “I found two electrical hot plates.”
Everyone turned to her. Perhaps the shock of the major giving a party for the Gestapo upstairs, which Eichmann himself might even attend, separated from them by nothing but a few floorboards, had driven the poor girl mad.
“You found two electrical hot plates?” Irena said. “Well, then, I suppose that means everything is going to be fine. Two hot plates—that solves that.”
“There is water and a sink for laundry down here,” said Fanka. “Maybe if we divide up the work—”
Wait a second, Fanka was not insane. She was a genius! Suddenly they all saw it.
“After all, what does it take to make soup?” Fanka said reasonably.
“Moise and I can peel and cut the onions, and Alex and Tomas can peel the potatoes, eh?” Lazar said.
“Marion can do the meat,” said Ida.
“Yes!” Marion said. “There are several outlets down here. Irena, if you can find another hot plate or two, we can make soup, an entrée…”
“Salad! I can cut vegetables for the salads,” Josef said.
“Abram and I can help out with whatever is needed,” said Alex.
“It will be a nice party for the Gestapo,” Fanka said sweetly. “You’ll see.”
On the night appointed for the major’s party, Mercedes-Benzes and Command cars pulled up under the villa’s portico, and drivers smartly opened the doors for the Wehrmacht and Gestapo officers and their dinner companions, most of them secretaries from the typing pool, whose dresses the Jews in the villa’s cellar had expertly tailored just ten days earlier.
There were over thirty guests.
Irena had convinced Major Rugemer that there was no one room which could accommodate a single long table enabling her to serve in the grand fashion. Therefore, service should consist of appetizers and cocktails in the salon, followed by a buffet-style dinner with smaller tables set for six or eight outside in the garden. She advised Rugemer to have small electric lights strung outside above the buffet table in the gazebo, which Irena festooned with freshly cut flowers and strings of costume jewelry pearls intertwined amongst the tea candles. The effect was enchanting. But more importantly it kept the guests outside and far away from her friends in the cellar.
Just off the foyer, Herr Schultze set up an English style officer’s bar beneath the grand staircase. Officers clustered in small groups of friends, drinking, chatting each other up, flirting with the single women whom Rugemer had invited so those without companions still felt part of the festive atmosphere.
Irena locked the door to the kitchen behind her, lifted the trapdoor to the cellar, and whispered, “Appetizers!”
Fanka, Marion, and Ida shuttled silver serving trays of hors d’oeuvres to Abram and Alex, who handed the trays up the cellar stairs to Irena. She quickly took the trays, set them on the counter, closed and bolted the trapdoor, unbolted the kitchen door, and went out with a Brotzeit platter with Butterbrot. It was a classic spread of farmer’s bread she’d baked earlier in the day, with butter, cheese, cold meat cuts, and radishes. In her other hand she carried a meat and cheese tray with Gruyere, Limburger and Butterkase, slices of ham, leberwurst, Lyoner, mustard and gherkins.
These delicacies had been chosen as much for the simplicity of their preparation as their taste. If Rugemer could get the supplies and she could augment them from the farmers’ market off the square, Irena would be able to provide enough appetizers to go with the cocktails and champagne provided by Herr Schultze to keep the conversation lively.
She set up a small table for the appetizers in the library. As she passed amongst the guests, some of them snatched the delicacies off the tray, but there were enough left over to make up a satisfactory serving station in the lovely wood-paneled study. This arrangement spread the guests and their noise throughout the first floor.
As she returned from the library, Major Rugemer took her by the arm and said, “They can’t just eat appetizers! My guests are getting impatient, Fräulein. We better be sitting down to dinner soon!”
“Yes, Herr Major!” Irena said and hurried back into the kitchen.
“That night, dear children, my eleven Jewish friends in the cellar were like Cinderella’s mice. As soon as I was back in the kitchen and the door was locked behind me, I lifted the trapdoor and said, ‘Soup!’
“Abracadabra! Up came two silver tureens of Kartoffelsuppe, German potato soup with sausage, potatoes, onions, celery, cabbage, and bay leaves.
“I put the tureens of soup on the top rack of my serving trolley and whispered, ‘Salad!’ Abracadabra up comes the salad!
“I wheeled the trolley out to the gazebo, set the tureens and serving bowls up on the table next to the silver and napkins, re-entered the house, tinkled my little serving bell and announced, ‘Meine damen und herren, soup and salad are served in the major’s garden, bitte.’
“The major smiled as his guests filed out into the garden.
“Schultze and I passed amongst the four tables, pouring red and white wine, and leaving the bottles for each group of six or eight.
“I gathered the cocktail glasses, put them on my trolley, wheeled it back into the kitchen, locked the door behind me, and once again opened the trapdoor. Down went the dirty glasses— Abracadabra! —up comes the schnitzel and spätzle!
“Next came German potato salad and sweet and sour red cabbage. Close and bolt the trap door, wheel the trolley out into the gazebo, clear the tureens and salad, set out the meat and spätzle, potato and cabbage salads, clear the appetizer plates and soup bowls, wheel the trolley back into the kitchen, lock the door behind me, and open the trap door. Poof! Down go the dirty dishes, up come the desserts: Bavarian cream and Pfeffernuesse cookies, strudel, and an urn of coffee.
“Once back out at the gazebo, I collect the dirty dinner plates, Schultze gets ready to serve the schnapps. I go back into the kitchen, lock the door, and open the trap door. Down go the dirty dishes, up come the clean ones already washed.
“The party was an absolute success.
“My dear children, you’ve never seen so many happy Nazis in your life.”
Later, Major Rugemer stood beneath the portico of the villa, saying good night to the last of his guests.
“Lovely party,” said Sturbahnfuhrer Rokita.
“Thank you, my friend,” said Rugemer. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”
Ilse, the young secretary on Rokita’s arm, said, “And the strudel was divine! You must ask your little housekeeper to give me her recipe.”
“Oh, well,” said the major, “I’ll have to leave such things up to her. I wouldn’t presume to tell her how to run her kitchen. She wouldn’t listen to me anyway!” They chuckled and Rugemer bid them good night as the last of them got in their Mercedes and drove away.
When he re-entered the villa, he saw Schultze folding the tablecloths. All the dishes were long since cleared.
“Amazing,” the major said.
By now Irena had unlocked the kitchen door. She was washing the last of the plates and silver in the sink when the major entered and looked around with undisguised admiration.
“I was expecting to see the kitchen piled high with dishes and you working till dawn,” he said.
“Not at all,” Irena said and smiled. “I’m almost done.”
“I swear,” said the major, “you’ve done the work of six people.”
“More!” said Irena.
“Do you have then, an army of mice as your secret footmen and scullery maids?”
“No, Herr Major, I just remembered the words of Herr Schultze.”
“And what words were they?”
“That my survival in this position would depend on my efficiency.”
“Yes,” said the major. “Well, your service tonight was satisfactory, Irena. Efficient and satisfactory.” He looked about the kitchen, still distrusting the situation but not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. The food she had prepared was delicious. The lights in the garden evoked a gentler time. The kitchen was spotless.
“For the time being,” he said, “I suppose we can do without an orderly. He would only get in the way.” And with that, the major bid her good night.