for how much attention they pay me. As if being fat makes you deaf and blind too. So I see everything, hear everything. And after my regular deliveries, I make a special one to the prisoners. I leave bread for them. The poor bastards, they— Where? Anna interrupts.
What?
Where do you leave the bread?
In the forest, by the quarry the SS have them working in. There’s a hollow tree where I can put the rolls and any Resistance information I can give them. And they pass camp information to me—this way.
She indicates the condom.
It’s not much, what I’m doing, she says, but it gives them some hope.
Anna slips the paper back inside the rubber. Its surface is greasy and foul, and Anna can imagine all too well where a prisoner would have had to conceal it.
I want to go, she tells Mathilde. Next time you go, I go.
Mathilde takes the condom from Anna and hides it back in the clock. Then she removes an embroidered pouch from her apron. From this she produces papers and a pinch of tobacco and proceeds, with maddening slowness, to roll a cigarette.
Did you hear me? Anna shouts. I want to help, I want to leave the bread, I’m going with you!
Mathilde scrapes a match on the side of the oven and lights her cigarette. Exhaling, she watches Anna through a drifting blue membrane. Anna glares.
You’ve got more balls than anybody’d think just to look at you, says the baker, but no. Do you have any idea how long it took us to set up this system? One false move and we’re all in the camp. You’re acting from the heart, not the head. Too risky.
I’m perfectly clearheaded. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.
And the baby, Mathilde continues, tapping ashes into a tin that once, Anna observes, held corned beef. Think of the baby.
Anna waves a hand at both this argument and the smoke, which has condensed in layers.
You shouldn’t smoke, she says with venom.
Suddenly I have the Reichsminister of Propaganda Goebbels in my kitchen? A good German woman never smokes, right, princess?
Anna wants to say, No, because it’s making me sick. Instead, she beckons for the cigarette.
Give me that, she says.
Shrugging, Mathilde hands it to her.
Anna inhales. As she fights not to choke, she tries to come up with a statement that will persuade Mathilde she is hardy enough to be included in this venture. She thinks of Unterschar-führer Wagner, who comes from the same social class as the baker, whose crude language Mathilde speaks and appreciates. What would he say to sway her?
If I could, Anna tells Mathilde, eyes watering, I’d blow this smoke right up the Führer ’s ass.
Mathilde quakes with silent laughter.
All right, she says, with a wet, ashy cough. You don’t have to try so hard to convince me. But no Special Deliveries for a while. You stay here, work for me, we’ll see how you do. Then—
When? Anna says. When can I go with you?
Maybe after the baby, says Mathilde. She turns and spits into the sink.
But that won’t be for months! Until nearly Christmas—
That’s soon enough, Mathilde says, and remains implacable.
13
GINGER.
Yes, ginger, Anna. Fresh if you can get it, but I’ve found candied ginger to be effective too.
Why are you giving the poor child such useless advice? Ginger is for morning sickness, and Fräulein Brandt is obviously well past that stage.
But it also eases heartburn, Hilde—
Besides, where do you expect her to find ginger nowadays? It’s hard enough to get the essentials, what with the rations they allow us!
Shhhhh, Hilde, watch yourself. You’ve always been too outspoken for your own good—
Pssht.
Garlic, then. Or onions. Those you can still get, and they’ll clean your blood, increase your stamina—Which you’ll need for the birth, Fräulein Brandt, especially with the first child—hoo hoo!
(Ssst! No need to frighten her more than she already must be, poor thing.) Yes, onions, Anna—
Onions, yes—
Onions. And raspberry leaf tea, to increase and sweeten your milk.
Yes, raspberry leaf tea.
Anna, wrapping and ringing up purchases at the register, smiles politely. These fragments of advice sound to her much like the endless propaganda from the bakery’s radio, which Mathilde calls the Goebbels’ Snout; the women’s solicitude seems as ersatz as the coffee they must all drink now, brewed from beechnuts and tasting to Anna of pencil shavings.
She hands a loaf of black bread to Monika Allendorf, who takes it without letting her fingertips touch Anna’s own. As girls, Anna and Monika were particular friends, arms slung