At the Wolf's Table_A Novel by Rosella Postorino & Leah Janeczko

Author:Rosella Postorino & Leah Janeczko [Postorino, Rosella & Janeczko, Leah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1250179149
Amazon: B07FCJ6458
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: 2019-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

THE FIRST THING I felt was a chill throughout my body, then light-headedness.

I opened my eyes to the ceiling. It was dawn.

They had swung the door open and my body had awoken. Maybe the SS imagined they would find a couple of bodies, maybe more, which they would need to carry out. Instead they found ten women whom the sound of the key turning in the lock had just torn from broken sleep. Ten women who had crusty eyelashes and parched throats but were alive, all of them.

The Beanpole gaped at us in silence from the doorway, as frightened as if he were staring at ghosts, while another guard pinched his nose and stepped backward, his heels echoing off the tiles in the hallway. Were we ghosts? Without speaking, we warily made sure our limbs worked, checked our breathing. Mine flowed between my lips, through my nostrils. I was alive.

Only when Ziegler arrived and ordered us to stand up did Leni crawl out from under the table, did Heike move her chair in a daze, did Elfriede slowly roll onto her back and seek the strength to sit up, did Ulla let out a yawn, and did I unsteadily rise to my feet.

“Line up,” Ziegler said.

Placated by the aftereffects of the illness, or simply tamed by fear, we formed a row of prostrate bodies.

Where had he been all that time, the Obersturmführer, my lover? He hadn’t carried me to the washroom, hadn’t laid a dampened towel on my temples, rinsed my face. He wasn’t my husband, had no need to see to my happiness. As I was dying, he was busy safeguarding the life of Adolf Hitler, his and his alone, tracking down the culprits, interrogating Krümel, the assistant chefs, the kitchen helpers, the guards, the entire SS unit housed in the headquarters, as well as the local suppliers and those farther away—he would have interrogated even the train conductors, journeyed to the very ends of the earth to track down the guilty party.

“Can we go home?”

I wanted him to hear my voice, to remember me.

He looked at me with those tiny eyes, two stale hazelnuts, and ran a hand over them to massage them. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to see me. “The chef will be here soon,” he said. “You need to resume your work.”

My stomach knotted. I saw hands clapped over mouths, fingers clutching bellies, queasy expressions. None of us, however, said a word.

Ziegler left and the guards accompanied us to the washroom, two at a time, so we could freshen up. The lunchroom was cleaned, the French door to the courtyard left open for a while, and breakfast was ready earlier than usual. The Führer must have been hungry, he couldn’t be kept waiting a minute longer. He had spent the night nibbling his fingernails just to sink his teeth into something, or perhaps the unforeseen incident had ruined his appetite, his stomach had grumbled but it was gastritis, flatulence, a nervous reaction.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.