It’s pouring when Benjamin and I walk out of Dr. Grimes’s office and back onto campus. The heavy rain obscures the beauty of all the bricks, and the dampness cuts straight through my thin jacket, a coldness I can feel in my bones. I shiver and feel a wash of homesickness for LA’s perpetual sunshine. Benjamin notices and moves like he’s going to reach for my arm, but then seems to change his mind and reaches for his umbrella in his backpack instead, opens it, holds it over my head, and ducks under the umbrella with me.
“Do you think Dr. Grimes was right?” I ask Benjamin, once we’re back on the train, heading toward Cardiff.
“About what?” Benjamin says.
“That maybe it isn’t a love letter at all?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” I say, but for some reason it feels like it does.
“I thought you were asking if I thought he was right about this letter being a part of the resistance.” His voice rises a little with excitement. “I think he could be, and then think, we would actually have something here.”
It sounds like he’s talking about money, about the value of the stamp. But I don’t think he is. He feels excitement about the possibility of discovering something new, some previously unknown piece of history, the war. There is a story here, love story or no.
“When we get back to LA, I’m going to start to search for Kristoff,” I say. I’ll work with all the information Jason gave me, the organizations he knew of. Is this the story I’ll write for him, about Kristoff and the resistance and a secret message in a stamp?
“Me too,” Benjamin says. “If he was a stamp engraver, someone in the philately world might’ve heard of him before.”
But what Dr. Grimes said about the dangers in working for the Nazis, and in working against them, makes me wonder if anything will turn up at all. Or if Kristoff is nothing more than a ghost.
Austria, 1939
AS THEY PLANNED TO get Frederick out of the country, Kristoff had trouble concentrating on his engraving plate for Herr Bergmann, especially when Elena was working next to him, finishing up the plates for her father’s papers. Once those were off to Josef’s friend who was a printer in Vienna, Elena offered to give Kristoff’s stamp drawing a try in the metal, and he gladly agreed, certain she was a better engraver than he was, that she would make a better plate. If only Herr Bergmann, or the Führer, were to know that their stamp plate was being made by a Jew, and a woman. Kristoff took pleasure in the thought that they wouldn’t know. As if this tiny thing, this small act of rebellion would change anything. Kristoff knew it wouldn’t, but still, it gave him the slightest feeling of satisfaction.
In the daylight, in the workshop, he and Elena barely spoke, unless it was about the work they were doing. Short, blunt sentences. Pass this, or hand over that. All focus was on the task at hand. And every day Kristoff would wonder whether Elena would return to his room, his bed, again later that night.
But she always did. She followed him up the steps to the attic after supper, and slipped underneath his covers and clung to him. Sometimes they wouldn’t talk at all, but they would make love and slip into an easy sleep. And other times, nights when Elena said they had to be careful because they didn’t want a child, they talked for hours in the darkness. It felt like an entirely different world from the workshop during the day. At night, in his bed, they were no longer in Nazi-occupied Austria, but somewhere perfect and safe. Just the two of them.
Elena told him she had never planned on learning her father’s trade, nor had any interest in engraving as a little girl. She’d always dreamed of studying literature at the university and writing books like the ones she loved to read. She told him that her favorite English book was Little Women. Frederick had brought her a copy back from America many years earlier when she was a little girl, still too young to read it in English, but eventually she learned and had read the book several times. “I’m like Amy,” she told him, after describing all the sisters to him.
“But isn’t she the youngest?” Kristoff asked, confused.
“Yes, but also the most passionate, the most artistic. She gets what she wants. And she gets to be with Laurie in the end.”
“Am I Laurie?” he asked lightly, wanting her to say he was. That he was the person she wanted, in the end.
She laughed, rolled over, and kissed him. He put his hands on her cheeks, kissed her back. He could kiss her forever. Or at least, all night. Or at least until it was late, and their bodies were too tired to stay awake any longer.
Elena sometimes fell asleep mid-sentence. She was so exhausted but she wouldn’t give in to sleep until her body couldn’t hold out any longer. Kristoff pushed sleep away, always waiting for her to fall asleep first, to savor every last moment with her.
“I love you,” he would whisper into her hair, after he was sure she was sleeping. He was still afraid to say it when she was awake, afraid that she might not respond, might not love him back. That she might disappear one night into the woods on the way to see her father, or Josef, just like that.
By the time his papers were ready and all the arrangements had been made for him to sail to America, Frederick had lost a considerable amount of weight. He looked frail, older, almost unrecognizable. Josef said it was good he looked so different; the Germans wouldn’t recognize him either. But Kristoff worried that Frederick wouldn’t survive the long journey to America, even if he would fool the Germans. But now it seemed they had no other choice. Frederick had to go or surely he would die here, living like this.
On the day before Frederick was set to leave, Elena was at the Bauer farm working out the last-minute details with Josef, and Kristoff took the stamp engraving plate he and Elena had been working on for the Germans and went to show it to Frederick in the cabin.
Kristoff hadn’t seen Frederick alone since before Elena came back, and part of him felt a little nervous going to see him today. Would Frederick immediately sense how he felt about Elena? Kristoff doubted that he would approve of his daughter spending every night in Kristoff’s bed.
“My boy, your lines are still sloppy,” Frederick said as he looked at the engraving plate. His voice was hoarse, but he spoke to Kristoff as he always had. He didn’t sound angry. So Kristoff didn’t mention that some of these were Elena’s sloppy lines, that she was involved in making a stamp for the Deutsches Reich with him. Frederick patted him lightly on the shoulder. “But overall this is very good. You have a lot of power, making a stamp for the Germans.”
“I have no power at all,” Kristoff said. “I don’t want to be doing this. But I have no choice.”
“But sometimes the only way to fight the enemy is to become them,” Frederick said.
Kristoff nodded, though he despised the very idea of becoming them.
Frederick handed the engraving plate back and didn’t say anything else for a few moments. He stared at Kristoff, eyes wide, sunken against his sharp cheekbones, as if he could see everything Kristoff was trying to hide from him, everything they weren’t talking about. And Kristoff felt exposed. He should say something, but he wasn’t sure what. Should he apologize? But he wasn’t sorry. He loved Elena.
“You will take good care of her?” Frederick finally said. He grabbed on to Kristoff’s arm. His grip was weak, but Kristoff didn’t pull away.
“I will,” he said.
Frederick let go of his arm, let out a little sigh, and sat back against the wall. “You will bring her an edelweiss?” His voice was filled with a sad sort of resignation.
Kristoff remembered Frederick’s story of why he’d created his edelweiss stamp so many years ago: a gift for his love, for Mrs. Faber. He felt an overwhelming sadness that Mrs. Faber wasn’t here with Frederick, that he would have to leave for America alone, without her, without even knowing what had happened to her. Frederick had tried so hard to give her everything, and she’d been ripped away from him, just like that,
violently and with no meaning. It had been months since Mrs. Faber had been taken, and the more time that passed the less likely it felt to Kristoff that she was okay, or that they would see her again anytime soon. Kristoff had read about Hitler’s speech at the end of last year, where he declared if a war were to break out it would mean extermination for all of Europe’s Jews, and that, coupled with the rumors that the work camp in Mauthausen, Upper Austria, was growing larger by the day, kept Kristoff from sleeping many nights, even after Elena had drifted off.
“You will make sure Elena stays safe,” Frederick said now, his voice thick with regret. Maybe he blamed himself for what had happened to Mrs. Faber, though it wasn’t his fault. None of it was. Kristoff wanted to tell him this, but then Frederick said, his voice louder, sounding desperate, “Promise me.”
“I promise.” Kristoff would not let what happened to Mrs. Faber happen to Elena. He wouldn’t.
The next morning, Kristoff and Elena helped Frederick through the woods to the Bauer farm, where a car was waiting. The driver was someone Kristoff had never met before but who Elena said was Henrik Schwann, a boy she’d known from school. Henrik wasn’t a Jew like Elena and Josef. Not a Nazi either—a combination that was harder and harder to find these days near Grotsburg. Schwann was going to drive Frederick—no, Charles Darnay—across the border into Germany, then to Bremen, where Frederick would board a ship bound for New York City in three days, if all went well. Frederick’s friend Mr. Leser would come for him in New York. So many hours, days, weeks of travel. But it was all arranged. In a few weeks’ time, Frederick would be safe.
“I wish you were coming with me.” Frederick clung to Elena’s arm an extra moment, before he got into the car. They all knew it was impossible and they had already told Frederick as much in the past weeks, several times. Elena didn’t have papers for herself yet, nor money to pay for another ticket. But Josef stepped back, allowing Elena and her father a moment, and Kristoff did, too.
“Soon,” she promised Frederick. “We’ll come to America as soon we can.” She hugged him tightly. Tears formed in her eyes, and Kristoff looked away, pretending not to notice, knowing Elena would be angry at him for observing any part of her weakness. Not that he blamed her; he wanted to cry, too. “I’ll find Mother and get Miri and then we’ll all come together to meet you. Very soon,” she promised him again.
“You know how to find Gideon Leser?” Frederick said. “You’ll come to America and find him. And me.”
Kristoff remembered the letter Elena had written and that he had mailed to Mr. Leser, and he heard Elena promise that she did know how to find him. Elena let her father go, and he got into the car. “I’ll see you soon,” she called after Frederick as the car drove away, leaving behind only tracks in the snow. Elena refused to say goodbye, just as she had once with Kristoff.
Josef put his arm around Elena and Kristoff flinched a little, though he knew Elena was upset; Josef was only reacting to that. They were all upset. “We’ve done a good thing,” Josef said, trying to comfort her. “We’ve saved him.”
Elena appeared to be holding back tears, but she nodded. Kristoff couldn’t stop staring at Josef’s arm, perched across Elena’s shoulders, the way his fingers squeezed her shoulder like she belonged to him.
“But there’s another Kindertransport to London next week, taking children, and I’m going to put you on it myself,” Josef said to Elena.
Elena shrugged out of his grasp. “I am not a child,” Elena hissed.
“You came back to help your father, and you did. And now you need to help yourself.” Josef’s voice was calm, steady.
“I’m not going anywhere.” She turned to Kristoff, as if she just remembered he was here. Josef looked at him, too, and narrowed his eyes.
Kristoff needed Elena. He didn’t want to let her go, not from his bed nor from his work. And he needed her help to make the stamps that would keep them alive. But he had also promised Frederick he’d keep her safe. He knew he couldn’t do that if she stayed, and he would never be able to live with himself if the Germans found out she was here and came for her, dragged her away, too. “I . . .” he began, but he couldn’t finish his thought.
Elena spun on her heel, turned back toward Josef. “Yes, I helped my father,” she said. “But what about my mother? And there are others. So many others. Kristoff and I, we can make more papers. Help more people get out of Austria.”
“You forge more papers, you’ll get caught eventually,” Josef said. “They would shoot you in a second.”
Kristoff had the sudden image of the snow-white skin of Elena’s chest being ripped apart, bloodied, and he couldn’t breathe. “You should listen to Josef, go to London,” he heard himself saying.
Elena looked at him again, and her face fell as if she really had been wounded. Not by a German gun, but by him. She narrowed her eyes at him, and looked back and forth between the two of them. “You’re both dummkopf.” She turned away and stormed off into the woods.
Kristoff moved to go after her, but Josef held him back. “Let her cool off,” he said. “You’ll talk to her later, when she’s not so upset about her father leaving.”
“She’ll never go to London,” Kristoff said quietly, wishing he had kept his mouth shut. Elena was better off here, next to him, than she was running through the woods alone. “She won’t leave without her mother. And she wants to fight. We’re never going to talk her out of it.”
Josef nodded. He already understood this, but, well, it was worth a try. He asked Kristoff to wait while he got something from the house. He returned a few moments later and pulled a gun from his coat pocket, placed it in Kristoff’s hand. The icy smooth metal stung against Kristoff’s bare skin, and the object surprised him, its weight, its inherent coldness. He had never held a gun before; he had never wanted to. “Why are you giving me this?” Kristoff asked.
“There are things you can’t do with the engraving tools,” Josef said.
It was one thing to forge a visa, make an illegal engraving plate. It was another to think about fighting the German soldiers with guns. “I don’t want this.” Kristoff tried to hand the gun back to Josef.
“You need it,” Josef said, pushing the gun back toward him.
Kristoff knew Herr Bergmann could barge into the workshop unannounced. He imagined what should happen if he were to pick up the pistol, aim it squarely at his large forehead, and pull the trigger. He pictured Herr Bergmann’s gun coming up faster, aimed right at Elena’s forehead.
The gun felt too heavy in his hand; he began to sweat, to feel nauseous. He turned and vomited his breakfast in the snow.
“Jesus,” Josef said as he took the gun back. “You don’t have the stomach for this. Maybe you’re the one who should get on the Kindertransport.”
Kristoff wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Josef shook his head in disgust and tucked the gun into the waist of his pants.
Los Angeles, 1989
WHEN I WALK BACK into my house, I feel like I’ve been gone for weeks, not days, and my head feels heavy with a crushing, suffocating jet lag, worse than any hangover in recent memory. I feel this odd sense of emptiness, too; I’m alone again. Benjamin and I parted ways at LAX, and I’d grown used to his company this past week.
“We’ll talk soon,” he said to me at the airport. He leaned in as if he was going to hug me but seemed to change his mind halfway, and he reached out his hand to shake mine instead. As we shook, I looked at our hands intertwined, like the night when we fell asleep in my bed in Cardiff holding hands. We’d both since pretended that had never happened. And at the airport we’d left each other with that handshake that lingered just a few seconds too long.
I check my machine on my way to bed, and I’m surprised to see I have seven messages. The first five are from the Willows—my father, they say, has been inconsolable, ranting about my mother. I sit down on the couch as I listen, my h
ands trembling. I can’t believe I left him to go halfway across the world, and he needed me. That I became so wrapped up in someone else’s life, someone else’s potential story and family, that I abandoned my own. Here he’d been, thousands of miles away, falling apart. But those messages are from the first two days I was gone, and then they stop, so I hope that means he improved, not that the Willows just gave up on calling me. It’s nearly ten, too late to call over there; I’ll have to wait until morning to figure it out.
The next message is from Daniel, saying only that he needs to talk to me, his voice devoid of emotion or any specifics about what he needs to talk about, and I’m too tired right now to care. And then lastly, there’s a message from Gram, just checking in, she said. Because I missed our Saturday call. Had I forgotten to tell her I was going to Wales? It came up so fast, maybe I did. But it’s too late to call her, too.
My exhaustion is countered with restlessness, helplessness, new worry for my father. But my exhaustion wins out, and I fall into a quick and deep sleep on my couch, under Gram’s crocheted afghan.
I wake up at four a.m., not sure where I am at first, thinking I’m still back in Cardiff. But the air is much too warm and dry, Benjamin isn’t here, and I remember that I’m home, in Westwood, that my father has been struggling all week in the Willows.
I take a shower and get dressed, have two cups of coffee, but I still can’t shake the heavy sinking feeling of dread mixed with jet lag. I want to run to the Willows, make sure my father is okay, but visiting hours don’t start until eight. And it’s still only six. I want to call Gram back, too, but I don’t want to wake her.
My phone rings just as I think that, and I run to get it, sure it’s her. No one else would call me this early. I want to ask her if she heard anything about my father, and also tell her everything that happened on my trip. But when I pick up, Benjamin’s voice rings through the line so clearly, and it catches me off guard. “Hey,” he says, in that way that feels familiar to me now, as if he’s calling me from just down the hall, wanting to figure out plans for the day in Wales. As if we know each other well enough for an informal, intimate, early-morning greeting. “I figured you’d be up.”
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