The Good at Heart

by Ursula Werner

  She took off the dress. Lara simply brushed the sleeves off her shoulders, let the dress fall to the floor, and stepped out of it. Shocked, Max inhaled sharply and grabbed on to a nearby branch for support. His heart sped up and his palms began to sweat. It was too much—the camisole, the glimpse of corset, the hint of some other cotton eyelet-trimmed garment beneath the half-slip. Max shut his eyes. He hadn’t expected this, wasn’t ready for it, but he opened his eyes again and looked, more insistently this time, without shame. She was so beautiful. She was like a dream. She was— “Max Fuchs!” a voice boomed from below. “Are you looking for chestnuts?”

  Startled, Max scrambled farther back into the surrounding foliage. A flutter of leaves rained down on the face of Oskar Eberhardt. Lara’s opa. Max had delivered a telegram to him once, and to his great surprise, Herr Eberhardt had given him a tip, a silver five-mark coin, a unique gift because of the eagle on the back of it. On every other five-mark coin Max had ever seen, the eagle held a wreath inscribed with a swastika in its talons, but on this coin, the eagle had its talons outstretched, free of that burden. Initially, Max was not sure whether the coin was real money, but even if it was, its difference made it too special to use, and he hid it in his sock drawer. Max was in awe of Oskar Eberhardt. Not because he was Lara’s opa—a fact he found difficult to believe because Herr Eberhardt was so very unlike Max’s own opa, who was stout and grizzled and constantly napping. Herr Eberhardt, by contrast, was tall, had a carefully trimmed mustache, and seemed always to be wearing a three-piece tweed suit. It was impossible to imagine him taking a nap. More impressively, Herr Eberhardt lived in Berlin, and his work was essential to the Third Reich, according to Max’s mother. Max wanted to ask Lara what “essential to the Third Reich” meant, but in two years, he had yet to build up the courage. Nobody in Max’s circle of friends knew precisely what Herr Eberhardt did, but they knew he worked directly with the Führer, and that made him a figure of reverence and fear.

  “Well, young man?” Herr Eberhardt called again. “Come on down, chestnuts won’t be ripe for some time.” He waved at Max and pointed to the ground. Max had no choice. After creeping backward along his branch, he reached the trunk and shimmied down, then reluctantly shuffled over to where Herr Eberhardt was waiting for him. “So, Max,” the man said. He opened his jacket and reached into the inside pocket for his pipe and a small silver lighter. Finding them, he took a moment to light the tobacco; then he took several deep puffs on the pipe, relit it, and settled into a more contemplative smoking rhythm, all while looking down at the top of Max’s head. Max felt he should say something, apologize, though he did not know what Herr Eberhardt had seen, whether he knew Max was there to gaze at Lara, knew what Max had seen through the window. If he didn’t know, then surely it would be better if Max just kept quiet. Because what was wrong with Max sitting in the chestnut tree? Well, technically, Max was trespassing, but nobody in Blumental took that seriously, except Herr Weber. Boys were constantly climbing trees all over the place. It was expected. Still, Herr Eberhardt was from Berlin, and he worked for the Führer. It might be prudent to say something about the trespassing.

  Max took a deep breath and then spewed forth his apology. “I’m so sorry, Herr Eberhardt, I didn’t mean to trespass on your property. I mean, I did mean to, because I was in your tree and I knew it was your tree, but what I mean is, I didn’t mean to trespass because, well, everybody does it, climb trees, that is, especially if they’re big and their branches are good, as your tree is, sir. You have a most excellent climbing tree. The branches are spaced just right. Do you do that yourself in the spring, sir? Because I know how to prune trees, my opa showed me once, and I could help if you need someone—”

  “No, thank you,” Herr Eberhardt interrupted. “We are well situated on the tree-trimming front.” He sucked deeply on his pipe, and as Max looked on in awe, blew a series of smoke rings into the air. The two watched the rings expand and rise in silence. “So,” Herr Eberhardt spoke again. “I was a boy once, you know.” Max didn’t say anything. Herr Eberhardt’s statement seemed both obvious and impossible. “I used to love climbing trees, so I know what you mean about a good climbing tree. And believe me, I understand the attraction of this chestnut. All of the attractions of this chestnut.” He looked closely at Max. Expecting an expression of harsh rebuke, Max was startled to find compassion in the older man’s gaze. “I’m not telling you to stay away from the chestnut, Max. I’m asking you to be respectful. You must be careful in this chestnut tree. There is a line somewhere up in those leaves and branches, a line that separates admiration and adoration from violation. Beware of that line, Max.” He took the pipe out of his mouth, looked into the bowl, and frowned. “Damn Italian pipe, just can’t get used to it.” He relit the tobacco. “English pipes, Max,” he said, starting again to puff on the stem. “English pipes, if you ever take up tobacco, are the gold standard.”

  “Yes, sir,” Max answered.

  “Right. And on this matter of the chestnut tree, you understand me, don’t you?” Herr Eberhardt asked.

  “Yes, sir, I do,” Max said, though he was not entirely certain he did.

  “Good,” Herr Eberhardt said. He stepped forward and put his hand on Max’s shoulder. “Well, then, you should be getting home for dinner, shouldn’t you? Your mother will be worried.”

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir.” Max turned and began trotting back to the train embankment. He felt lucky, like he had come close to something exciting but dangerous and had been spared the encounter. Herr Eberhardt was not what he had expected; he was neither terrifying nor ferocious. Max found it difficult to reconcile his experience of this kind, grandfatherly gentleman with the image of an angry, intimidating Führer he saw in newspapers. In Max’s world, everyone was what he appeared and was expected to be. Max’s father was a soldier, strong and brave and protective of his family, or at least that’s how Max remembered him. And Max’s mother was what a mother should be, a good cook and housekeeper who doled out love and discipline in equal measure. Max’s friends were loyal and occasionally annoying but always ready for adventure, as friends should be. This possibility that Herr Eberhardt had just presented—that people might not actually be what Max thought they were—well, it was unexpected and strange. He would have to think on the question some more after dinner, when his grumbling stomach did not distract him.

  Max followed the train tracks for another half kilometer before turning onto Himmelstrasse. The narrow, winding street marked the eastern limit of residential settlement in Blumental, and as Max headed up a hill that plateaued before the Birnau forest, he looked quickly to his right to see if Fritz Nagel might be out working. Max could see Fritz’s tractors parked just outside the entrance to the hayloft, and beyond the barn doors stood the large Volvo truck with its hood open. Fritz’s thick torso swelled over the engine block, and Max heard the clangs of a hammer on steel as he ran over. “Hey, Fritz,” he called. “How’s Pinocchio? Can I try it out yet?”

  A loud thud and a flurry of curses issued from the hood. “Who is that?” Fritz grumbled, pulling his head out of the steel automotive cave. “Is that Max?” A face smeared with engine oil glared at Max. “Have I not told you to hush about this? You pepper me with questions about the truck day after day and I finally tell you, but under oath, remember, Max? You swore you would not talk about the truck.”

  “I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone else about the truck,” Max said, his voice breaking slightly with confusion, apology, and righteous indignation. “You never said I couldn’t talk to you about it anymore.”

  Fritz growled and stood up straight, dropping the hammer into the dirt and wiping his palms forcefully against his upper thighs. “So now you’re a wordsmith?”

  Max stepped past Fritz’s towering bulk and, climbing onto the truck’s runner, peered into the open hood. The scent of diesel fuel and motor oil swept into his nostrils as he canvassed the engine block and the tunnel of space surrounding it. It looked cavernou
s. “Wow!” Max exhaled in wonder. “That’s a lot of room! You could probably fit a lot of extra cargo in here, Fritz. Like bags of potatoes and cabbages. Big bags, I mean, if you wanted to hide them from customs.”

  “Ja, ja, that’s the plan,” Fritz said, striding over and lifting Max up and out of the hood by his waistband. He slammed the truck hood shut. “Too many greedy schweinehunde in Switzerland, damn those customs officers.”

  “And what the schweinehunde don’t see won’t hurt them,” Max announced, repeating one of Fritz’s favorite phrases.

  “More importantly, what they don’t see won’t hurt me,” Fritz added. He pummeled Max about the shoulders playfully. “So have you eaten? Or should we go inside and see what’s for dinner?”

  “No thanks, my mom is expecting me,” Max said. “But can I come back again and play inside Pinocchio?”

  Fritz frowned. “Not in the next few days, Max, I promised Jo—” Fritz checked himself and cleared his throat. “I’ll be busy with some transports to the south. But if you stop by early next week, Pinocchio might be free.” Fritz bent down and glared intently into Max’s eyes. “In the meantime, not a word about this to anyone. Right?”

  “Right.” Max nodded. “Don’t worry, Fritz, I’d never say anything that might get you into trouble.”

  “Well, you might not know what sorts of things would get me into trouble, so the best thing is just not to say anything, okay?”

  “Okay. Don’t worry.” Waving his right arm through the air in farewell as he ran, Max headed back up the Himmelstrasse hill. His home was not far now. He could see his mother’s clothesline swaying in the light evening breeze, his own trousers gently kicking themselves dry between two checkered dish towels. Beneath the drying laundry, his dachshund rested his gray muzzle on a towel that had fallen into the dirt. When Max lifted the metal latch of the front gate, its slow squeal recalled some long-abandoned responsibility in the dog’s memory to alert and defend, and, barking weakly at a dream rabbit to stay put, Puck raised himself and wagged himself over to Max.

  The front door to the house, Max noticed, stood ajar, and someone had left a basket of bread on the threshold. “So, Puck, who’s visiting today?” he asked, giving the dog’s speckled ears a quick scratch before heading to the front entrance. Too late, Max knew the answer, for her high-pitched laugh pierced his eardrums as her round stomach plowed through the doorway and pinned him against the house wall.

  “Oh, Max!” Sabine Mecklen cried in surprise. “Just the boy I was looking for, right, Katrine?” Max’s mother, following a step or two behind her, acknowledged this with a silent nod. “Yes, Max, it is so good that you arrived! Your mother told me she didn’t know where you were. Really, you ought not to worry her like that, Max. She has enough to do without worrying about you. Having to raise you all alone while your father is away, not that she’s the only mother who has to do that, God knows there are plenty in this town, and everywhere, really. But that doesn’t make the job easy, does it, Katrine?” Because Sabine’s question was rhetorical, she did not have to look at Max’s mother for an answer, so only Max noticed his mother rolling her eyes in response.

  Max tried to listen to Fräulein Mecklen, because he knew it was polite to listen to grown-ups, even if you did not like them, but somehow his ears instinctively closed off to her voice after about thirty seconds, which allowed his brain to travel elsewhere. So he was just going back to the problem of how he might get that copper RG42 out of Freddi Klein for a reasonable trade when Fräulein Mecklen poked her finger in his face. “Yes, Max, you,” she said. She tried to bend toward him, in a gesture perhaps of camaraderie or of authority, but leaning her head over her torso unexpectedly compromised her balance, so she quickly righted herself. Max’s mother covered her mouth with her right hand, her eyes twinkling. “I am here to ask you for a favor, a big favor. Well, actually it’s quite a small thing, and something I’ll pay you for, of course, since you are a messenger and you get paid for that, don’t you? No, no, Katrine, don’t object, there’s no question, absolutely no question that Max should be paid.” Max did not see what Fräulein Mecklen was fussing about, since as far as he could tell, his mother had made no move to object. “After all, I am proposing to utilize your services like Ludmilla does, and she pays you. As she should, though I would need you to deliver the message tonight. That’s possible, isn’t it, Katrine?” Fräulein Mecklen turned to Max’s mother. “He doesn’t have to do it before dinner, but it does need to get to Pastor Wiessmeyer before tomorrow—I mean, the poor man needs a little notice. What if he wants to dress up a bit? Or otherwise prepare? Not that I would expect him to prepare anything, of course not, what could he have to prepare? A simple after-dinner tea, that’s all. Perhaps a pastry or two for dessert.”

  Max looked at his mother, confused.

  “Fräulein Mecklen would like you to deliver an invitation to Pastor Wiessmeyer, Max,” his mother explained, giving Max her stern keep quiet look. “I told her you’d be happy to run over to the rectory tonight, after dinner, and that you would do it as a favor to a good and kind neighbor.” Max frowned. He’d just been at Pastor Johann’s church! Obediently, however, he said nothing.

  Sabine smiled and looked around for her basket. Noticing it on the doorstep, she reached for it and put her hand on her lower back, emitting a small “Oof!” of effort. Max’s mother quickly bent down and retrieved the basket, from which Sabine, after much fumbling and fussing with rolls and a flowered dish towel, produced a perfumed cream-colored envelope and handed it to Max. The scent of rosewater was overpowering, and Max had to hold the envelope at arm’s length to keep from coughing. He sucked in his lips and cheeks, trying to tighten his nostrils, to close them. The note felt slightly damp, and he wondered whether Fräulein Mecklen had soaked the paper in a bath of eau de cologne. “Well, that’s done, then,” Sabine said, apparently satisfied. “You will be sure to deliver it tonight, won’t you, Max?” Max tried to move around her right side to escape into the house and rid himself of the offensive note. He hoped its redolence would evaporate before he had to deliver it. Was one dinner hour enough time? Max doubted it.

  “He’ll do it tonight,” Max’s mother said, putting a firm hand on Max’s shoulder and pinning him between the two women. “Won’t you, Max?” Now Max had no choice but to speak, if he wanted to get away. He wondered if he could do so without breathing in.

  “Hja, Fräuleid, I’d do id,” Max gasped, then squirmed through the doorway. Still holding his breath, he threw the note onto the hallway table and ran upstairs to the bathroom, where he exhaled thoroughly before splashing cold water on his face. He grabbed the towel hanging on the wall and buried his nose in its wind-hardened cotton pile, inhaling deeply, trying to cleanse his nose hairs of the lingering sickly sweet residue. He was relieved to hear Fräulein Mecklen taking her leave.

  “Boys will be boys, I suppose. I don’t know how you do it, Katrine. Oh, before I go, do please take these rolls. They are just day-old, practically fresh, and I took the time to reheat them before turning off the oven when I left. You can have them with dinner.”

  “That’s very kind, Sabine, thank you,” Max heard his mother say. “Max will be pleased.” But Max only liked the white brötchen the Mecklens made. The rye flour ones were awful. Going downstairs, Max entered the kitchen, where his mother was dishing out lentil soup for the two of them. He took a seat at the small table.

  “Well, what were you up to today?” she asked, handing him his cloth napkin while he grabbed his spoon. “Did you hear any good gossip from town?”

  “Mmph, nope,” Max mumbled through slurps of soup. “Not really. But there were two telegrams from Berlin today. And—”

  “From Berlin?” Max’s mother interrupted.

  “—Captain Rodemann is back!”

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Max said. “But there were lots of jeeps and trucks going in and out of the Weber property tonight. Lots of soldiers, and storm tro
opers too, I could see it all from the train tracks.” The moment he said it, Max was sorry.

  “Max, did you go over to Lara’s house again today? Is that why you’re late for dinner?” His mother was gentle in her chiding.

  “No,” Max started, then gave in to her tilted head and knowing look. “Well, yes, but only to see if she was in the yard, and she wasn’t.” Boy, he would make a terrible spy, he thought. Wasn’t the first lesson not to reveal incriminating evidence? Or was that for detectives?

  “I’m not going to tell you to stay away from her, Max, because that would be pointless,” his mother said, offering him one of Sabine’s brötchen, which he was happy to see was white, not rye. “The heart goes where it wants to go, and nothing can stop it. But I do want you to be respectful of the Eberhardts, is that understood?”

  “Yes, Mutti.” Max was about to bite into the brötchen he had taken, but just when it was in front of his mouth, he smelled it, and the rosewater mixed with yeast invaded his nose as surely as if Fräulein Mecklen had stuck her forefinger in his nostril. He dropped the bread and stood up suddenly. “Can I go now?”