The Light After the War

by Anita Abriel

  “Why does he have to go now?” Edith put down her fork.

  “He’s been able to put it off, but the German army invaded Russia and the Germans need all the men they can get.” There was a lump in her throat. “He can’t avoid it any longer.”

  “Don’t worry, the war will be over soon and he’ll come back.”

  “Or it will go on for years and my mother and I will be alone,” Vera gulped.

  “You’re not alone; we have each other,” Edith assured her. “We’ll come here when we’re twenty-one and we’ll stay in the finest suite. We’ll be married by then and we’ll ride horses and go dancing. If we see any Germans at dinner, our husbands will tell them they have to leave,” she glowered. “If they refuse, our husbands will pick them up by their jackets and throw them out of the dining room.”

  “We’ll have to learn to walk in high heels,” Vera said, slipping off her shoes.

  “Why high heels?” Edith asked.

  “So we can step on them when we walk back to our rooms. It would hurt more than if we were wearing flats.”

  * * *

  Vera sat at the captain’s table of the Queen Elizabeth and wished more than anything her parents were with her. Her father would love the afternoon chess games and her mother the concerts performed on the upper deck.

  “We have five different forks,” Edith hissed, interrupting her thoughts. “I can’t remember which one we use first.”

  Vera suppressed a laugh and surveyed the dining room. It was three stories, with a black-and-white dance floor and marble columns. A grand piano stood in the corner and crystal chandeliers dangled from the ceiling.

  Edith had convinced Vera to spend the afternoon in the ship’s beauty parlor, and they had their hair washed and set. When she caught her reflection in the stateroom mirror before they went to dinner, she couldn’t help but smile. She looked like Vivien Leigh.

  They were joined at the table by Captain James and several older couples. Men with slicked-back hair talked about the building boom and the stock market. Women wearing diamond chokers chatted about Coco Chanel and the Paris fashion houses. Vera and Edith ate juicy steaks and drank full-bodied red wine.

  Edith got up to dance, and a man with light brown hair approached the table. He was in his early thirties with brown eyes and a long nose.

  “May I?” He slid into Edith’s chair. “Your friend is a good dancer.”

  Vera nodded. “Edith loves to dance.”

  “Douglas Bauer.” The man held out his hand. “You must be one of the Hungarian refugees sponsored by Sam Rothschild.”

  “How did you know?” Vera raised her eyebrows.

  “No one else at the captain’s table is younger than fifty; you’re the talk of the ship,” he said with a smile.

  Vera blushed. “We’re very grateful to Mr. Rothschild. I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Sam Rothschild is a smart man,” Douglas mused. “A little charity goes a long way when you’re tearing down tenement buildings to build luxury apartments.”

  Vera chose to ignore his question. It wasn’t her business how Sam Rothschild made his money. And how could she object when he paid their fare and was allowing them to come to America.

  “What took you to Europe?” Vera inquired.

  “I’m a journalist for Time magazine.” Douglas lit a cigarette. “I’m writing an article on the devastation in the European capitals after the war: Paris, Rome, London.”

  “It sounds fascinating,” Vera murmured. She suddenly wanted to leave, but she couldn’t catch Edith’s eye. “I hope you had a lovely trip.”

  “The piece in the New York Times said you want to be a writer,” Douglas continued. “You should write about the war. Readers love stories about beautiful young girls conquering adversity.”

  “My mother died at Auschwitz and my father never returned from a work camp,” Vera bristled. “Edith and I lived in a freezing barn and ate nothing except eggs and broth for a year. I doubt your readers would find it uplifting reading.”

  Douglas’s eyes softened. “I’m sorry. Five years of war headlines and one forgets about individual suffering. I can’t imagine what you went through. I come from a small town in Michigan; the only thing I lost growing up was my dog.”

  “I have to go.” Vera pushed back her chair.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.” Douglas jumped up. “If you change your mind, I’d be happy to read what you write.”

  Vera stood at the dessert station, watching Edith whirl around the dance floor. Edith found it so easy to be happy.

  She remembered what Douglas said and had an idea. She put her coffee cup down and motioned to Edith. She couldn’t wait to get back to their stateroom.

  * * *

  “You have to play shuffleboard.” Edith stood in front of the mirror, fixing her hair. “Patrick has a friend and he wants to make a foursome.”

  “How can you play shuffleboard when the ship is rolling like a beach ball?” Vera groaned and looked up from her notepad. “Anyway, I’m busy. Patrick and his friend will have to fight over you.”

  “You’ve been cooped up in here for three days.” Edith dabbed lipstick on her mouth. “You missed the bridge tournament and the dance contest.”

  “I’m almost finished,” Vera declared. She put the lid on her pen and turned her full attention to Edith. “Aren’t you spending too much time with this new man?”

  “Patrick is a member of one of the oldest families in Boston. Plus he has the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen, and I think he’s in love with me.”

  “You don’t know anything about him, and in a few days you’ll probably never see him again,” Vera reminded her.

  “It’s okay for you to cross the Atlantic to find a man you only knew for four months, but I can’t play shuffleboard with a charming man?” Edith demanded.

  Vera wanted to say it was different; it was as if she had known Anton all her life. But she never told Edith what happened in Capri and she was afraid Edith might guess the truth.

  “Go and have fun. But try not to get seasick,” Vera relented. “I don’t know how you walk on the deck without wanting to throw up.”

  * * *

  Vera entered the dining room and noticed Douglas Bauer standing by the buffet. He balanced a teacup in one hand and a plate of toast and jam in the other.

  “This is a lovely surprise,” he beamed. “I haven’t seen you since the first night’s dinner.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Vera replied.

  “Would you like some toast?” Douglas handed her the plate. “I thought I was hungry, but I have the stomach of a debutante. The minute the ship starts rolling I lose my appetite.”

  “I wonder if you are serious about reading what I write,” Vera asked.

  “I never say anything I don’t mean.” Douglas poured milk into the porcelain teacup.

  “It’s a first draft,” Vera said nervously, reaching into her purse for her notebook. “I’d be grateful if you could take a look.”

  “Why don’t you come to my stateroom at six p.m. and I’ll give you a report.”

  “Your stateroom?” Vera raised her eyebrow.

  The ship lurched and Vera almost fell against Douglas’s shoulder.

  “I’m not leaving my cabin again until the sea calms down.” Douglas wiped his brow. “Number thirty-two on the Admiral Floor.”

  * * *

  “You must join us for dinner,” Edith implored. She wore a turquoise silk dress and a strand of pearls around her neck. “Patrick said he has a surprise. Maybe he’ll invite us to his home in Boston.”

  “Where did you get that dress and those pearls?” Vera asked. It was almost six and she was anxious about going to Douglas’s stateroom. Maybe she should send him a note saying she was too ill to leave her cabin.

  “Patrick bought them for me at the ship’s gift shop,” Edith sighed happily. She twirled in front of the mirror. “He said the pearls make my skin look like porcelain. And don’t say anything a
bout accepting gifts from men.” She looked at Vera. “I have a feeling Patrick is the one.”

  * * *

  Vera knocked on the stateroom door and glanced at her watch. She debated until the last minute what she should do and now it was almost six thirty. Maybe Douglas had gone for an evening stroll or was having a cocktail in the Captain’s Bar. The storm had passed and the sea was finally calm.

  Douglas opened the door. “There you are. I was about to give up and go in search of dinner. I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse.”

  “I can come back,” Vera hesitated, suddenly uncomfortable. She had never been alone in a room with a man besides Anton.

  “Come in,” Douglas said. He moved aside and waved her into the room. “I’ll pour us both a brandy. Thank God for expense accounts; the Queen Elizabeth stocks the finest cognac.”

  Vera stepped inside and took in the narrow bed with its quilted gold bedspread. The coffee table was piled with magazines and there was an ashtray filled with cigarette butts.

  “I apologize for the bachelor mess.” Douglas swept away the ashtray. “The maids come twice a day but I still manage to make a pigsty.

  “I read your stories. You have a great eye for detail,” he continued, handing her a shot glass. “If I went to Budapest, I could find your apartment from your descriptions.”

  “Thank you.” Vera nodded, perching on an armchair.

  “But there’s no drama.” Douglas rubbed his brow. “It’s like a diary entry. You have to show your reader more emotion. Writing has to be larger than life to be appreciated.”

  “I see,” Vera said stiffly. She rose and picked up the notebook. “I was silly to think I’m a writer. Thank you for your time.”

  Douglas stopped her. He put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re a wonderful writer, but every story needs drama. It may be that the story is too hard to write; you have to give it time.”

  His hand brushed her sleeve and she smelled the liquor on his breath. Suddenly he caught her arm and kissed her.

  “What are you doing?” She slapped his cheek and pulled away.

  “I’m kissing you.” Douglas smiled.

  “I don’t want to be kissed!” Vera exclaimed.

  “Of course you do,” Douglas replied. “You came to my cabin.”

  “Because you said you’d read my story,” Vera stammered.

  “Relax, if you don’t like it I won’t do it again,” Douglas laughed. “Let me give you some advice. You’re beautiful and smart, but you have to be careful of men. No matter what we say, we want to get under your dress.”

  “I have to go.” Vera opened the door.

  She ran down the hall to her stateroom and closed the door. Edith was at dinner with Patrick, and the room smelled of perfume and roses.

  Just because she accepted Douglas’s invitation didn’t mean she wanted to kiss him. She remembered knocking on Anton’s door in Capri and urging him to make love. That was different; they were engaged and meant to be together.

  She gazed out at the sea and recalled the summer she was sixteen and her mother told her about her courtship with her father. Her father had been terribly shy, and if Alice didn’t make the first move, they may never have gotten married.

  * * *

  It was the summer of 1943, and Edith and Stefan had been secretly seeing each other for a year. Edith’s mother adored Stefan, but Edith worried that Lily would think she was too young. It was Vera’s job to distract Lily when Edith and Stefan spent too long at the lake and Edith came home with brambles in her hair.

  One night the sun had already set, and Edith and Stefan were nowhere in sight. Lily had gone upstairs, but Vera’s mother was sitting on the porch. Vera stood at the window and waited for Edith to appear. How would Edith explain why she was still wearing a swimsuit and had missed dinner when she returned?

  “There you are,” Vera said to her mother, walking onto the porch. “I cut a cherry strudel. Why don’t you join me in the kitchen for a slice?”

  Alice put down her sewing. “We already had dessert and you said you were full.”

  “I couldn’t resist Lily’s cherry strudel,” Vera said quickly.

  “If you’re trying to distract me for when Edith comes home, it’s not necessary,” Alice answered. “Lily and I know about Stefan and Edith.”

  “Lily doesn’t mind?” Vera wondered.

  “She’s happy that Edith is in love,” Alice said. “She worries that there aren’t any men in Edith’s life since her father ran off with the secretary.”

  “Stefan is wonderful. He treats Edith like a princess,” Vera sighed with relief. “We were afraid Lily thought they were too young.”

  “Age means nothing when it comes to love,” Alice countered. “I was barely nineteen when I met your father, and we were married a month later.”

  “You never told me that.” Vera sat down beside her.

  “Lawrence and his friends were sitting in a café in Paris after one of my dance performances. They asked a few of the dancers to join them and we drank vermouth and had a few laughs. He walked me back to my room and we had so much in common. The next night, his group was there again but he barely talked to me. That went on for a week. Every night his friends asked us to join them, and every night Lawrence ignored me. One night, I asked him to walk me home. We were so wrapped up in our discussion we missed my flat! When we finally reached my door, I was sure he was going to kiss me. But he just tipped his hat and left.

  “A few nights later, he was with his friends at the café. I said I had something urgent to tell him and asked him to meet me outside. We strolled along the Seine and our hands touched, and it was more thrilling than being onstage. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and kissed him. He was so surprised he almost dropped his hat in the river!

  “He explained that the first night he walked me home as a dare from his friends. But he’s terribly shy and he was too nervous to ask me again. Every night he wanted to say how he felt, but his tongue turned to rubber,” she laughed. “I told him he better get over it or he’d never be able to argue in court. A week later he proposed, and a month after that we were married.”

  “You never told me.” Vera tried to imagine her parents sharing their first kiss. She knew they met in Paris, but she never stopped to imagine their courtship.

  “My mother would have thought I was terribly fast if she knew. She thought studying dance was a phase and I’d come back to Budapest and marry a boy I’d known since Hebrew school.” Alice smiled. “It was better to keep quiet.”

  “I’m glad Edith has Stefan,” Vera said with a nod. “He makes her happy.”

  “You’re only sixteen; you have years to find the right man,” Alice counseled. “When you do, you’ll know the minute you set eyes on him. That’s what’s different about love. It doesn’t need any history.”

  “I hope there will be boys left to fall in love with.” Vera thought of her father in the labor camp.

  “The war can’t win over love,” Alice said shortly. “The right man will find you.”

  * * *

  Vera stood in her stateroom in the Queen Elizabeth and pictured Anton in his white dinner jacket in Capri. Anton had been the right man. What if she couldn’t find him again? And if she did, would he marry her, or would he insist she wait for a man who could give her children?

  CHAPTER TEN

  January 1947

  The Queen Elizabeth nudged into New York Harbor and Vera leaned against the railing. Pink clouds floated above the skyscrapers, and the sun gleaming on the water was like an impressionist painting. The Empire State Building reached the sky and the Statue of Liberty looked more impressive than she had on any movie reel.

  It was only now, when the ship’s pursers were checking the other passengers’ passports that Vera remembered why they were here. Soon the people they sat with at the captain’s table every night would disappear into limousines, and Vera and Edith would have to go through immigration at Ellis Island.

&nbs
p; “A lawyer from New Jersey and a doctor from Philadelphia gave me their phone numbers,” Edith said as she joined her at the railing.

  “What about Patrick?” Vera asked. “You said he was the one.”

  “I went to say good-bye and there was a telegram in his stateroom. It was from a girl named Barbara. She couldn’t wait for him to arrive in Boston, and her mother had already picked out their wedding china. Apparently, Patrick forgot to tell me he was engaged.”

  Vera squeezed her arm. “You shouldn’t waste your time with men anyway. We’re in New York now and anything is possible.”

  The ship’s nose nudged into the dock and a giant cheer rose on deck. Vera hugged her chest and thought of her parents and Stefan and their apartment building in Budapest. The future had to be bright; something had to erase all the darkness of the past.

  They collected their bags and followed the other immigrants into the Great Hall. The elaborate frescoes and glittering chandeliers of the Queen Elizabeth were replaced by an austere room as big as a stadium. People stood in long lines, clutching their papers.

  What if the officer saw “Jewish” on their papers and sent them back to Europe? But he simply handed Vera her documents and asked if she wanted to change her name.

  “Change my name?” Vera repeated.

  “Some immigrants want to fit in more easily,” the officer explained. “They want a name that sounds less Jewish.”

  “I like my name,” Vera said stiffly.

  After Edith passed the health exam, they were directed to the Kissing Post. They waited while pale men and women were greeted by relatives with pink cheeks and glossy hair. A boy ran into the arms of an older woman in a smart dress and Vera wondered if he lost his parents in the camps and was being claimed by an aunt.

  “I hope Mr. and Mrs. Rothschild arrive soon,” Edith sighed. They had been standing for hours.

  Vera had a queasy feeling. What if Samuel Rothschild forgot his promise? What if he was playing poker at his club or in the mountains with his wife? She and Edith would be put on the next ship back to Italy.