"I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
20 April
1941
It was the middle of spring 1941 when I found myself handcuffed to a table inside an interrogation room by the Germans. I'd known this building before it was ransacked by the Nazis in 1940—it was a government building, where businesses went to obtain licensing to sell product to the public. As a bookshop owner I knew this building very well indeed. Now, it was hardly recognizable with all the red flags and gilded facades.
I had been caught, rather dumbly, out after curfew in a heavily guarded area of Vichy. Why I was there was my own secret, and these damn Nazi fucks weren't getting it out of me no matter how hard they tried. And they certainly did try. I had been in the room for six or so hours now, but who could really tell at this point? I was hounded and beaten but I never folded, never once gave anything away.
"Are you a spy for England?" They would asked over and over again and I would pretend that I couldn't understand them. I would pretend that I had not spent countless hours learning and perfecting the German language the day the occupation was announced. I pretended to be dumb and counted on that fact as reason enough for the Germans to let me go.
So far, the method was proving tenuous at best. But I would wait the Germans out much longer than they had the patience to wait me out. Theoretically, at least.
My left eye was swollen and my cheeks and jaw were bruised. I imagined I looked a right mess.
"I am nobody, please, this was all a mistake!" I would yell in English but they were relentless, feigning harder their misunderstanding of English than my own assertion to appear monolingual.
It wasn't until the eighth or so hour they had me, when something changed.
"Are you a spy for England?" The Nazi croaked and punched my jaw. I let out a haggard cry and my head fell to the table, exhausted. That one really hurt.
"I don't understand!" I cried and forced myself back up again. The Nazi, whose eyes were bluer than a sky in summer, wound his fist back up. Immediately I braced for another punch but a knock on the door gave the officer pause, his fist mid-air.
He left the room for several minutes before the door was opened once again. Uninterested as I was, I only looked up when the new body in the room walked over to the two-way mirror and shut the blinds.
I narrowed my eyes at the man's back. He turned slowly and sat down. To me, this only meant something bad was going to happen, something discernibly unauthorized.
The light above had cast a harrowing shadow on all the other officer's brows except this one. However the closer I looked at the uniform I realized this man was not an officer at all, but an SS Gestapo. My eyes went from his intricate and ornate uniform to his face that seemed to be studying me with equal intensity.
My breath caught in my throat but I tried my best to cover it up. His eyes were green and his hair was brown and slicked back, his face was soft but pointed.
"Good morning." He said in English so politely that I, out of instinct, returned the nicety.
"Morning." My voice was hoarse yet surprisingly still strong. He smirked, a distinctive smirk that was unreadable to me. He lit a cigarette and offered me one from his slim, gold plated, swastika branded cigarette case—which I found almost too chic for a Nazi to own. And again, out of instinct, I reached for a cigarette and popped it between my lips. He reached across the table and flicked open his lighter. The flame danced softly in the middle of the table as he invited me to move in and light the cigarette between her lips.
It was an invitation, an offering of non-violence. I knew this, and accepted it, hoping that if I cooperated in the slightest ways, he might let me go. Even though he looked smart, and learned, he was still a Nazi—and Nazi's could always be defeated, outsmarted, and distracted.
Though it did not go unnoticed, I considered the way he first looked at me. It was as though he was confused—like he was trying to work something out. And he was, in fact, still looking at me in such a way.
"Which one of my men did that to you?" He continued in English.
"A better question would be which one didn't." I responded, looking at the blood caked under my fingernails from wiping my bloody nose constantly.
"Alright. Which one did not do that to you?" He asked, his voice firm but still soft. I sighed and leaned back in the chair.
"So far," I paused and watched his gaze remain rooted with mine, "just you."
The man shifted in his seat with a sigh, offering a spare glance at the shaded window. I grew confused by his express annoyance, though more curious than anything. Was he attempting to perform a ruse? Was he pretending to be kind and honest? Only to make me feel safe with him so I'd tell him all my secrets? It's very likely, as the moment he walked in I felt something different about his body language, his eyes, his tone of voice. He felt…unthreatening.
But I knew better than to be tricked by a Nazi. Even smart-looking, handsome ones.
"I feel it is my place to apologize on behalf of my men—had I known you were brought in last night I would have been the first to speak to you."
"You…" I blinked, "You're apologizing?"
"Yes. They had no right to harm you, not without reason. Especially," he paused reaching into his inner pocket. I froze, ready to face the head of a gun. When instead was met with a handkerchief. He reached over and placed it under my nose, as a small trickle of blood snuck down to my top lip. He held it there for a moment before I grabbed it. He repeated, "Especially such a nice face as yours."
I held the handkerchief to my nose, glancing at the deep red blood stain. I had never been more tense and on high alert in my life. My entire body was rigid and not just from the pain. Everything was threatening, even compliments, when they came from Nazis.
"Your English is good for a German." I said to which he smirked.
"Thank you, I like to pride myself on languages and accents—I have an ear for identification as well."
My eyebrows raised.
"Is that so?" I asked.
"I like to think so."
"Can you work out where I'm from?" The words came from me before I could think about them. The man smirked, eyeing me in that same peculiar way—working me out.
"Oxford." He guessed after a few moments.
I almost smiled, "Close, but not quite."
"Damn." He laughed, "It's the English accents that always stump me. Just for my own edification, where is that accent from?"
I thought about lying, ran through all the different reason why I shouldn't tell him but something in me urged; why not? What harm could it lead to? I did not live there any longer, and probably would never return.
"Surrey."
He smiled, "That would have been my second guess. I am getting better." He smirked to himself, an ease about his posture made my mind run wild. What was going on?
"Aren't you supposed to be interrogating me?"
"Hmm?" He sat up, flicking the ash from his cigarette on the ground, his chin now pointed, "Yes, I am. What is it you think I'm doing?"
My teeth clinched so hard I thought they might crack. I knew it. I fucking knew it.
Nothing was safe.
I pulled the handkerchief from my nose and tossed it on the table. I averted my eyes away from the dark scrutiny of the man's. The handkerchief, I saw, was embroidered with D.H. on one of the corners.
"Dieter Hellstrom. That's my name, if you were wondering. We ought to be on a first name basis, don't you think?" I still kept my eyes away from his. I watched him as he picked the cloth up and move toward me. Quickly I flinched away.
Dieter held his hands up for a moment and moved toward me again, slower. One hand cupped my jaw and the other used the handkerchief to dab away more of the blood which had splotched around my nose. His hand was soft, unworked, and his grip was kind and gentle—though firm like his voice. He let me go after he was satisfied and tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. I thought this odd, since my blood was soaked through it, but the thought drifted away with the fading tingle left over from his touch.
"Will you tell me your name?" He asked.
I remained silent, swallowing every instinct I had to tell this Dieter Hellstrom to fuck right off.
Dieter huffed, as though expecting my retaliation. Slowly he reached next to him and pulled up the bag that was confiscated from me when the Nazi's took me in. My jaw clinched again, this time in annoyance.
"I'll just have to find out on my own, won't I?" He started to dig through my bag, pulling out each item and resting it on the table. A small bottle of perfume, which he spritzed into the air and admired the scent with a grunt of affirmation. Then he pulled out a tube of lipstick, which he popped open and eyed it carefully before twisting it back and setting on the table next to the perfume. Then a book, by Leo Tolstoy. I tried to hide my nervous intake of breath but he caught it. "You are a fan of Tolstoy, I see?"
"Yes. He's one of the greatest writers of our time."
"He's also dead. And Russian. Not a meaningful mix in recent history." Dieter countered. I rolled my eyes, "Oh, the first sign of emotion from the mysterious woman from Surrey. I've struck a nerve."
"No, I just think it's naive to judge a work of literature without knowing anything about it." I countered back with a curt, rather emotionless smirk.
"Oh, but I do know Tolstoy. I know Tolstoy very well in fact." He started to flip through the pages of Anna Karenina. He started to recite a quote—not from the book in his hands but from War and Peace; "'Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals.' Poignant, wouldn't you agree?"
I rolled my eyes again, "Of course you bend the words of a master of humanity to fit into your oblique, nonsensical madness. I'd be shocked if you could recite anything that otherwise contradicts your fascist agenda."
Dieter paused on a page and looked up to me thoughtfully, "'Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.'" My breath hung in my throat as he repeated the precious words which had once rung so true to me the first time I read Anna Karenina, "Do you find solace in those words, Alma Antony?"
My eyes shot up and I saw him playing with my identification card I kept hidden in the dust jacket of the book. Anger rose in me, at the mention of my name on his lips, and my skin crawled with stinging hot pressure.
"You don't know me." I said, if mostly for myself, but also a threat to him.
"Do I not?" He went into my bag once more, pulling out a change purse and a cashmere scarf. "I was trained to investigate confiscated belongings of those captured by our squad, trained to know all I need to know about you by what you keep in your purse. The theory is that these are the things that are most important to you, the things you keep with you at all times. I have everything I need to know right here…but I do not think you are that simple, Alma."
My name on his lips now gave me chills in every crevice of my body.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I see these things; the lipstick, the perfume, the scarf—all are typical French girl schwachsinn. But you, you're not a French girl and you are by no means…typical." He eyed me then in that peculiar way but in a more pointed fashion. Every look from him confused me even further.
"You don't know that. I could be a very typical girl my age; husband crazed and empty-headed."
"Then why were you out in restricted areas after curfew?"
"Like I said, empty-headed."
Dieter couldn't help but smirk. He picked up the book again and flipped it open. "Then why is a typical, empty-headed English girl walking around with a copy of Anna Karenina…in Russian?"
I didn't have an answer for that and knew that the Nazi in front of me knew I was more than what I was putting on. He himself was no where near empty-headed or typical.
"She knows Russian and French but not German? Seems…odd to me." Dieter mused.
"Is it? You say I know English, French, and Russian—adding another language on top of that seems more odd than not, doesn't it?" I contended with him, trying to squeeze myself out of this. I leaned back and offered the image of comfort, even though I was far from it.
Dieter considered it, lighting another cigarette—purposefully not offering me another.
"I suppose that makes sense in the context." He said, and continued after a pause, "Still does not explain how someone so learned in languages can be so oblivious as to get caught after curfew in a restricted German area…"
I watched Dieter lean back, mirroring my exact position. I tried not to roll my eyes and scoff simultaneously at his grandeur sense of the upper-hand, which he certainly had no grasp of.
"Are you a spy?" He asked. His question, which had been repeated by the other Nazis before him tirelessly, was no more researched.
"No." I responded. "Are you?"
Dieter laughed, a surprised reaction at my quip. He looked at me with a brief glimpse of admiration. I recognized the look in the many men I'd dated in the past. But with Dieter it was gone in a second as he cleared his throat, adjusted his position in his seat.
"Are you a spy for England?" He repeated.
"No, I already told you that."
Dieter nodded, "You are tough, Miss Antony." I wished he would stop saying my name like that, all heavy like a lover whispering under his breath. "Are you tough enough to withstand imprisonment?"
"Humane imprisonment, certainly—if it's a true punishment for which I am the perpetrator." I said, knowing full well the Nazi's did not imprison in such ways, nor fairly by any means.
"Can you live for weeks without food, water, and sleep? Because I can assure you that is the next step of this situation under the presumption you will not tell me who you are and what you were doing last night." Dieter threatened.
"I have nothing to prove to you, Dieter Hellstrom." I held back the bite in my words and Dieter seemed put off by my use of his name. Like the words stung him.
"I think you have a lot to prove, Miss Antony." He retorted, fighting back. I felt my heart swell inside my chest and I couldn't hold back. Nothing within me was able to fight back the frustration I felt. I stamped my hands on the table and started;
"What, then? Do you want me to lie, to say that I'm a spy searching for hidden Nazi secrets at a deserted German barrack? I'm single-handedly attempting to dismantle the Third Reich." I scoffed and continued, "Or do I tell you the truth and admit that I had been wandering around the city in a depressed haze for hours because I am alone in the middle of a war. I am terrified that I'm going to die without ever knowing the type of love or adventure a character like Anna Karenina experienced. Is that what you want? My weak, sad story so you can humiliate me further?"
Dieter stared at me silently, watching tears swell in my eyes and my assured cheeks grow red with heat. He calmly blinked with thoughts completely unknown to me.
"Where do you stand?"
"What?" I asked, confused.
"Where do you stand in the war?"
My eyes narrowed, blinking away my tears, "What, do you want me to say I'm against it? That I'm some rebel a part of the French Resistance? I'm really just fucking exhausted and want to be left alone. I just want to feel safe again, but the sad truth is that I've never felt safe and this war is no different. So if that makes me an enemy of the Third Reich, then maybe it's my fate to succumb to it. I'll gladly walk into whatever bullet has my name on it." Dieter was silent and I sighed, "Just get it over with, for fuck's sake."
I sat back with a huff, fingering the cuffs around my wrists that cut into my skin and regretting every word out of my mouth. Why had I been so emotional? Why was I telling him things I could hardly even admit to myself? But there was no use regretting it, as I couldn't take it back now.
Fearfully I looked up at Dieter who was watching me. Our eyes connected and I felt a lump in my throat that was hard like a rock. His silence was more unnerving than anything he could possibly say. I just wanted to leave, to be at home in my robe between my linen sheets.
"Shit," I mumbled, feeling a stream of blood run out from my nose. Before I could wipe it away with the back of my hand Dieter had stood and knelt at my side, the handkerchief under my nose once more. The sheer proximity in which he was to me immediately made me jump back.
Dieter held my jaw still just like before, but was now within inches of my body. I looked down at him as his eyebrows creased with concentration.
I watched his every move, like everything was in slow motion. He looked from my face as the handcuffs jiggled around my wrist and his jaw clinched. Quickly he removed the handkerchief and reached into his pocket. Then he used a key to un-cuff my hands from the sharp metal. He brought the handkerchief back up to my nose, his gaze softened.
I grew more confused and wherever he touched my skin grew hot. Several moments passed in silence. No words exchanged, only glances. With the emotion of it all, a few spare tears fell from my eyes—I damned myself for showing such a weak emotion yet again.
Dieter watched the tears fall and did nothing about them.
Another few moments passed before he stood back up, straightening his jacket and tie, slipping the bloodied handkerchief back into his pocket.
I watched as he left the room without a word and slammed the door behind him. I blinked a few times, trying to work out exactly what had just occurred. But before I could ponder on anything my attention was brought to the door once again and Dieter quickly walked back in.
"You're free to go." I tilted my head curiously. He continued, rushed, "Gather your things and leave before I change my mind."
Had I really gotten out of this?
Quickly I stood and grabbed my bag and scooped my belongings back into it. The book fell to the floor but I decided to just leave it—my identification card clutched in my palm. I had plenty of copies of the book back at the shop. I threw the strap of the bag around my shoulder.
As I moved to the door, Dieter grabbed my arm and twisted me back to look into his eyes. His hand wrapped all the way around my upper arm and squeezed. What he was looking for I didn't know, but in that moment I saw something I hadn't seen before in his eyes.
A tenderness only seen in a lover—I would have to be with a man for months before they showed any thing near that kind of tenderness, that sort of delicate mixture of softened facial features, mouth slightly open, eyes peering into what could only be my heart, full of worry. In that second I was completely exposed.
And a second feeling, fleeting as it was—comfort. I felt like staying. I felt like stay, especially if it meant that he would keep ahold of me just a moment longer.
"Go. The back corridor is open, I made sure no guards will see you." He let go of my arm and I quickly left.
It wasn't until I had gotten nearly a mile from the compound when the thought struck my head; had Dieter Hellstrom, a Nazi convinced I was a spy, smuggled me out of Gestapo custody?
When I slammed the door shut I flipped the locks with immediate force. I pulled the couch and chairs in front of the door and locked all the windows with the curtains drawn. Shedding my body of clothes I washed the blood from my face and arms in the bathroom sink.
I slipped my robe around my shoulders, turned the radio on and cried into my pillow for the rest of the afternoon.
But I didn't sleep, how could I? I only cried and wrapped myself tighter in bed and attempted to calm my raging mind from avalanches of disruptive thoughts.
But they were not all thoughts of fear. They were relentless thoughts of confusion, of which I obsessed over for hours.
Why had he let me go? Why had he been so tender to me? What did those looks mean?
If I was supposed to be scared and angry at Nazis, and to want to rid the earth of their hatred—then why had I wanted to stay?