The Things We Cherished

by Pam Jenoff

  “Hans knew it was just a matter of time until the Nazis liquidated the camp and sent all of the children to Auschwitz or Treblinka and certain death. So he created a high-level delegation of supposed international emissaries to visit the camp. In fact, they were really people who were working with him and the resistance. The plan was that once in the camp, they were going to ask that the children be permitted to participate in an international exchange with children from a summer camp in Sweden. Put on the spot, the Germans would have no choice but to agree and Hans would be able to sneak the children out of the country. But before the exchange could take place, someone tipped off the Germans. Hans and the delegation were arrested.”

  “And the children?” she asked, dreading the answer.

  “Well, it’s unclear exactly what happened to them, but most people believe they were shot.”

  Charlotte was suddenly nauseous. She swallowed, forcing the images from her mind, the way she might when dealing with a client accused of a particularly grisly murder charge. “And the allegation is that Roger was the one who turned Hans in?” Jack nodded. “Do you think he did it?” She cringed at her own question. As a defense lawyer, it was axiomatic not to focus on her client’s guilt, not to ask. Zealous representation, that was her job.

  But if Jack was troubled by the inquiry, he gave no indication. “Having met him, it’s hard to imagine him being so heartless.”

  We both know that’s no proof, Charlotte thought. She wanted to remind him of people she’d helped to prosecute at The Hague, like the high school math teacher from Pristina who had killed mothers and their children with indifference. But she did not.

  Charlotte’s mind traveled in another direction. “You said the massacre happened in Czechoslovakia, yet they picked up Dykmans in Warsaw.”

  “He’s from Poland and—”

  “Polish?” she interrupted. “I figured he was Scandinavian, or Dutch.”

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you, judging by the name? I think he had a Swedish grandfather, but the family was mostly Polish. He grew up in the south of the country, about an hour west of Kraków such as it was. But he’d never been back until the mid-nineties.”

  A wave of air freshener tickled Charlotte’s nose and she stifled a sneeze. “So why go back now? Maybe out of guilt, or the need to find out what happened to his brother?”

  “That we know, I’m afraid.” The car began to slow in front of a walled compound she presumed to be the jail. “Hans was executed by the Nazis in 1944.”

  As the guard processed their entry, Charlotte took in the high prison walls. “It’s massive,” she remarked as they drove through the gate. The mosaic of large buildings situated around green courtyards, the architecture a mix of old stone and new concrete, could have been a college campus.

  “One of the largest in Germany,” Jack agreed. “And it has a really interesting history too. There were a number of prisoners put to death by guillotine in the late 1800s. And Hitler himself was imprisoned here in the early twenties.”

  “After the Beer Hall Putsch,” Charlotte added, feeling, as he nodded, like a student getting the right answer in class.

  A minute later, the driver pulled up in front of double glass doors and Charlotte followed Jack from the car. Inside, she watched as he flashed his credentials to the guard at the desk, motioning for her to show her passport as well. The tweed sport coat he’d pulled on as they left his office was more academic than professional, giving him a roguish look.

  They were escorted through a metal detector and Charlotte’s bag searched, a familiar drill from her visits to clients in prison. Finally, the guard led them down a hallway to a conference room. Cozier than the prison meeting rooms back home, she reflected, with faded brown carpet, matching drapes faded a shade lighter by the sun. It was surprisingly ordinary, save for the bars on the small, high windows.

  There was a shuffling sound behind them and another guard led a man in before leaving and closing the door. The first thing that struck Charlotte about Roger Dykmans was how average he looked. A slight, balding man in pressed khaki pants and white collared shirt, he was neither the monster nor the mogul she had imagined. His outfit was one she might have seen on the street, except he did not wear a belt or a tie and his shoes were loafers, no laces required. Nothing with which he could try to hurt himself.

  Roger Dykmans had to be close to ninety but he did not look it. The eyes that appraised Charlotte were those of a man decades younger, unclouded and bright. His posture remarkably erect, and beneath the snowy white beard, his skin was eerily smooth, a genetic bounty no surgeon could replicate. It was not a factor that would serve him well at trial. Courts looked with sympathy upon the old and the frail, in part because it seemed unlikely (in Dykmans’s case well-nigh impossible) they would repeat their transgressions and in part because jurors felt as though they were imprisoning their own grandparents. But here they would be reminded only of an uncle, and a spry one at that.

  “Herr Dykmans,” Jack began, stepping forward. It was then that she saw it, an almost imperceptible flinch, not what one would expect from a polished man of his background. Had someone threatened him in prison or was it a relic of something years earlier? Perhaps he was not so different from her clients back home after all.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice.” There was a note of deference in Jack’s voice Charlotte had not previously heard.

  “Ja, here I have nothing but time.” His English, though not broken, was still clearly accented, a mark of the old country that the decades in America had not been able to erase, perhaps made stronger again by his recent years on the Continent.

  Even here his appearance bespoke a quiet dignity, she noted. His hair was neatly combed and the khaki prison garb looked as though it had been freshly ironed. Money, she realized, lots and lots of money. Brian had said Dykmans was an investment banker and she could see that now in the unmarked hands, the delicate tan. Of course, refinement was hardly an indicator of culpability or innocence. The SS had been doctors, scholars. Closer to home, she had read about a prestigious Main Line physician, rumored to have bludgeoned his wife with a garden hoe, who then sat down to dinner while she bled to death ten feet away, polishing off an expensive bottle of chardonnay before calmly turning himself in. But there was an air of serenity about Dykmans that belied any sort of guilt.

  “This is Charlotte Gold. She’s been sent by your law firm in America to try to help with your case.” Jack did not, she notice, reference his brother. Dykmans’s eyes flicked over her and then away again, indifferent. Charlotte’s annoyance flared; she was here for his benefit, not her own.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Jack suggested, setting his briefcase on the table. When Dykmans had taken the seat across from them, he continued. “As you know, the trial is just a month away. So we were hoping that you might be willing to tell us a bit more. If we could just go over the file again.”

  Dykmans did not respond but gazed out the window. He was not dismissive of her, she realized, but of the entire situation. It was as if someone else’s life was on the line and it was merely a show that he was watching. She was reminded once more of the inner-city kids she represented—they’d been burned by the system and were understandably wary, and she needed to gain their trust.

  She pulled a black-and-white photograph from the file Jack had shared with her at his office, a picture of a group seated before a fireplace. “Is that your family?” she asked. It was one of the two things she often found she could bond over with clients—family or sports—and the latter seemed unlikely to work here. Of course, family might be a risky topic, given the nature of the allegations against him.

  But Dykmans seemed to take the question in stride, reaching for the photo with calm hands. “That’s my Mutter and my father.” He mixed his English and German without noticing. “Of course my brother, Hans, and our sister, Lucy.” He did not speak further but continued to stare at the photo, a faraway look
in his eyes.

  “Herr Dykmans,” she began again gently. He looked up, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “We noticed on your passport that you’ve returned several times to Poland in recent years. Can you tell us why?”

  “Business,” he said simply. Charlotte blinked. She didn’t know what answer she expected but it wasn’t that.

  “You mean the emerging capital markets?” Jack asked, a note of impatience in his voice. Charlotte looked in his direction, annoyed. It took time to get close to a client, earn his or her trust. And she wanted to hear Dykmans’s explanation in his own words, without Jack jumping in.

  The older man shook his head. “No, sorry, I misspoke. Not that kind of business. Family matters. Attending to our home in Wadowice.”

  “It’s still there?” Charlotte interjected, unable to contain her surprise.

  “Yes. After the war, it was expropriated by the Communist regime. But ten years ago or so the Polish government passed restitution laws and one could file an application to have property returned. I did, and it was in a terrible state of disrepair, so I’m having it renovated.”

  For what purpose, she wanted to ask, but before she could speak further, Dykmans stood. “I thank you, but I’m growing a bit tired. If you’ll excuse me.” He walked to the door and knocked, waiting for the guard.

  “So that’s it?” Charlotte remarked a few minutes later as they walked through the front door of the prison.

  Jack nodded. “And for Dykmans, that was a long conversation. Probably the most I’ve heard him say.”

  “I see what you meant about him being unhelpful.”

  As Charlotte slid into the sedan she caught Jack’s eyes darting downward toward her legs, then away again so quickly she thought she might have imagined it. An unexpected spark of electricity ran through her. He’s attractive, she realized for the first time, and not just for his resemblance to Brian. What was his deal anyway? She wondered if he was married or seeing someone. He wore no rings, but that didn’t mean so much with men these days. She recalled stories from Brian years ago of a rich baroness who’d broken Jack’s heart, but other than that he had been alone, always alone. Brian didn’t understand his brother, mused more than once if he could be homosexual. “I’d be fine with that,” he hastened to reassure Charlotte, and she knew he would be in that don’t-ask-don’t-tell kind of way, but that he would never be best man at his brother’s same-sex union ceremony or be comfortable sharing a locker room with him. She’d surmised, though, that Jack wasn’t gay, that his brother was mistaking quiet intellect for effeminacy. Now she was sure of it.

  Not that it matters, she reminded herself now as the car pulled onto the motorway. Jack’s brusque demeanor, bordering on rude, completely negated any possible appeal he might have. And one Warrington man was enough for this lifetime, anyway. She smoothed her pants, forcing herself to concentrate on the conversation. “It was interesting, though,” she added.

  “Was it? I’m not sure he told us anything at all.”

  She traced her finger along a trail of condensation that had formed on the opposite side of the glass “The childhood home in Poland? It doesn’t make sense. Why would an international financier with a company to run spend so much time in rural Poland, fixing up an old house?”

  “Sentimental value?”

  “I don’t think so. I think he’s been returning to the house where his family lived before the war because he’s looking for something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jack pulled at his chin in a way that suggested more of a beard than was actually present. “Maybe whatever he’s searching for has something to do with his guilt.”

  “Or innocence,” she pointed out. “Don’t forget whom we represent.”

  “Right. Sorry. My prosecutorial instincts die hard.” But she could tell that it was more than that—Jack believed that Dykmans was guilty. “So what now?”

  A surge of energy ran through Charlotte. This was her case now, and she knew that regardless of whether Brian ever showed, she would see it through. “Now,” she replied, “we’re going to Poland.”

  Four

  BERLIN, 1922

  Sol ducked farther below the row of men’s overcoats, watching the girl behind the counter pass a paper-wrapped package to a customer. As the salesclerk’s fingers grazed the elderly man’s hand, Sol was instantly filled with envy at the inadvertent touch. She smiled sweetly and said a few words to the customer before turning back to the cash register to finish recording the sale.

  He had first seen the girl nearly a week earlier when he had come to the massive Kaufhaus des Westens to pick up some yarn for his mother. He’d balked at the errand—it was nearly four and even with the days lengthening there was not much time to get ready for the Sabbath and make his way to shul. But his mother had insisted—she and the maid were finishing up dinner preparations and without the yarn she would have no way to pass the long day tomorrow. He wanted to remind her that knitting on the Sabbath was an abomination or, from a less principled standpoint, ask why Jake could not go for her instead. But Jake was not yet home from work, Sol could tell from the quiet that still filled the house. Sol’s own job at the Gemeinde, checking copy for the obituaries and other non-news items to be printed in the Jewish newspaper, had ended at three that day. Having no excuse, he reluctantly set out for the department store, handing a clerk in notions the fistful of marks necessary to buy anything at all these days, as well as the note from his mother specifying exactly what she wanted so he would not, God forbid, get the wrong shade of blue.

  Then, as he carried the yarn toward the exit, he first glimpsed the girl at the counter by the front of the store. Initially he kept walking, his neck burning, feeling as though something was stuck in his throat. Then he stopped and turned back. She was Jewish, he was certain of that, though it was often harder to tell with the women now that most had gotten so liberal in how they dressed. This one was different, though, her sleeves a bit longer, blouse buttoned at the collar, with a modesty he found refreshing. Her skirt, he suspected, would be longer than was fashionable too, if he’d been able to see it. And it wasn’t just the tight curl of her raven black hair, which refused to be cowed into the low knot she’d attempted, which signaled her faith. Nor was it the arc of her nose, flanked by dark eyes set just a shade too close, reminding him of a wise owl. No, there was a fearful look, a slight hesitation as she hung back from the other clerks, that told him she was not one of them.

  His mind raced as he boarded the streetcar for home and for days after he saw the girl’s face in his mind. “Do you need some more yarn?” he asked his mother the following Friday afternoon, hoping to come up with an excuse to return to the store.

  Her brow furrowed with confusion as she patted the still-round skein beside her. “Nein, darling.” Then she smiled, accepting her son’s offer at face value for the goodwill it seemed to convey. “But perhaps some needles.” She reached for her bag, but when she turned back, marks in her outstretched hand, he was already gone.

  Sol loitered now behind the coats, purchased needles in hand, watching as the salesgirl wrapped a parcel for her final customer of the evening. Inhaling the dusty smell of fresh wool, he tried to come up with some excuse to inquire about the fine jewelry the girl sold. In earlier years, he might have turned his nose up at the idea of a shop girl, but he had little room for snobbery now that the family was not so well off. And it took experience and a certain poise to get a job at the city’s largest store, especially in such an upscale and centrally placed department.

  Not that Sol had ever had the opportunity to consider women in the real sense of the word. Before the war, when he’d been scarcely more than a boy, they were like dangerous animals in the wild, strange creatures to be studied from a great distance. And afterward, well, he’d come back so broken … it was hard to imagine anyone wanting to share the life of a lone Orthodox clerk who lived at home and had nothing.

 
The girl was packing up her belongings, he could see, closing out her register for the night. He imagined the conversation that he would never have with her, cursing his own lack of nerve.

  “Mein Herr,” a voice said behind him as the girl started for the door. It was a salesclerk, nudging him to buy something or move on. Sol did not turn or respond, but started swiftly for the exit. Outside, he looked toward the bus stop at the corner, hoping the girl might be waiting there, but there was no sign of her.

  Defeated, he turned away. He had lingered longer than anticipated and it was almost sundown, so he tucked the needles in his pocket to give to his mother later, then made his way absentmindedly toward shul.

  Bypassing the streetcar stop, he navigated the busy thoroughfare and made his way across Wittenbergplatz, past the still fountain. The tinkle of piano music spilled forth from the open door of a Kaffeehaus. Sol turned to look through the window at the patrons enjoying their end-of-week gatherings, caught somewhere between envy and disdain. The revelry was unseemly, he thought, in a city where so many people could barely find work, let alone socialize. And it felt forced somehow, like people were acting as they thought they should behave, mimicking what they had read in books or perhaps seen in a movie, if they had been fortunate enough to visit the kino, as Sol had managed twice over the years. In the warmer months, when the outdoor beer gardens drew even larger throngs, he avoided the square altogether.

  The synagogue, set at the edge of the Jewish quarter, was a large, opulent structure with stained-glass windows and a gold dome on top. As Sol entered, the other men looked up and nodded vaguely in his direction before turning back to their conversations. They were middle class, mostly, or had been in better times, merchants and tradesmen hailing from the surrounding eastern districts of the city, their work clothes pressed a bit more carefully or perhaps covered with a suit coat for the Sabbath.