Eva

According to my sister Ilse, there’s a Jew in Vienna who spends all his time listening to bored women talking. They lie down on a couch with their backs to him, plucking at their blouse buttons and going on about all sorts of things: their dreams, their memories, their childhoods.

‘Why?’ I ask Ilse.

‘For enlightenment,’ she says. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t know anything about that.’

Ilse is working for a Jewish doctor when she tells me this. His name is Dr Marx and he’s an ear, nose, and throat specialist. He lets her sleep in a room next to his office and she stops going out with young men, spouts off about apnea and sinusitus whenever she gets the chance. When things start changing and Dr Marx has to move to America, Ilse’s eyes are red for weeks. She looks at me like she hates me and says it’s all my fault, that things could be different if I weren't so ignorant.

Sometimes I think about that Jew in Vienna when I’m lying around, waiting for Him. By the phone in my little brown-roofed villa. On the terrace beneath the bright umbrellas. Smoking in my suite at the Grand Hotel. I think about my head opening up and everything spilling out of it in a multicoloured jumble, like clothes on the floor when I’m dressing for dinner. My dreams. My memories. My childhood. All of it falling together until I’m enlightened.

It begins on a couch. In the drawing room of his Prince Regent’s Place apartment, with Him in mourning and me giddy from a half-bottle of champagne. He won’t drink, but I’m determined to cheer him up. I lean on his arm on our way out of the restaurant and, in the Mercedes, blink at him with serious eyes. I tell him I’d do anything to see him happy.

It is quick and less painful than I expect. Embarrassing in its quickness, like a fish leaping into a rowboat, thrashing about, then sliding back into the deep blue water. His face turns red, like I’ve heard it does when he makes speeches. Once he has caught his breath and buttoned up, he rises from the couch. I pull down my dress and start rolling on my stockings, but they’re full of runs. He touches my golden head and tells me he’ll buy me new ones. He tells me I’m a good girl.

Before the beginning, I’m working as an assistant at Mr Hoffman’s photo studio. I’ve only been there three weeks, but it’s the longest job I’ve had out of convent school, and the work isn’t bad — at least, not as boring as typing. He comes in while I’m on a ladder, reaching for some files on the top shelf and wearing a skirt that’s hemmed too short. He stands at the front of the shop, wearing a shabby raincoat and talking to Mr Hoffmann in a low voice. I can feel them looking at my legs.

I don’t recognise Him from his photographs. I don’t recognise any of the men who come in, though I see their faces every day in the darkroom. But after I come down from the ladder that day and he asks for my name and kisses my hand, I start paying attention. I can’t say why, but I feel like I have to.

Every time He comes into the shop, he makes a point of talking to me. It surprises me that he takes such an interest, him being so much older and serious-looking, me the youngest girl at work and still plump from my convent-school diet. But when we start talking, I find out he’s not so serious. He likes to eat cream cakes and marzipan. He likes to go to the theatre. He likes to pay compliments to pretty girls, me most of all.

How lovely your complexion is, Miss Eva! Like peaches and cream.

Those stockings look very nice, Miss Eva. You have the legs of a dancer.

Miss Eva, you should be in front of a camera, not behind one!

One day, He brings me an autographed photo of himself in uniform, looking mysterious and thoughtful. I show the photograph to Ilse when I get home from work and she laughs so much I want to slap her, then tells me solemnly that I can’t let Papa see it. ‘You know how he feels about radical politics,’ she says. Together we lift up the lining of my underwear drawer and hide it beneath my schoolgirl wools and cottons. For now, I can only dream of satin and lace.

Sometimes, my papa says I’m a good girl. Other times, he says I’m bad, wayward, a disappointment. I can be good for getting a B in German. I can be bad for getting a B in German. I can be good for looking pretty. I can be bad for looking pretty. I can be good for playing sports like a boy. I can be bad for playing sports like a boy. It’s so hard for me to keep track of what’s good and what’s bad, I’ve given up trying.

Ilse never gets in trouble with Papa. Neither does my little sister Gretl, who’s still at the convent. It’s only me who seems to get Papa worked up. One night at the dinner table, I ask Papa if he’s heard of Him, just to see how he reacts.

‘That man? He’s a charlatan, a fool who thinks he’s omniscient. He says he’s going to change the world. Not likely!’

Ilse and I stuff our cheeks full of potato so Papa won’t see us laughing, and are quick to go our own ways once our plates are cleared. I think she’s sneaking out to call Dr Marx. I shut the door to our room and lie down, closing my eyes until I can see His face floating above mine. I see his face and it’s like lying in a field of forget-me-nots, under a full white moon, at the height of spring. I say his name and feel bad, delicious.

He often has to go out of town for business, to the capital and other places. Sometimes, months pass without me seeing him. This is okay before what happens on the couch, but afterward, I assume things will be different. I wonder what the point of it all is — his compliments and gifts, his dates with me to the theatre and opera and his chalet in the mountains — if he has so little need of me. I stop being plump.

He had a niece who lived at his Prince Regent’s Place apartment before he and I become lovers. She was pretty and round-faced, and wore the latest fashions from Vienna — clicky heels and fur coats, beautiful silk dresses. One day, when he was off working somewhere else, she aimed a pistol at her chest and shot herself dead.

I remember this when I am alone in my parents’ house, waiting for a phone call that never comes. Unlocking Papa’s war pistol from its dusty case and pointing it where I hurt most, then jerking it away right before it goes off. Ilse comes home first, finds me dizzy in a puddle of my own blood. She calls one of Dr Marx’s friends and he fixes me up in the middle of the night. We pass the whole thing off to my parents as an accident.

And Him? He flies back immediately and promises me an apartment of my own, close to his.

Papa and He first meet when I’m on tour with his publicity team. I set up equipment for my boss and sometimes get to take photos of Him myself, making speeches and holding his hand up to the crowds. The crowds are always full of women, who give off a bad smell and yell out crazy things — that they love him, that they would die for him, that they want to bear his children. I’m not jealous of these women. They’ll never get as close to him as me.

We stop at a lodge outside town. I tell my parents to be there for lunch, though our convoy doesn’t arrive until after four. Papa is civil. He hails him, and afterward they shake hands. ‘Your daughter is a very good girl,’ He tells Papa. Papa says nothing. He knows exactly what this means.

I don’t want to be ignorant, but politics are so boring to me. Every time I try to get through the book He wrote before he became famous, it’s like being back at convent-school among the stink of Bible pages. It’s the same with the newspapers, which I only skim for pictures of Him. And music. I’d rather dance to fast jazz or slow, moony American love songs than listen to the stuff He likes: Strauss, Verdi, Wagner, Wagner, Wagner.

He doesn’t mind if I’m ignorant. I can sit in the sun and read Oscar Wilde, flick through fashion and movie magazines, and he’s happy. He says it’s better for a woman to be soft, sweet, and stupid than intellectual, and I don’t want to argue. I don’t want to be like Ilse, always trying to sound smarter than she really is.

He gives me the brown-roofed villa after I take too many sleeping pills on purpose. My papa won’t visit me there, but Mama and Ilse do. We drink nice wine and I show them the flagstone patio, the table-tennis set, the high garden walls that no busybodies can see over. I show them all the artwork on the walls inside, including some watercolours that He did himself a long time ago. I show them the brand-new TV set, which gets broadcasts straight from the capital. I tell Ilse she’s welcome to move in with me along with our little sister Gretl, who’s coming home from convent in a few weeks. She isn’t interested. Dr Marx is still in town, running his practice.

He gives me two little black dogs to keep me company in the villa, which follow me around as eagerly as Gretl does. He gives me a monthly allowance and I spend it on pretty things from Vienna and Italy: crocodile leather, silk underwear, shoes by Ferragamo. Nowadays, I don’t work unless he is going somewhere and wants me along as an assistant. Instead, Gretl and I lie on my bed during the day looking at patterns and catalogues, and picking out what will suit me best.

Sometimes, I think of hurting myself again: not only when He is out of town for too long, but also when he’s in town and cold-shouldering me in public, telling everyone that he’ll never marry, that the only woman in his life is Germany. I think of doing it with poison, like Madame Bovary. But then I remember the fairytales I grew up with, and how everything happens in threes. Three is serious. It’s life or death.

In summer, Gretl and I hitch rides in the mail truck out to the Königssee, where the waters are the same deep blue as His eyes and icy with reflected snowcaps. There are always bronze-backed young men by the lake whom we have fun with: men with corn-silk hair and names like Rudi, Heini, Bruno. They flick us with their towels, dunk us underwater and bear us up again in their strong arms.

He isn’t jealous when he sees pictures of me in my swimsuit with the young men. He says it’s good to see me having fun, making the most of the long summer days. He says there’s nothing more virtuous in the world than young, healthy, German bodies having fun in the sunlight.

They are German men, His men. I don’t forget this, even when they grab me by the wrists and ankles and swing me into the water, so I hit its surface with a hard, thrilling slap. My heart breaks as pleasure ripples through me — a murky bubbling and a pure mountain sky. They help me up and I know it’s all just innocent fun, know that their bodies belong to Him as much as mine does.

In dreams, familiar things look unfamiliar. Places I know now seem too big, like I’m seeing them through the eyes of a child, while places I knew back then are too small to fit me. I wander through the empty studio, the rooms of the Grand Hotel, as if I’m the only person left on earth. I sit cramped at my school desk or on the floor of my parents’ apartment, among a clutter of cheap furniture and flowered wallpaper. No matter where I am, I can’t get comfortable.

There’s one dream where I’m lying on the terrace of the Grand Hotel, looking at the view of the mountains. It’s winter and no one else is out, but I can feel Him standing right behind my chair. I long to turn around and look at him, but I have a feeling that it’s strictly forbidden, that I’ll see something terrible if I do.

All sorts of people come to see Him at the Grand Hotel — not just politicians and military men, but royalty, film stars, musicians. Sometimes I’m allowed to dine with these guests in the big hall, posing as a secretary. Other times, I’m confined to my suite while his real secretaries get to stay at the table.

I don’t understand what makes Him decide when to lock me away. In my suite, I throw clothes off their racks; I smoke and pace. I flop down on my chintz couch and feel so bored it aches.

He has a separate suite, with a narrow iron bed and a neat little adjoining office. I don’t go into his rooms, but he comes into mine — usually close to dawn, when his face is grey and his eyelids drooping and pouched. I don’t look as he shuffles up to the bed in his billowy nightshirt, knowing he’s embarrassed of his unshelled body, the soft belly and narrow shoulders beneath his padded uniform. As soon as he gets under the sheets, however, I turn my gold toward him. I am the sun, breaking over the mountains.

My whole family comes to visit me at the Grand Hotel, Papa included. We ride out of the gates on bicycles, wearing feathered hats with crisp shirts and slacks. My little black dogs chase after us, yapping as we roll down the grassy slopes. Everyone is happy and everyone is here as my guest, breathing luxury instead of the stale air of their tiny apartment back in town.

Papa has changed his mind about His politics. He now has a uniform of his own, which he wears to lunch in the great dining hall. He wears it back in town, too, for the family portrait we sit for on his sixtieth birthday. It is September and there is a lot going on in the east that’s keeping Him busy, but everyone says it will be over soon.

When He is away from the Grand Hotel, I have to be on my guard. Other women, officials’ wives, lie like snakes in the sun, coils glistening and chins held high. Other men, fat officials and lean younger officers, hedge me in hallways with their hot hands and breath. They don’t expect to succeed, but they linger over my body like they hope to leave a mark, then stride back into the open and joke about what a stupid little flirt I am.

I don’t tell Him about all this when he calls; if he calls. He has enough to worry about without me coming to him with my petty troubles. Instead, I keep Gretl with me, long after the rest of my family has gone back to town. I invite my old school friends to visit with their children, and pretty blonde Marion, who used to be an opera singer. We sit apart from the other women, tanning ourselves and taking pictures of one another looking chic and sun-kissed. In our bathing suits, we practice yoga and gymnastics, feats of flexibility that make the men stare and their wives shoot daggers.

When He is back, I make the Grand Hotel feel like a home. He appreciates my efforts: the cut flowers I bring in from the fields, the photo slides and home-video footage I show on the evenings he wants a break from work. ‘There’s me by the lake doing yoga. That’s called a wheel pose,’ I tell him. ‘And here’s us tanning our backs.’ The wives yawn and sneer, but He claps his hands. Beautiful, he says. It’s beautiful to be home.

I haven’t tried to hurt myself again and haven’t thought about it either. There’s so much going on right now and I have so much to look forward to, once all His work is done. He says the end of his work is almost in sight, and Germany will soon triumph. The world will be a more beautiful place after we triumph, and He will finally be free to retire. He tells me we will have a big wedding then, and everyone will know I’m the only woman in his life.

I know He worries about me hurting myself, not just on purpose, but also by accident. He worries about me not eating enough. He worries about me when I’m skiing and skating, doing high dives and swinging upside-down from my exercise bar. He worries about me getting cancer from bathing in the sun too long, and from the cigarettes I won’t give up. He worries about his enemies hurting me as a way of getting to him, keeping me hostage and interrogating me for information I don’t have.

I worry about Him, too. He wasn’t young when we met, but now he is over fifty, with shaking hands and a sensitive tummy and a hunched, shuffling walk. There are lots of bad people who want to see him dead, and it’s taking a toll on him, even if he likes to joke about exploding podiums and bombed hotels. One summer, when he’s working in his Eastern headquarters, a bomb goes off in the conference room just feet from where he’s sitting. He escapes with a perforated eardrum and a shredded uniform, which he sends to me as a trophy.

Soon after Dr Marx moves away, Ilse marries a lawyer, divorces, then marries another lawyer. Gretl gets married, too, a couple of years later, to a dashing general called Hermann. She is crazy for his broad shoulders and luscious lips, which she tries out within weeks of him arriving at the Grand Hotel. Neither of them know anything about true love. All the same, they look good dancing together at the wedding, hand in hand and cheek to cheek.

I dance with Hermann, too, almost as close and almost as much. If it weren’t for me, Gretl would never have found a husband like him, or been able to afford a wedding like this. We feast high up in the mountains, in the eyrie above the Grand Hotel. An accordion man and two violinists serenade us with gypsy songs.

Though He foots the bill and makes an appearance at the ceremony, he doesn’t stay for the celebrations and he certainly doesn’t dance. There is still work to be done.

I think of us dancing on that mountaintop, like heroes in Valhalla, when we are hiding in the concrete world underground. Only a year has passed, but so much has crumbled, so much is closing in around us. While He sleeps, as still and grey as a corpse, I get everyone to come out of the shelter with me, to the empty rooms upstairs. There is champagne and a gramophone, a song about happiness and blood-red roses playing over and over. I dance until I am cold with sweat, until the room is heaving with bodies, and enlightenment is almost within reach.

When He comes back from the explosion in his Eastern headquarters, he is whispery and half-deaf, thinner than I’ve ever seen him. Everyone at the Grand Hotel compliments him on his heroic survival. They look away tactfully when food drops from his trembling fork, and when I lean in to dab at his face after he’s finished eating.

I would like to make love to Him, to take the years off his body by giving him mine, but he says this is no longer possible. Instead, he sleeps beside me, stomach squeaking and groaning. The air is thick, and his body gives off a smell like something dying.

In spring, I see things that could be dreams. A train platform in the capital, lumped with people waiting to flee south. A view of pale sky through a cracked ceiling in the chancellery building. A shattering of glass in the wintry courtyard, where the secretaries have been doing target practice. A big metal door and a concrete staircase leading fifty feet underground.

Places that were once safe aren’t safe anymore. People that He once trusted are turning into traitors. But our dreams for the future are still dreams, shimmering like gas on the air.

Clothes are spilling out of my wardrobe at the Grand Hotel, a jumble of colours and textures. I fill my valise with silk and satin, tulle and taffeta, polka dots and florals to brighten up the grey underworld where I am heading. He says he doesn’t want me coming to the capital in these dangerous times, but I don’t listen. I won’t let Him be alone among enemies.

I leave the rest of my clothes for my sisters: Gretl, big with Hermann’s baby; Ilse, ramrod thin, staying on at the Grand Hotel after I leave. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ she asks me. I tell her yes, I know.

It ends on a couch. In an office fifty feet underground, with the last of His officials standing guard outside the door. I sit to his right, leaning against his arm and telling him he’s made me the happiest woman in the world. My feet are drawn up under my full skirt, which is black with appliquéd red roses. A ring glints on my fourth finger, a cyanide capsule in my closed fist.

He says it will be quick and painless. A coldness in my mouth. A smell of bitter almonds after I clamp down. A smooth, pretty face for when I enter the next world. I know He doesn’t believe in a life after this one, but maybe my belief is enough for the both of us. I lift my face to brush his old lips one last time before this world ends.

There is enlightenment and there is ignorance, so bright and pure that it’s almost a virtue. They will say that I knew nothing, Ilse and Papa and everyone else — that I didn’t really know Him and that’s how I could follow him underground. In a way, they will be right.

We are on a couch together and my eyes are closed before his. We are on a couch together, and then He is standing up while I dress, smiling at my lowered golden head. He is telling me I’m good, but what thrills me is the thought that I’m not. If I look up at his face now, maybe I’ll see something terrible.