The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith H. Beer Read Free Book Online

gregarious man. He had recently lost his wife to tuberculosis after a long, miserable illness. He had two daughters: Elsa, age eleven; and Christl, fourteen. Since he often had totravel on business and leave the girls to fend for themselves, he was looking for a tutor to keep them involved in their studies. The concierge had recommended me highly, and I readily accepted the job. So now, every day, I came from the university and spent the afternoon with these delightful girls.
    The Denners lived on the ballroom floor of our house, in a large space that defied subdivision, where people with “von” in their name had once gathered to dance to baroque music. The windows were enormous. They reached from floor to ceiling. The floor was wood and seemingly endless. To see those two children polishing that floor was enough to break your heart.
    “Who’s coming to the ball?” I cried as I watched them scrubbing and rubbing. “The Hapsburgs have been deposed. The Bourbons are out of town.”
    “Father likes us to do our part to keep up the former glory of our country,” Christl groaned.
    Each girl had a puppy with a Russian name, in honor of Frau Denner, who had come from White Russia. Elsa’s puppy behaved well and slept in her lap. Christl’s dog wanted to chase pigeons and leap into the arms of visitors and slobber over them lovingly. So it was with the girls themselves. Elsa had things under control. Christl’s life was an adventure.
    Christl was taking a business course, but she couldn’t manage the bookkeeping, couldn’t write a neat letter, and couldn’t concentrate. I sat with her while she plowed through her homework; I walked with her and her dog in the yard of our building. Soon she was coming to me with every sort of adolescent problem. She was tall and vivacious, with light-brown hair and almost violet eyes, and she was beset by boys. They stood in the street and sang to her, followed her home, sent flowers, bought treats for the dog, anything to get her attention.

    When she was fifteen and I was twenty-three, Christl fell in love. His name was Hans Beran. Everyone called him Bertschi. “He’s a bit of a fool,” said Herr Denner, “but at least he doesn’t throw his money around like the rest of these young people.”
    Bertschi gave Christl a hard time. First he wanted her desperately. Then he was too shy to accept her affections. Then he decided she was too beautiful for him and he simply couldn’t bear the jealously of the other boys. Then he phoned very late at night and said that he couldn’t live without her, that she must meet him at the Café Mozart so he could tell her how much he adored her.
    Every time I came to their house, Christl would greet me breathlessly at the door and whisper wildly: “I have to speak with you—in private!” And she would bundle me into the shadows of the hallway and tell me what marvelous stupid thing Bertschi had done now, and how she had to write a letter to him, and how she couldn’t possibly do it without my help.
    “Oh, please, Edith, please. If you write the letter it will come out perfect. Please, please!”
    How could I resist her? I could never resist a little sister.
    When she passed the final exam at the business school, her father gave a party. He hired a boat and invited his guests for a moonlight cruise on the Danube. Toward the end of the evening, a waiter presented me with a bouquet of red roses. There was no card, and I wondered who could have sent them.
    My mother, sitting in the parlor, appliquéing pretty birds on my new yellow blouse, knew immediately. “The flowers are from Herr Denner,” she said. “Because when his girls needed a substitute mother, someone to listen to them with a caring heart, you were there.” Mama grinned. “So you see, you must become a mother, Edith—because obviously you have a talent for it.”

     
    T HE N AZI BULLIES roared that Chancellor von Schuschnigg was determined to restore the Hapsburg monarchy and