Winter Passing

by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma

  “This my mother,” Sophie said, introducing Darby. The woman gave a smile that matched her daughter’s. She wore an Austrian-style apron, and her hair was neatly pulled into a bun. “Darby’s grandmother lived in Hallstatt same time as Grandmother,”

  “Really?” the woman said with interest.

  “She want to meet her.”

  The smile disappeared. As the two talked in German, Darby’s heart raced. This woman would know Grandma Celia, even Tatianna and Gunther perhaps.

  “You know about Hallstatt during the war?” Sophie asked after the volley of chatter.

  “No, nothing.”

  “Hallstatt was about 90 percent Nazi. You see, it was a political party and gave good economics here. People had jobs. That what people in small village most concerned about—they must feed their families. They not know of Auschwitz and other camps. They have work after hard times. So they be Nazis. My grandfather was Nazi—my mother not know if we should say that to you.”

  “My grandmother was half Jew.”

  Both women stared at her, their eyes large.

  “My grandmother had family die in camps, but she escaped to America.”

  The two Austrians seemed embarrassed by their family past. But Darby at once felt old judgments vanish by an internal mirror that reflected her own life. Her political concerns in democratic America were over the economic growth in her own country. She didn’t care what happened in Washington unless it involved taxes, small business interests, or the national, state, and local economy.

  “I can understand people joining a political party for economics. And I’d still like to talk to your grandmother if I could. She may know what happened to my grandmother’s friend, whom I’m searching for.”

  The mother and daughter again conversed in German.

  “I will ask her, but must translate if she say yes. She refuse to learn English. But remember I tell you about her and that she not like outsiders.”

  Darby listened to every creak in the wooden floor after Sophie and her mother left, expecting them to return from somewhere down the hall. After fifteen minutes, she heard a door open and footsteps. If she claimed to be Celia’s granddaughter, would she receive a similar response to Brant’s? Would this woman also believe Celia had died in the war? If she did, she’d probably not believe Darby or give any information.

  “She will see you,” Sophie said as they returned. “But she not happy. Are you certain?”

  “Yes.”

  Darby followed Sophie down the hall. How could this old woman be that bad? As soon as she walked into the room, Darby knew. Grandmother Gerringer sat in a chair by the window with a scowl carved like marble into her face. Darby wondered if a smile had ever broken through the frown lines. The older woman sized her up in a glance and hmmped with disdainful satisfaction. Yes, my perception of an American woman is correct, she seemed to say. For the first time in her life, Darby faced a tiny glimpse of what a minority felt against the eyes of a racist. But her race wasn’t in question—only her homeland.

  “Guten Morgen,” Darby said softly, as if she were a schoolgirl sent to the principal’s office. “Danke for speaking to me.” Sophie translated as they spoke.

  “My family is from Hallstatt. The Lange family?”

  The old woman hmmped again, shaking her head.

  “Did you know them?”

  Sophie translated Grandmother’s answer. “She said, yes, she knew them, but they are all gone now. Said they were part Jewish family.”

  “Yes. Did she also know a young woman named Tatianna Hoffman?”

  “She did,” Sophie said.

  “Could you tell me about them?”

  The woman burst out in a torrent of harsh words.

  “She wonder why she tell you anything.” Sophie looked at Darby apologetically.

  Darby swallowed and continued. “Before my grandmother died, she asked me to seek our family past.”

  Frau Gerringer responded angrily. Sophie tried to slow her down, speaking with her rapidly. “She is not happy with questions from yesterday. She say that everyone want to know what happened with their family after the war. Too much time passed for it now.”

  “Tell her that I have been raised as an American, but now I want to learn more about being Austrian.”

  “She say you still American, not Austrian.”

  “I am American and Austrian and others.”

  The old woman spoke only to Sophie, then turned her face away.

  “I am sorry. She will not talk any longer to you.” Sophie shook her head. “Please wait for me outside, and I will speak with her alone.”

  Darby told the grandmother thank you and left. She wandered the hallway that connected bedrooms and a private kitchen and living room, eventually making her way to the garden in the backyard. Wet leaves stuck to the walkway as she found a bench in the sun. It felt like the longest time before Sophie found her.

  “She is sleeping now. I again must apologize for her. My grandmother is a very good woman, but the past is not good for her. She not want to talk to you, but this she told me. The Lange father, your great-grandfather, digged for ruins here.”

  “Yes, he was an archaeologist.”

  “And then, the girl, Celia, your grandmother, she was age of my grandmother, but a little younger. They went to the school here and at Bad Goisern—you go to grades one to eight here, then to the larger school in Bad Goisern or Bad Ischl. Our grandmothers were not good friends, but she say your grandmother was younger and had friend for many years.”

  “Tatianna Hoffman.”

  “Ja, that her. Grandma Gerringer say that Celia married a young Austrian boy, not Jewish. She say the girl and young man married and moved away—she thought Salzburg or Vienna. The friend, too, go away to school for her violin in Salzburg at the Mozarteum.”

  “Tatianna was a violinist?”

  “That what my grandmother say.”

  “And what about the family?”

  “Gone—before the war. She say all family left before Anschluß—when Hitler came to Austria.”

  “And does she know what happened to Tatianna Hoffman and her family?”

  “All gone, she say. Tatianna have only mother; her father die long before in salt mine. That all she told me.”

  “I wish she would talk to me, but I don’t want to upset her. Thank you for your help, Sophie.”

  “I hope you find what you seek,” Sophie said earnestly. Darby looked at the woman who seemed to understand her struggle. “I hope so too.”

  The next morning, Darby watched the figure skim across Hallstattersee in his black boat. It looked like the head of the Loch Ness monster with its smooth wake trailing behind. She rested against the balcony railing, fascinated, as if this same man had been there for a thousand years, pushing gently through the water, dropping his net in search of his morning meal.

  Darby found herself ready for breakfast and decided on the way down the wooden stairway that she could live in this village for the rest of her life. But first, she must answer the questions that would not let her make serious plans for a future.

  She carried down a thick paperback, Hitler’s Austria, that she’d brought from home, though she had yet to crack its cover. Sophie brought coffee and a morning greeting as Darby set the book down along with a plate of food. She was about to bite into a warm roll when a voice interrupted. Grandmother Gerringer sat in a dark corner. Her German was decidedly unfriendly.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak German. No sprechen Deutsche.”

  The woman continued in a low voice, shaking her head with contempt.

  Sophie reentered the room with a plate of sliced tomatoes and almost dropped it when she heard Grandma Gerringer. She turned quickly and spoke to her in German. But the old woman wouldn’t be quieted.r />
  “What is she saying?” Darby asked Sophie.

  “Forgive us. I will take her to her room.”

  “No, I want to know what she’s saying.” Darby stood and entered the dark corner, sitting across from Grandma Gerringer. “Tell me.”

  “No, she offends you.”

  “I want to know, Sophie.”

  “She is an old woman and does not mean her words.” Sophie set the plate down and hurried to the table.

  “I think by her tone she does. Please.”

  Sophie sat at the table and covered her grandmother’s hand with her own. She spoke to the older woman, whose words quickly flowed back. Sophie hesitated; Darby waited. “She say you are like all other Americans.”

  “Why?”

  “She say Americans are arrogant. They come to foreign soil and demand answers when they not understand what they asking. She say, ‘What would you do?’”

  “What would I do?”

  “Yes.” Sophie translated as the old woman spoke. “She say you live in your home with only few Jews here. One is your neighbor, someone you know your whole life. We say we are Nazi for work and better Austria, then someone write and ask about Jews in village. We write and say yes, a few, but this is a good friend in Linz, and we think nothing of it. Later, another letter come and say all Jews must go to Linz. My husband know what happened and Jewish neighbor is his friend. He want to help, but I do not. We have own family to protect. Own family is first responsibility. It is not your own life you risk—it is your children. It is your elderly grandparents who live with you. Would you put them in danger, place them in death’s grasp to save your neighbor?”

  By the way Sophie was responding to her grandmother, Darby knew Sophie was hearing this for the first time.

  “She say that none of us can understand. We only hear stories in books today. But she lived that time. One friend in Linz she knew hid Jewish children. Her old grandfather and grandmother were beaten with a club until dead. The rest of the family sent away and never return. She say there was no choice. It was suicide.”

  The old woman continued. “She ask you what you would do. What you do now? Do you have beliefs and not follow them? Do you see wrong in your government and say nothing? She say then you too guilty. As guilty as us who sat and did nothing. Do not judge me. I did not kill your family. They were gone by that time. Her neighbor she could not help when they came for him. She had to turn away or kill her family. Would you have done anything different?”

  Frau Gerringer glared, and Sophie looked away. Darby needed an answer but didn’t have one. She could see into the old woman’s narrowed eyes. For her entire life Darby had had a set idea of what a Nazi was or had been. She’d see skinhead rallies on the nightly news, with their messages of hatred. Grandma Celia’s family was murdered by the evil Nazis. Darby didn’t want to sympathize or understand or even consider anything different than the image she had. The SS and Gestapo were men of evil and hatred. The Germans and many Austrians were pathetic in their attempts to protect themselves and not help the innocents. Right?

  “She’s right. I am an arrogant American. I have not understood.” Darby stopped to face Frau Gerringer, then hurried toward the stairs as Sophie’s soft voice told the old woman her words.

  Darby rushed to her room and locked the door behind her. She didn’t want to know these things, to feel sympathy or understanding for those who allowed the terrors of the Nazis. Grandmother Gerringer taught her what she didn’t expect. In a flash she also realized there were probably many Nazi sympathizers, Nazis themselves, still alive and well in this beautiful land. Of course, how could she be so naive not to know? Many would not like the sins of the past resurrected—even and especially for the sake of truth. And here Darby had come with her swastika-covered Hitler’s Austria book under her arm, practically proclaiming an attitude against these people.

  I have judged people like that all my life without even knowing it until now. Yet, how different are we today?

  The old woman’s words frightened her. Darby had opinions and beliefs, but yes, she only did what was convenient for her own life. And did she do anything to help anyone else? She’d barely kept her trust in Grandma Celia when faced with the idea that the woman could be someone else.

  Darby fell into bed, dragging a pillow over her head. This was a search for the past, not a digging into her own life. The shadows were stronger in this place, even stronger than the ones who had laughed from her grandmother’s deathbed. And they wouldn’t be satisfied until they took all of Darby with them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brant rested his head against his hands. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the door, wishing he could leave his office and never, ever return. Why had his work affected him so profoundly lately? He’d seen a hundred taped interviews of survivors. Yet now they came upon him like demons possessing his soul. He had several reviews to complete for the computerized Holocaust Survivor Library. But after today, Brant considered cutting reviews from his job description. It was taking too much from him, and he had plenty of other work he could do. He’d never enjoyed watching the tapes, though the work was preserving something essential for the future. But now it was all he could do to let the survivors’ words enter his mind. He felt like an old, old man who had too much knowledge of the world’s terrors.

  Or perhaps it was because of Gunther. Because of Gunther’s waning health, Brant couldn’t simply run to his mentor at every turn or theological challenge. It wasn’t that easy anymore.

  Brant tried to focus on the computer screen. The man on the frozen frame had an almost apologetic smile on his face. Brant clicked off the Pause button, determined not to let himself get too wrapped up in this.

  David Weisman spoke, looking from the screen right into Brant’s eyes.

  “My brother, Henri, and I were liberated from Buchenwald. We were the only survivors in our family of eight children. I was sixteen and my brother fourteen. We were still very thin, under one hundred pounds, when we decided to make our way from the refugee camp toward our home. Our hope was to find any relatives or friends in our hometown. We were at a railway station in Poland waiting for our train when two Polish officers approached us. They began to ask us many questions. ‘Who are you? Show us your papers.’ We were surprised and showed our ID cards. My brother, though younger than me, had more bravery—I had lost mine long before. He said, ‘We are Polish and survivors from the camps. We are going to our home.’ This did not change their attitude toward us. We were ordered to go with them. My brother said, ‘We will miss our train.’ The officers did not care. We were naive, believing there was nothing to fear because Hitler and his evil men had been destroyed. We were only upset to miss our train. But we believed that the world was better and would take care of us after we had endured so much.

  “The officers led us away from the crowds and down streets that were dark and deserted. Our suitcases and belongings from the Red Cross quickly tired us, for we were still very weak. My brother asked how long it would take. ‘Our train,’ he said. ‘It won’t take long,’ one replied.

  “We turned a corner and it was a dead-end alley. I heard the sound of a trigger being cocked. We turned and faced the cold eyes of the officers, the same look I had seen so often at the camps. They both had guns pointed at us. One hit my brother on the side of the head, and the blow knocked him to the ground. ‘You stupid Jews. Why couldn’t you die in the camps? Now we have this job of killing when the job should have been done by the Germans. I am tired of this work.’

  “My brother and I were stunned. After all we’d endured, how could we not have seen this? I could not move, I could not cry or run or yell out. It seemed inconceivable that we’d survived the most horrid of conditions and endured the worst of man’s evils to die in this empty alley.

  “‘Please, please, why would you do this to us?’ my brother asked. I noti
ced the blood running down his face after he spoke. ‘We are Polish like you and have suffered so much as we know you have. The Nazis were both of our enemies, not one another. See my blood—it is red like your own.’

  “As they moved us against the wall, my brother continued to plead. I believe he wanted them to feel some human touch, to see us as people. I could not speak, only accepted that I was now dead. I was resigned to it. The SS and Gestapo I escaped, but my own people I would not. But somehow my brother’s pleas made the officers waver. He spoke about being my younger brother and how we helped one another live through the war. Perhaps these officers were brothers, for this seemed to have the greatest effect. I know Henri sensed this, for he continued to speak about the two of us. He put his arm around me and pleaded, ‘My brother is the only person I have left. We want to go home, to the place we grew up.’

  “At last the officers looked at each other. ‘They are only boys. Not worth our time,’ one said. They put their guns away. Before they left us alone in the darkness, one turned back and said, ‘You better get to your home. There are many like us, and we don’t let people like you live. You are the first of many.’

  “We were saved by my brother. But the hit to his head had been harder than I thought. We were so weak that we had great difficulty returning to the train station and abandoned our belongings. Our train had left, but we crept onto another. It was very cold that night, and Henri and I warmed each other. But in the morning, Henri was dead.

  “This was our welcome home.”

  Brant clicked off the video. He sat back in his chair with a sigh and noticed evening shadows had moved into the room. He’d been reviewing the stories for hours without thought of time or reality.

  A quick knock rapped against his door. “Come in,” he said, clearing his throat. The sound of his voice was amplified in the room.

  “Mr. Collins, I’m leaving for the night.” His secretary peered into the room. “Would you like me to order you something to eat?”

  “No, I’m not hungry.”