Not Exactly in Hiding 1944: Bucharest

Dora’s role is to keep everyone’s spirits up. No one appointed her to the post, yet she instinctively knows how to do it. Stronger, inside, than everyone, and gifted, Dora understands which smile gladdens a certain man, what caress sweetens the day of an older woman.
For months, Dora and her husband, Ionatan, their baby, Manfred, her mother, father and her brother Berthold, and, have lived nearly on top of one another in the apartment of Madame Iescu, lover of Berthold, daughter of a Rumanian war hero, and mistress to a German administrator in the occupying government.
“Right under their noses; that’s the best place to hide,” Madame Iescu likes to say. She adores Dora, telling her so each day as Dora makes and serves her breakfast.  Then Dora makes the rest of them breakfast and cleans up in the small kitchen. Dora prefers to be its sole queen, allowing no one to enter, permitting no assistance.
Dora’s family of six is well ensconced, not exactly in hiding. Here in Bucharest, most of the Jews live in the ghetto on the other side of the city. No law, however, explicitly mandates the partition. The Solomons have had to give up their beautiful home by Herastrau Park, turning it over to the Nazis. But Madame Iescu, with her name and connections, managed to find a “good” Nazi family to occupy it, the wife and young children of a perfectly decent functionary, as she described them.  So Dora and her family maintain the fantasy their home will remain undamaged, their goods remain safe from theft. And, after the war, they will repossess their flat without upset, as long as the Allies keep their bombs away from central Bucharest.
So far, the city has been a relatively safe place for the Solomons. Madame Iescu learns at least a day ahead when the Gestapo are to make their checks and on those days, everyone stays in. But if no raids are forecast, the family goes out in the sun, walks with the baby carriage in the park, shops with their ration cards and hoarded money on the black market. They listen to the broadcasts from London, De Gaulle their hero, the man Dora holds personally responsible for the health and welfare of her sisters.  Her sisters moved to Paris in 1938 unaware the Nazis would so quickly and easily absorb their beloved adopted country, as a sponge absorbs the sea.
Madame Iescu spends most days preparing for evening, when she will dine with her German lover, who is married but has conveniently sent his wife and family to Switzerland. The situation is at once so strange and ordinary that the Solomons rarely speak of it.
Berthold doesn’t seem to mind his lover has another lover. Dora believes he continues his affair for the sake of their family, for they live well in her home, and without Madame Iescu’s guardianship, their fate would be uncertain. A dozen years older than Berthold, Madame Iescu treats Dora as a younger sister. The older woman, an only child, laments her lonely childhood, her cold mother and absent father. Dora finds it ironic.  Loving in wartime – or at least appearing to love – both a Nazi and a Jew has allowed Madame Iescu to have a real family. In this truncated Solomon/Iescu menagerie encamped in her flat, she likes to play aunt to little Manfred, always delighted by her long strands of pearls, which she wears every day.
No lines. No grey. Dora applies a foam green eyeshadow and salmon-coloured lipstick. She pins her hair in a crown and finds a set of emerald earrings in Madame Iescu’s bowl of green jewellery. She powders her nose and chest and helps herself to one of Madame Iescu’s London suits, personally tailored for her trousseau when she married a colonel who drowned on their honeymoon cruise around the Black Sea.
Madame Iescu’s face is deeply lined, her skin the pallor of a woman who has smoked endless cigarettes to keep herself occupied during years of loneliness, despite her lineage and wealth. “Dora, you look lovely, as always. You fit that suit so well. Can you help me with my hair today, if you have the time?”
“Of course.”
Sitting in the chair Dora has vacated, Madame Iescu closes her eyes as Dora brushes. “You’re so gentle,” she says. “How will I live without you after the war?”
Dora fetches the rollers from the cabinet. She wishes she did not have to play maid to Madame Iescu. Her old ‘personal bonne’ had been dismissed so the Solomons could live in safety.  Since Dora has no way to earn money, she thinks of herself as Madame Iescu’s maid but in her head calls herself her ‘assistant’ for which she receives extra ration tickets, a bounty Madame Iescu is remarkably proficient at securing.
“Your brother is growing tired of me,” she whispers, searching for Dora’s response in the mirror. Her expression neutral, Dora thinks the older woman is right.
“Why? Is he acting differently toward you?”
“Nothing I can pinpoint, exactly.” She pats Dora’s hand, which is setting a curler behind her left ear, and cups it to her cheek. Her eyes a violet hue, she stares fiercely at her own reflection. “Oh, Dora. When a woman loses her looks, there is nothing left for her to offer.”
“My brother adores you.” She turns Madame Iescu’s head to face her. Stroking her cheekbones and chin as a sculptor might, “My brother worships you.”
Madame Iescu swivels back to face the mirror.
“You are very kind to me, young Dora, and your spirit will never age.” She pats Dora’s hands, which have settled on her shoulders. “But I can feel the sagging in my … my soul, I have to say, which accompanies the drooping of my skin, the falling of my face and breasts.” She frowns. “Even at your age, Dora, I was already fading.”