warm day. Marta and Pavel stood looking down at the square. Marta had never been to the cinema but she had heard about the big screen, and this was how she thought of the window looking over the town: as a screen on which the events of the world played out. A sound was moving towards them now, rumbling over the cobblestones. Pavel swore under his breath and held his face in his hands. He looked up again, then lowered his face quickly, as though to make what he had seen disappear.
Trucks were entering the square. Large trucks, with guns protruding from them, and tanks that bore the Wehrmacht insignia. The morning light crept up behind them, a rosy pink that was almost flattering to their shiny metal. Pavel squared his shoulders in defiance. He lifted a finger and put it on her elbow, as if he could not face this alone.
Marta shifted away automatically—it was not right to touch her employer. She had a flash again, of Ernst saying, “Dirty . . .” But Mr. Bauer smelled of soap or shaving lotion, and beneath that of warm blankets and skin. He smelled as she did: human. Besides, something dramatic was happening, something extraordinary, and extraordinary events called for extraordinary measures. It was the kind thing to do, to reassure someone in distress. She knew nothing about politics, but the Bauers were her family. What had she been thinking? They were the same as they’d always been, and she was on their side. On Mr. Bauer’s side. Ernst could believe what he wanted.
Marta shifted back towards Pavel and their two arms touched again. They stood as a team, next to each other, as the German tanks filled their town square.
By mid-morning, when Marta came back downstairs, Pavel had taken the car to the factory. He could afford a chauffeur, like everyone who had an automobile, but he chose not to employ one. Why, he liked to ask, would he pay for someone else to have the pleasure of driving?
Marta spent the bulk of the day tidying Pepik’s room. She swept beneath the bed, where she found two lost lead soldiers and a pair of brown knickerbockers crushed up into a ball. She shook them out; there was a round hole in the fabric, the exact size of a ten-koruna coin, and she set to work darning it, all the while trying not to think about the arrival of the Germans. The occupation would be short-lived, she told herself; it had to be.
In the late afternoon she went down to the kitchen to make herself a cup of linden tea. Sophie was standing over a bowl of peeled apples, the peels’ perfect corkscrews like the ones on Sophie’s head. Of course, thought Marta, Sophie slept with strings tied in her hair.
Sophie was in her late teens, and would have been almost beautiful if not for her harelip. It was not a severe one—just a spot beneath her nose where the skin looked shiny and flat. Still, Marta found it hard to look past.
“You’re making strudel,” she said.
“What about it?”
“Isn’t it too . . . German? On today of all days?”
Sophie picked up an apple. “Pass me the knife.”
“Mr. Bauer’s mother is coming for dinner. It’s Friday.”
“What do you mean, too German?”
“With what’s going on.” Marta raised her eyebrows but Sophie only shrugged.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” She did not bother to lower her voice and Marta worried Anneliese would hear her, but from above came the sound of floorboards squeaking and then the scrape of the stove door being opened and the thud of a charcoal brick being tossed in.
“Is it?” Marta asked. “Wonderful?”
“Of course it is. He’s rooting them out.”
Sophie held the paring knife still, turning the fruit under the blade.
“The Jews?” Marta asked dumbly. Why did everyone care so much about Jews all of a sudden? First Ernst, and now Sophie. It was tiresome. And worrying.
Sophie nodded. “If you have one grandparent who is
Juden
,” she said, “then you are
Juden
too. You must have four pure grandparents to get