The foundation’s cracked. The house settled. So the windows won’t open, and the doors won’t close.
“The front door didn’t close when she was alive,” I tell them. “It’s not like it’s going to fix itself now.”
The two of them stare at me as if I’m a talking owl. In the back of my head I’m trying to figure out who would have called the police about the door, and decide, irrationally, that it’s one of the dog walkers always coming back here so their pooches can swim in the pond.
“Besides which,” I add brightly, “you guys went inside. There’s nothing in there worth stealing.”
Neither of them crack a smile. They are very serious, with shaved heads and the look of men who used to be in the military. With shaved heads like Sonny’s.
“OK,” they say in unison. “We’ll make sure the town knows about the death, and hopefully whoever’s in charge of the house will take care of it.”
They drive away. The door stays open.
~~~~
Sonny’s wall is nearly done. It’s a foot thick, each stone in the right place, no signs of leaking or fissures. The last bit of wall is the topping. The corners are strong. The wall isn’t finished. But I haven’t seen Sonny for a while.
When the ambulances came, I wondered. But it wasn’t for Sonny. It was for his wife.
Because she died at home, her body had to be autopsied. It didn’t matter that she was very old and sick for years. She died in her own bed, and that makes the circumstances irregular. It’s just not done. Not any more.
It was The Jerk’s kids who told me. They hate me but love Sonny. Now that he doesn’t have his wife to look after, they are trying to look out for him. They’ve been bringing him beer and chips, you know, stuff to eat. Their faces are earnest as they smoke nervously, having come to the wall to chat with the enemy.
“That’s some wall Sonny’s built for you,” I say quietly.
“We know,” they reply, and take long, deep drags, the kind that kill time with every breath.
Because they’ve watched him too, young boys with strong backs and weak wills. It’s finally dawned on them what patience can do. It can create an object strong enough to withstand death. To their teenage minds, an impossibility filled with romance. Fuck yeah. He’s cool.
I bring Sonny a lasagna and a loaf of homemade bread. He doesn’t answer the door, so I leave it on his stoop. I don’t leave a note. He will know who it is from.
~~~~
A few weeks later, it’s pouring rain, the kind of drenching storm that drives earthworms out of their holes, lest the water fill their homes and they drown. I look out my kitchen window, and through the heavy drops I can make out a man, walking back and forth, the water a veil turning him into a ghost. It’s Sonny, back at work, finishing his wall. One gravestone at a time.
Glimpse into the Past
“We all have our time machines, don’t we. Those that take us back are memories… And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”
― H.G. Wells
Apfelstrudel
Vicki Lesage
“Give it back!” my younger brother screamed.
“No! It’s mine!” his twin sister whined.
“I had it first!”
“I’m older!”
“By ten minutes. That doesn’t even count.”
My siblings, with light skin and mousy brown hair that matched mine, thought they were so grown-up. They’d been making noise and driving me crazy for four years now—not that I complained. As their older sister, I was too mature to gripe about such things. Whenever I needed to assert my authority, all 10 years of it, I reminded them that my age contained two digits. That shut them up real quick.
“Quiet, now!” Mother shouted from the kitchen. She was more effective than me, but couldn’t always be relied on to get the job done.
These arguments between my brother and sister were nothing new, but something felt different at our house lately. Mother and Father whispered a lot. They thought we didn’t notice, and Hans and Hannelore probably didn’t notice, but I knew something was going on. I’d hear the occasional phrase and try to piece together the entire story. “Not a good sign” or “we need to leave” or “what about the children?”
What were they worried about? Maybe Father’s job. He’d been spending less time at the office lately because he had fewer patients. Normally that would be a good thing—more time to spend with us and fewer sick people to take care of. But people were always sick, so it was odd that they weren’t going to see him any more. The families from temple still went to him, but the rest had found new doctors. Why? Father never said.
Or maybe they were worried about money, which would make sense if Father’s practice was failing. We always had food on the table, but I noticed the desserts were getting skimpy. Mother used to make this delicious apfelstrudel each Sunday, and if we ate small portions, we could make it last until Wednesday.
Oh how I loved her apfelstrudel! Grandmother had taught her how to make it just the way I liked it. Well, I guess it just so happened to be the way I liked it because Grandmother taught Mother long before I was born. It must have taken years to perfect the recipe. You could find apfelstrudel in every bakery, but none had the delicate, flaky crust that Mother’s did. None had tender apples that melted in your mouth. None had the hint of spice… What spice was that? I didn’t know. She had promised to teach me, but she hadn’t had time yet. Maybe if she wasn’t keeping so many secrets with Father she could have found an afternoon for me.
“Everyone get cleaned up for dinner. Quickly!” Mother called out from the doorway, then let the door swing back into place as she returned to her cooking.
I helped Hans and Hannelore so it wouldn’t take all night. The sweet smell of apfelstrudel had wafted in from the kitchen, and I knew we were in for a treat. I wanted to hurry up and eat my plate of brisket so we could get to the good part. With dessert appearing less and less often, we had to enjoy it when we could.
“Stop pushing!” Hans cried as Hannelore shoved him off the worn wooden stepstool in front of the sink.
“Children!” I reprimanded, then reached my arms around them to wash my own hands. Seriously! They could be such babies.
As we arrived at the dinner table, Mother and Father abruptly stopped their conversation. Mother had a strange look on her face, the same one she used when she had told me we couldn’t get a puppy, and the same one she used to break the news that Hannelore had torn the pages out of my favorite book. Something was definitely going on. Something bad. She hadn’t burned the apfelstrudel, had she? No, I didn’t detect anything other than the pleasant scent of baking apples in our cozy kitchen. Maybe our parents would finally explain what they had been whispering about?
“Children, sit down. We have to tell you something.”
I knew it. Hannelore and Hans started arguing over who had more potatoes on their plates, but I watched Mother without saying a word.
“You’re going to stay with some friends for a few days. A few towns over. You leave tonight. We will join you after the Sabbath. Father needs to finish some business, and you know he can’t work late on Friday.”
“Can I bring my train?” Hans asked.
“It’s already packed, sweetie.”
“How come he gets a train?” Hannelore wailed. “I want my dolly!” Of course.
“That’s already packed, too, dear.”
I didn’t bother to ask what was packed for me. I didn’t want to leave our house or my friends. I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew it wasn’t good. Something told me we would be gone for longer than a few days.
“Eat up, children! There’s apfelstrudel for dessert.”
But I didn’t want any. The sweet aroma I normally loved hung in the air, making me sick.
~~~~
“Edith, where’s Mama?” Hannelore asked, tapping my shoulder as I threw back the ratty blanket I’d been sleeping under.
“Shh, you’ll wake Hans,�
�� I whispered.
“I’m already awake, Edith. I can’t sleep. Where’s Mama? Where’s Papa?”
I couldn’t show my fear, but I was as scared and worried as they were. The weekend had passed, and Mother and Father hadn’t come. The friends we were staying with had been nice enough, but they made us hide in the cellar and the three of us had to sleep on one mattress. We knew them simply as “Madame” and “Monsieur.” They fed us weird food I couldn’t even pronounce. The worst was tarte Tatin, a poor excuse for Mother’s apfelstrudel. Living in a basement should have been the bigger part of my worries, but something about the dessert struck me. It was as if this couple was trying to reassure us everything was OK when it clearly wasn’t. And that meant things must be even worse than we realized.
“Go back to sleep, children. If Mother and Father said they were coming, they’re coming.”
~~~~
Two more weeks passed, and Mother and Father never came. Madame and Monsieur let us out of the cellar for 30 minutes each day so we could run around their yard and breathe fresh air. But then we had to go back and hide. Hans and Hannelore would play while I sat under an apple tree in their back yard, trying not to cry about all I had left behind. What were my friends doing? What was I missing in school?
Madame and Monsieur weren’t Jewish so we hadn’t been to temple since we left home. I admit I didn’t really mind—I much preferred reading or spending time alone—but all their books were in French, and I was getting bored. Well, as bored as you can get when you’re scared out of your mind.
“Allez les enfants, back to your room.”
“It’s not a room, it’s a cave,” Hannelore said. “When can we leave? We don’t want to stay in this stupid cave any more! Where’s Mama?” Her lip quivered, and I knew she was about to cry.
“Shh, child,” Madame murmured as she ushered us down the rickety steps. “You will be able to leave soon.”
We heard the distinctive click of the lock and knew we were in for the night.
~~~~
“Quickly, quickly!” Monsieur’s voice roused us from our sleep. Except for the flashlight he held, it was pitch black in our cellar. It must have still been nighttime. “It’s time to leave.”
“Leave?” Hans said. “Are Mama and Papa here?”
“Finally!” Hannelore shouted. “Mama and Papa are here!”
But I knew they weren’t. If they were, they would be here with us now. No, something even worse was happening.
“Come, now,” Monsieur insisted.
He led us up the stairs and nudged us into the backseat of a car, where the door had been open, waiting for us. Once we were inside, he slammed the door and tapped the roof of the car. The driver sped off down the dirt road, past an odd-looking statue of a cat and into the blackness of the night.
“Je suis désolé, je ne parle pas allemand,” he said. I had studied a little French in school, enough to understand that he had said he didn’t speak German. He didn’t say anything else the entire drive.
“Try to sleep, children,” I said to Hans and Hannelore.
They huddled up against me and drifted off to sleep. I eventually fell asleep myself, my face pressed against the cool glass of the car window.
When we woke up, we were surrounded by the most beautiful buildings I’d ever seen. This city must have been a million times larger than the tiny town we were from and the tiny village we’d been hiding in for the past few weeks.
The sun was rising. We must have driven all night.
The driver opened the back door. “Dépêchez-vous,” he ordered, motioning with his hand for us to exit.
“Hurry, children,” I said. I turned back to grab our suitcases, but it was only then that I realized our bags weren’t with us. We’d left so fast we hadn’t even gotten to take our belongings.
~~~~
“Un café crème, s’il vous plaît,” I said to the waiter as I sat down at the corner café. Ten years of living in Paris and I’d nearly perfected my accent. It helped that I’d learned it so young.
Hans and Hannelore were even better. If you didn’t know otherwise—if you didn’t know that we came from a German village right across the French border—you’d think we were all Parisian.
We’d adapted quickly to our new life. The city was wonderful, and the couple who took us in was welcoming. They’d enrolled us in school and gave us intense French lessons every spare minute. They told us to only speak French in public and in private—to never let anyone hear us speak German. We still did, though, when it was just the three of us, settling into bed at night.
We went to church every Sunday, and I always thought to myself that Mother would kill us if she found out. But of course she never would find out. Because we never saw her again. Not Father, either.
At the time, we were too young to know the details. We thought our parents had abandoned us. Once the adults stopped whispering behind our backs and started talking to us, and once our French became fluent enough, we learned of the Great War. We learned of a man who hated us, even though he didn’t know us. We learned that Mother and Father had sent us away to save us. But we didn’t learn what happened to Mother and Father.
Now, as I sat in a café along Boulevard Haussmann, I thought back to those first few weeks. How living in that cellar felt like torture of the worst kind. Ha! If I’d only known. I’d read about the torture innocent people—my people—had suffered, and it was infinitely worse than what we’d gone through. It was all so senseless and cruel.
Why had we been allowed to escape while others hadn’t?
Guilt about this overwhelmed me. I guess I really had converted to Catholicism, hadn’t I? I at least had the guilt part down. I sipped my coffee without enjoying it.
My brother, my sister and I had survived. Mother and Father hadn’t. I tried to appreciate my new life. I knew I should be grateful for it. But I missed Mother and Father so badly. I didn’t have a single memento. Not even a tiny scrap from my previous life to hold on to…
But wait! The luggage! We had left our bags behind in the cold, damp cave because we’d departed in such a hurry. I wondered: Now—now that the war was over, and we could travel freely—could I return to that country house and retrieve our belongings? And thank Monsieur and Madame for saving us?
I was afraid to face the past but exhilarated at the same time. I’d hardly thought about that cellar during the past decade, and now I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
~~~~
I stepped off the train and glanced around, hoping to recognize something in the small French town, so small that its “station” was a lone shack next to the tracks. I could see the village square from here, but of course it didn’t look familiar. I hadn’t ever seen the actual town before. I’d barely seen more than the house we’d stayed in and the narrow dirt road taking us to our new life.
I entered the station and studied a tattered map affixed to the wall. That’s when it hit me how foolish I’d been to come here on such little information. Monsieur and Madame hadn’t even told us their names! Hans and Hannelore (or Henri and Hannah as they went by now) were in school back in Paris so I’d have to figure this out on my own.
I headed to the main plaza and wandered into one of the cafés that lined the square. “Un café crème, s’il vous plaît.” My usual.
“You are not from around here, Mademoiselle?” the waiter asked. Not impolite, just curious.
“Is it obvious?”
“Your accent, the way you dress, and the fact I saw you get off the train,” he said with a wink. “And your luggage.”
Oh, yes. My luggage. “I’m from Paris, but I’m here to find some old family friends. Perhaps you can help?”
“I can certainly try. What is their name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where do they live?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do they do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mademoiselle, I would love to
help you, but I am not a magician.”
I stirred some sugar into my coffee, realizing how ridiculous I must have looked. He was about to walk away, when it hit me. “Wait! I think they were apple farmers. I remember sitting under an apple tree in their orchard, and they always served us tarte Tatin.”
“That’s a start, but there are many apple farmers in the area. Do you remember anything else?”
“They lived off a long dirt road… Oh, and they had a peculiar statue of a cat in their front yard.”
“Oh yes! Madame and Monsieur Bernard. Everyone knows them by that hideous statue. And their famous tarte Tatin. Let me show you their address on a map.”
The country house was a good 30-minute walk from the town center, but I was energized from the coffee. And from the thought of being so close to such a distant part of my past.
My shoes were covered in a thin layer of dust from the unpaved road, and my feet ached, but I didn’t care. When I passed the cat statue, I knew I was in the right place. I walked up the pathway to the front door and paused. Was I ready to face my past? Would these people react kindly to me appearing on their doorstep? Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
“Are you going to knock, or do you plan to stand there all day?” a voice asked from behind me.
I turned to see a thin middle-aged woman with a smile on her face, gardening gloves covering her hands and dirt covering her apron.
“I’m sorry. Madame Bernard?” My heart was beating a mile a minute. I had dreamed of this moment since that day in the café, yet I hadn’t actually planned what I would say. What could I say? Thoughts jumbled in my head, but before I could decide where to start, a spark of recognition shined in the woman’s eyes.
“The beautiful Edith! Is it really you?”
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