Ashes

by Kathryn Lasky

  “We’ll make it another party!” she said.

  The Christmas tea party was lovely, and on our way out I noticed a picture of a very handsome young man in a uniform on a bookshelf. Fräulein Hofstadt saw me looking at it and she went over and got the picture down.

  “Ah yes, a very dear person in my life.” She blinked, and I could see a tear sparkling on her eyelashes. That was all she said as she put the picture back on the shelf.

  It was cold when we stepped outside, and Rosa and I both resisted looking down the alley for the gleaming black limousine.

  “I wonder,” Rosa said, “if maybe she had a romance with Arnold Fanck.”

  “Are you crazy?” I stopped stock still as the snow swirled down around us.

  “Well, she called him ‘Arnold.’”

  “That’s no reason to think they had a love affair. Didn’t you see how she looked when she showed us that picture? That was him. That was her fiancé. She is faithful to his memory. She will never, ever stop loving him. I know it.” I paused, then said in a dreamy voice, “And her name is Katrina.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Rosa asked.

  “Katrina is the same as Catherine, like Catherine Barkley.”

  “Who is Catherine Barkley?”

  “Oh, Rosa, she’s the main character in the best book I have ever read. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. It is so romantic. I’ll read some of it to you tonight.” Rosa and I were headed back to my apartment. Mama had said she could sleep over.

  So when we got home and tucked into the twin beds in my bedroom, which now seemed too pink and fussy after the sophistication of Fräulein Hofstadt’s apartment, I started by reading a love scene from A Farewell to Arms. It was the scene where Catherine unpins her hair. I was sure that Hemingway wrote all these details because he must have had just such a love affair. So while the snow fell outside the window of my bedroom, collecting like miniature ski slopes in the corners of the windowpanes, I read.

  “ ‘I loved to take her hair down and she sat on the bed and kept very still, except suddenly she would dip down to kiss me while I was doing it, and I would take out the pins . . . and it would all come down and she would drop her head and we would both be inside of it, and it was the feeling of inside a tent or behind a falls.’”

  Rosa sighed. “That is so beautiful. He must have really taken some girl’s hair down and then . . . and then, you know, they did it.”

  Yeah,I thought. Like Ulla and Karl doing it.I touched my own short-cropped hair. Maybe I should think about growing it again.

  chapter 24

  The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences. It seemed out of place to think of consequences during the fiesta.

  -Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

  Even though Baba was Jewish, she always celebrated Christmas with us. She would come midafternoon on the day of Christmas Eve to help Mama and Hertha decorate the tree “in secret.” In secret simply meant away from the eyes of children. That was the German custom. The decorated tree was to be a surprise, unveiled before the traditional Christmas Eve dinner. Baba had called to say that she would be a bit late and that Mama and Hertha should start without her. I took the call and then went to find Mama to give her the message. I heard her voice coming from Papa’s study. Papa had come home from his office early since it was a holiday.

  “He’ll come back, won’t he?” I heard Mama say. “He has papers here, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, important ones.”

  I stopped outside the study door to listen. At first I wasn’t sure who they talking about. But the next words clarified everything.

  “But when I went with them to Caputh just before they left, you know, so they could close it up, when we walked out the door he turned to Elsa and said, ‘Take a good look. You will never see it again.’ ”

  It all made sense. More than two weeks earlier, Papa had gone with Einstein to help him lock up the house and look at a water pipe Einstein was concerned about shortly before he and his wife left for America. He was much more concerned about the plumbing than the angry American women who had protested his anticipated visit.

  “Really?” I heard Mama gasp. There was silence, then my mother’s voice again. “But the Prussian Academy, the spring conference.” There was another long pause. “Otto, you said there had been some rumors back then. And now, has he resigned?”

  At this point I tromped my feet lightly on the carpet as if I were just arriving outside the study door and called out, “Mama! Baba called and said she is going to be a little late and you and Hertha should start decorating the tree.”

  Mama came out of the study, her face creased with worry. She was wringing a handkerchief. This was a habit of hers that resulted in a lot of shredded handkerchiefs. She even refused to buy any fancy handkerchiefs, particularly those with lace trim, because she knew they wouldn’t last. I don’t know whether it was the light or just the lines etched in Mama’s brow, but I suddenly noticed that she looked old. Maybe it was the way she was standing, but it gave me a terrible fright.

  “Mama!” I said sharply. “Stand up straight. You look like a little old lady.” I was taken aback by my own words. I never spoke to Mama this way. But she just blinked and stood up taller.

  Maybe I was the one who had suddenly grown older. I didn’t know. But I was frightened for some reason. All I could think of was that this was not the way I should have been feeling on Christmas Eve. Had I outgrown Christmas?

  “Go write your Briefe ans Christkindl.”

  “Yes, Mama, of course.”

  “And tell Ulla to start hers as well. By the time you finish, we’ll have the tree almost done.”

  How much did she think I had to write to Father Christmas? It was the custom to place a letter to Christkindl on one’s the window sill on the first Sunday of Advent, but we always did this on Christmas Eve. It was called a Briefe ans Christkindl. They would, of course, blow away after a short time. Nonetheless we wrote them in fancy ink and decorated them with colored sugar glued to the paper. When we were younger, Ulla and I always went to great lengths to make them pretty. But as we grew older we took less time with them. Now I felt it was just a bit of a childish old tradition. I went to Ulla’s room and gave her some of the colored-sugar packets Mama had prepared.

  “We’re supposed to write our windowsill letters.” I suddenly noticed that her eyes were red as if she had been crying.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you have a fight with Karl?”

  “No! What makes you think that?”

  “It looks like you’ve been crying.”

  “I don’t cry when I have fights with Karl,” she said fiercely. I found this such an odd response that I couldn’t say anything except, “Here’s the colored sugar.”

  I went to my room and didn’t really know what to write. Everything just seemed off in our house. But I spread some glue around the edges of the paper and aimlessly sprinkled some silver sugar grains on, then a few pink ones over that. I dipped my pen in the gold ink that I kept for special occasions and began to write.

  “Dear Christkindl . . .” I stopped. I didn’t know what to say. Yes, there were things I wanted. Mama already knew about them. A cardigan sweater and matching sleeveless one to wear under it, which I had seen in the window at Wertheim. But then I thought of the SA guards there and my desire for it just faded. The Jack London book, but I couldn’t even remember the translator’s name. As I said, nothing seemed quite right. What did I really want? New telltales for Ratty? I suddenly remembered that sunstruck day early in summer messing about in boats. Me at the tiller of Ratty, Hessie as my crew, and Professor Einstein and Papa in Tümmler , both of them so involved in imagining a universe that they paid no heed to the wind that had begun to stir on the lake.

  “Auf wiedersehen!”Uncle
Hessie had called, tipping his hat as we sailed past them. But now it was leb wohl, not auf wiedersehen . For this was truly good-bye. Einstein had told his wife to take a good look when they left their house in Caputh. For in fact, it was good-bye to all that. I just knew it.

  So that was all I wrote in my windowsill letter. Dear Christkindl, Leb wohl. Your friend, Gaby.

  “All right, all right!” Mama came walking down the hall. “You can come out now. Tree’s up. Baba’s here.” Mama looked much better. She had freshened her makeup and changed into a pretty long skirt and silk blouse. I was wearing the dark green velvet dress that Hessie had given me.

  “Oh, Gaby, you look so nice!” Ulla said. She herself looked fine now and seemed to have recovered from whatever was bothering her.

  “Do you have Mama’s and Baba’s gifts?” I whispered.

  “Yes, they didn’t have the scarf in the blue, I got it in a very nice pale green. And I got the handkerchief set for Baba. Do you have Papa’s photo album?” She asked.

  “Yes, and I got it monogrammed with his initials. They didn’t charge me extra because he is such a good customer at that shop.”

  Mama had begun playing the song “O Tannenbaum” on the piano. Our celebration always took place in the music room because music was a big part of our Christmas.

  “Oooh, Mama!” we exclaimed as we always did on Christmas Eve when we walked into the music room and saw the tree glowing with lights and the Venetian glass icicles that Mama and Papa had bought on their honeymoon to Italy. There were also wonderful marzipan ornaments that Mama and Hertha molded from almond paste and painted over the years. Our first task was to find the new ones.

  “Ratty!”I squealed as I saw a replica of my little sailboat bobbling on the end of a branch. Mama always tried to do something very personal for each of us. “Look! Look, Ulla, even with the sails! What’s yours?” I asked.

  “Well, I haven’t found it yet.”

  “Go a little to the left, Schatzi,” Mama directed Ulla.

  I saw Ulla’s hand reach out toward a little two-inch-long violin.

  Papa came over holding Ulla’s old violin case, but a big blue ribbon was tied around it.

  “No . . .” Ulla seemed to breathe the single word more than actually say it. She sat down on the piano bench, untied the ribbon, and opened the case. Inside lay a brand-new darkly gleaming violin.

  Ulla lifted her eyes. There were like twin blue lakes trembling with tears.

  “You got in,” Mama said.

  “Vienna! I got in?”

  “So soon!” I exclaimed. The audition had only been a few weeks before.

  “They must have really like Ulla’s performance. Look, it’s not a Stradivarius,” Papa said. “But you need a decent instrument.” Suddenly tears were streaming down Ulla’s face. She jumped up and ran from the room.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Papa said. “She got in. Why is she crying?” Baba gave me a nervous glance.

  “She’ll be all right,” Mama said. “She’s just so shocked. You know she was very anxious and now . . . and now . . .” Mama’s voice began to dwindle. She looked old and worried again.

  “I’m fine! I’m fine!” Ulla came back into the music room blowing her nose heartily. “I don’t know I just . . . I was just overcome, that’s all. I’m so excited. I just didn’t know how I really did at the audition.”

  “Well let me pour us something to drink and let’s toast your career,” Papa said.

  “It’s not a career yet, Papa.” Ulla laughed.

  “Try out the violin. Play us something.”

  Ulla picked up the violin and plucked each of the four strings. Mama went to the piano and played a chord, to help her tune. This went on for perhaps a minute or so and finally Ulla looked at Mama, nodded, and began to play “Greensleeves.”

  She played this old English ballad so beautifully. Clear, limpid notes sparkled in the air. In those first measures it was as if when she drew the bow across the strings she were releasing the music into the sky, each sound illuminating the night. And there was such purity, such tenderness. Mama played the harmony, and she nodded at Baba to sing, for Baba had a lovely voice.

  It is odd how quickly feelings and perceptions can change. Like shadows that stretch longer in the dwindling hours of the day, the one of Hitler had cast us into a long, steadily darkening afternoon. But every once in a while there would come a perfect moment, like a gleam of sunlight that gilded our lives. Right now was one of those moments as Mama and Ulla played “Greensleeves” and Baba sang. I thought again of that moment on the lake with Uncle Hessie, Papa, and Einstein. If only these two moments could last forever.

  chapter 25

  Men write many fine and plausible arguments in support of monarchy, but the fact remains that where every man in a state has a vote, brutal laws are impossible.

  -Mark Twain,

  A Connecticut Yankee

  in King Arthur’s Court

  We did not return to school until the middle of January. Fräulein Hofstadt swirled into class looking as if she had just come off the set of TheHoly Mountain or one of the other fabulous mountain movies. These films always featured the great outdoor landscapes of Germany or Austria with beautiful, vigorous blond actors and actresses skiing or climbing up peaks.

  She was tanned, her hair a few shades lighter, and she seemed brimming with enthusiasm and anticipation for the “extraordinary” second term of school. We would be reading Hamlet,and in fact that was to be our spring play. In a few weeks, casting for the roles would begin. It seemed to me like an odd play to be putting on in an all-girls’ school. But logic seemed to have little to do with it. When Anneliese Freiborne questioned how any girl could ever play Hamlet, and of course all the other male parts, Fräulein Hofstadt seemed taken aback. She launched into a spirited lecture on how Hamlet was the quintessential German warrior, which of course had nothing to do with the issue of girls playing male parts.

  I raised my hand. “But Fräulein Hofstadt, I don’t understand. I thought Hamlet was supposed to be melancholy and indecisive.”

  “That is the old interpretation. We must look between the lines when we read Hamlet and understand the play in a new way.”

  I found that Hamlet would be the least of my problems.

  After school that day Rosa and I passed a newsstand and saw a two-inch-high headline. HITLER’S PARTY WINS BIG IN LIPPE!

  That the Nazis had won a parliamentary election in Lippe, a small state in central Germany, far from Hitler’s native Austria to the south, was alarming to say the least. But Rosa quickly noted which paper we were looking at. “Look it’s the Völkischer Beobachter.” The People’s Observer was the official paper of the Nazi Party. Not one of the other papers on the newsstand appeared to have any mention of this “Big Win.”

  Rosa and I parted ways at the corner, for she had a doctor’s appointment and I continued back home. When I approached our building, Herr Hölle practically danced through the door to greet me, holding a copy of the Völkischer Beobachter in his hands. I stopped and looked at him hard. I wanted to say something, but I was frightened and the words became tangled in my brain. So I just shook my head, looked down, and stomped through the door. He began whistling the “Horst Wessel Song” as I passed, and the only thing I dared do was clamp my hands over my ears. He laughed at me. So I could now add item number eight to my Diary of Shame.

  1. SA officer on Kurfürstendamm

  2. Beer garden in Caputh when boy sings “The Watch on the Rhine”—K’s eyes

  3. U doing it with K

  4. K’s spitting in our basin; K’s toothbrush

  5. “Heil Hitler” in the alley; alley dream. Paint squad boy

  6. Baby Hitler naked on mother’s fat shoulder

  7. Accepting invitation to Christmas tea with Fräulein Hofstadt after spying on her

  8. Didn’t have the courage to call Herr Hölle a complete shithead.

  And then I wrote this in my diary: I am comple
tely gutless. Why couldn’t I say something? I wanted to say he was lower than low, that his stupidity was mind boggling; that if Hitler won, the rest of the world would think of us as scum. Why did the words become all mixed-up for me? Am I such a perfect German child that I dare not say anything to my elders even when I know they are morally wrong, monstrously immoral? I am pathetic.

  The news about the Nazis’ big win in Lippe did make it to the radio. I heard it blaring from Papa’s study as I came into the apartment. Hertha was lingering outside the study with her dusting cloth, taking a very long time to polish the hallway credenza with its old pieces of family silver. A very slight smile played across her usually impassive face. I walked by her and entered the study. My parents looked tense, but as soon as I came in they affected an almost overly casual manner.

  “Lippe,” I said. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “Nonsense!” my father said dismissively.

  “It means nothing,” Mama said. “Nothing at all. It’s a tiny state. The total vote was ninety thousand and Hitler only got thirty-nine thousand of that.”

  A half hour later we were having tea in the music room when the telephone rang. Hertha came in to say that Frau Blumenthal was calling. Mama went to speak to her. When she returned, she looked slightly worried.

  “Baba says that for some reason this win in Lippe, though not much, impressed some of the men behind the Old Gentleman.”

  “Chancellor Schleicher?” Papa asked. “Did it impress him?”

  “She didn’t say.” Mama cocked her head. “You know, that is odd, she didn’t mention him. And now that I think about it, she seemed . . .” Mama hesitated. “She seemed rather guarded on the phone.”

  “Baba needs to be a little more guarded. I worry about her,” Papa replied.