Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

Author:Jenna Blum
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Historical - General, War stories, World War, 1939-1945 - Underground movements, Bildungsromans, Holocaust, Fiction, 1939-1945, Literary, General, Germany, Jewish (1939-1945), Historical, War & Military, Underground movements, Young women, German American women, Germany - History - 1933-1945, 1939-1945 - Germany, Sagas, Fiction - Historical
ISBN: 9780156031660
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2005-04-18T10:54:09.081000+00:00

29

THAT EVENING, WANTING TO BE ESPECIALLY HOSPITABLE ON Anna’s first night in the house, Trudy emerges from her study early to cook dinner. It is rather more extravagant than her usual solitary supper: an omelet with herbs and cheese, a clear soup, a salad, a slender baguette that Trudy cuts into pretty coins to camouflage the fact that it is two days old. And instead of hastily consuming this standing at the kitchen counter or at her desk—all the better to get back to work—Trudy sets the table in the dining room and, once Anna has been summoned and seated, brings everything in on a tray. She knows her mother will notice and appreciate this latter touch; Anna has always been adamant about adhering to the niceties of dining even in the farmhouse, cloth napkins and place mats and bread in a basket and dainty dishes of pickles placed just so. And indeed, although Anna doesn’t offer praise—this etiquette being standard, after all; hasn’t she raised Trudy in this tradition?—her silvery eyes gleam at the sight of the food and she tucks into her portion with relish.

The two women eat in silence, Anna speaking only to murmur approval of the meal. Trudy observes her covertly. At least Anna seems to have regained her appetite, which is a relief. Maybe she was never really ailing at all; given the fare at the New Heidelburg Good Samaritan Center, Trudy thinks, she might choose to be fed through an IV herself. But what is she going to do with Anna? The atmosphere over the table is airless in a way that is all too familiar, as though the candles Trudy has lit are sucking the oxygen from the room. Anna mops her plate with a slice of bread and reaches for another, and Trudy, watching her, reflects that even the most ordinary acts performed by the beautiful seem blessed with grace, simply because they look so good doing them. She also thinks of Frau Kluge and Rose-Grete and the others she has interviewed, and of the photograph in its gold case upstairs and all the subsequent evenings she will have to endure in which there is nothing to say, or rather so much to say that neither she nor Anna will ever say it, and her omelet clogs, congealed and nasty, in her throat.

When Anna is done she stands and begins to clear the table with the efficiency of long habit.

No, Mama, let me, says Trudy. You don’t have to do that.

I do not mind, says Anna. Then she looks down. Oh, forgive me, Trudy. You are not yet finished.

Yes I am, Trudy says, getting up too. She holds out her hands for the silverware Anna has collected.

Anna clutches it to her waist.

But you have barely touched your food, she says. Are you not well?

I am fine, Trudy says, then shakes her head; Anna’s formal sentence structure is contagious.

I’m fine, she repeats. Just not all that hungry.

Anna deposits the cutlery onto the tray with a clatter and sweeps Trudy’s full plate next to it.

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