“Let’s discuss how we proceed from here,” Katarina said.
“How we proceed?” He knew exactly where her thoughts were headed.
“With the line of women waiting to meet you. I won’t let you mope.”
“I’m not moping.”
“Moping is in the eye of the beholder. It’s September, it’s a new school year, it’s time for a fresh start.”
“Who says I want a fresh start?”
“It can’t be helped, you have to start afresh at the beginning of the school year whether you want to or not. So,” she said, seeming to read off an invisible list, “how about a divorced woman with a daughter younger than Becky?”
“Katarina—”
“Look,” she interrupted, “I wish I could offer you a widow with a child, but this is the best I can do at the moment.”
He didn’t know how to stop her. He didn’t want to talk about Susanna at the playground.
“This particular woman teaches at Haverford College and lives near there, so geographically she’s close but not too close, in case things don’t work out. You wouldn’t be running into each other at the supermarket. She teaches art history, with a specialty in Gothic architecture. Doesn’t she sound perfect?”
“Aren’t you being a little too . . . practical? It’s not very romantic. You make it more like a business exchange.”
“No, no, you’re wrong. This is the way of the world. You want too practical, you want business exchange, you can go online.”
“I would never go online.”
“And why should you? You have me.”
“From that perspective, I see your point.”
“How about if I give a dinner party to introduce you.”
“Please don’t go to any trouble on my account.”
“Then don’t put me through any trouble. Arrange to have coffee with her at Starbucks.”
“Katarina, the truth is . . .” he stopped, feeling unsure of himself. “I met someone.”
She sat up and turned to him. “Finally, you’re telling me this? It’s been the talk of musicologists around the world. Since you didn’t mention it, I assumed you’d broken up. That it was just a summer fling.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Good. You don’t seem like the type for a summer fling.”
“It doesn’t seem workable, though. She lives in New York.”
“Not workable?” Katarina was incredulous. “As you probably know, there’s a guy in the history department who commutes three times a week from New York.”
He did know. “There’s Becky.”
“Who wouldn’t love Becky?”
“And there’s religion. She’s Jewish.”
“You think I don’t know she’s Jewish? Who doesn’t know that?”
“Really?” He was astonished.
“I agree, we’re a pretty dull crowd, with nothing to talk about but you. As to the religious difference, all I can say is, so what? At least give things a chance before you put up roadblocks. I’d be happy to host Becky some weekend so you can go to New York and see what happens.”
“Thank you,” he said, all at once delighted. “I’ll make a plan.”
Chapter 50
Susanna stood at the entryway to Diane and Jenna’s renovated kitchen. The pantry was gone, and light entered the room from both sides. Green granite countertops and white cabinets created an airy, tranquil impression, as if the house were near the ocean. A sprig of fresh mint was in a vase on the counter.
“This is gorgeous,” Susanna said.
“Thank you,” Jenna said. She taught studio art at a private school in the suburbs. With her long hair pulled into a loose bun, Jenna had a nineteenth-century aura about her, as if she could have modeled for Whistler or Sargent. “We were hoping you’d like it.”
Diane said, “We were a little nervous about your reaction, too.” Diane looked professional even in her casual weekend clothes, but she had a diffidence that was surprising to Susanna, given her work as a corporate litigator.
“I more than like it. It’s fantastic. You’ve made it your own.”
As they toured the house, Susanna felt disoriented. On the second floor, the hallway had been reconfigured. Two small rooms had been merged into one. Susanna couldn’t precisely delineate her childhood bedroom. They returned downstairs. Diane and Jenna had made Greta and Henry’s bedroom, with its bay windows overlooking the backyard, into a den.
And this was where they’d set up a card table, covered it with an old tablecloth, and placed upon it the box they’d found in the basement.
“We wanted to give you some privacy,” Diane said.
“We never would have found this,” Jenna said, “except the contractor was looking around with a flashlight because he wants to replace the boiler.”
“I don’t understand why anyone would hide a cardboard box behind a gas boiler with a pilot light,” Diane said.
“It’s like you’re asking for it all to go up in smoke,” Jenna said.
Maybe that was exactly what Evelyn and Henry had been hoping for, Susanna thought.
“Anyway, we’ll leave you to it,” Jenna said. “We’ll be sitting on the front porch, if you need anything. Help yourself to whatever you like in the refrigerator.”
“Thank you.”
Then Susanna was alone. The room now featured pale gray paint and a wall of floor-to-ceiling bookcases. She couldn’t recall where the bed had been, or the bureaus. Uncle Henry had died in this room, but she didn’t feel haunted by his presence. She was in a stranger’s home, with no pull of nostalgia or regret.
The box was bigger than a shoe box, more like a box for winter boots. The top of the box was streaked with embedded dirt. Diane and Jenna must have tried to clean it, and this was the best they could do. Faded lettering covered the box, too faint for Susanna to make out.
Susanna took off the top and put it aside. The box was filled with envelopes and folders, each one labeled.
She opened the first folder.
It held dozens of photographs. Names were written on the backs. The handwriting was spidery, as if the person doing the writing were infirm, or upset. Susanna’s grandmother, who’d known these people, must have written their names. The pictures were in black and white. Some were snapshots. Others bore the stamp of photographers’ studios.
Here was a stolid man posing in front of a shop. Max, said the note on the back. Next, a serious little boy wearing a Tyrolean jacket, accompanied by an elderly man who stood beside him, a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder: Abraham and Franz. Susanna didn’t know which name was for the boy, which for the man. A woman wearing a fur-collared coat stood in a garden: Chana. A couple, holding hands, sat on a porch: Sophie and Leo. Sophie looked away from the camera, as if she were shy. Next, a young woman, her hair pulled back, the turn of her shoulders revealing a sense of style: Shoshanna. A young man, reading a book: Jakob.
A studio portrait labeled my mother showed a white-haired woman wearing a long, dark dress. The woman smiled down at a baby cradled in her arms. Perhaps my mother was actually the baby. Susanna had no way of knowing.
This was only the beginning of the collection of pictures. Susanna put the photos aside for now.
The next folder held letters. These were addressed to Susanna’s grandmother in Brooklyn. The family name on the return address was Alshue, as Evelyn had said. Alshue, in the town of Eger—one of the towns Susanna had checked, without finding a reference to her family. The letters were written in German. Susanna couldn’t read them. Also included in the folder were receipts for money orders sent to the family in Eger.
The following folder held carbon copies of correspondence with attorneys and government officials in America and in Germany. As Susanna read through the correspondence, she realized that her grandparents had promised to sponsor family members so that they could enter the United States. They’d sent $4,000, which must have been a fortune at that time, to help the family secure visas and other docu
mentation. More letters were sent. More replies were received, family letters interspersed now with official communications.
And then the letters from Eger stopped.
The next folder was devoted to materials from after the war. Carbon copies of inquires to the Red Cross, the International Tracing Service, the Joint Distribution Committee. Clippings of advertisements placed in newspapers. These reminded Susanna of the heartbreaking pleas for news about the missing after 9/11. Judging from the stack of materials, Susanna’s grandmother had devoted years to trying to discover what had happened to the family. She’d found nothing.
Susanna returned to the photographs. Two men, Isaak and Samuel, in World War I uniforms. A girl, Ruth, about fifteen, holding school books and standing at a garden fence. Susanna’s great-aunts and -uncles. Her cousins. Her great-grandparents. Young women who seemed eerily familiar. Susanna could almost hear their voices. See them sitting down to dinner together. She could attend their engagement parties and weddings, and celebrate the births of their children. She could share the walks they took on summer evenings in the twilight.
Her family. Susanna didn’t need to continue her search for details about their terrible deaths. Their lives had been restored to her.
Chapter 51
Late on Sunday afternoon, Susanna stood amid a crowd of families in the gym of an intermediate school in the Bronx. She’d taken an early flight back to New York from Buffalo, bringing with her the photos, letters, and documents, packed in one of Diane and Jenna’s carryalls. After dropping her bags at home, she’d come here to watch a chess tournament. The pungent smell of years of sweat filled the air. Chain-link fencing covered the gym’s windows. The low-wattage overhead lights left the gym dim. Yet the family area teemed with excitement—a near-silent excitement, because no one wanted to distract the players in their cordoned-off area.
Susanna kept her eye on Dexter Vega, a thin boy with short hair who was dressed in chinos and a plaid shirt. He studied the chessboard with frowning concentration.
This tournament was sponsored by the Chess in the Schools program, supported in part by the Barstow Foundation. Hundreds of kids were competing. The organization sent detailed metrics to Susanna, outlining the school achievements of kids who played chess. The game developed problem-solving abilities. It cultivated patience, and thought before action. Granted, the majority of the kids wouldn’t go on to be chess masters, but that wasn’t the point. The program gave them a supportive community, and it helped them to develop the mental tools to succeed. Susanna included the statistics in her reports to the foundation board, but what made the program worthwhile for her were the individual kids, like Dexter, whom she’d been following for several years.
“You go, girl,” whispered the woman standing next to her. She wore white sneakers and a green medical uniform. RN, in big letters, was printed on the identification tag around her neck.
Dexter wasn’t playing against a girl, so Susanna didn’t feel disloyal in asking, keeping her voice low, “Your daughter is out there? Winning her match?”
“My niece. Third from the right,” the woman said, indicating a graceful girl who looked like a gymnast or a ballet dancer. “What about you?”
“I’m following the boy here, with the plaid shirt. He’s a friend.”
Dexter Vega easily triumphed.
“He’s looking good,” the woman said.
“He loves the game.”
Rather than raising a fist or otherwise celebrating, Dexter held on to his steady focus, shifted to a new seat, and began his next match. Dexter was in sixth grade. He’d matured since Susanna had first met him, developing from a vulnerable youngster struggling to learn to read into a confident boy who was a good student, regularly receiving A’s and B’s. Was his transformation caused by his passion for chess? Or did his innate abilities lead to his passion for chess?
Susanna didn’t know and didn’t care. Results were what mattered, and clearly the Barstow Foundation had helped Dexter. That meant she had helped him, too.
“I hope your niece does well,” Susanna said.
“Thank you.”
Taking a break, Susanna went to the canteen on the other side of the gym and got a cup of coffee. She returned to the area where Dexter was playing and looked for a free chair. She spotted one in the middle of a row and sat down. Two boys, about six or seven years old, were next to her. They’d set up a small chessboard across the space between their folding chairs, and in silence they played a match of great drama, expressed through their pantomimed gestures. With any luck, in a few years the Barstow Foundation would be helping them, too.
A question came into Susanna’s mind: What was Uncle Henry’s cantata worth? Dan had once called it priceless. She could auction it and give the money to charity.
Now that she’d thought of it, the idea seemed obvious. What was the point of donating the cantata to a museum, or keeping it hidden or even destroying it, when it could be put to good use and change individual lives for the better?
A negative voice inside her said, what if a white supremacist tried to buy it and exploit it?
Such a person would be unlikely to have the money, or to get involved with high art music.
Would reputable charities even accept money gained from such an artifact?
Some, maybe even many groups would surely see the justice of her plan.
From a legal perspective, could she do this? Did she in fact own the cantata or have the right to sell it for charity?
She needed to do research on these issues. The time had come to consult an attorney, as soon as possible.
An array of positive outcomes jostled for her attention. Bringing the cantata into public scrutiny would encourage discussion of its unsettling messages. It would force people who didn’t normally want to talk about such issues to at least think about them. Furthermore, Susanna would break the web of secrecy in her own family. Auctioning the cantata for charity felt like a way to take power over it and over what it meant, in history and in her family.
The idea filled her with energy. She wanted to start working on it right away. She was having lunch with Scott tomorrow; he might have some suggestions.
Dexter Vega kept winning, so she didn’t have a chance to say hi to him. She’d seek him out and congratulate him the next time she observed the program.
Chapter 52
For lunch, Scott chose the restaurant Robert, on the top floor of the Museum of Art and Design at Columbus Circle. Susanna had thought Robert was too grand, too expensive, too delicious, and that it implied too much in its beauty and its view, for this lunch. She’d suggested an informal café across the street.
Oh, come on, let me do my part to help the economy, Scott had replied.
And so here they were, being led to a window table with a view that stretched for miles across the city, Central Park deep green, office and apartment towers glinting in the sunlight.
When they were settled, Scott said, “I spoke to Dan over the weekend.”
Susanna felt wary.
“We’re completing our research into the cantata. He asked how you are.”
“Why did he think you’d know?”
“Okay, I confess: I e-mailed him that I’d seen you. What’s going on between you two?”
“I’m not certain. What did he say?”
“He wasn’t certain either.”
“So he and I agree.”
“Does this mean I wouldn’t be considered aggressive if I—”
Intuiting where this was going, Susanna said, “You’re impossible.” But she laughed as she said it. “However,” she added, “I did write to him last night. Requesting German translation services for some family letters I found in Buffalo.”
“Translations—good ploy.”
“I thought so. He wrote back that he really needs to see the letters to translate them. Photocopies or scans just aren’t good enough. So he’s coming to New York next weekend, to take a look.”
“I’m a
good translator from German. Just FYI. In case he has trouble.”
“I’ll keep your talents in mind.”
“Thank you. I’ve been thinking about you, because I’ve been following in your footsteps.”
“How so?”
“I’ve become a volunteer at the Third Street Music School. I felt I had to start doing something socially worthwhile. I’m teaching a rock-band class for twelve-year-olds from needy families. In high school I played keyboards in a heavy metal group, and that, along with my other musical training, prompted the school to approve me.”
“This is terrific news, Scott.” She was surprised to hear it from him. “I know the school. The Barstow Foundation supports it.”
“I saw the name on the plaque in the reception area.”
“The plaque is there to encourage others to give.”
“It’s certainly encouraging me,” he said provocatively.
“Enough.”
The server was at the table. Susanna ordered a salad, Scott the salmon.
“Look, Scott, I need your advice.”
“Now, there’s music to my ears.”
She ignored this. “I’m making a plan for what to do with the cantata manuscript.”
“I have to confess, one of the reasons—just one of the reasons—I asked to have dinner with you, a dinner you so deftly turned into lunch, was to make a plea that you consider an offer for it from the MacLean. We’d take good care of it.”
“I’m sure you would. However, first I do have to find out if I actually own it. Although the family in Weimar didn’t survive, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m the owner. I’m looking for an attorney with expertise in this area. If in fact I do own it, I’ve decided to sell it at auction and give the money to charity.”
“You could accept the MacLean’s offer and give that money to charity.”
She paused, thinking this through. “I’d like to keep the process objective. I’d also like to find out how much the cantata is really worth. An auction is the best way to do that.”
And After the Fire Page 38
