And After the Fire

by Lauren Belfer

  The Schubert concluded. Soon their afternoon gathering was complete. Albertine gracefully organized the departures of their guests. Dr. Werner delayed his goodbyes. Paul sensed the doctor wanted a moment alone with him. Perhaps the doctor was feeling guilty.

  “Dr. Werner,” Paul offered with as much exuberance as he could muster, as if to say, no hard feelings, we are both professionals, we give our opinions forthrightly: death, bankruptcy, whatever our professional experience has empowered us to determine. “You must visit us again soon.”

  Paul walked with Dr. Werner along the balcony overlooking the central hall. What a beautiful house this was, the central hall with its paintings and tapestries, rendered brilliant from the sunlight pouring through the skylight . . . Paul saw his home with an abrupt clarity.

  At the top of the stairs, they paused. They were alone. “I believe my wife is planning another gathering on Saturday afternoon. I hope you’ll be able to join us.”

  “Thank you, Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. But I keep the Sabbath. I could join you on Saturday in the evening. If the party will continue into the evening.”

  “You keep the Sabbath?”

  Paul was surprised. He’d assumed the doctor was a nominal convert to Christianity, like himself. Paul had experienced a fraught entanglement with the two religions he didn’t practice: because of the anti-Jewish tirades of Richard Wagner and his followers, Felix had been denigrated in public perceptions. Although Felix was a baptized Christian, the Jew-haters had destroyed his legacy. Our Mozart had become the Jew Mendelssohn.

  “This has never been mentioned, that you practice Judaism.” Paul hoped he didn’t sound hostile to the idea.

  The doctor appeared to take no affront. “All your previous invitations have been for Sundays,” he replied.

  “Have you always?”

  “Always?”

  “Kept the Sabbath?”

  “Yes. Since childhood.” The doctor seemed confused. “Being Jewish.”

  Paul wasn’t certain if something else was being implied here, about the Jewish background of the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy family.

  “It’s become a habit, I’m afraid,” Dr. Werner said humorously, with no trace of either the defensive or the boastful. “I no longer live in my father’s house, but I still observe the Sabbath.”

  “We meet next Saturday for music because of a family obligation on Sunday.” Paul was surprised to find himself giving an explanation. As host, he had no need to explain himself. “Come to us two Sundays hence, if you are free. And do bring your viola.”

  “Thank you. I would be delighted.”

  The notion came to Paul in a flash: as an observant Jew and dedicated musician, Dr. Werner might feel compelling reasons to safeguard Sara’s artifact. Paul had no obligation, legal or moral, to keep the manuscript within the family. No document listed it, and he was the only family member who was even aware of its existence.

  Paul realized he was being impetuous, which heretofore he’d never permitted himself to be, dependable banker that he was. And yet as he considered the idea, he felt increasingly confident in the choice. He wished he could settle the matter by giving the manuscript to the doctor today. Alas, he needed to retrieve it from the safe in his office.

  “In two weeks, Doctor, kindly arrive early, so that we may again speak privately.”

  “Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, I must lay emphasis on a particular issue: if your symptoms change, if your pain becomes worse, please contact me.”

  The doctor spoke with a sympathy that sounded genuine. Paul was touched.

  “Regarding the pain—”

  “I don’t imagine I’ll be needing another medical examination. Not so soon, that is.”

  “But the pain—”

  “I’ve been living with the pain for some time. That’s the reason I requested our consultation.”

  Paul had hoped to garner a smile from the doctor for this admittedly weak witticism, but the man’s only response was increased concern.

  “Truly, Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy—”

  “I have something I want to give you, when next you visit. A gift, to thank you for your astute diagnosis.”

  “That’s kind of you, but a gift would embarrass me. I can’t treat you for anything more than the pain. Only charlatans would recommend more treatment than that, subjecting the patient—you, in this case—to needless suffering.”

  Paul would have been happy to have such a son as this. “Thank you for your consideration, which I appreciate.”

  “I can’t save you. Therefore, please, no gifts are necessary.”

  “This is a gift I must ask you to conceal. You may very well come to regard it as an affliction. So we’ll consider ourselves equal.”

  Paul walked the good doctor down the curving staircase.

  Chapter 43

  Say what you will about Germans, Dan thought, and not for the first time, they put on a fantastic breakfast buffet. As the maître d’ led them through the dining room, Dan couldn’t help but feel lucky. He wasn’t accustomed to opulent surroundings, and in his opinion the Hotel Elephant in Weimar was opulence itself. As for the style of the place, this could best be described as Art Deco Fascist. Roughly seventy years ago, Hitler had exhorted the masses from the hotel’s front balcony overlooking Weimar’s market square. Three hundred years ago, what was now the hotel parking lot had been the site of the home where Johann Sebastian Bach and his family lived, when Bach worked for the ducal court of Weimar. His sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel were both born in Weimar, presumably in the house on the site of the hotel parking lot, mere yards away from this very dining room.

  Dan could never have afforded this hotel. Susanna, who was paying for it, must be earning an excellent salary indeed in her job of advising a family on how to give its money away. She was introducing him to a way of life he’d never known. Their fellow guests were German haute bourgeois, evidenced by their tweeds and sensible shoes. Dan observed them while the server poured exceptionally strong coffee for him, and Susanna ordered East Frisian tea, which in due course she reported was also exceptionally strong and delicious.

  Once the tea and coffee had woken them up, they went to the buffet, which occupied a room of its own. The aromas of bacon and sausage filled the air. Trays of cold breakfast meats and cheeses covered a side table. Platters of brown bread, three varieties. Eggs in four types of preparation, arrayed on hot plates. Cinnamon pastry and cherry strudel, just baked. A chef creating omelets to order. Dan stood in the middle of the room and breathed deeply. He felt a kind of bliss, a memory of being four years old . . . it was Christmas morning, and his grandmother was making an old-fashioned German breakfast.

  At the Hotel Elephant, every morning was Christmas morning.

  As he filled his plate with eggs and sausage, he looked for Susanna. She was waiting in line for oatmeal, presented from a large silver tureen. She held a side plate heaped with bacon. To his everlasting confusion, she refused to eat pork, saying it wasn’t kosher (even though she didn’t keep kosher), but she loved bacon and claimed that, in some inscrutable philosophical sense, it didn’t count as pork.

  An older woman, dressed in a sweater set with a plaid skirt, slate gray hair pulled into a bun, representing the German haute bourgeois to perfection, stood behind Susanna, staring at her with a frown, no doubt disapproving of Susanna’s extravagant portion of bacon. The German haute bourgeois were notoriously supercilious. Dan joined the omelet line.

  Again he glanced toward Susanna. The woman still stared at her, stared frankly at his Susanna, even at 8 a.m. dressed with flair, her hair curling in ringlets. Now that he shared her day, waking up with her, going to sleep with her, he knew that she didn’t work to look this way. She simply did. She couldn’t help it.

  When they were seated at their table, he looked around and saw others glancing in their direction. He said, “People are staring at you.”

  “Pardon?”

  “They’re staring at you.
”

  “Who is?” She glanced around. “No one’s staring at me.”

  “Look again, more slowly.”

  Dan followed her gaze. The woman directly opposite was looking intently at her. The woman leaned toward her husband to whisper. The husband in turn peered over his shoulder at them. On the other side, a husband gestured to his wife, to look around at Susanna.

  “I’m not properly dressed, that’s the problem,” Susanna said. “To stay at hotels like this, I need to adjust my wardrobe. The hotter the day, the heavier the tweeds. Plus clunky shoes. Those are de rigueur.”

  The staring women, all decades older than Dan and Susanna, wore stockings and proper shoes. Susanna, by contrast, wore a dark skirt with a sweater, sleeves pushed up, buttoned over a V-neck tee. She wore sandals and no stockings. Today’s forecast predicted temperatures in the mid-’80s. By American standards, she was conservatively dressed for a hot summer’s day of touring.

  “On the other hand, they may suspect we’re too young to afford this place,” she continued. “They’re expecting the manager to toss us out any second.”

  He resisted her urge to make light of the situation. “Possibly, but the family over there,” he indicated them, “the couple with the infant, they look younger than we are, and no one’s bothering them.”

  “No one’s bothering us.”

  “I know why they’re staring,” he said, abruptly convinced. “The good German with the dirty Jew. They have a sixth sense for it. What’s she doing here, they’re thinking. They’d assumed your family would have been rounded up and taken away for good.”

  “Which—just for the record—is probably exactly what happened to most of my family.”

  “And these people reserve a special hatred for Aryan men like me, who consort with women like you.”

  “Dan, you’re imagining this.”

  He motioned with his chin, indicating a table on the side. “The woman over there has evidently told her husband to look at you. Now they’re both staring at you. And they’re not even polite about it. They just gaze openmouthed. Like you’re a giraffe or a zebra.”

  Susanna did stand out, Dan knew. She was exotic. He’d grown accustomed to her, in a good sense. He’d forgotten how different she was. In Germany she would especially stand out. This was a homogeneous culture, where every difference was noticed. Turks, North Africans, Roma, Jews: each received a different gradation of judgment. None belonged at the Hotel Elephant. Yet here she was, a Jew, sitting at breakfast among the Herrenvolk. To his shame, Dan knew he looked the part of an SS officer. He appeared more Aryan than most of the bourgeois German men around him, who’d aged into baldness and wide waists, shirt buttons straining over their middles. Dan represented the Aryan ideal.

  “That woman won’t stop whispering,” Dan said. “This can’t be happening.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t happening. Whatever you think you’re seeing, you have to ignore it. I want to enjoy this bacon in peace.”

  “What is it with them—pure hatred? Guilt? Curiosity? A fear that Jews will take revenge on them?”

  “Look, I admit it: I see what you’re talking about. But I’m not sure you’re right about the reasons. They might be happy that I’m here. They may be trying to welcome me. To ask for my forgiveness. Get my autograph. Touch my curly hair. Weimar isn’t Berlin. It’s a small town. They’re probably not accustomed to visitors like us.”

  “This is a hotel. The people staying here are tourists, from all over, like us.”

  “Point taken. But more important, who cares what they think? They’re just a bunch of old Germans.”

  “I’ve had enough.” He stood up even as Susanna wrapped both her hands around his arm to make him stop. Her hands slid down his arm, she gripped his hand, but he shook her off. As if heading to the buffet, he passed the nearest woman’s table and said loudly, for the benefit of all, “Wollten Sie denn ein Photo knipsen?” Would you like to snap a photo? He walked on without waiting to see their reaction.

  Instead of going to the buffet, he headed outside to the garden, adjacent to the dining room. The grass was damp from an early morning rain. He was shaken, both at the response Susanna’s presence had provoked and at his reaction.

  Then she was beside him.

  “Are you feeling okay? You don’t seem yourself today.”

  “Your being here reminds them of what they did.”

  “But that’s our victory, isn’t it?” Susanna took his hand. “I’m eating breakfast in their midst. Sitting at the next table. They can’t order me to leave. Or call the police to take me away. And that says everything.” She opened his hand and kissed his palm, then pressed his fingers into a loose fist, so he wouldn’t lose her kiss.

  “Well, then,” she said, as if beginning a new chapter of their day, “I’m ready for dessert. I want to try the Kirschstrudel. I wonder how it would taste with bacon on the side.”

  The concierge, a slender blonde in her early twenties who looked pert in her hotel uniform, was confident of her knowledge. She only wanted to help, by correcting Susanna’s misconception: “No, madam, we have no such place in Weimar. No ‘Buchenwald,’ as you call it.”

  “It isn’t in Weimar, it’s near Weimar.” Susanna kept her voice measured. Her pronunciation might be incorrect. W was pronounced v in German, she should have remembered. “Buchenvald. It’s just outside town. I’m only trying to find out the location of the nearest bus stop, to go there.” She’d read in the guidebook that a public bus route went to the camp and the trip took about fifteen minutes from central Weimar.

  Although the concierge gazed at her with an unbroken smile, her tone conveyed a suspicion that Susanna might just be a little crazy. “Forgive me, madam, but we cannot have a bus line to a place that does not exist.” The woman’s English was good, her accent American.

  “Please,” Susanna said, “let’s accept between us that the camp does in fact exist, and then you can give me the bus information.”

  “I’m sorry, madam, I must say again that you are mistaken. There is no ‘Buchenwald’ near Weimar.”

  Had the concierge actually never heard of the camp? Was she embarrassed? Ashamed?

  “I can go to my room and get the guidebook to show you.”

  “Excuse me a moment, madam.” She went into the back office.

  Susanna waited. Dan was glancing through the German newspapers displayed on the table at the far side of the hotel lobby. She didn’t want to call him over for German-language assistance, when English did not seem to be a problem for the concierge. How strange, the reactions she was eliciting.

  After a few minutes, a different concierge appeared, equally blond, lovely, and fastidiously uniformed, as if the concierges were mass-produced. This young woman held several photocopied sheets of paper.

  “Here we are, madam,” she said, as if there’d been no problem. “This is the public bus schedule from Wielandplatz, the closest bus stop to the hotel, plus the return schedule. The bus destination you want is Buchenwald/Gedenkstätte. And here is a map. I’ve marked the way to walk to Wielandplatz from the hotel. The fare is one euro sixty each way. Have a good day,” she added. Pushing the papers across the counter to Susanna, she turned her attention to the next person on line, an elderly man dressed in the requisite tweeds and leaning on a cane.

  “Guten Morgen, mein Herr,” the concierge said to him. “Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?”

  Susanna took two steps away from the counter, close enough to hear the man’s inquiry about the visiting hours at the Goethe Museum. She examined the photocopies. The buses ran frequently.

  Chapter 44

  WEIMAR, GERMANY

  June 1942

  In the early evening, Dr. Gertrude Gensler, geborene Werner, sat on the terrace of her home on Tiefurter Allee, overlooking the valley. Everything around her glowed . . . the lawn, the valley, the hills on the opposite side.

  The problem she faced, or so she reflected, was that her husband was an optimis
t. Throughout the time she’d known him, more than forty-five years, no matter what misfortune the world had tossed him, he’d seen hope and potential.

  She was not an optimist. She was the worrier in their household. Lightning striking the roof, storms flooding the basement, gas leaks in the kitchen, such potentialities were a constant concern for her. Odd for a physician, a scientist, after all. She was a pediatrician, however, so maybe her anxieties weren’t so unusual: mothers worried. But worrying wasn’t able to save her own child, dead when he was six years old from scarlet fever.

  How dispassionate she could sound, all these years later. He would be grown up now, her little Gustav. Married, with children of his own. She’d be a grandmother several times over. She’d have something to live for, besides her husband.

  At any rate, Ernst joked that he didn’t have to worry about anything, because she worried about everything.

  This morning a nagging fear had become reality: they’d received a deportation notice. Although Gertrude didn’t tell Ernst I told you so, the news did provide a grim private satisfaction. She’d predicted this, and it had come to pass.

  The surprise was that their deportation notice hadn’t been sent sooner. Even so, Ernst was at the Rathaus, begging for a reprieve from his dear friend Stefan, who had, alas, joined the Nazis. She doubted Ernst could secure a delay, now that the official notice had arrived. This friend, Stefan Rukeyser—they were close, he and Ernst. Or at least they had once been. They’d come up through the ranks of young attorneys together.

  After the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, and before the war began, she and Ernst might have left the country. Several offers of help, two from Great Britain, came their way. Ernst was well-known in his field, the author of several books on international law. Ernst refused the offers, even after he, as a Jew, was forbidden in Germany to practice law, or teach, or publish the books and articles he wrote. Even after more and more shops were closed to them, and food became harder and harder for them to find. Even after they were forced to sell their prized possessions one by one, for a pittance of their value, in order to survive. Leave the nation of Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Goethe? Of Schiller? Never. So said Ernst. Someone must remain to bring the country back to itself when this madness ends and the nation returns to normal.