“Oh. Okay. Then who are we gonna meet here?”
Suddenly, all eyes were on me.
Oh shit!
***
“Sorry, Mrs. Jensen. We really can’t give out information like this. It’s against die regel, um, our rules.” Gunter Siegfried—the big strawberry-blond counselor, who Mrs. Bennett had found among Mr. Rock’s old contacts, leaned back in his chair and looked back and forth between me and Mom. And, just like that, I was having the strongest Deja vu ever. Though, this time I was not pregnant, seventeen, and stammering through the entire conversation. And the counselor sitting right across from me—with his strong accent, rough face, and big furry hands—was the total opposite of the small, delicate and very articulate woman at UW I had met with last time I was searching for Hans.
“Family members or emergencies only,” he added, looking up at the clock on the wall. “And even in these sachlage we are very strict with die information, ja.”
Mom squeezed my hand under the table, asking for permission to speak on my behalf, I guessed, and I nodded.
“Well, this is somewhat to do with family and emergency. See, we’re looking for my grandchild’s dad, Ella’s son’s dad and he … hold on.” She grabbed her bag from the floor and rummaged through it as I held my breath. “Mr. Gunter, sir, meet Alfred.” Mom placed her phone on the desk and pushed it toward Gunter and his furry hands. “They are like mirror images. That must count for something, right?”
Gunter’s eyes darted to Mom’s phone. “I’m not sure I, um, quite understand. Who is this?”
“It’s my son. Hans’s son.”
“Oh, I see.” Gunter picked up the phone and nodded. “He does look very, um, blond.” He looked up and tried hard not to stare at my fiery red hair.
“My point exactly. He’s Hans’s son, he’s family and we need to find him.”
Gunter nodded and handed Mom’s phone back. “We have at least 250 Hans’s in our system, I’m afraid. Without any last Familienname, um, last name, it will be like looking for a needle in the haystack, as you Americans say.” He looked all proud. “But we can try.”
“At least that’s a start.” Mom let go of my hand and we both blew out a breath we’d been holding in.
“Doch, hopefully, we’ll have good luck.”
***
We didn’t. Two cups of shitty styrofoam coffee later—three bathroom stops, and four times accidently bumping into Gunter’s hairy hand—we’d gone through Gunter’s entire German computer system. Besides two Hans’s, who didn’t have a profile picture, we had stared into the eyes of every single Hans, and not one had Hans’s amazing symmetric features. He was not there.
“Sorry, ladies, I did what I could. And you are sure he was or, um, is an architect student, ja?”
I looked down at his desk and nodded. “He built me a house.”
His eyes shot up to his fuzzy hairline. “A house?” His voice adopted a suspicious tone. “A house?”
Yes, made of Post-it notes,” I explained, which didn’t make him look less suspicious. “Anyway, we should probably get going, Mom?” I looked over at Mom, her eyes still glued to the computer screen with the 198 different Hans’s.
“Oh, yes, of course.” Mom and I got up at the same time.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you.” Gunter stood up and placed his furry hands on top of his desk chair. “Germans are very, um, predictable, I think the word is, unlike you Americans, the nomads. We tend to live the same spot all our lives. If he lived here, um, four years ago, he’s probably still here.” He looked in the direction of the big cathedral-sized windows. “He’s probably out there somewhere.”
“Great. How many people live in Berlin again?”
“Three-point-fifty-seven million. It’s the fourth biggest city in Europe,” he added, like that would make the looking-for-handsome-and-symmetric-Hans search any easier.
“Another great,” I mumbled as I we headed for the door.
***
Ella R. Jensen is feeling lost
#Day 4/5 (depending on which time zone you’re in). Once again, thanks for all your likes, loves, and comments. We are in Berlin, and yes, that’s a piece of the wall (and Mom, that goofball, trying to climb it) on the picture.
Alfred and Ava are finally out of their jetlag haze. It took them a long time and a lot of red soda pop…. A word they’ve learned from Mrs. Rockefeller—a born-and-raised Washingtonian
They’ve already learned a few words like, Danke schoen (thank you), bitte (please), and verdammt (kinda like damn it) They learned that from a waitress when she literally dropped a small bowl of mussels in Dad’s lap. It would probably have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t been for Dad who yelled, “Yes, damn it,” at the exact same time, which earned him an eye from Mrs. Rockefeller and two pennies from Alfred and Ava.
Aside from some German swearing, we’ve also learned that it’s not cold and gray in Germany this time of year, and yes, we all brought the wrong clothes, well, except for Mrs. Rockefeller, who has clothes for each season and occasion
Berlin is beautiful and big, emphasis on big. As Gunter said (I’ll explain later) with his very German accent (think Arnold Schwarzenegger in his early US years), “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.” The sausages around here, though, are easy to find. A hot-dog-stand, or bratwurst stand, on every corner. How many sausages can one person eat in a day? Ha ha ha. Mrs. Rockefeller has planned the rest of the afternoon for us. Hopefully it doesn’t involve any kind of sausages, or any more eating or walking. Hopefully, it does involve some mindless fun—something that doesn’t involve me working my brain LOL
CHAPTER 14
Collective sadness
As we entered the memorial site, the phrase “mindless fun” kept echoing in my ears, and I was instantly reminded how spoiled, privileged, and free I am. Yes, it was frustrating to be in Berlin, on a mission impossible to find the father of my child. But I choose it. I was never denied my freedom to choose or live. I was there, with Alfred holding my hand. He had no clue what the endless corridors of huge gray concrete blocks symbolized, but the minute we got there, he had become suspiciously quiet, not asking a million and one questions as usual. Maybe it’s the way we all moved around, reverently, the perfect lines of gray slabs, or the choir of hushed voices, but he felt it too—the collective sad mood. After a few more minutes of complete silence between us, I squatted down next to him and, in a voice barely above a whisper, I explained.
“Remember we told you about all those people who got killed in World War Two?”
“I do. President Hitler did it.”
I nodded. “He killed a lot of Jews. Over six million.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of people. That’s almost the same as where we live.”
“Where we live?” I lifted his little hat and blew on his damp hair.
“In Washington. Grandma said there’s seven and a half million humans.”
“Oh God, you’re right.” I leaned against the wall and placed my hand against the cold surface. “Like the state of Washington,” I whispered mostly to myself.
“What was that, baby?”
I looked up and found Mom hovering over us. Ava was locked around her hip.
“They almost killed what is the equivalent to our state. I have no words.”
“I know.” Mom covered her mouth with her free hand but not before a loud cry escaped her mouth. “Sorry, it’s just ... I keep getting images of that Meryl Streep movie where she has to to…”
“I know.” Mrs. Rockefeller stepped around the corner. “It’s the worst movie I’ve ever watched. Did you see it?” She dabbed at her neck with a small embroidered handkerchief.
I nodded and felt a lonely tear slide down my face. Of course, I had watched it. It was a movie starring Meryl Streep, from last century—Mom and Dad’s favorite era. I was probably around eight the first time I saw it. Mom cried so loudly we could hardly hear half of what they were saying. And even though
I did understand most parts and the severity of the story, I later realized I had paid attention to all the wrong details—the clothes they were wearing, how Meryl Streep looked so different from when she played the mom in Cramer versus Cramer, and whether Kevin Kline/Cline was spelled with a K or C. When I saw it again, maybe at fifteen, I could almost see it through Mom’s eyes (of course, she cried just as loudly again), and I couldn’t help thinking of all the little angels she had lost herself. But as I stood there with my own baby, overlooking the memorial of 6 million men, women, and kids, I could never imagine watching it ever again. As a mother.
“Oh, baby. Some here.” I picked Alfred up and hung him on my hip, like Ava on Mom.
“Can you imagine if you had to make that choice? It’s its—”
“—heartbreaking,” Mom and I said at the same time.
“Worst part is that kids are still separated from their parents. You would’ve thought that history would have taught us something.”
“Well you know what they say, ‘Those who do not remember or acknowledge what happened in the past, are condemned to repeat it.’ History repeats itself over and over, and it’s not necessarily a good thing.” Mrs. Rockefeller looked between Ava and Alfred. “That’s why it’s never too early to teach your kids about history. This wasn’t here when I took Aaron to Germany last time. We went down to Auschwitz-Birkenau and it was a bit more, um, how shall I put it, real than this.” She closed her eyes for a moment and I’m sure I could see a shiver go through her entire body. When she continued, her voice was laced with tears, her eyes clogged with emotions. “My grandmother was a Jew. This is part of our history. You could call it our family grave.” She reached down into her little tote bag and retrieved the small bouquet of yellow tulips she had purchased at the airport, which didn’t make any sense at all in that moment. I mean, why would you buy flowers when going on an airplane? But now it made perfect sense. So did Dad’s ‘always believe the best in a person’s random act. The spectator is often the idiot’ saying. She had come prepared, or as prepared as one could be for a place like this.
Mrs. Rockefeller cleared her throat and handed Ava the small bucket. “Do you want to put it up there?”
“Where? Can I?” Ava looked up at Mom, who nodded with a flushed face.
“Where?” Ava’s eyes darted to the big gray blocks.
“Any slab is as good as the next. They are all sharing this vast place. Isn’t it just overwhelmingly huge?”
Mom and I both nodded and grabbed Ava and Alfred and placed them on top of the lowest slab, and Mrs. Rockefeller handed Ava the bouquet.
“Just put it there,” she whispered as a tear slipped loose and rolled down her flushed cheek. “Aaron and I also brought tulips when we went down to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was the one who picked them out. He said he had read somewhere that tulips symbolize forgotten and neglected love, or something like that.” She stared at the tulips in Ava’s little hand. “I also wanted to bring you because I wanted to show you the depths of The Holocaust. It’s so much bigger than we can ever imagine.”
“What does holy coast mean?” Ava looked up at Mrs. Rockefeller with that beautiful and innocent curiosity only a small child can have.
“It’s pronounced ‘Ho-lo-caust’ and it basically means that a lot of people were killed at the same time. It was war back then—World War Two.”
“Oh.” Ava bit her lip and looked over at Alfred.
Alfred pressed his little sticky hand on the gray slab and winced. “It’s so so cold.”
Carefully, Ava put the bouquet down on cold slab and pressed her fingers on it and smiled. “Ooh, it is.”
“Do they have one of these stones like Uncle Bob got, back in Tennessee?”
“A gravestone, you mean?”
Alfred nodded his head. “I think so.”
I shook my head and placed my hand on top of his. “This is sort of like a gravestone, like Uncle Bob’s. A big one for a lot of people, just like Mrs. Rock just explained. It’s her family gravestone.”
Alfred and Ava both pulled their hands away, like the cold stone suddenly came with a warning sign.
“You know someone who died here?” Alfred’s eyes darted to Mrs. Rockefeller.
“Yes, my grandmother, rest her sweet soul. She managed to get my mom and my uncle on the Kindertransport, who took them safely to a place in France called Le Chambon-Sur-lignon, a place known for hiding Jews and other refugees during the war. She was very lucky.”
“Is that why you speak French so well?” Mom grabbed Ava from the slab and placed her on the cobblestones.
Mrs. Rockefeller shook her head. “Probably not. My mom never really spoke French that much. I learned French from the Louisiana State University. I was a lawyer for many years. On Wall Street, with all the other bloodsuckers. Can you imagine?” She let out a small chuckle.
“Wow, look at you, Mrs. Rockefeller—a big-shot lawyer. Impressive.” I saluted her, which was such a Dad a.k.a Frank Jensen a.k.a Elvis thing to do.
“I was, actually, for many years but…” Her gaze roamed around the field, as if she were looking for something. “Can we sit? These old legs are tired.” She smiled up at Alfred. “Maybe we could sit on the lawn out there.” She pointed toward the entrance where people were now piling up, and Alfred nodded.
“Sure. Come on, kiddos.” I held out my arms for Alfred and he jumped down into them. As soon as I let him go, he and Ava took off, probably happy to finally be free of the long and sad walls of the memorial site.
“One day something happened, something quite unexpected,” Mrs. Rockefeller began as we made our way across the field. “I met a woman from Syria. She was a lawyer back home, like me, but had to flee her country. When I met her, she was cleaning toilets at Burger King, not that there’s anything wrong with that—a job is a job—but she was a lawyer for Christ’s sake, and now she was being treated like a second-class citizen.” She paused and motioned toward the tree alongside the memorial. “Let’s sit in the shade, if that’s fine.”
“Fine?” Mom fanned herself with the brochure she had grabbed by the entrance. “I’m frying up here, but it might be hormones too. I’m hot and I’m cold.”
“You remember what happened last time you said that, don’t you, Mom?”
“What?”
“That pretty little thing happened. My little sister.” I pointed at Ava, tumbling around in the grass only a few feet away from us.
“Yeah, but I’m four years older now. It’s not gonna happen.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.” She pulled out a water bottle and handed it to me as we both watched Mrs. Rockefeller unfold her little handkerchief and place it carefully on the grass.
“Her name was Fatima,” she said as she bent down to sit. “And we became quite close. She was the reason I quit Wall Street and became a refugee lawyer instead, to Mr. Rock’s great disappointment, rest his soul.” She looked up at the blue sky and crossed herself before she continued. “I was so happy when Reagan was elected president. Both Mr. Rock and I come from proud republican families and there was never a doubt in my mind that I was going to mingle with the enemy, so to speak.” She looked up at me and Mom and motioned for us to sit down on the grass with her and we did as we were told. “But look who I’m talking to,” she continued, laughter in her voice. “You’re probably the most left-wing people I’ve ever met in my life—you and Frank in particular, with his no-straw policy and wipe-your-hands-on-your-pants rules to save the paper towels.” She shook her head slightly and smiled. “Anyway, Fatima’s story touched my heart on so many levels. She and her husband, Nabil, and their three small children—Jamal, Saad, and Yara—fled the country together in 2001. Nabil was a leading activist back in Syria. If they had stayed, he would have been executed, no doubt about it, and still, they had such a hard time being accepted here as immigrants. They never felt welcome here. Up until then, I saw being a lawyer as my job. After meeting Fatima’s lovely family and kno
wing the hardship they had endured to come to America, a lawyer became not just what I do but who I am. It took me over three years to get them a green card and, still, everywhere Fatima went, she was treated like an outcast, even when she was with me. I think mostly it was because of the burka. This was right after nine-eleven, mind you.” She leaned against the tree and her eyes darted to the big gray slabs behind us. “Racism and ignorance come in many forms and shapes. As I said, we should’ve learned so much from history but... You know, my brother never liked my husband. He told me I had forgotten where we came from, that while we were sitting in this high castle in Manhattan—this was before we moved to Seattle again—I had forgotten about our own family’s struggles. And he was right. It took me many years and a woman from Syria to realize that.”
She looked straight at me with a set of determined eyes. “I never thought I would say this out loud, but I … I voted for Hillary Clinton. God, when I say it out loud, I can almost feel Richard turn over in his grave.” She looked up at the blue sky and let out a small sigh. “At first, I wasn’t sure I had done the right thing, but when they proposed the ban and now, just recently, separating small kids and infants from their parents, I’ve never felt surer about anything in my life. I recalled the first time I had visited Fatima and her little precious kids, and I imagined them separated from her, and I can’t even…” She placed her hand on top of her chest—her heart—and shook her head. “My mom,” she continued, now looking at Mom, “she always told me never to judge a person by their clothes or last name. If she had lived today, she probably would have added never to think that all people with burkas or headdresses and Muslim-sounding last names are all terrorists or crazy people. Like not all people with Scandinavian-sounding last names have blond hair.” She looked between Mom’s and my red hair and winked, and Mom and I couldn’t help laughing.
Lost in Love (The Miss Apple Pants series Book 2) Page 15
