Secrets She Kept

by Cathy Gohlke

  But Vater only moistened his lips and would not meet Mutti’s eyes.

  “It’s nothing,” Rudy scoffed. “We got them off some Jews near Pankow. They were moving out.” He emphasized the last, smiling wickedly.

  A pall fell over our company. Mutti slipped her hand from Vater’s. Her eyes lost their light and all the room dimmed, no matter that the late-December sun streamed through the windows. A minute passed, or two.

  Frau Kirchmann—always Frau Kirchmann—came to the rescue. “Marta, Lieselotte—help me with the Weihnachtsgebäck and finger sandwiches,” she ordered. “Lukas, come, carry the punch bowl. We’ve a party to get under way!”

  Rudy plugged in the phonograph and set a record on the turntable, placing the needle carefully into the groove. Soft Christmas music poured through the rooms. But the day was ruined. Even I knew what Rudy had meant. More property “Aryanized.” More Jews sent into the streets or to the community house—a ghetto forming. The knowledge that Vater took advantage, that Rudy gloated, that Dr. Peterson egged them on, eager to share the spoils, would send Mutti into a dark place.

  And yet, gradually, the others pretended otherwise, forcing more levity than before the intrusion. In that moment I couldn’t care about the Jews who’d been forced to move—at least not so much as I cared about Mutti. Her last Christmas—for surely it was—had just been stolen by that hateful Dr. Peterson. And by Vater . . . and by Rudy. I hated them . . . and yet, Lukas had held my hand. Why did I care more about that?

  By the time we returned with platters of food, Mutti had recovered some of her color, which surprised me. She was engaged in a conversation with Herr Kirchmann, doing her best to draw Vater in. It was Dr. Peterson who intervened yet again.

  “I understand you have not been able to keep up with these things, Frau Sommer, but you must realize that these Confessing Churches have challenged the authority of the Führer. It can’t be wise to send your children into their midst—and most unwise for Wolfgang’s future in the Party. Impossible for him or Rudy to attend.”

  “Herr Kirchmann has asked me my Christmas wish, and this is it: that my children attend church—with the Kirchmanns, if no one else will take them. But I would prefer they go with you, Wolfgang, if you will.”

  “I won’t go, Mother,” Rudy asserted. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’ll have none of it.”

  “You must realize you are asking political suicide of your husband, Frau Sommer. You do not want that, surely,” Dr. Peterson insisted. “At least the National Reich Church has pledged allegiance to the Führer. Let them go there if they must. Even that—”

  “The church’s allegiance is to our Lord Jesus Christ. The National Reich Church seems to have forgotten this.” Mutti’s blush deepened.

  “It is not that simple, Frau—”

  “It is as simple as a child born of the Holy Spirit, as simple as His perfect life offered in place of our sinful ones. You are a guest in my home, Dr. Peterson, and entitled to your opinion, which you have stated clearly.” Mutti was her old self, for the first time in months. What had happened while I was out of the room? “I am disappointed, Rudy—very—but you are old enough to decide. However, I want your promise—all of you—that Lieselotte will be allowed and encouraged, provided a way to attend church.”

  Vater looked at Mutti, drawn by forces stronger than his own.

  “Wolfgang, do not—”

  “Dr. Peterson,” Herr Kirchmann intervened, “do you not think this is between Frau Sommer and her husband?”

  “I want to go. I want to go to church with the Kirchmanns.” It was my voice, but from where the courage came to use it, I don’t know.

  “Wolfgang?” Mutti pushed. “Promise me.”

  Vater glanced at Dr. Peterson, at Rudy, at me, but would not look at Mutti. When he shrugged in defeat, Mutti’s mouth set, but she nodded.

  “It’s settled, then. Lieselotte goes with the Kirchmanns on Sunday—every Sunday.”

  “We’ll be so glad to have you, my dear,” Frau Kirchmann soothed as though there had been no displeasure.

  I glanced at Lukas, who eyed me, surprised. A taste of triumph surged through my chest. Could freedom be so easy?

  And then the party changed again. Rudy switched the record and swept Marta into a waltz, delighting Mutti. It was his gift to her—no matter that he’d not changed his uniform—and Mutti accepted it graciously.

  Lukas became in that moment the same old Lukas—full of life and joking with Rudy, kind to Mutti, reserved and respectful toward Vater. He even watched playfully over Marta when the dance ended, catching his sister as Rudy spun her out. Nothing had changed in him. But everything had changed in me these last months. Could he not see this?

  “Stop mooning,” Marta whispered as we poured new cups of punch together.

  “What?”

  “You know what. Stop mooning over Lukas. It’s obvious to everybody. You’ll never capture his attention that way. You look silly, like a child.”

  I turned away, biting my lip to keep from crying. Why must she spoil it yet again? And how could a person keep love and longing from her face? Was I really pushing Lukas away? I hadn’t said anything to him!

  Perhaps Frau Kirchmann overheard, perhaps not, but she called me. “Lieselotte, help me find the knife for the Rumkuchen.”

  “Ja, certainly.” I was only too glad to escape Marta and the others.

  Frau Kirchmann whispered, as we set the tray in the kitchen, “Don’t mind Marta, dearest. She’s only a child. She does not think about what she says.”

  That one small bit of sympathy sent me over the edge, and tears spilled, running down my face. It was silly to cry. I was allowed to attend church with the Kirchmanns. I’d see Lukas every week. Mutti had her Christmas and her Christmas wish. I should be thrilled, and all I could do was pour salt tears onto Frau Kirchmann’s shoulder.

  Gently she drew me to the sink, took out her handkerchief, and wet it, dabbing my face and eyes. “It’s a big day—a great accomplishment—and so much tension in the air. There is every reason to cry for joy and sorrow and confusion. If it helps any, we’re all confused. We’re simply doing the best we can.”

  The best we can . . . and I must too. I pulled away, sniffing.

  Lukas appeared in the doorway, and my heart sank. My eyes must have looked like swollen fish bellies, my cheeks stained and splotched. What would he think of me now?

  “Take the knife and matches, Lukas. The brandy for the cake is in my purse. We’ll be there in a moment,” his mother ordered.

  But he waited a moment longer, concern written in his face. “Ja—ja,” he stammered. “But what is—?”

  Why shouldn’t he be embarrassed? I was embarrassed too. But we women pulled apart and stared at him, as if he were the one caught in that awkward moment.

  When he left, Frau Kirchmann clucked her tongue. “Ach, men. Don’t they know that tears shed are never wasted? What would they do without women to keep their lives interesting?” And we both laughed.

  5

  HANNAH STERLING

  DECEMBER 1972

  The brass bell over the door of Ward Beecham’s downtown office tinkled. There was no secretary in the lobby. No secretary and no desk for one. Just an orange vinyl sofa with walnut-veneer legs and a matching chair that might have come off the floor of the five-and-dime, or been left over from my principal’s office.

  But the paintings on the walls could have been set in any upscale attorney’s office in Charlotte. Instead of the printed portraits of the founding fathers, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy sported in black plastic frames by every judicial and political office in town, Mr. Beecham’s walls held cityscapes of Paris and London, and the ruins of two castles set somewhere in Scotland—places the locals had probably never dreamed of, let alone visited. The paintings—original oils in carved gilt frames—drew me and gave me a tingling sense of freedom, that perhaps the world held more possibilities than I’d imagined, that maybe one day
I’d sit in a Parisian café or walk the paths of the Highlands. And then I pinched myself. Who am I kidding? At the rate I’m going I’ll be lucky to pay my weekly boardinghouse room rate and hold on to my ancient Royal typewriter.

  The inner office door opened. I wouldn’t have guessed that the bespectacled, brown-eyed man with curly dark hair and sporting the first signs of a midlife paunch was the owner of the paintings—the vinyl sofa, maybe.

  “Miss Sterling, I’m pleased to meet you.” Ward Beecham, with loosened tie and shirtsleeves rolled above his wrists, extended his hand. “Please come in.”

  His office was as mismatched as his lobby. He offered me the single wine-colored leather wingback chair, taking a seat behind a gunmetal-gray desk—Army surplus, by the looks of it.

  “I appreciate you calling me, Mr. Beecham.”

  “Call me Ward, Miss Sterling.” He smiled, brown eyes creasing at the corners.

  “Then call me Hannah.”

  “Hannah.”

  The way he said it warmed my face, which was just silly and further proof that I needed a life. “You mentioned that my mother left a key, as well as her will.”

  “To her safe-deposit box. She was very particular that I see you privately and place it in your hand.”

  “Yes, you said. I had no idea my parents rented a safe-deposit box, or that they owned anything to put in it.”

  He nodded, but shifted forward and, all business, clasped his hands on top of the desk. “Let me go through the will with you. Then we’ll talk about the box. I’ll share with you everything she told me.”

  There was nothing in the will but the house and land—the title free and clear, just as I’d expected. “Won’t I need a deed to sell the house?”

  “Your mother opened the box at the bank when she learned her cancer was terminal. I advised her to place the deed and any other documents, some extra cash, whatever she thought pertinent, there.”

  The vise in my chest tightened. That’s it? You made it sound so important, like there was something . . . something special from my mother, just for me. But I nodded, as if that were what I’d expected, and stood to go. I wouldn’t cry in front of this man.

  He stood too. “Miss Sterling, I don’t know how to say this.”

  I bit my lower lip and straightened my shoulders, waiting.

  “Your mother was an unusual woman.”

  You’re telling me this as if it’s news? As if I need a perfect stranger to point out my family’s strangeness?

  “That came out wrong. What I mean to say is that I admired her very much. She endured a great deal.”

  “The cancer,” I conceded.

  “I didn’t mean that. Yes, certainly, she did endure that with grace, but she was a kind woman, a brave woman . . . in a none-too-friendly community.”

  It was the nicest thing I’d ever heard anyone say about my mother. But how do you know this? Why did she come to you in the first place? “A none-too-friendly community” . . . “I guess you know something about that.”

  He half grunted and sighed. “It’s not easy being the newcomer on the block.”

  “But my mother wasn’t a newcomer. She lived here for over twenty-five years.”

  “It could have been a hundred and I don’t think it would have mattered, do you?”

  “Or a hundred and fifty. No, I don’t. But I never fully understood why, unless it was her accent. She was Austrian, you know.”

  He looked away. He knows something.

  “Mr. Beecham—”

  “Ward.”

  “If you know something about my mother, I beg you to tell me. We were not close, but I need to understand . . . to . . .” But I couldn’t finish. I didn’t know how.

  “To put the puzzle pieces together.”

  “Yes. But I don’t even understand how you know that. What did she tell you?”

  He shook his head. “Only that there are things she couldn’t explain, that she’d never been able to talk about. But she said you are bright; you would figure it out. She was fiercely proud of you.”

  He’s lying.

  “She said only that the things she left in the box would create more questions than answers for you. She hoped you’d be satisfied with what you find there. But if you need help or legal advice, she asked me to assist you in any way I can.”

  I nodded my thanks, still uncertain, and turned to go.

  “Your mother paid for a year.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Retainer . . . for me to handle anything you need.”

  I couldn’t leave his office fast enough, couldn’t walk to the bank quickly enough. I shook as I showed the clerk my mother’s key and signed the registry. My knees wobbled as I followed the bank manager into the small vault and watched him insert my key and the bank’s key into the slots on a metal box. He handed me the box, which for some reason I’d expected to be heavier, and showed me into a private room, then closed the door.

  Please, God. Let there be something here . . . something that explains, that helps me understand her. I drew a deep breath and opened the box. Papers—nothing but papers. My heart sank. My parents’ marriage certificate, Mama’s naturalization papers, the deed to the house, Daddy’s Army discharge papers. A couple of pictures of me as a baby—one was an old sepia-toned snapshot of Mama holding me. And an array of empty, faded envelopes with foreign stamps. I’d expected something personal—a diary, a letter written to me, an heirloom ring or brooch—something to link us, to explain.

  Stop being so juvenile. You knew she owned no such thing, would write no such thing. Then why all the cloak-and-dagger, Mama?

  I turned over the envelopes, all addressed to Mama, all in the same handwriting but one. I could barely make out the addresses and dates on some of them. The words were certainly foreign to me, but all the stamps were German.

  Aunt Lavinia phoned two nights later, the first time since Thanksgiving weekend. “Norma mentioned that she saw you in town today. I’m glad you’re getting out, Hannah. Working in that old house day after day must be depressing.”

  Did she mention that she saw me coming out of Ward Beecham’s? Or the bank?

  “It’s not so bad. I’m nearly finished.” I traced the letters and numbers on Mama and Daddy’s marriage certificate—the certificate I’d read two hundred times since pulling it from the safe-deposit box. But no amount of tracing or rubbing the paper changed the date.

  “Oh?” Aunt Lavinia waited. “Everything all right?”

  “Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”

  “I’m just concerned about you, that’s all. You haven’t been by for over a week. I miss you. I don’t want all this to come between us, sweetheart.”

  “I don’t want that either, Aunt Lavinia, but I don’t really see much way around it. You know something about Mama and Daddy and refuse to tell me, even though you know what this means to me—even though you know I’m apt to lose my job if I don’t get some closure, some resolution. Sooner or later I’m going to figure it out. I’d much rather hear it from you.”

  “Did you talk with Ward Beecham?”

  “Didn’t Norma tell you that I did—twice this week?”

  “Don’t get so defensive. Did you settle everything? Can you go ahead and sell the house?”

  “The death certificate was issued and the deed is free and clear. I can sell whenever I want—when I’m ready, when I find a buyer. Why are you in such a hurry for me to do that? You know if I don’t own the house, I’ll never move back here.”

  “And you know you’re always welcome to stay with me. But you deserve a life of your own, Hannah. You have a good job and—”

  “I’m not sure I’ll go back after Christmas, at least not right away.”

  “You’re staying here?” Aunt Lavinia paused. “Does this have something to do with Clyde?” She sounded so hopeful.

  “No! I might take a trip is all. I don’t know yet.” I couldn’t keep the snap from my voice.

  “Oh, honey, that vacati
on we talked about? That’s just what you need. It will do you a world of good.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “Where are you going?”

  I knew that telling Aunt Lavinia might start a new war, a war I didn’t want or need. But maybe it would inspire her to tell me what she knew before I traveled halfway around the world.

  “Germany.”

  The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.

  “Why do you want to go to Germany? I’d have thought Myrtle Beach or Nags Head, maybe even Hawaii if the house sells.”

  “I think Mama might not have been Austrian after all. I think she might—I might—even have family still living in Germany.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I’ve been busy, Aunt Lavinia. I contacted one of Daddy’s old war buddies. He was in Italy, with the 45th, until the month before his unit helped liberate Dachau, and that was just a month before he was shipped back to the States.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  But I knew from Aunt Lavinia’s voice—strained and quiet—that she knew very well. “Mama was pregnant before she married Daddy.”

  “Well, you know, soldiers during the war. Your daddy—”

  “Daddy couldn’t have been my father, not my real father. They didn’t even meet until a few weeks before I was born.” Saying it aloud made me sick, sick at heart and sick to my stomach. Why did you never tell me, Daddy? How could you and Mama keep that from me all my life, pretend I was yours?

  “Hannah, how can you say such a thing? He loved you. He raised you from a baby.”

  “I saw his discharge papers. I tracked his war record. I have their marriage certificate and I know my own birthday.” It was all a statement of fact, but it sounded so cold.

  “Oh, Hannah.”

  “All it takes is a little math.”

  6

  LIESELOTTE SOMMER

  APRIL 1939

  When Mutti closed her eyes for the last time at the end of April, just as the fragrance of purple and white lilacs filled the air, Rudy and Lukas helped to carry her coffin to the grave site, both dressed in their Hitler Youth uniforms—mandatory since March. That made me sick—sick for Mutti’s memory and sick for me.