1
Gundi
Berlin
April 1939
If Gundi Schiller thought she had felt sick this morning, it was nothing compared to the wave of nausea that hit her as she walked into Dr. Vogel’s office for the results of her pregnancy test and found her mother perched on a chair, knitting needles clacking against each other.
Elsbeth looked up and smiled at her daughter, never dropping a stitch, the thick brown wool in her lap growing into a blanket. Though her mother’s presence in the waiting room was an unwelcome intrusion, at the same time, there was nothing that made Gundi feel more safe than having her mother by her side. Since she began university two years ago, Gundi found that she had a tangle of conflicting feelings about her mother.
“Mutti, are you not well?” Gundi asked, hoping that this was all just an odd coincidence. Perhaps Elsbeth was here to see Dr. Vogel about her stiff shoulder. He was the family physician after all. Maybe Dr. Vogel had asked to see Gundi in person rather than reporting the test results over the phone because he wanted to discourage her from having premarital sex. He might want to wag his finger and warn her that next time, she might not be so lucky. Please God, let this be the case.
“I’m feeling wonderful, Liebchen,” Gundi’s mother said, her knitting needles finally stopping. Elsbeth’s smile reminded Gundi of a buttered roll, sweet and filling. It didn’t hurt that her mother’s body was short and round. Elsbeth lifted her eyebrows. “The more important question is how are you feeling?”
She knows. Gundi’s heart sped, and she felt prickles of cold sweat forming around the soft blond wisps of hair that fringed her forehead. How did she find out?
Gundi clung to the fraying possibility that maybe it was an innocent question. “I think my lunch disagreed with me. That’s all,” she returned with a thin smile.
A nurse with a slick bun resting on the nape of her neck opened the door leading to the exam rooms. “Gundi Schiller,” she announced with a melodic voice that belied her severe appearance. When the nurse’s gaze found Gundi, she gave her a look the girl had grown used to: instant approval. People seemed to know all they needed to when they took in Gundi’s angelic face. Even her one imperfection, the sliver of a gap between her two front teeth, seemed disarmingly appealing. Gundi had enjoyed the attention when she first started to blossom into a woman, but now, by the age of twenty, she was starting to realize that her beauty didn’t give her any actual power but rather the illusion of it. Fewer and fewer people seemed interested in what she had to say these days; they smiled and nodded as she spoke while creating their own version of who they wanted this beautiful girl to be.
Gundi silently begged God to confirm that she was not, in fact, pregnant. But she was almost certainly carrying the child of a man she hadn’t seen in two months. Gundi knew that Leo would have never left Germany without her, though. And yet where was he?
She closed her eyes for a moment, recalling his voice urging her to run off to Paris with him. They would never have to see another Nazi again. Their resistance work could be even more effective from a safe distance, Leo promised.
She should have listened. No one in the Edelweiss Pirates was anywhere to be found anymore. The only people she could rely on for information were likely in hiding or, worse, had been arrested.
“Fräulein Schiller, the doctor will see you now,” said the nurse with some impatience.
Elsbeth rose from her chair and placed her hands on both of Gundi’s cheeks, offering a gentle smile. “Dr. Vogel called me this morning. We have a plan.”
Gundi’s eyes welled with tears. These were the exact words she needed to hear, just not from her mother.
As they walked down the corridor, Elsbeth took two steps for each of Gundi’s long strides. Mother and daughter entered Dr. Vogel’s office, where there was a second white-coated man.
“Gundi, Frau Schiller, it is good to see you both,” Dr. Vogel said, gesturing for Gundi to sit on the exam table and Elsbeth to take the stool in the corner. “I’ve asked Dr. Gregor Ebner to join us today.”
Dr. Ebner was no larger than Dr. Vogel, but somehow he occupied more space. His round, owlish eyeglasses rested on the apples of his cheeks. As he jutted his chin, Dr. Ebner moved about the exam room, circling Gundi with icy appraisal, hands clasped behind his back.
Gundi recognized the black swastika pin on Dr. Ebner’s lapel. The gold rim meant he was one of the early members of the National Socialist Party, a true believer. Many Germans jumped aboard Hitler’s bandwagon after he became führer, but the men who had pledged their loyalty to a fringe National Socialist Party were a different breed.
Gundi turned her head from Dr. Ebner and focused instead on the wall clock over the door. It was twenty minutes after four. Sitting on the padded exam table, she imagined herself instead in a wooden chair at the front of the lecture hall at Humboldt University, where Professor Hirsch would be finishing his economics lecture and beginning to field questions from students. How she wished she were there, less than a kilometer away but a universe apart.
Dr. Vogel hadn’t changed the décor of his office in the fifteen years Gundi had been in his care. The room was sparse—a full-size skeleton next to an eye chart on the white wall and a scale planted on the floor. Beside the exam table was a metal rolling cart holding cotton swabs, glass vials, and something that looked like the drawing compass she had used for geometry class in Gymnasium. Gundi rubbed her bare arms, feeling a chill.
She looked through the window and noticed that the Kirschbaum on the street outside was already blooming. Its tiny pink flowers were half-open, as if they were waking from a deep sleep.
“Well, I see you weren’t exaggerating. What a beauty.” Dr. Ebner gave a short laugh, patting Dr. Vogel on the back. Finally, he turned to Elsbeth. “Dr. Vogel tells me you are a widow,” he said, tilting his chin down in a manner that seemed rehearsed. Elsbeth nodded solemnly as Dr. Ebner continued. “It takes a strong woman to raise a child alone. I’m sorry you had to bear the burden by yourself.”
Gundi saw her mother’s tight smile and sensed her bristling internally. People often presumed that raising a child alone was a burden, but Gundi’s mother always said life was simpler as the sole parent. Without Walter, there was less money, but there was also peace.
Dr. Vogel’s voice brought Gundi back to the present. “Your test results came in this morning, and congratulations are in order, though the circumstances are not ideal, of course,” he said, nodding as if to coax her agreement.
Gundi’s fear landed with a thud in her heart. She was going to be a mother. Her missed periods, swollen breasts, and nausea had told her as much. The timing couldn’t be worse. Germany was becoming more dangerous every day, and her child’s father was missing. Yet Gundi couldn’t help also feeling the slightest flicker of joy. She was going to have Leo’s baby. In another world, at another time, Gundi would have run straight from the doctor’s office into Leo’s arms. The two would rush to marry and playfully bicker over names. She would tell him she knew it was a boy; Leo would insist they were having a girl. Gundi knew he would want to name his daughter Nadja, after his grandmother who had recently died. Gundi would agree easily because she was certain they would be naming the child after her grandfather Josef anyway.
Before Gundi could fully absorb the news, Dr. Ebner slipped a small envelope from his pocket. He opened it and slid out cards in various shades of flesh tones, from porcelain white to a rich vanilla cream. He glanced up at Gundi and laid out on a rolling cart three skin shades that most closely resembled hers. Placing the color swatches beside Gundi’s cheek one by one, Dr. Ebner was silent until he offered a light huff of approval, signaling that he had found the perfect match for her pale skin.
“Hellhäutig. Number three,” he snapped at Dr. Vogel beside him, signaling that his colleague should mark Gundi’s chart accordingly. Gundi had first seen this kind of racial screening tool five years earlier, when Jewish students were still permitted to attend public schools, before the Nazis had deemed classrooms too crowded for children no longer considered German citizens. The Nazis were as obsessed with skin, hair, and eye coloring as they were the size and positioning of facial features.
Even before Jews were banned from public schools, some of Gundi’s teachers had shown students how to quickly detect physical characteristics of the inferior Untermenschen. When Gundi was in Mittelschule, her teacher, Herr Richter, humiliated her classmate Samuel Braus by calling him to the front of the room for inspection. The teacher held a fistful of Sammy’s thick brown curls and turned his head to the side so hard that his eyeglasses fell to the ground. Offering the other students a profile view of their Jewish classmate, Herr Richter pointed out that Sammy’s nose looked like the number six. That was just one way to spot a Jew. As the teacher was pacing, he stepped on Sammy’s spectacles. Everyone in the class heard the crunch. Herr Richter was no kinder to Gundi’s friend Rose, whom he addressed only as “the Jewess in the back row.” Gundi was often required to line up beside the object of her teacher’s ridicule to serve as a counterpoint, an example of pure German beauty. As she stood at the front of the classroom, her cheeks reddened, but Herr Richter called it a healthy glow. Herr Richter also favored Gundi’s best friend, Erich Meyer, a boy whose chiseled features and butterscotch hair made him look as if he’d been plucked straight off a Nazi propaganda poster.
Much like Gundi’s schoolteacher, Dr. Ebner now peppered his inspection with praise. “The freckles are sweet. You love the sunshine, Gundi?” he asked, reaching into his white coat pocket for a card with a row of tiny blue, green, and hazel buttons fastened to the oak tag. Each color had a corresponding number. “I think Gundi’s eye color is a five,” he said to Dr. Vogel with professorial authority. Holding the iris color samples next to Gundi’s right eye, Dr. Ebner squinted to double-check the match. “And I am correct,” he said, lips curling with pride. “Such pretty blue eyes.” Dr. Ebner was ebullient once again when he found a hair sample that exactly matched Gundi’s sandy-blond locks.
Gundi turned to her mother, furrowing her brows to silently communicate her confusion and concern. But Elsbeth seemed relieved, letting out a sigh and nodding with Dr. Ebner’s praise. Gundi perched herself at the edge of the exam table and looked around the room. What is going on here? She took a deep breath and regarded the skeleton in the corner. Why is Dr. Vogel saying nothing? Why does Mutti seem so agreeable?
Dr. Ebner lifted Gundi’s chin and opened a pair of calipers to measure her skull, nose, and forehead, issuing grunts of approval after each measurement.
Turning to Elsbeth, Dr. Ebner asked if she had remembered to bring documentation of her family lineage. She reached into her bag for a thick folder and held it out for him with a hopeful smile.
Dr. Ebner set it down next to Gundi, who watched him leaf through not only her baptism papers, birth certificate, and medical records but similar documents for her parents and grandparents. She knit her brows when she saw the old-fashioned daguerreotype wedding portrait of her paternal grandparents. She hadn’t seen them since her father’s funeral. What did they have to do with her baby?
Looking up from Gundi’s file, Dr. Ebner turned to Elsbeth planted in the corner. “Frau Schiller, I will need to examine the girl further. Please wait outside.”
“Of course, Doctor,” Elsbeth said, too quickly for Gundi’s comfort.
When the door closed, Dr. Ebner turned to Gundi, raising his eyebrows as he scanned her from head to toe. “What are you waiting for? This is not a dental exam.”
“I don’t understand,” she responded, her voice catching. How many times had she practiced sounding calm in the face of danger? Apparently, not enough. Gundi focused on the sound of the clock, inhaling deeply, trying to let her heart slow to the cadence of its steady ticking.
But Dr. Ebner’s throaty laughter broke her concentration. “University girls,” he scoffed with a shrug toward Dr. Vogel. “They know how to lie back and spread their legs like whores, but when a doctor needs to examine them, they suddenly don’t understand.”
Gundi’s eyes darted toward Dr. Vogel, sure that he would object to such a crass characterization of her. But he only laughed awkwardly and looked down at the speckled oilcloth flooring. Dr. Vogel had known Gundi since she was a child, always encouraging her curious nature and answering her endless questions about why there were buds on her tongue and wax in her ears. Now this trusted family doctor slinked to the back of his own office, suddenly fascinated with a shelf lined with glass jars of cotton balls and swabs. Gundi clenched her teeth. How vile she found his weakness.
Could she just run? If she refused to be examined, would Dr. Ebner look more closely into her private life? How long would it take for him to discover that her boyfriend was Jewish? When would he find out about the anti-Nazi flyers Gundi and her friends had distributed or the resistance meetings they’d attended? Gundi couldn’t afford to be impulsive, so she began unlacing the black shoes she’d bought when she first started university. The girl she had been then seemed like a different person than Gundi now, though not even two years had passed since Mutti had taken her shopping for smart outfits to wear to class. The two had been giddy with hope that day. Gundi had needed a fall jacket, but she certainly didn’t need one with red lapels shaped like two halves of a heart. It wasn’t the most sensible choice, but Elsbeth had said, “Everyone at university will know you as the girl with the beautiful heart.”
Gundi’s mother had not gone to university and had worked as a file clerk at the Reich Chancellery over the last decade, so the start of Gundi’s university career was something they had both anticipated with equal excitement.
Now, as Dr. Ebner stood waiting, Gundi unbuttoned her linen skirt, and it fell to the floor. She knelt down to pick it up, embarrassed by her shaky hands, and folded it on the stool where her mother had been seated. The skirt was a favorite of hers: buttercup with peach pleats peeking out. As she unfastened her white short-sleeved blouse, Dr. Ebner watched her, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed. When she was down to her undergarments, Gundi mustered the courage to ask for a gown to cover up.
“That will not be necessary,” Dr. Ebner said. “Come now. Off with the rest of it.”
“I don’t think—” Gundi began.
“No, you don’t.” Dr. Ebner chuckled. “Which is exactly how you got yourself into this situation.”
Gundi felt the urge to stride across the room in her underwear and kick Dr. Ebner in the groin. Instead, she fell mute, the shame of her predicament beginning to sink in. She always thought of herself as smart, but clearly she hadn’t been smart enough to avoid being an unmarried, pregnant woman locked in an office with a Nazi measuring her head. Exhaling deeply, Gundi resigned herself to endure the humiliation of the exam and leave as soon as possible.
Moments later, she stood naked before Dr. Ebner while he regarded her as if she were a sculpture in a museum, slowly examining her from many angles, scanning up and down. When he stopped in front of her, he met her eyes. She noted they were the same height, and he seemed to understand that too, straightening his spine and removing a comb from the top of Gundi’s head in order to unwrap her braids. Dr. Ebner then used his fingers to loosen the plaits and sweep Gundi’s hair behind her shoulders. “You, my dear, are perfection,” he said. “I have been waiting for a girl with your features since we started the program four years ago.”
“Program?” Gundi asked, projecting her voice in hopes that Dr. Vogel would turn his attention back to her. She boiled with rage, betrayed by the doctor she had trusted since she was five years old. Help me, you pathetic Feigling!
When Dr. Vogel finally turned around, Gundi thought he resembled a frightened animal, his eyes wide, his body tucked into a corner of the room, trying, it seemed, to disappear. He mumbled, “There is no need to be shy, Gundi. Dr. Ebner needs to make sure your baby is healthy.” Gundi tried to catch his eye before Dr. Vogel turned his back to her again and recommenced moving instruments from one side of the shelf to the other.
Dr. Ebner pressed the front of himself against Gundi’s naked backside, reaching his hands around to grasp her breasts. Her body tightened with revulsion as a volcano of acid began to rise from her stomach. Dr. Ebner squeezed her, speaking softly into Gundi’s ear. “These will be good for the baby,” he whispered as his erection pressed against her. Then, in a normal volume, he added, “Gundi, everything looks beautiful. You’re a strong and healthy expectant mother.” He patted the exam table. “Now, let’s see how your baby is growing.”
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