Garden of Beasts

Magdeburger Alley. The castle is yours.” She walked to the door. “I will get afternoon coffee now.”
    “You don’t have to. I actually—”
    “Yes, yes, I will. It’s part of the price.”
    When she stepped into the hall Paul went into the bedroom, where a dozen black beetles roamed the floor. He opened his briefcase and placed the copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, containing the fake passport and rubles, on the bookcase. Removing his sweater, he rolled up the sleeves of his tennis shirt, washed his hands then dried them on a threadbare towel.
    Käthe returned a moment later with a tray containing a dented silver coffeepot, a cup and a small plate covered with a lace doily. She set this on the table in front of a well-worn couch.
    “Please, you will sit.”
    He did, rebuttoning his sleeves. He asked, “Do you know Reggie Morgan well?”
    “No, he just answered an advertisement for the room and paid in advance.”
    This was the answer Paul had been hoping for. He was relieved to learn that she had not contacted Morgan, which would have made her suspect. From the corner of his eye he felt her glance at his cheek. “You are hurt?”
    “I’m tall. I’m always banging my head.” Paul touched his face lightly, as if he were hitting himself, to illustrate his words. The pantomime made him feel foolish and he lowered his hand.
    She rose. “Please, wait.” A few minutes later she’d returned with a sticking plaster, which she offered him.
    “Thanks.”
    “I have no iodine, I’m afraid. I looked.”
    He went into the bedroom, where he stood in front of the mirror behind the washstand and pressed the plaster to his face.
    She called, “We have no low ceilings here. You will be safe.”
    “Is this your building?” he asked, returning.
    “No. It is owned by a man who is presently in Holland,” Käthe replied. “I manage the house in exchange for room and board.”
    “Is he connected to the Olympics?”
    “Olympics? No, why?”
    “Most of the flags on the street are the Nazi—National Socialist, I mean. But you have an Olympic flag here.”
    “Yes, yes.” She smiled. “We are in the spirit of the Games, aren’t we?”
    Her German grammar was flawless and she was articulate;she’d had a different, and much better, career in the past, he could tell, but the ragged hands and cracked nails and such tired, tired eyes told a story of recent difficulties. But he could also sense an energy within her, a determination to see life through to better times. This, he decided, was part of the attraction he felt.
    She poured him coffee. “There is no sugar at the moment. The stores have run out.”
    “I don’t take sugar.”
    “But I have strudel. I made it before the supplies ran short.” She took the doily off the plate, on which sat four small pieces of pastry. “Do you know what strudel is?”
    “My mother made it. Every Saturday. My brother and sister would help her. They’d pull the dough so thin that you could read through it.”
    “Yes, yes,” she said enthusiastically, “that is how I make it too. You did not help them stretch the dough?”
    “No, I never did. I’m not so talented in the kitchen.” He took a bite and said, “But I ate plenty of it. . . . This is very good.” He nodded toward the pot. “Would you like coffee? I’ll pour you some.”
    “Me?” She blinked. “Oh, no.”
    He sipped the brew, which was weak. It had been made from used grounds.
    “We will speak your language,” Käthe announced. And launched into: “I have never been over to your country but I want very much to go.”
    He could detect only a slight v ’ing of her w ’s, which is the hardest English sound for Germans to form.
    “Your English is good,” Paul said.
    “You mean ‘well,’” she blurted, smiling to have caught him in a mistake.
    Paul said, “No. Your English is good. You speak English well. ‘Good’ is an adjective. ‘Well’ is an adverb—most of the time.”
    She frowned. “Let me think. . . . Yes, yes, you are right. I am blushing now. Mr. Morgan said you are a writer. And you’ve been to university, of course.”
    Two years at a small college in Brooklyn before he dropped out to enlist and go fight in France. He’d never gotten around to finishing his studies. When he’d returned, that was when life got complicated, and college fell by the wayside. In fact, though, he’d learned more about words and books working for his grandfather and father in the printing