The Cigarette Girl

University. Berni nodded vigorously.

“Each young lady who fails the exam,” Sister Maria continued, “proves to the men of Germany that women have no place taking it. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Berni squirmed. The reverend mother had already told her she needed to take school seriously.

“Good. I have faith in your ability to control your baser instincts.”

“I will.” Another question lingered on the tip of her tongue, something she knew she should leave for another time, but she could not help asking. “And Grete? Surely if I go, you’ll send her in two years? She’s a better student than I am.”

Sister Maria retreated, pulling her hands into her cowl. “Poor Grete. After she failed the last exam in Latin, I asked her what her favorite subject was. Her response? First aid. It would be a shame to continue putting pressure on her academically, don’t you think, Berni?”

Berni tried to keep her voice calm. “Who’s pressuring her?”

Sister Maria shrugged. “You don’t need a diploma to specialize in Kinder, Küche, Kirche, and we both know that’s where she’s headed. She’s a delicate one.”

Berni felt her face grow hot. “She enjoyed first aid because she’s interested in medicine, not in just being a wife.”

“Don’t say ‘just’ a wife, Bernadette. There is nothing wrong with this path. Grete has homely sensibilities; anyone can see that. And if she doesn’t find a husband, she can stay here.”

Berni’s fingers and the tips of her ears were still tingling with the first good news, yet a weight grew in the bottom of her stomach. “Stay here?”

“Yes, we’d be happy to have her join the lay staff. You, with all your energy, may think this the worst place in the world, but I assure you, it is not.” Sister Maria pointed upward. “God has a plan for each of us, large and small. Who would pollinate flowers if not the humble bee?”

But we are not humble bees. We are Metzgers. “Grete’s more than capable. She simply can’t hear well, but it’s only bad in one ear.” It was a relief to say this aloud. Berni waited for a reaction from Sister Maria, but the woman did not blink.

“That’s why her voice sounds funny,” Berni continued, her voice rising, “and why she doesn’t do well in class. If you look closely you’ll find she reads and writes better than I do.”

The lamp flickered. “I’m aware of this,” Sister Maria said shortly. “It’s why I’d encourage her to seek another path.”

Now it seemed as though the Virgin in her gilt frame was looking past Berni, not at her. She put her hands over her face and then her ears, trying to banish the little voice inside that told her this was true: Grete would shrink and cower at the academy. Berni’s breathing grew faster and faster. The reverend mother knew. Sister Lioba must have told her. They knew all about Grete’s ears and had never done anything about it.

“Berni. Look at me. You cannot let your ambition set her up for failure.”

“You’re punishing her!” Berni said at last. She stuck her hands back under her knees to keep them from flying about. “How can you punish Grete because she can’t hear well?”

“Punish!” The reverend mother shoved her chair back. Her eyes, and then Berni’s, flitted to the corner where she kept a switch. “We at St. Luisa’s have been nothing but charitable to you. We’ve offered both of you shelter, food, an education. Orphans live on the streets and work as prostitutes. Now I’ve just told you that your sister is welcome to stay here indefinitely, as long as she needs a place, and you accuse me of trying to punish?”

Berni shook her head. All her life, she had believed there was indeed a place for Grete and herself, a home, hazy at its edges, with a fireplace's warmth at its center. It would be theirs, theirs alone, and once they found it all would be gemütlich forever.

On shaking legs, she stood. “If you hold Grete back, simply because of her ailment, I—I will never go to Mass again.”

Sister Maria’s mouth opened. For a moment, nothing but air wheezed out. “You’d commit yourself to the devil, thinking it would save your sister?” She came around the desk. “Do not poison your sister’s spirit, girl.”

“Poisoning her?” Berni’s throat felt dry all of a sudden. “Not me! Not me!”

“Come here, child.” Sister Maria locked Berni’s elbow in an iron grip and tried to force her to expose her backside. She was strong, but so was Berni. Berni tucked her thighs, squirming away from the slap. In the process, she twisted Sister Maria’s arm. She heard bones creak.

“Hold still—you devil child!”

The room darkened, and Berni wondered if the devil truly had taken her. Sister Maria dove for the switch, but Berni got there first. She stood poised to fight, legs splayed, the whip dangling from her right hand as the reverend mother watched, panic in her eyes.

Berni meant only to scare Sister Maria, to make a noise, to show she was in charge now. But as she brought the switch down hard on the edge of the desk, its tail end lashed the sister’s face, catching her on the ear and across her cheek. Sister Maria’s hand flew to her face, and her eyes widened and filled with tears. As they stared at each other she reminded Berni of the toddlers in the nursery who’d cry in stunned silence in the wake of a nun’s slap, and she realized then that Sister Maria was a mere human; they all were.

In the stillness Berni knew she’d destroyed everything, all she’d worked for, all her hopes for herself and Grete, in a single moment. She howled, and threw down the switch; before Sister Maria could grab her arm, she gave the desk a kick. The lamp crackled and went out, and Berni ran down the hall toward the stairs. As she sprinted, she thought about the black mark her shoe must have left on the desk. A Lulu would be the one to clean it.

• • •

Berni barely slept the night after she whipped Sister Maria. Grete had known something was wrong, but Berni had simply turned the other way and stared across the row of beds, unblinking, until dawn. When morning came, she knew, she’d be hauled back to the office and sentenced. It would almost be a relief.

But when the call to rise came, nothing happened. Breakfast, Berni realized with a shiver, would begin with the Angelus, and she’d vowed to stop praying unless Sister Maria relented about Grete and the academy. “You go,” she told a puzzled Grete. “I’ll be in the refectory a minute behind you.” Instead, she wandered for the rest of the day. Bell after bell rang, and for the first time she noticed how the home would thunder with hundreds of feet and then go quiet again, during prayer, chores, and meals.

Her stomach growled. The air in the dormitory began to feel close. At four, the recreation hour, she snuck down into the courtyard, hoping to find Grete before word spread. The girls she passed in the corridors avoided her eyes, or perhaps she was imagining it; she hoped she was.

She hadn’t taken two steps out the door when she felt two rough hands seize her arms. She turned to face Hannelore Haas, who had been waiting years to get revenge on Berni for stealing her Schultüte. She must have known nobody would stop her now.

“Go ahead,” said Berni. Tears were already pooling in her eyes.

Hannelore’s blows came quickly, the first grazing Berni’s temple, the second landing squarely on her eye with a loud pop. Berni’s head snapped back on her neck, and for a minute she saw blackness and stars.

She lay on her bed with a cold rag to her eye when Grete came, wringing her hands.

“It’s not true, is it, Berni?” Her lips looked white with fear. “You didn’t.”

“It’s your fault,” Berni cried, her eye pulsing. The washcloth fell to her lap, and Grete gasped. “Why did you tell Sister Maria you liked first aid? It will be disastrous for us if we don’t figure out how to be independent, completely disastrous, don’t you understand?”

Grete backed away a few steps, her lip trembling, and Berni’s anger fizzled. She reached for Grete. “Never mind, little bird. I’m sorry. So it won’t be the academy. It will be something else. I will mend this.” She felt Grete shiver. “Don’t worry.”

• • •

The next day began the same way. When Sister Odi blew her whistle at the front of the dormitory, every girl leapt up, bare feet on the cold floor, except Berni. Sister Odi left her alone. She stayed curled against her pillow, eyes squeezed shut, until she felt someone large and soft plop onto the mattress behind her. She heard the creak of Sister Josephine’s knees.

“My dear Berni. My spirited child. It is not too late to repent. This silly disagreement between you and the reverend mother—you should not allow it to consume your soul.”

She felt a cool hand against the burning skin of her neck. “Silly? She’s against us, Grete and me. She doesn’t care. Why should I sit behind her at Mass and pretend she’s holy?” Why, she thought, burrowing further into her blanket, should she be the one to give in?

The hand withdrew. Sister Josephine seemed to be thinking. Finally she said, “You’re wanted in the office. I’m told you’re to bring your hidden contraband. Tread carefully, Berni. If you won’t take the rest of my advice, at least do this. Tread carefully.”

Berni waited until Sister Josephine had gone, then sat up, rubbing her eyes. She trudged listlessly back to the scene of violence, the umbrella bumping against her thigh as she walked. She felt like a used dish on its way to a sink of hot water.

She was surprised to find the woman from Fiedler’s department store sitting in the office, wearing a green dress and a tilted hat of black felt. When she turned her head, her blond hair swished. She gasped when she saw Berni’s eye. “Du Lieber! What’s happened to this child?”

Sister Maria worked her lower jaw back and forth. The thin red welt running from her earlobe to her chin looked painful. “Bernadette, can you explain your appearance to Fräulein Schmidt?” Her mouth spread smugly, and Berni knew then she’d been in the courtyard and had done nothing. Berni touched the puffed skin of her eye. Her fingertips felt very cold. Flatly she told Fräulein Schmidt that three girls had held her down and beat her.

“That’s what they always say.” Sister Maria chuckled. “The fights are never their fault.”

“Don’t you at least want to ask who hit her?” Fräulein Schmidt asked. “Or call in witnesses?” Berni tried not to grin.

“Berni,” said Sister Maria, sounding tired and irritated, “you have something that belongs to Fräulein Schmidt?”

Fräulein Schmidt smiled and thanked Berni when she handed her the umbrella.

“All is settled,” Sister Maria said. “You may go, Bernadette.”

Before Berni could leave, Fräulein Schmidt grabbed her forearm. “Tell me,” she asked the reverend mother. “What do you know of her parents?” Sister Maria froze as Fräulein Schmidt went on. “Are they alive? Do the families ever reclaim the girls?”

Berni’s heart thudded. For a moment even she thought this woman had gone too far.

“Fräulein Schmidt,” said Sister Maria. “We do not examine the backgrounds of the girls we raise. Each one starts out the same—humble, as we are all humbled before God.”

The two women locked eyes in silence for a while, and then Fräulein Schmidt peered up at Berni from under her asymmetrical hat. “Why don’t you wait outside for a little while?”

Berni did as she was told, coughing, dabbing pus out of her eye with her sleeve. Finally, the door opened, and Fräulein Schmidt’s slim figure emerged. “It’s been decided. You’ll come live with me.”

The words sounded too good to be true. “Live with you?”

Fräulein Schmidt flexed her fingers, then pulled back a glove to check her watch. “Yes. I live in Schöneberg, on the southern side of Berlin. I have an extra room to let.”

Berni hesitated. “The sisters will let me go?”

“Darling,” Fräulein Schmidt said gently, “they don’t want you corrupting the others.”

• • •

In the early morning Berni nudged Grete as soon as she saw a hint of pink through the windows, then went to scrub her face and teeth. When she returned, she found Grete sitting atop the blanket, still in her nightclothes. Her childlike legs, warm and wrinkled from sleep, were curled atop the one wool cardigan Berni planned to smuggle away. She’d been told she could take only one skirt and one blouse, and in the night she’d packed the same for Grete.

“Get dressed,” Berni whispered, stroking her sticky hair. “Today we begin a new adventure.” Slowly, Grete complied.

Sister Maria waited in the corridor to escort them outside; she did so in silence. The welt on her face was beginning to scab. At the door to the yard, Berni felt a tug at her heart when she saw that Sister Josephine would see them off as well. “I must be getting old,” she said, her plump face streaked to the chin with tears. “It seems only yesterday you two came in as babies.” She allowed Grete to tuck under her arm, so that Berni could no longer see her face.

After only a minute, a muscular black motorcar growled under the arched entryway to the courtyard, the grille in front as tall as Grete. Fräulein Schmidt hopped down from the driver’s side, her red lipstick stark against the flat scenery. “How do you do, Bernadette?” she said, disregarding the two nuns, who seemed ruffled in her presence. “Oh, and Grete! Little Grete, what are you doing here?”

“She’s coming with us,” Berni said.

“I see. I hadn’t realized. Well—all right. I can make space.”

Berni turned to Grete, excited now: the last obstacle to their departure had been lifted. The adventure could begin. But Grete hadn’t let go of Sister Josephine. This was to be expected; Berni had known there would be some resistance, that Grete needed persuading. She dug through the fabric of Sister Josephine’s cloak to find her sister’s piping-hot face.

“Come on,” Berni said, a frog in her throat. “It’ll be fine.”

“I’ll start the Maybach,” Fräulein Schmidt said with a nod to Sister Josephine, and she walked toward the car. A little whimper came from under Sister Josephine’s sleeve.

Berni pressed her lips to Grete’s ear. “Come now. If we need to escape, we can.” The engine started behind them, with terrible timing; it lurched and wheezed.

“I can’t,” Grete said, her voice tiny. “How do we know what she’ll do with us?” Berni wanted to shake her, to force her to see this was their best chance.

Sister Josephine laid her gnarled fingers on top of Berni’s and nodded. “I’ll make sure she’s taken care of, Bernadette.” She glanced toward Sister Maria, who stood apart from them, her hands hidden in her cowl.

Berni looked from the black car to Sister Maria, then back to Grete and Sister Josephine. It had started to drizzle. Their faces were wet. Berni kissed Grete’s cheek. “There’s nothing to fear, little bird. We will be together.” Grete remained still, her face squeezed into a grimace. Berni felt as though she’d swallowed an egg. The engine of the car roared behind her. She reached into the pillowcase and took out Grete’s blouse and skirt, her white-bristled hairbrush, and finally, after a moment’s hesitation, the sweater.

“You’ll join me soon,” Berni whispered into Grete’s ear, then kissed the lobe. “I will not be far from you.”

“Bernadette.” Sister Maria had called her name. Reluctantly, Berni went to her and looked up at the thin hard line of the sister’s mouth, the shape of a crow flying. “If you remember anything about us, remember the values we’ve taught you,” Sister Maria said. “You will see. The devil comes in many forms. Some are not as obvious as others.”

What did this mean? Berni hadn’t the stomach to ask, or to thank Sister Maria for her advice. “I—” She took a deep breath. “I am sorry, Sister.” The words did not come out as sincerely as she’d hoped, but at least she’d spoken them; she’d done it for Grete’s sake.

She went to kiss Grete one last time, then climbed into Fräulein Schmidt’s motorcar. Through the scratched window she watched Sister Josephine hold tight to her frail blond sister.

As they drove away, Fräulein Schmidt cracked a silver lighter to her cigarette. Berni shut her eyes, already wondering whether it was she or Grete who had made a mistake.

Berni, 1931

“This, as you can see, is the parlor.” Fräulein Schmidt leaned against the long velvet divan. “I plan to bring the dining table out and convert that room to your bedchamber. The parlor wouldn’t look as empty then, nicht?”

Berni stepped around the room, touching everything. The intricate plasterwork around the windows cracked a bit under her fingers. In the corner a cello leaned under a portrait of a woman with a rose pinned at her throat. A bowl of figs sat on an end table next to a lipstick-stained napkin and a pile of stems. “I do not think it seems empty,” Berni said. The spines of Fräulein Schmidt’s books felt worn and well used. Most were collections of sheet music, but Berni also saw volumes of poetry, Virgil’s Aeneid in the original Latin.

“They told me about you and the academy,” Fräulein Schmidt said behind her. “You don’t need to go to school to be educated, you know. You can be an autodidact.”

“Yes,” Berni murmured, more to herself than to Fräulein Schmidt, “it will be a fine place to bring Grete.” Her sister was all Berni had spoken of during the car ride, which would have been exhilarating if she hadn’t been so distracted. She’d apologized for Grete’s timidity around strangers, which she assured Fräulein Schmidt was not personal; she expected Grete to join her here in a matter of weeks.

“I’ll allow you to stay a month without paying rent,” Fräulein Schmidt said. “But after that I will begin to charge you for the room. A pittance, really. I don’t need much money; my father left me this place when he died. He didn’t want to, since I’m not married.” When she smiled, Berni noticed one tooth in front was slightly darker than the others. “He said at least I’d earn an honest living as a landlady. But so far I am running more of a charity than a boarding house. You might say I’ve created a home for lost girls of my own.”

The last part made Berni shiver. “Where will I get rent money?”

“Oh, there are plenty of things you can do. You can run a coat check, or sell cigarettes, as Anita does—you’ll meet her in a moment. And you should call me Sonje, you know. I use the informal du with everyone. Though I’m not as Socialist as some of my friends. I like chocolate and eiderdown too much. And these.” She held out her cigarette, which was wrapped in jade paper and had a gold tip. “Would you believe these little beauties cost nearly a mark apiece?”

It was all starting to make Berni’s head swirl: the smoke, the information. She felt someone’s hand on her back and moved aside so that a petite woman with a tight mop of pinkish curls could get to the table; in one sweep she cleared the fig stems and napkin. “Bernadette,” Sonje said, her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Meet Frau Pelzer, our housekeeper.”

Frau Pelzer shook her hand so hard her shoulder popped in its socket. “Don’t tell me you’re another picky eater,” she said, showing her gold fillings when she laughed.

A housekeeper? Berni could barely stammer a greeting, she felt so overwhelmed. This woman would cook for her? Clean up after her? There had to be a catch. She put a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry, I—I’m not feeling well.”

“Do you need the toilet?” Sonje asked pleasantly, and Frau Pelzer grunted, “I’m not finished bleaching the tiles.”

Berni stumbled into the little hallway with its worn red rug. She opened the first door on her right, which turned out to be a linen closet. Instead of holding sheets and towels, the shelves were stacked with cigarettes, cartons of cigars, tins of loose tobacco with bright labels, like tea.

“You can stay in the bedroom on the left,” Sonje called to her. “But—ah—Berni—”

Berni put her hand on the knob. What she needed to do now was cry, loudly and messily, into a pillow. But there was already a girl with bright-red hair sitting on the bed reading a magazine, her long legs crossed at the kneecaps.

It was the perfume salesgirl, Berni realized in horror, from Fiedler’s. “You!” she cried.

The girl snapped her legs underneath her. “You? What are you doing here? Sonje!”

Sonje appeared on the threshold, arms crossed. “Berni, Anita, I hope you’ll at least try to be friends, or cordial roommates.”

Anita gawked. “She’s sleeping in here?”

“Only until I can convert the dining room to a third bedroom.”

“I need air,” Berni muttered, and she ran out of the room, past Frau Pelzer, who laughed throatily as she yanked open the main door to the apartment. She sat on the front steps of the building, her hands over her ears. A pile of yellow horse dung gathered flies in the road in front of her. Sonje’s street, which sloped downward at a steep angle, looked completely unfamiliar. Alien territory, though Berni had walked it with Sonje just minutes before.

• • •

For dinner Frau Pelzer served pickles, crackers, and tinned fish. “Sorry for the cold meal, girls,” Sonje said over a newspaper. She had several papers spread over the table.

Berni had to wring her hands to keep from grabbing all the food. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She’d have bolted it down if Anita hadn’t been watching her closely.

“Something to read, Berni?” asked Sonje. “Perhaps Germania, that’s the Catholic Center Party’s paper. Or Berliner Tageblatt, for Social Democrats. Ah, here’s Deutsche Zeitung, my personal favorite.” She smiled. “The rag of the anti-Semites.”

Berni recoiled. “Your favorite? That’s disgusting.”

Anita dabbed her mouth, leaving black cherry smudges on the tissue. “She’s Jewish, you pointy-head,” she said. “She’s joking when she says it’s her favorite.”

Berni considered this for a moment, wondering if she’d ever spoken to a Jew before. She knew better than to check for horns under Sonje’s hair; the sisters had told the girls this was a myth. It was Anita who interested Berni more. Powder coated her skin like new snow, making the landscape flawless but stark, a harsh contrast to the scarlet wig. Her eyebrows were delicate as cricket legs, her jaw broad and lips full; they became a deeper pink as she ate and abraded them with bread. She tossed her pilsner down and slammed the foam-laced glass on the table. “What the hell are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

Anita’s laugh was a high, nervous staccato, a bird’s warning. “Your new friend needs to practice her manners,” she told Sonje.

Sonje folded back a page of her paper. “Oh, you were staring, too.”

After dinner, Berni dallied in the parlor, waiting for Anita to go to sleep. It was out of the question for Grete to join her while they still had to share a room with Anita. She’d have to put her sister off until Sonje found a bed for the parlor.

Before Sonje turned in, she handed Berni a slim red hardcover. “You should fill your mind with genius before sleep. Have you read Rilke?”

Berni opened the book to a well-read page. “Ich bin auf der Welt zu allein . . .” She shut the book with a bang. “No.” She was feeling “too alone in the world,” far too alone to read Rilke.

“Hmm.” Sonje looked over the titles in the hallway bookcase. “Aha! Reliable Nesthäkchen.” She handed Berni Nesthäkchen and the World War by Else Ury. “I loved these as a child. But don’t stay up late. Tomorrow Anita will take you to the Medvedev, to learn to sell.”

“To sell?”

“Cigarettes.”

Berni shrugged. She took the book into the bedroom, where she was disappointed to find Anita fully dressed, glowering at her over the mattress. Her knobby fingers hovered over her buttons. “I bet you’d like to see me nude. You wait in the hall. I’m not a lesbian like you.”

“I’m no lezzie,” Berni said, familiar with the word; it was a favorite accusation among Lulus. She waited outside the bedroom, feeling Hannelore’s fist against her eye with every beat of her heart. When she went in she found Anita wearing a nightgown, her enormous eyes protruding from the top of the quilt. Not only had she left her wig on, but she also hadn’t taken any steps to excavate the makeup. Berni climbed in beside her, lying on the very edge of the bed.