Ashes

by Kathryn Lasky

  “What? What?” I rose up on one elbow.

  “Come here, look out the window,” Ulla said.

  It was raining—a hard, slanting rain. We went and stood by the window in Ulla’s room, which looked directly down into the garden. There were two figures hunched over. One appeared to be digging with a shovel; the other was decidedly smaller and held an umbrella over the larger figure. There was something about the way the umbrella was held that looked very familiar.

  “It’s Mama!” I said, turning to Ulla. Ulla nodded.

  “What are they doing? It’s hardly gardening weather,” she whispered. And Mama only gardened in the evening in Caputh.

  I knew immediately. It all added up beautifully like an equation. First Mama and Papa were talking about Einstein’s house in Caputh. Then Mama asked if Einstein would come back to Germany or if he had left for good. “He has papers here doesn’t he?” Mama had asked. Papa replied, “Yes, important ones.” And then there was the scene Rosa and I had witnessed in the alley.

  “They’re burying Einstein’s papers,” I said.

  “What?” Ulla said.

  I told her what Rosa and I had seen.

  “I bet it’s not just papers they’re burying,” she said grimly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Books, too,” she muttered.

  “What? How do you know?”

  “The lists,” Ulla replied.

  “Lists!” I remembered now Fräulein Hofstadt telling the librarian Frau Grumbach there would soon be a list of banned books.

  “What kinds of books are on the lists?” I asked Ulla.

  “Well, there aren’t actual lists yet,” Ulla explained. “Just guidelines about the sorts of books that should not be read. Un-German books.”

  “But Einstein is German,” I protested.

  “And Papa is German, too, but his books could be on the lists. He might not be Jewish, but he is considered an adherent to Jewish physics—a white Jew.” She paused as if to catch her breath. “And then of course there’re authors who aren’t German by birth. Nazis have been confiscating their books. Not so much around here. South of here in the Rhineland.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I just do.”

  “No, tell me Ulla. How do you know?”

  “At the university. The German Student Association. They’ve become very . . . very active.”

  “Active?”

  “I don’t know. I try to stay away from it.”

  “What about Karl? Does he stay away from it?”

  I saw tears begin to form in her eyes. I grabbed her hand. “Is Karl involved, Ulla?”

  “I . . . I don’t think so. I’m not sure.”

  “What does he say?”

  “I try not to ask him about it. It upsets him. He says that Hitler is a fool, that we’ll be finished with him in a matter of months. I think he just doesn’t want to cause a stir right now.”

  I looked at Ulla. I wasn’t sure if she believed what she was saying or not. I wasn’t sure if I believed it.

  “I am working mostly now on a new worm-reduction apparatus with a flexible gear coupling for tractors and what we call the tension ratios for heavy loads. I am especially interested in concentric configurations.” It was a week before the engagement party, and Karl was sitting at our dinner table telling Papa about his thesis in engineering. Papa was nodding and occasionally asking a question. The conversation was a bit beyond the rest of us, I think.

  Karl had just come back from visiting several farms in the Rhineland where the Krupp Company had introduced some new tractors for experimentation. Karl looked handsome. Freshly barbered, he was wearing an English suit. His tie was knotted fashionably in what some called the Windsor knot after the stylish Prince of Wales. He had brought Mama a bouquet of lilies of the valley, Papa a bottle of scotch, and me a set of hair bows and barrettes. His manners were impeccable. He was gracious and he seemed to have eyes only for Ulla. He held her hand constantly. He spoke of the wedding and the apartment he thought he could get in a suburb near the Krupp plant where he hoped to work after his graduation. There was just one thing that I noticed when he arrived at our apartment. Perhaps it was my imagination. He first shook hands with Papa, then bent and kissed Mama’s hand with as much aplomb as Uncle Hessie, with what some would call true Prussian elegance. I was too young to have my hand kissed, so he gave me a brotherly hug. Because I am short this meant that my nose was fleetingly buried in the beautiful worsted wool of his tailored suit, and I detected an odd odor. Maybe a cleaning solvent, but it was slightly smoky, yet not the cigar tobacco mixed with wool of Herr Professor Einstein. It was another smoky odor. I couldn’t place it.

  Later before we went to sleep, I asked Ulla if Karl smoked.

  “Yes, all the students smoke. Not me, especially now. It makes me sick.”

  “Does he smoke cigars?”

  “No! Just cigarettes. Only old men smoke cigars. And they are way too expensive for students.”

  chapter 32

  But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.

  -Mark Twain,

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

  The weather was beautiful throughout most of April, and the engagement party was held in the garden in the last week of the month. It looked lovely. Mama had planted a new variety of daffodil. They were smaller and very delicate-looking, white with bright orange centers. They made a gay fringe against the dark stucco of the wall. The tulips were gorgeous and planted in blocks of color. Mama always said it was stupid to plant tulips in rows. They never really made a statement that way, according to her.

  And then there was a new rosebush. It was in the corner where Ulla and I had seen Mama and Papa digging on that rainy night a few weeks earlier. I shuddered when I thought of what lay beneath. But I was relieved that it was not yet blooming. The last thing I wanted was for the party guests to go over and smell the roses!

  Baba and Hessie and several of Papa’s colleagues from the institute and the university had come. Karl had come early, but his parents had not arrived yet. They lived across town, and traffic was often bad.

  I was wearing the gray dress that I had bought with Baba last summer. I had yet to find one for the wedding itself. Everyone told me I looked lovely, including Baba who was pleased I was wearing it and promised to help me find a dress for the wedding. I think I did look nice. Everyone told the bride-to-be that she looked lovely too. She didn’t. She looked not just tired but haggard. The dress she wore seemed too big for her. She had tried to find something that was not too tight, as her belly was expanding, but she actually looked rather engulfed in the royal blue taffeta. She seemed lost. The best one could say was that the color was a perfect match for her eyes. And everyone did say this. But I doubt if they were looking too deeply into her eyes. Or if they did, they tried to ignore what they saw.

  What I saw was resignation, sorrow, and a glint of desperation as well.

  “Aachh! Mein Gott you look beautiful. The bride absolutely sparkles!” A high voice clawed the air. A large, chunky woman had just arrived and was moving toward us across the courtyard. It was Karl’s mother. A diamond and gold necklace squeezed her neck. Her hair was a gaudy orange, and she wore a violent shade of lipstick that made her mouth look like a squashed plum. Her eyes were a turquoise sugary blue. But even from where a stood I could tell that there was no light in them and for some reason they reminded me of marzipan, the painted kind that they used for decorating sweets.

  Gerta Schenker looked nothing like her son Karl. A slight man with an ovoid head followed her. He reminded me of a lemon seed. This was Artur Schenker. He was as colorless and dull as his wife was vibrant and garish. I knew exactly what my mother was thinking. She looks like a bareback rider in the circus!That was Mama’s standard comparison for florid, ostentatiously dressed women
. Mama was not very good at concealing her feelings. I could see that she was struggling. She looked straight at Frau Schenker, not daring to steal a glance at either Baba or me—especially not at Baba. If she did, she would roll her eyes and the two of them would burst out laughing.

  I was concerned after the introductions to Karl’s family, since his mother was actually standing right near the new rosebush Mama had planted where she and Papa had buried the Einstein papers. There was no way, of course, that they could possibly know the papers were under the rosebush, but I was nonetheless consumed with an irrational fear. I was madly trying to think up some way I could get us all to move from this corner when I became aware of Gerta Schenker handing something to Mama.

  “Just a little gift,” she tweeted in a falsely intimate tone. The gift was flat and wrapped in very fancy paper with gilt sprinkles all over it.

  “Unwrap it now, darling. It’s very special. I want everyone to see.” This seemed a rather self-serving preamble for a gift. Frau Schenker glanced around the garden and motioned other guests to come. Mama untied the ribbons very carefully. She was always so slow opening presents, whereas I tore off wrappings. She handed the ribbon to Papa to hold while she unwrapped the paper neatly. I caught a glint of silver. It was a frame. Then I saw the color drain from Mama’s face, and she swayed a bit. Wordlessly she turned the picture around so all could see. It was a photograph of Adolf Hitler.

  “Look, it’s autographed. Read the inscription,” Frau Schenker trilled.

  Mama’s lips moved but the only sound that came out was “Oh.” Then finally, “Why don’t you read it, Gerta?”

  Gerta took the picture and began to read. “ ‘ To Elske and Otto, mother and father of the bride.’ ”

  I did not dare look at Ulla or Karl, or anybody for that matter. I stared straight ahead at the lilac bush, concentrating on the blossoms as Karl’s mother read. Their lavender cones, stirred now by a slight breeze, reminded me of scented lanterns. Their sweet, slightly woodsy fragrance wafted across the courtyard. Mama,I thought, say something. Just say it. Say we’re not Nazis. Say we can’t have his picture in our home.And I thought if she would just say that, the wedding would never happen. Ulla would be saved from joining this Nazi family.

  Mama was now talking, very softly, but she wasn’t saying what I wanted her to say.

  “I don’t think it would work on the piano.” She might have been replying to a suggestion of Karl’s mother about where to put the picture. I wasn’t sure. “You see, I have a baby grand, and the lid is always up. So there is no real room for any pictures.” She inhaled sharply, and then her mouth seemed to twitch, and she smiled in a way that I had never seen her smile in my life. “But don’t worry,” she said gaily, “we’ll find a place for it.”

  Yes, I thought. The trash bin!And I was right. The silver frame went out with the trash the very next morning. Ulla was not around, but I was certain that she knew what to expect. It was unthinkable that our family would have such a picture. She had gone to bed immediately following the party, claiming a headache, and off the next morning early on wedding errands.

  Of course, Papa insisted we burn the picture.

  “You never know, in these times we could be hauled off for throwing out such a picture,” he muttered as he took the photo from its frame and then put the match to the glossy portrait. I stood beside him at the kitchen sink and watched as the flame grabbed hold of the edges, singeing them first an amberish brown. Then the color began to darken and spread as the flames licked across that smug, righteous face, with those eyes that were completely insane. Within a matter of seconds there was only a small pile of ashes in the kitchen sink. Just before Papa turned on the faucet to wash them down the drain, I sniffed. “Paper smells different from other things when it burns doesn’t it Papa?”

  “Yes, I suppose. Different from wood.”

  That was the smell that I had remembered from the night just weeks before when Karl had come for dinner—burnt paper. The strange chemical and smoky odor that had cut through the fragrance of the lilies of the valley that he had brought Mama, that ash smell that made me ask Ulla if Karl smoked.

  “Yes, different from wood,” I said softly, and felt my mind shutting down. Something niggled at the back of my brain and I tried to slam a door on it. When I would sometimes have a terrible dream and wake up in the middle of it my first impulse was to turn on the light. Light would dissolve any tatters torn from that nightmare that still might lurk in my bedroom. Now those niggling thoughts in the back of my brain were beginning to squirm. But I wouldn’t let them in. Nightmares feed on darkness. Fires feed on oxygen. Cut off the supply and they wither, disintegrate, suffocate.

  “Are you all right, Gaby? You suddenly look pale,” Papa asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I said. And I was. I had succeeded in evicting some dreadful tenant from the shadowy corners of my mind. I would remove to the trash bin the rest of the tenant’s furniture—the silver frame that Papa said cost at least twenty marks.

  chapter 33

  The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

  - Mark Twain, “What Is Man”

  It was a few days after the engagement party when Papa came home from his office within an hour after he had left for it. Mama was out with Ulla. It was midafternoon, and I was in the kitchen doing the math problems that Papa had set for me. “The Papa School,” as I had begun to think of my math curriculum, was a lot more demanding than the regular school. I had completed what felt like a press march through trigonometry and I was now beginning calculus, which if I had been in my old Kaiser Frederick Wilhelm school I would not have started for at least three years.

  Papa came into the kitchen. Barely acknowledging my presence, he slapped something down on the kitchen table.

  “Papa, what is it?”

  “Take a look at that.” He indicated the papers he had put on the table then he sank down into a chair opposite me. I began reading what was called “12 Theses Against the Un-German Spirit.” I skimmed down the pages

  The first thesis declared: language and literature have their roots in the Volk. It is the German Volk’s responsibility to assure its language and literature are pure and unadulterated expression of its Volk tradition.

  The fourth and fifth stated: Our most dangerous enemy is the Jew and those who are his slaves. . . . A Jew can only think Jewish. If he writes in German he is lying.The screed was written against Jewish writers but apparently one did not have to be Jewish to offend the purity of the German spirit. Many names on the list of banned authors I did not know, but several I did. Jack London! Ernest Hemingway! Mark Twain! None of them Jewish, but all deemed offensive.

  “They’ll start building the pyres soon,” Papa muttered.

  “Pyres? For what?” My voice dwindled away.

  Papa reached across the kitchen table and took my hand. “Pyres for burning books, Gaby.”

  “You can’t be right. Pyres . . . they burned witches on pyres long ago, four hundred years ago.”

  “Oh! I’m sure they’ll find some witches, too,” Papa said, standing up. “I need to discuss this with Hessie.” He walked out of the kitchen and I soon heard the front door close behind him. He left the papers on the table. I was afraid to move them. I didn’t want to touch them again. Was it just last week that Papa and I had stood at the sink and burned the picture of Hitler? Was it because we had burned Hitler’s photograph that now the flames were coming back to haunt us? Had our little kitchen sink fire ignited a larger one? I knew this was irrational. But suddenly the world had become irrational.

  One day in early May, Rosa and I met at the southeast corner of the Opernplatz, which was adjacent to the university. We joined a throng of spectators as students in the uniform of the German Student Association and Brown Shirts with swastika badges on their sleeves carried timbers to the center of t
he stone square. We watched for perhaps fifteen minutes and within that short time the scaffolding for the pyre rose three or four feet.

  “How tall will they build it, do you think?” Rosa whispered to me. A robust man standing next to her who wore a monocle and was dressed in a three-piece suit with a gold watch chain spanning his large belly turned to us. “As high as it must be to burn all those Jew and Commie books,” he said, smiling pleasantly as if this were the most natural thing in the world to say, as if we had inquired about the weather and was he told us it going to be sunny today. I reached for Rosa’s hand and we both turned and left.

  But the scaffolding for the pyre was like a magnet. We came back to the square often over the next few days. Perhaps we came with our secret hopes that somehow when we arrived we would find that the building had stopped, the scaffolding had been removed, and the lovely broad stone plaza had returned to normal. No such thing happened. The pyre continued to grow. It spread out as well, like a tumor, a terrible malignancy. I thought of my father’s remarks months before. It was the night that Philipp Lenard had visited. He told me about how Lenard had led the attacks on Einstein and Jewish physics. He was trying to assure me. His words came back to me: And remember things are getting better, I really think so. By spring there will be no more Hitler, just lovely tulips.I recalled the wistfulness in his eyes.

  Now it was spring and the tulips I had helped Mama plant were in full bloom and so were the lilacs. The scent of the linden along the broad avenue named for the fragrant trees was just beginning to tinge the air.

  Rosa and I were not the only ones fascinated by the pyre. Every day the crowds watching the erection of the scaffolding grew. Vendors had begun to come to sell hot pretzels and ice cones from pushcarts. There was an odd joviality to the scene, which was strange and uncomfortable and yet we kept coming back. One day when we arrived, the scent of the linden trees was very powerful. The wind was strong and blowing the fragrance across the square. One could even hear the rustle of the heart-shaped leaves. As I drank in the scent of the linden trees and stared at the scaffolding, I was trying to imagine what the pyre would look like burning and how the smell of the petrol and the flames eating all that paper would eradicate the perfume of the lindens. Just as I was thinking this, the woman next to me who was holding a baby turned to her friend and spoke. “You know, books are actually hard to burn. My son went with a group of engineering students into the Rhineland. They were all part of the German Student Association. They did some experimentations while they were there to explore what was the best fuel for igniting books. Oh, they tried all sorts of things—paraffin, gasoline. He came back reeking of fuel and burnt paper.”