The Day the Flowers Died

by Ami Blackwelder

  Rosalyn stretched her arm toward Robert as he stumbled forward onto the street. He grabbed hold of her hand which pulled him away from the chaos. They raced down the dark street full of exuberant Nazis, and the students followed. A few street lights and Nazi torches carried by the marching parade broke the night. The crooked red crosses glimmered under the burning light and the wave of Nazis and German citizens flooding the roads washed over them. Robert grabbed hold of Rosalyn’s arm, clinging to her dark wool jacket, and pulled her into an alley.

  “Stay quiet.” Robert held her close. The four students plowed through the parade, pushing forward until they stopped on the street. The sounds of the band’s Nazi anthems pervaded the roads until they turned the corner and left the street in silence. Robert watched them before retreating further into the alley and ushered Rosalyn inside an open door.

  The dark room smelled musty. Robert clicked the door shut and locked it. He clutched a table and squatted next to Rosalyn, then brushed his hands over the saved book. From the moonlight seeping through the cracks in the door, he admired its simple cover.

  Rosalyn stared into Robert’s eyes and pushed herself closer to him. His fingers caressed her blonde hair pinned up in a pony tail and he then returned his attention to the book. This quiet moment between the two of them and a forbidden book reminded them of the many clandestine meetings of children and adults gathering to read their favorite banned authors, many reprimanded when caught by Hitler’s youth leaders.

  “I think they’re gone,” Rosalyn whispered. Robert peeked out of the crack in the door and eased it opened, noticing the streets had become more silent and still.

  “Let’s get going,” he said with uncertain anxiety. He grabbed Rosalyn’s hand and helped pull her to her feet. The two of them walked out through the alley and returned to their car parked a few blocks from the bonfire.

  * * *

  Sunday morning found Rebecca up early in the kitchen, preparing a basket of food. She wanted to go on a picnic at the lake Eli had taken her to for Valentine’s Day. Eli awoke to the sounds of her dressing and watched her lace her legs with nylon and clad her breasts with a silk blouse and pale blue skirt.

  “What are you doing up so early on Sunday?” Eli squinted his eyes and yawned, struggling to cover his mouth with his hand currently nestled under his leg.

  “We’re going on a trip to the lake. I’m in the mood for swimming.” Rebecca braided her long hair.

  “We are, huh?” Eli leapt out from under the sheets and ambled to the bathroom. “Then I’d better get ready.” The sounds of the falling water complimented the sounds of the tea pouring into two cups by Rebecca’s hand. She shouted to him from the kitchen area, “I’ve put your swimming trunks in the basket with my swimming garb and two extra towels.”

  “Thank you, my dearest Rebecca.”

  “Hurry up. I want to get there early,” Rebecca scolded as she put the homemade sandwiches into the basket. Eli appeared in the kitchen and picked the basket up from the counter.

  “Well, let’s get going then.” They walked down the steps to Rebecca’s car which Eli drove whenever they went anywhere together. Rebecca did not enjoy the stress of the road.

  Eli found it a pleasure to sooth her concerns and provide a state of comfort for her if only temporary. Rebecca relaxed while Eli chauffeured her to the lake. Eli pulled into the park and situated his car next to one other car in the lot.

  The park was quiet and the early morning air fresh. Eli and Rebecca changed in the changing rooms marked for women on one side and men on the other. Eli left the room first and then Rebecca met him out in front by the lake. The short grass softened against their feet. The turquoise water glistened under the morning sun and shimmered with little waves washing up to the shoreline and over the white, brown sand resting just outside the border of the short blades of grass and sun capped shrubs.

  A distant couple snuggled in the water. They twirled together before swimming side by side further off. Eli drew Rebecca to him with a tug of her hand and they splashed as they dove into the water in unison. Blue jays chirped in trees and sometimes as they flew over the lake. Wind rustled branches and leaves. Clouds hid the intensity of the sun and provided a welcomed shade.

  They swirled together arm in arm in the blissful freedom of the water and, on occasion, Rebecca splashed Eli’s face with a kick of her foot or childlike movement of her hand. Eli dove underneath, disappearing and Rebecca swarmed around the lake looking for him. He popped up next to her and grabbed her shoulder. She screamed and then splashed Eli’s face again in retribution.

  As the afternoon approached, more cars piled into the park’s lot and the lake soon filled with children and adults playing beach ball, Marco-Polo, and wading in the water or relaxing on the park grass. The distant couple whom Eli noticed earlier vanished and so did the quiet stillness. Two young ladies swam past Rebecca and Eli, their long blonde hair pulled tight into pony tails.

  They glared at Eli as they swam and then returned to the shore where two young short blond haired men helped to towel dry them. Eli noticed one of the young ladies pointing in his direction and his lips tightened. One of the young men sped to a lifeguard and the discourse lasted a few minutes before the lifeguard hastened to the edge of the lake and called out to Eli.

  He gestured with his hands and said, “You need to come out of the water, young man.”

  Rebecca turned her head to Eli. “Is he talking to you?”

  “You need to come out now,” the lifeguard demanded.

  Eli complied and swam to the shore. Rebecca followed closely behind him. Pulling himself out of the water, he walked over to the lifeguard and asked, “What’s the problem?” Eli’s smile curled down in reluctance.

  “No Jews aloud. You need to vacate the area.”

  Rebecca’s mouth gaped and her disposition became agitated. “You can’t do this! He has a right to swim here.”

  “The Nazis have made it clear he has no such right and, unless you want to talk to the SA about this, I would prepare to leave, Miss.” The lifeguard spoke with military rigidness. His short trimmed, blond hair and blue eyes told Eli he was one of Hitler’s Youth and Eli yanked Rebecca back.

  “It’s fine. We were just leaving.” Eli placed his hand on the small of Rebecca’s back and pushed her in the direction of the car. He lifted the basket of food and towels from the picnic table and wrapped Rebecca in one of the towels. The once rhythmic cadence of the park’s sounds of nature had been disturbed and became like the streets of Munich, ripping the two of them back into the world they tried to hide from if just for a moment.

  “They can’t do that,” Rebecca declared and she slammed the door shut.

  “They can and they have.” Eli reasoned with his lawyer tone and laid a towel over the seat before he started the engine.

  “This isn’t right,” Rebecca insisted as Eli drove them home in silence. The walk up to their apartment felt long and heavy, each step in a direction they had not chosen and did not want.

  Eli shut his eyes and plopped on top of the bed. Rebecca sighed like the lungs within her constricted and she found it hard to breathe.

  “Are you alright?” Eli asked and sat up on the foot of the bed, watching her in the living area through the open door.

  “I’m fine, Eli. Don’t worry about me.” She brushed his concerns off her like she brushed the dust off the objects in her room. She did not want sympathy or unwarranted fret. He was the one in danger, the one whose civil rights were violated every day since the chancellorship of Hitler. He needed her sympathies. She climbed into the bed with him, though it was still afternoon. They snuggled like the couple at the lake in the distance, swirling and twirling and swimming toward the shore.

  But the bedroom only offered a momentary peace, passing hours that soon fell into the next day when Rebecca needed to report to work and Eli began to feel cooped up inside the apartment. He needed to feel normal again, busy with work for his father. He didn’t g
raduate University to lie in bed all day and he didn’t enjoy the lack of intellectual stimulation from being absent from the courtroom. He did not want to become a prisoner in the country he was born and raised in. He felt as German as his Aryan neighbors and, with exception to his observance of Jewish Holy days and Shabbos and avoidance of pork, he was very much German.

  But the days filled with an absence of many things for Eli, an absence of Rebecca, an absence of the courtroom, an absence of his office, and an absence of fresh air. Since the boycott and riots in April, fear and violence escalated with Jews the primary target. Eli swore to Rebecca he would not linger outside for too long in the mornings without her and he would not walk the streets unless necessary. Gestapo, SA, and Hitler’s Youth patrolled the streets now.

  He spent much of his time reading from banned authors and reviewing the law. This law no longer existed under Nazi control and radical reform, but he grew up with and knew it, and hoped it would return someday. He sipped his morning tea which Rebecca prepared for him before a succulent kiss on the lips and a wave goodbye for the day.

  He went downstairs, slid his coin into the vender and pulled out the day’s paper, Hamburger Tageblatt newspaper, Friday 31. The Nazis not only controlled parliament, the streets and public opinion, but controlled journalism, too, to ensure no one spoke against them. As Eli read the paper walking back to the apartment, he realized no words were untainted anymore. Nazi propaganda slanted all the news on the radio and in the papers and he ripped the paper in half before tossing it into the waste basket in the corner of the fourth floor. He headed to the room, vowing to never read the paper until the Nazis no longer held power.

  Monday, June 16, 1933

  Rebecca drove to the hospital in her car, the Christmas gift from her father, and her mind wandered back to the last Christmas with her papa and mother. If she had explained her feelings more tactfully about Eli then, could events have occurred differently between her and her family? She remembered the warm embrace her papa gave her when she thanked him for her present, and the indifference he showed while she and her mother engaged in volatile discourse.

  She regretted not asking her papa at the time what he thought about her dating Eli, before her mother could inject him with her poison. But nothing could be done about it now. Her mother shaped and influenced his actions. He was a wise man when it came to business and naïve when it came to matters of his heart. He always intended to do the rights things, but usually managed to become muddled between social expectations and his wife’s desires.

  Rebecca pulled the car into the hospital lot, turned off the engine and locked the door. Her thoughts returned to the present day and she focused on the events about to unfold at the hospital. Always a hectic place to work, since her wedding and moving in with Eli, gossip about her personal relation with a Jew only made days at the hospital more stressful. But Rebecca ignored the idle words that floated inside those walls and concentrated instead on her duties to help the victims and heal the ailments. The injured and sick flooded the front office until nurses escorted many into exam rooms in the back.

  A few patients remained waiting for care. An elderly woman, with a wrinkled face, angular nose and heavy brows, hunched over in one of the chairs. She coughed in her tissue held tightly in her hands. Next to her sat an unusually tall man with dark blond hair and sky blue eyes who held his left arm, grimacing in pain. On the other side of the room sat two young women in their twenties. Their dark hair, twisted into braids, laced around their head and contrasted against their light blue eyes. They sat with their hands clasped in their laps over a German designed dress. Though not identical twins, they had similar features. The secretary at the front desk called to the tall man and gestured for him to come to her.

  “The doctor will see you now.” She reached her hand out to help him with his paper for signature. A doctor in a long white coat appeared at the swinging door dividing the front office from the patient rooms and then the tall man disappeared. The elderly woman coughed again, her tissue becoming twisted in use, and she tossed it into one of the trash bins near the door. Rebecca stood from behind the front desk, away from her filing work and handed the elderly woman a few more tissues from the box on the counter. The secretary glared at Rebecca and then returned to her own duties of answering phone calls and arranging doctor schedules.

  Thirty minutes later, a nurse ushered in the twins through the swinging door and led them to a patient room. The elderly woman remained still in her seat. An hour later, over five of the patients who had received their care finished their visit and left the hospital. Rebecca gazed into the waiting room where the elderly woman remained and two new patients sat down in once empty seats. The secretary played with her blonde curls under her nurse’s white cap and called out to one of the young men sitting in the waiting room. Rebecca swung her head around in the secretary’s direction while her lips twisted and her eyes grew sharp corners of disbelief.

  “That woman has been waiting for over three hours,” Rebecca fumed.

  “A few more hours isn’t going to hurt her.”

  Rebecca stood too close to her and, as if to explain her actions and return Rebecca to her seat at the other side, she said, “We don’t see Jews before Aryans.” Rebecca looked away from the counter and at the elderly woman still waiting in unprecedented contentment for someone to call her name or gesture for her to move forward. Rebecca fell back into her chair, disgusted at how Nazi perversion affected the hospital.

  Rebecca could not sit easily in her chair, knowing the disregard for this elderly woman and quickened her step through the swinging doors. She marched over to the doctor standing nearby at the sink, the same doctor who made unwanted advances at her. The doctor stepped back at her forceful advancement.

  “Is anyone going to tend to the elderly woman who’s been waiting more than patiently for the past three hours for care?” Rebecca demanded.

  The doctor’s mouth fell open and his words lingered in an uncommon silence, uncertain of how to respond to her brash request. He was not a particularly cruel man and yet, he didn’t fight against the grain either. He knew Rebecca loved a Jew and to him this made her all the more sensitive to their plight.

  Still, when he gazed into Rebecca’s eyes, he remembered all the feelings he had for her while they worked side by side. When he learned of her relationship with Eli, he managed to conceal those feelings, but only if he kept his distance. At this confrontation, he was unequipped to handle the rush of emotion that exuded from him. Any quarrels he might have had about tending to a Jew faded and he only desired to assist Rebecca in whatever way he could. Words slipped from his lips unchecked.

  “Bring her to me,” he said.

  Rebecca smiled at the doctor in a silent smile behind her eyes where only he could see it, then she returned to the front desk to retrieve the patient. Rebecca wheeled her into the room she had shared many times with the doctor. He waited for her to arrive and, though Rebecca suspected his kindness had more to do with herself than with the patient, she felt grateful nonetheless.

  “Thank you, doctor,” Rebecca responded while helping the patient out of the wheelchair and into her hospital bed. She positioned her head on the pillow and caught her grey eyes.

  “The doctor will take care of you now.” The wrinkled chin of the woman stretched with her smile as she closed her eyes. Rebecca assisted the doctor with each request more attentively than she had with other patients, knowing the doctor risked his own reputation caring for this woman.

  By the end of the day, Rebecca was exhausted and eager to arrive at her apartment where Eli would draw a warm bath and have a nice dinner ready for her to eat. The way they had reversed roles was unconventional, but it worked for them in this time, this place where everything seemed to be turning upside down. Upon entering her apartment, the gust of wind from the open door blew a paper off the side wall table and onto the floor. Rebecca picked it up with her tired hands and sat on the sofa to read it.

>   Rebecca,

  I have gone to collect my immigration documentation for my family.

  Dinner is in the fridge and I will be back soon. Take Care.

  Love You My Dearest,

  Eli

  Eli met up with Aaron outside the apartment and drove in Eli’s blue car to the old building they had stopped at in April. The haggard man in the back smoked his cigarette as he opened the door for the two of them to enter. Mr. Reiner and his wife were present. She poured Eli, Aaron and her husband a cup of tea before returning to her seat on the middle sofa with her husband.

  Mr. Reiner adjusted his spectacles and then looked over the documents one last time before closing that file and handing it to Eli. It contained stamped passports with all the paperwork required for Aaron and his parents, and likewise for Eli’s family. The tall, grey haired man bent down to retrieve eight more forms from his desk.

  “These are letters from the immigration office declaring your approval to enter America. The birth certificate information is included along with a photo of each family member in the passport,” Mr. Reiner said.

  Eli opened the file and caressed the passports as if he held Rebecca’s own hand.

  The first page was marked with a J for Juden and the following page held a photo. The next page was a visa approved for America and the fourth page was a German police permit allowing departure. The forms that followed were a German police record of each individual and two affidavits from American citizens whom Eli had never heard of.

  “Thank you so much.” Eli stretched his hand out to shake Mr. Reiner’s.

  “Yes, thank you,” Aaron said with easiness in his words. The wrinkled and serious form Aaron’s face usually held soothed.

  “Take good care of your documents. We will not be able to forge them again if they are lost or damaged,” the old man warned.