The Lost Family

by Jenna Blum

  “No, it sure isn’t,” she said, and began to cry. “Why?” she wept. “Why do I have to go? Why does she have to move? Why do I have to go with her? Why can’t I stay here with you?”

  “Ellie,” said Peter.

  “I don’t want to! I won’t go with her. She hates me! She always has.”

  “She doesn’t,” said Peter. “I know you and your mother have had your differences, but she loves you very much. And a girl needs her mother.”

  “I won’t do it,” Elsbeth repeated. Her face was fiercely red from crying. “I won’t! I’ll run away. I’ll start purging again!”

  “Elsbeth Rashkin,” said Peter, “that will not solve a thing. If you run away, we will find you. If you make yourself sick, we will send you back to the center. We will keep you safe whether you like it or not. Now, the decision has been made. You must respect it. We are your parents, and there’s nothing for you to do.”

  Elsbeth lowered her head and cried and cried, and Peter nudged his swing over toward hers and put his arm around her. He rocked them back and forth. Elsbeth’s hair smelled unfamiliar, adult, of perfume, but her face was hot and wet against his shoulder, and this he remembered from a hundred girlhood hurts and consolations, from her early feedings. Thank God, there was still some child in her. He let her sob, listening to the rill of water in the brook, the swings creaking, the high sweet songs of birds.

  “Why, Dad,” she said finally, muffled. “Why?”

  She detached herself and sat up. Peter handed her his handkerchief from his pocket, and she laughed a little, wiping her eyes.

  “What am I going to do without your handkerchiefs?” she asked.

  “I will send you with a whole package of them,” said Peter, “and if you use them up, I will send you more.”

  “Why do I have to go with her?” Elsbeth said. Her face was swollen, her eyes—Peter’s eyes, his mother’s eyes, gray-green—bloodshot from weeping. “Why can’t I stay here with you?”

  “I would like nothing better, Ellie. But after the house is sold, I’ll likely be staying with Sol and Ruth for a while. And then I’ll probably move back into the city.”

  “That’s all right,” said Elsbeth. “I like the city.”

  “I am aware of that,” Peter said dryly, remembering the giant images of his child’s naked body in lurid Technicolor, hanging by the dozen beneath gallery lights in SoHo. Like a creature from a storybook, a centaur who was half child, half woman. It was something no father should ever have to see, not to mention have exposed to other adults. Peter had stared around at the well-dressed, ultracivilized art lovers, holding their plastic cups of wine, eating cubes of cheese and discussing his daughter’s nudity in terms of “lighting,” “brilliance,” “saturation,” “composition,” and he had wished them all struck instantly and permanently blind.

  Elsbeth had the good grace to look embarrassed.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “But seriously, why can’t I stay with you? I like apartments. I don’t need a lot of space.”

  “What, and cramp my style?” said Peter. “I’m getting a swinging bachelor pad.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, but she glowered at him.

  “A bad joke,” he said. “Apologies. But Ellie, whether you think so or not, you do need more space. A house. A good school. A fresh start, where you can focus on what’s next.” He almost said Like a culinary program!, and then perhaps our restaurant, but stopped himself in time; the analyst had been insistent that Peter let Elsbeth form her own ambitions, ones that might not revolve around food. Good-bye to the Fabulous Rashkins—perhaps.

  Elsbeth scowled. “So this is a punishment,” she said. “Sending me off to the land of Minnesota Nice with Mom, to keep me away from the big, bad city and people like. . . . him. Well, it doesn’t work that way, Dad. I can get into just as much trouble in Minneapolis. There are guys there too, you know.”

  Peter felt terror and despair in the pit of his stomach, but he said, “I’m aware of that as well, Ellie. That will be your choice. You can choose to do things that will hurt you, or you can choose things that won’t. Your mother and I can’t affect that. But we can help you, and we are always here for you, whatever happens.”

  “How can you say that, when you’ll be half a country away?”

  “You may have heard of a device called the telephone,” said Peter. “I’ll call you every night.”

  “Every night?”

  “I’ll call you as much as you like,” amended Peter. “And I hear there are modern conveyances called airplanes. I will come see you, once a month. And you’ll come to me. And we’ll have holidays, and you may spend the whole summer with me, if you wish.” He almost added, Cooking!

  Elsbeth dug her sneakers into the dirt. “I’d like that.”

  “Then it shall happen.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, Ellie.”

  She looked over at him, her face full of fear. “What will happen to you?”

  “Oh, Ellie,” said Peter. He had been so unable to understand a child feeling responsible for a parent; it was such a complete reversal of the natural order of things that the analyst had had to work hard to persuade him. She is very protective of you, Peter, the doctor had said. You must reassure her you’ll be all right.

  “I’ve got big plans,” said Peter. “I’m going to finish my cookbook, for one thing.”

  Elsbeth looked dubious. “Okay, and?”

  “And . . . after we sell the house and I get my own place, I’ll probably start working again. In a kitchen.”

  “But Daddy, your heart,” she whispered.

  “My heart will be fine,” said Peter. “I won’t be running a restaurant; I’ll be a lowly chef. Just the way I like it. I diet. I exercise. I have medication. And most importantly, I’ve got you, Ellie. You are my heart. Don’t you know that?”

  “Daaaad,” she said. But she smiled, and her eyes filled with tears, and she scooted her swing over to put her head on Peter’s shoulder again. Peter kissed the top of it.

  “Don’t you worry about your old man, Ellie,” he said. “I will be fine.”

  He felt her sigh. A cardinal sang overhead and was answered by its mate, and Peter remembered Hilde, his family cook, teaching him how to identify birdsong long ago.

  “Daddy?” Elsbeth said.

  “Yes, Ellie.”

  “Would you tell me about them?”

  “About whom?”

  “Masha,” said Elsbeth. “And the girls.”

  Peter sat still. Elsbeth did too. He felt her breathing against him, the breeze pushing strands of her hair against his face.

  “My sisters,” she said. “I do know a little about them. Ruth told me. And I saw their picture. But Dr. Linda said I should ask you. She said it would help me to know.”

  Her voice was small and getting softer, as if someone were turning down a radio.

  “I don’t know,” she went on. “Maybe it’s stupid. It won’t really change anything. But I’ve thought about them my whole life. I want to know them. I just want to know.”

  Peter looked over Elsbeth’s head across the yard, at the mist rising from the forsythia in the sun. So long ago. So far away. Another life altogether. And here it was, here they were still, on this gentle spring morning. Masha. The girls.

  Elsbeth stirred, separating from Peter, sitting up. “Sorry. I knew I shouldn’t have asked . . .”

  “No,” said Peter. “You should have. You should, Ellie. And you are brave to ask.”

  He felt her glance doubtfully at him, but he couldn’t look at her. Not right now. He focused on the shrubs with their new leaves, the yellow flowers. He stilled his swing so he and his daughter sat together.

  “Well,” he said. “I met Masha when I was seventeen, only a year older than you are now . . .”

  And somehow, whether from some inner source or this child beside him, Peter Rashkin, who had long ago thought he was past making any fresh start of his own, found the strength to begin.

 
Acknowledgments

  The author would like to thank multitudes of people but will try to keep this shorter than an Oscars speech and get offstage before the music plays.

  Booksellers, librarians, dear readers: whether you’ve hosted me at an event or in your home, kept me company on social media, or read my novels in blissful solitude, thank you for reading my books and inspiring me so greatly.

  My amazing team at HarperCollins, especially Amy Baker, Daniel Vazquez, my girl Katherine Beitner, Christine Choe, Leah Wasielewski, Nathaniel Knaebel, Milan Bozic, Adalis Martinez, copy editor Miranda Ottewell, and my phenomenal editor, the iconic Sara Nelson, whose warmth and wisdom I’m so grateful for and whose first reaction to this novel is my screensaver.

  My foreign publishers: Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH; Cappelen Damm; de Boekerij—dankeschoen, takk, bedankt. Maaike le Noble, Jorien de Vries, Suzanne Plug—huge XXX to you!

  The exceptional MMQ crew, particularly Lexi Wangler, who make a writer’s life not only possible but smoothly functional.

  Grub Street Writers, best writing school in the world: thank you for employing me for twenty years, thereby allowing me to teach such talented, fierce, funny writers. Love to my Council.

  Literary fairy godmothers Robin Kall Homonoff of Reading with Robin and Susan E. McBeth of Adventures by the Book: thank you for everything you do to connect writers and readers—which is everything. SaraJane Giddings, you are my secret weapon.

  My first Lost Family readers: Cecile Corona, Tracy Hahn-Burkett, Henriette Lazaridus, Mari Passananti, Becky Tuch; Julie Hirsch, my one and only Puppet; Stephanie “Goodie” Ebbert, who delivered her suggestions over whiskey; and Kirsten Liston, who scrolled through the whole novel on her iPhone: thank you for your encouragement and feedback. Geliebte Christiane Alsop, danke for your childhood recipes. Kirsten Beck and Bernadette Lee, who will recognize way too much in this novel. Tom Champoux, for lockdown nourishment. Maddie Houpt, for Woodrow care. Edmond Manning, for the dueling-laptops writing session and eating chocolate cake from the floor (unbeknownst to you). Necee Regis, for the Betty Crocker New Pictures Cookbook. Claudete Rizzotto, for influencing captive audiences. Dr. Glenda Lawless and Dr. Lydia Baumrind, for listening and advice. Eric Grunwald and Jean Charbonneau, my mainstays.

  Above & Beyond Awards go to my writer girls Kate Woodworth and Whitney Scharer, whose empathy, cheerleading, and simultaneous labor sustained me every day.

  My Grand Central sisters, who keep WWII stories alive, and especially Kristina McMorris, who invited inspiration without which this book would not exist. Every writer who supports others; deep curtseys to Caroline Leavitt, Sarah McCoy, Jane Green.

  My family: Joey Blum, Lesley MM Blume & Co., Judy Blum, and the Joergs. My indefatigable mother, Frances Blum McCarthy—love you, Mama.

  There are not enough words in any language to express my gratitude to my superagent, Stéphanie Abou, to whom I owe my books and my whole literary life. I treasure every conversation we had about The Lost Family, from ideation to Masha’s menus to post-midnight Bitmojis. Dearest Stéphanie, merci bien. I’m so thankful for you.

  Finally, to my beloveds, Woodrow and Jim “Book Daddy” Reed. Jim, love, thank you for the countless breakfasts during which you patiently listened to ideas for scenes, scraps of dialogue, and utter non sequiturs, then issued excellent advice. For not talking to me or kissing me until I had written that day’s scene. For you and Woodrow, for your stamina, company, laughter, and love, I am eternally grateful.

  1

  Anna and Max, Weimar, 1939–1940

  The evening is typical enough until the dog begins to choke. And even then, at first, Anna doesn’t bother to turn from the Rouladen she is stuffing for the dinner that she and her father, Gerhard, will share, for the dachshund’s energetic gagging doesn’t strike her as anything unusual. The dog, Spaetzle, is forever eating something he shouldn’t, savaging chicken carcasses and consuming heels of bread without chewing, and such greed is inevitably followed by retching. Privately, Anna thinks him a horrid little creature and has ever since he was first presented to her five years ago on her fourteenth birthday, a gift from her father just after her mother’s death, as if in compensation. It is perhaps unfair to resent Spaetzle for this, but he is also chronically ill-tempered, snapping with his yellowed fangs at everyone except Gerhard; he is really her father’s pet. And grossly fat, as Gerhard is always slipping him tidbits, despite his bellowed admonitions to Anna of Do not! Feed! The dog! From! The table!

  Now Anna ignores Spaetzle, wishing her hands were not otherwise engaged in the mixing bowl so she could bring them to her ears, but when the choking continues she looks at him with some alarm. He is gasping for breath between rounds of rmmmp rmmmp rmmmp noises, foam flecking his long muzzle. Anna abandons the Rouladen and bends over him, forcing his jaws open to get at whatever is blocking his windpipe, but her fingers, already meat-slick, find no purchase in the dog’s slippery throat. He seems to be succeeding in his struggle to swallow the object, yet Anna is not willing to leave the outcome to chance. What if what he has eaten is poisonous? What if the dog should die? With a fearful glance in the direction of her father’s study, Anna throws on her coat, seizes the dachshund, and races from the house without even removing her grimy apron.

  There being no time to bring Spaetzle to her regular doctor in the heart of Weimar, Anna decides to try a closer clinic she has never visited but often passed during her daily errands, on the shabby outskirts of town. She runs the entire quarter kilometer, fighting to retain her hold on the dog, who writhes indignantly in her arms, a slippery tube of muscle. Beneath guttering gas-lamps, over rotting October leaves and sidewalks heaved by decades’ worth of freeze and thaw: finally Anna rounds a corner into a row of narrow neglected houses still pockmarked with scars from the last war, and there is the bronze nameplate: Herr Doktor Maximilian Stern. Anna bumps the door open with a hip and rushes through the reception area to the examining room.

  She finds the Herr Doktor pressing a stethoscope to the chest of a woman whose flesh ripples like lard from her muslin brassiere. The patient catches sight of Anna before the practitioner: she points and emits a small breathy scream. The Doktor jumps and straightens, startled, and the woman grabs her bosom and moans.

  Have a seat in the waiting room, whoever you are, Herr Doktor Stern snaps. I’ll be with you shortly.

  Please, Anna gasps. My father’s dog—he’s eaten something poisonous—I think he’s dying—

  The Doktor turns, raising an eyebrow.

  You may dress, Frau Rosenberg, he tells his patient. Your bronchitis is very mild, nothing to be alarmed about. I’ll write you the usual prescription. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must attend to this poor animal.

  Well! says the woman, pulling on her shirtwaist. Well! I never expected—to be forsaken for a dog.

  She grabs her coat and pushes past Anna with a dramatic wheeze.

  As the door slams the Doktor comes quickly to Anna and relieves her of her burden, and she imagines that he shares with her the faintest smile of complicity over his spectacles. She lowers her head, anticipating the second, startled glance of appreciation that men invariably give her. But instead she hears him walking away, and when she looks up again his back is to her, bent over the dachshund on the table.

  Well, what have we here, he murmurs.

  Anna watches anxiously as he reaches into the dog’s mouth, then turns to prepare a syringe. She takes some comfort from the deft movement of his hands, the play of muscles beneath his thin shirt. He is a tall, slender fellow, bordering on gaunt. He also seems oddly familiar, though Anna certainly has not been here before.

  As grateful as I am to you for rescuing me from Frau Rosenberg, I must point out that this is a most unorthodox visit, Fräulein, says the Doktor as he works. Are you perhaps under the impression that I’m a veterinarian? Or did you think a Jewish practitioner would be grateful to treat even a dog?

  Jewish? Anna blinks at the Doktor’s blond
hair, which, though straight, stands up in whorls and spikes. She remembers belatedly the Star of David painted on the clinic door. Of course, she has known this is the Jewish Quarter, but in her panic she has not given it a thought.

  No, no, Anna protests. Of course not. I brought him here because you were closest—

  She realizes how this sounds and winces.

  I’m sorry, she says. I didn’t mean to offend.

  The Doktor smiles at her over one shoulder.

  No, it’s I who should apologize, he says. It was meant as a joke, but it was a crude one. In these times I’m indeed grateful for any patients, whether they’re fellow Jews or dachshunds. You are Aryan, yes, Fräulein? You do know you have broken the law by coming here at all.

  Anna nods, although this too she has not considered. The Doktor returns his attention to the dog.

  Almost done, almost done, he mutters. Ah, here’s the culprit.

  He holds something up for Anna’s inspection: part of one of her sanitary napkins, slick with spit and spotted with blood.

  Anna claps her palms to her face, mortified.

  Oh, God in heaven, she says. That wretched dog!

  Herr Doktor Stern laughs and dispenses the napkin in a rubbish bin.

  It could have been worse, he says.

  I can’t imagine how—

  He could have eaten something truly poisonous. Chocolate, for instance.

  Chocolate is poisonous?

  For dogs it is, Fräulein.

  I didn’t know that.

  Well, now you do.

  Anna fans her flaming cheeks.

  I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have preferred that, she says, given the circumstances.

  The Doktor laughs, a short bark, and moves to lather his hands at the sink.

  You mustn’t be embarrassed, Fräulein, he says. Nihil humanum mihi alienum est—nothing human is alien to me. Nor canine, for that matter. But you should be more careful what you feed that little fellow—for meals, that is. He is far too fat.