by Robert Elmer
I wonder if I should be reading these? They looked — private, somehow — personal letters. But she couldn’t just throw them away without even looking at them. Her great-grandmother had saved them for a reason. She unfolded one and held it up to the light.
The first was dated 1948 and addressed to Mrs. Brigitte DeWitt in the precise, feminine script of the American nurse who signed the note. Liesl caught her breath as she read: “Your husband is struggling bravely, even after losing both legs.”
What?
“Though he remains in critical condition, you should know that he asks for you often. We hope that you can leave Germany soon to join your husband.”
Liesl wrestled to put the words into place, strained to make sense of them. For one thing, the letter was dated after her grandfather supposedly died in a plane crash. And for another thing, how did they end up in Uhr-Oma Poldi’s Bible?
No. This was the kind of thing that happened in the movies, not in real life. She picked up the second letter, obviously scrawled a couple of months later by a man with not-so-neat penmanship.
“Dearest Brigitte, I am not the man you married anymore, and I understand why you might have second thoughts about us. But won’t you please write back?”
Liesl read it through to the signature at the end (“Your Fred”) but still couldn’t believe she was holding letters her Oma Brigitte should have seen many years ago — but clearly never had. How could this have happened? Not even the third letter, dated two months later, explained everything.
“Dear Brigitte,” Liesl’s breath caught as she read her American grandfather’s message, “I received the note from your mother-in-law, and I want you to know that I will not contest the annulment.”
Annulment? Liesl wasn’t completely sure of the English word, but it became clear when she read the next sentence:
“I understand your decision to end our marriage, though I never thought it was a mistake. I guess you deserve better than taking care of a crippled American for the rest of your life. I wish you had written me yourself, but I also wish you all the best in your new life with your new husband-to-be. Love always, Fred.”
Liesl read each of the letters again and again, still trying to put the story together. If they meant what she thought they meant, her great-grandmother had pulled off a horrible lie. Or maybe Oma Brigitte had known all along? Either way, she had to tell someone, right now. Was this part of the truth that was supposed to set her free?
Letters in hand, she slipped off her bed and padded down the hall toward her parents’ room.
Never mind that her clock said 2 A.M.
13
KAPITEL DREIZEHN
SECRET TOLD
“But this is crazy. Absolutely crazy!” Willi Stumpff paced the living room floor the next morning, waving the evidence in his hand. “If I hadn’t read these letters myself, I would never have believed it. I’m still not sure I do.”
“We have to believe it, Papa,” Liesl said. She glanced at her grandmother. But Oma Brigitte merely stared out the window, far, far away. She’d hardly said a word.
At least the Berliner Morgenpost hadn’t splashed Liesl’s photo all over the front page. She looked down at the paper on the coffee table again to reassure herself.
“We’ll have to verify the information Liesl has found.” Her father sounded like a businessman now, or a lawyer making sure of the facts. “This will take some time, you know. We’ll need to go through the right channels.”
Verify. The right channels. As if anybody really doubted what he held in his hands and what she’d learned at the American embassy. The pieces had begun to fall together and make sense.
“Mutti?” she asked her mother. “Are you okay?”
Liesl’s mother looked as numb as Oma Brigitte. Who knew? The bomb that Liesl had discovered in her great-grandmother’s Bible had blasted apart so much of what they’d believed for the past — what, forty years?
Liesl had told them what she’d learned at the embassy, which these letters confirmed, right? As far as the information went, that is. But this was Oma’s Brigitte’s husband they were talking about. The dead husband who might not have died after all. Her mother’s father. The father Sabine had never known — the father who had never even known about her. Liesl had a hard time imagining what it must have been like growing up without a father.
“Is there any chance the letters aren’t real?” her mother wondered. Her voice sounded weary, so far away.
“They’re real, Mutti,” Liesl told her. “I wish they weren’t, but they must be.”
Of course life would have been much easier if this turned out to be someone’s idea of a cruel joke. But chances weren’t good for that. And now they had to figure out what had really happened.
“So let’s get this straight.” Herr Stumpff looked like a lawyer in a courtroom drama on the American TV station.
“Willi — ” Sabine interrupted her husband with a glance at Liesl that seemed to say, Should she really hear this?
But it was far too late to shield her, and they all knew it. They couldn’t just pretend that Liesl didn’t already know everything — even if she didn’t quite understand it all yet. Her father shook his head and went on, and that was as much permission to stay as Liesl would get.
“Fred DeWitt’s plane crashed in 1948,” he continued, “we know that much, right?” He looked at Oma Brigitte for confirmation, but she continued to stare out the window at nothing. “But then he was taken to a hospital in the United States, where his life was saved but he lost both his legs.”
Liesl winced at the chilling thought, while her father went on, unfolding the mystery.
“Only you were told he didn’t survive, that he’d died with the other three crewmembers.”
Oma Brigitte’s shoulders began to shake, and Liesl nearly pleaded with her father to change the subject. She couldn’t bear to see Oma so upset. Please. Her mother walked over to comfort Oma.
“Did you know any of this, Mother? Even a little bit?”
At first Oma Brigitte didn’t answer. But she couldn’t possibly hold it all inside. A few moments later the tears began to come — a trickle at first, eventually a flood.
“Of course not! I believed he had died. Do you think I would have stayed here if — ”
If — She couldn’t finish.
“This is the part I don’t really understand.” Liesl puzzled the pieces around in her mind. “It doesn’t add up.”
Maybe not yet. But her father still had more of his case to make.
“His grandparents hated the thought of their Fred marrying a German, isn’t that right, Oma? Wasn’t that true?”
Another pause. But she took a long, ragged breath and drew herself up straight, determined to answer as best she could.
“They said they would never allow it.” She held her head in her hands. “They thought I was trying to trick him, use him as a way to escape to America. And they were very bitter, too. Over the dead body of Fred’s brother, they said. He was killed in the Battle of the Bulge.”
A World War 2 battle. Killed by German soldiers, of course. Right.
“But you got married anyway.”
Oma’s cheeks turned a little pink, and she looked at the floor.
“I had a son; he needed a father. Fred was a good man, a good Christian man. He cared about us, and he really seemed to love little Erich. Fred was — ”
Fred. The Amerikaner had a name, didn’t he?
“But what about the American military?” Maybe Willi was too much the lawyer now. But they did want to know. “Didn’t you expect something more official from the government? Something more than just a letter from his parents?”
Oma began to shake her head, then slowly answered, “I didn’t know what was supposed to happen. All I knew is what Fred’s parents told me. That he had died. That they had already buried him. And that they never wanted to see or hear from me again.”
“But how could they — ” Liesl didn’
t know how to finish her question. Her grandmother shrugged and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“They even sent me money. Three hundred fifty American dollars, which was a lot of money in those days.” She took her daughter’s cheek in her hand. “I used it to take care of you and Erich until I could get a decent-paying job.”
Liesl looked around the room and realized they all had tears in their eyes.
“I can see how they misled you,” Liesl said. She took the letters from her father’s hand and looked hard at them. “But he knew it wasn’t true. I mean, Fred knew he wasn’t dead. Why didn’t he ever come back?”
“Maybe because he believed Oma Brigette got remarried. He never got an answer from her directly,” Willi guessed as he rubbed his forehead. “But Brigitte never wrote to him because — ”
Liesl knew that someone had to say it. But it seemed so hard to comprehend.
She quietly finished her father’s sentence. “Because Uhr-Oma Poldi didn’t like the idea of her son’s widow marrying an American, just like his grandparents didn’t want him to marry a German. Is that right?”
The silence in the room told her yes. This felt so weird to Liesl. If not for the tears all around her, she might believe they were just talking about some characters in a story.
“So Oma Poldi kept the letters he sent. She could have set the record straight when Brigitte got those letters from his grandparents, but she didn’t.” Willi was winding up his case. “She even went so far as to send Fred DeWitt a letter saying Brigitte had found someone else, to keep him from writing again.”
“Ooooo!” Liesl pounded on the table with her fist. “That is so — I mean, how could she do that? I thought she was supposed to be a Chris tian! Why — ”
“We’ll never know why.” Liesl’s father didn’t have all the answers, after all. “All I know is she wasn’t perfect, like we aren’t . . . ja? She must have thought she was doing the best thing for Brigitte.”
“The best thing,” Liesl mumbled as she looked around the room. Yes, she knew that Oma had tried to apologize, how it didn’t make sense at the time. Was this what she had meant? Her grandmother — betrayed. Her family — cheated. And Onkel Erich, well, he lost as much as everybody else — a stepfather who loved him.
“I can’t imagine what Fred went through,” Herr Stumpff said sadly.
“Learning to live without two good legs.” Sabine had suffered from polio as a girl. She limped over to the couch and sat down, letting her crutch fall to the floor. “I think I can understand how that might have felt.”
No one spoke for a moment. Oma Brigitte broke the silence with a surprised gasp. Liesl followed her gaze as Oma asked, “Where did that come from?”
She meant the communion cup, which she recognized at once. “I haven’t seen that since the day Fred and I married.”
Liesl retrieved the little cup, along with the seed of a plan.
“I think we need to track down the Americans who brought us this cup,” she decided, taking it to her grandmother. “They’ll just have to tell us where it came from, and then — ”
If Fred DeWitt was still alive, they had to know. Brigitte had to know, more than anyone. And if not — well — they should know that, too.
“Do you still have the letter from the American boy?” Liesl asked her mother. Relief flooded through her when her mother nodded. At least they had a starting point.
“I’m going to look for him,” Liesl announced.
Her father started to say something, but didn’t. Her mother looked as if she might faint, her eyes closed tightly. So Liesl looked to her grandmother for permission, the question clear on her face.
Oma nodded weakly before burying her face in her hands.
14
KAPITEL VIERSEHN
THEY KNOW
“I’ll get it!” Nick ran for the phone, though he knew it was probably for his dad. You never knew, though. Maybe Fred had received his letter by now.
But Nick knew in an instant his friend wasn’t on the other end of the line.
“Sabine Stumpff calling.” Oh. A woman. Probably for Mom. Maybe somebody from the air base wives’ club. “I’m from the Versöhningskircheerinnerungsgesellschaft, and — ”
It took a moment for the monster word to register in Nick’s brain. Well, he’d only heard it pronounced once before, by Herr König. Meanwhile, the woman at the other end of the line said something he didn’t catch.
“Huh? I mean, excuse me, I wasn’t following.”
“I said, am I speaking to Nick Wilder? You wrote a letter to me regarding a chalice and enclosed your phone number. I wanted to thank you for what you did, returning the cup. The family especially is quite grateful, as it has great sentimental value.”
“Sentimental? Sure. I mean, that’s good. No problem.” Nick wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that.
“I do have a request, however. We would very much like to trace how the chalice came to be in your possession, perhaps find out where it has been all these years.”
Uh-oh. Nick stopped for a second to think. She wanted to know where he got it and how. He’d been afraid of that. And he wasn’t sure if that’s what Fred wanted or not. Or if Fred could get in trouble.
“Herr Wilder?”
“Yeah, still here. I was just thinking. The friend who gave it to me, well, he kind of wants to keep it anonymous, if you know what I mean. He just wanted to see the thing get back to where it came from. Is that okay?”
After a slight pause, the woman said, “I understand, but the family is quite intent on finding out as much as they can. You are certain you cannot help us?”
Nick swallowed hard, not totally sure what he should say next. Fred hadn’t said absolutely positively don’t tell them his name, had he? Just something about “keep it low key, would you?” Well, he’d tried.
“I just don’t want to get anybody in trouble,” he finally said. “Not that he did anything wrong. He’s not that kind of guy. It’s just that — ”
Nick hesitated. Maybe he’d already said too much.
“Please tell me if I’m wrong.” The woman’s voice sounded shaky, like Nick’s mother’s voice when she was about to cry. “But are we talking about a man missing both legs? Are we talking about — a man named Fred DeWitt?”
Holy guacamole. Nick almost dropped the phone when he heard that name.
“Whoa, lady. How did you know? I didn’t say anything about him — ”
But Frau Stumpff couldn’t speak. Nick heard what sounded like a sob, then another voice came on the line.
“Hello?” This time a girl spoke to him. “Sorry about that. This is Liesl, Sabine Stumpff’s daughter. You’re probably wondering what’s going on.”
“As a matter of fact — ” Nick felt totally confused. That confusion turned to amazement as Liesl told him about her grandfather, Fred DeWitt, what they thought had happened to him in 1948, what they had just found out, and how hard it was on her mom, who had fallen apart at the news. This girl called her mom “Mutti,” which Nick thought was hysterical, but of course he didn’t dare laugh. Besides, the story sounded too bizarre. Fred had never told him anything about this, nothing about a family back in Germany, or even what he had done when he was in the Air Force. In fact, Nick hadn’t even been sure Fred was in the Air Force. But then, Fred never talked much about himself, period.
“Nothing more than that?” Liesl pushed him, after he’d told her what he knew about Fred.
“Like I said, he doesn’t talk about himself much. He always asked me stuff about what I liked to do, about school and stuff. My dad was always busy, so we did stuff together. Worked on the plane, mostly. Took care of my dog when we moved. But I got the impression he didn’t really have a whole lot to brag about, if you know what I mean.”
How else could he explain it? Fred was a cool guy. He just wasn’t the most talkative person in the world. But this Liesl Stumpff didn’t seem to care about that. All she wanted now was his phone
number back in the States, so she could call him and tell him he had family here in Germany.
“I don’t know. He might not believe you. And if he does, he might have a heart attack if you just call him out of the blue. You know?”
Liesl paused.
“I’m sorry. My English. Sometimes I’m a little slow. I’m not sure what blue has to do with anything.”
“Oh!” He chuckled. “Sorry. I just meant, just coming out of nowhere. You know? No warning? He’s not like a really young guy, you know.”
“Of course I know. But I still must have the number.”
Whoa. Now this girl was getting a little too pushy.
“Well, listen, Leezuhl Stump. First of all, I don’t have his phone number. All I have is his mailing address, back in Greybull, see? And second of all, even if I did have his phone number, I’m not sure Fred would want me to give it out.”
“Not even to his granddaughter?”
Right. Nick almost forgot.
“Well — maybe. I still just don’t want you to scare him out of his wits. You know, like ‘hi, I’m your long-lost granddaughter you never even knew you had, since you never even knew you had a daughter? Remember me?’ I just think he’s going to freak out. You should just write him a letter. Give him a chance to, you know, soak it in a little.”
Liesl chewed on that one for a minute.
“A letter takes too long,” she nearly whispered. “And I don’t have enough time before I have to present my paper. But thank you anyway, Nick Wilder.”
15
KAPITEL FÜNFSEHN
FEIGLING
Liesl wasn’t kidding when she’d told Nick she didn’t have enough time. Two days later she looked out over the classroom full of faces and wondered why her hands were shaking this much.
After all, it’s just another day in history class, right?
Two other classes had joined them, filling the room to overflowing. But so what? If she were Cher, this crowd would seem small. And Liesl Stumpff loved to perform, didn’t she?
