The Old Fella put down his copy of the Financial Times to listen to the catechism.
“No. There’s going to be a terrible war and millions of young men and women will be killed.”
“How old is she?”
“sixteen.”
“A little young.”
“You’re a fine one to talk, woman.”
“I’m Irish,” she said waving him away with a grin.
“What’s her name?”
“Annalise.”
“That’s a foreign name.”
“She’s a foreigner, Ma.”
“’Tis true … Well, I’ll be looking forward to meeting her and I’ll be after calling her Annie and won’t I be praying for her every night.”
Chicago is a fascinating city. The Consul General was an elderly man, a delightful raconteur, a tolerant boss, and drunk by noontime. All the work was left to me, but he never checked up to see if I had done it My venue was everything west of Pittsburgh. I saw a lot of the United States in the midst of the Great Depression. Despite the poverty—which was not as bad as that in Dublin or Belfast or even London, it was still a vast, fascinating, and hopeful country that I couldn’t help but like.
Shamed by the Galway woman’s promise, I prayed for Annalise every night, but my memory of her faded with time as memories do.
I received the occasional letter from Claus, written in German. There were many Germans in Chicago. I had continued to work on my German with some of them because I did not want to lose whatever skill I had. Censorship of German mail had not yet begun.
Timmy,
Hitler is very popular just now. He has solved our depression problems by pouring money into preparation for war, he reentered the Rhineland without any opposition from the English or the French, who are still demoralized by their losses in the last war, he has taken over Austria, and is threatening Czechoslovakia. It seems that all of Europe is open to him for the taking. My mother’s brother took me aside to tell me that I must organize opposition to Hitler in the officer corps, especially because of Hitler’s rabid hatred of the Jews. I tell him that I’m too young and too junior to do that just yet, but I will eventually organize such a group. I already make my opinion known by walking out of every anti-Semitic harangue from the SS men who appear here sometimes to indoctrinate us. I am the only one that does, but almost all my colleagues praise me for it. I tell them that our family has put down pogroms since the time of the Crusades. Jesus and his mother were Jews. I suppose they still are. We must respect their relatives. Jews are good Germans like the rest of us.
You have surely read about Kristallnacht. The Nazis blame the Jews for the fire that destroyed the Reichstadt and organized a pogrom against the Jews. Many were beaten, some killed, their shops vandalized and some destroyed. The Nazis celebrate this as proof that the German people wish to purify themselves of degenerates. The Nazis are scum. Hitler is mad and those around him are incompetent fools. Soon we will have to act. I hear that von Beck, the Chief of the General Staff, plans to arrest Hitler before he forces a war with England and France over the Czechs. But both countries are weak, worn-out from the war, as I have said. We lost the war and had terrible casualties too. But our desire for revenge is apparently stronger than their desire for peace. There will be no peace until Hitler is dead.
I now have two children and am very happy. Nina sends her love.
Claus
Not a word about Annalise. That had to be deliberate. Was she married? Was she dead?
I almost never drink too much. As I drank myself to sleep that night, I cursed myself as a stupid fool. I still prayed for her, however, because I knew the Galway woman did.
His next letter had more bad news.
Timmy,
The English and French are fools. We had sent word to them that if they stood up to Hitler, we would remove him. They must not have believed us. We also told them that the Wermacht was no more ready for war than they were, probably less. The French army could have moved into the Rhineland overnight and met almost no resistance.
Yet they appease him instead of resisting. Mr.
Chamberlain, a pathetic fool, waves his foolish little piece of paper when he gets off the plane returning from Munich. And says that Herr Hitler promises no more expansion. How can he not understand that a piece of paper means nothing to Antichrist. Chamberlain and Deladier have left all of Europe open to the Nazis, who will be stopped now only at the English Channel, if there. Guderian is already making plans for a Blitzkrieg through France.
I am now Q officer of the Sixth Panzer Division. We will be the head of that Blitzkrieg. The mistakes of 1914, we hear, will not be repeated. France will be destroyed.
Nina and the children—there are now three—are well and send their love.
I must tell you Annalise is engaged to be married to Luftwaffe General Paul von Richthofen. He is not a Nazi and is a good man. He is a cousin of the famous Red Baron of the last war and flew with the Flying Circus at the end after his cousin was killed. He commands the Stuka wing of the Luftwaffe—those odd divebombers with gull wings and landing gear that does not retract. The plans for the invasion of France require a thousand of these to fly in close support of our Panzers. Militarily that is exciting. Personally I dread what will happen to the French. No humiliation, however, will weaken their arrogant self-confidence.
Goering, who is a pervert and a drug addict and not half the man he was when he was in the Flying Circus, admires and respects him and will protect him and Annalise from all the evil men who want her. She had to marry to find someone to protect her. They will marry next autumn after the war with Poland and before we invade France.
Paul is twenty years older than Annalise, a widower who lost his wife in the stillbirth of his first child. I regret the marriage, but she could have chosen someone who is much worse.
I will give this letter to my brother Alexander, who goes often to Switzerland on business matters. He will mail it in Berne. From now on all my mail will be censored. God bless you and protect you. Pray for all of us.
Claus.
I read the letter late at night in my apartment in the Tower Neighborhood on the Near North Side of Chicago in August 1939. I was exhausted because of a long and very bumpy flight from San Francisco. This time I did not drink myself to sleep. Rather I wept myself to sleep. I had been a stupid fool. I would regret my cowardice the rest of my life. I told God that I would no longer pray for the woman who had broken our pledges. Nonetheless the next night I mentioned her in my prayers. Fool that I was, I still loved her. What choice did she have?
The next day, Germany announced a “nonaggression” pact between Berlin and Moscow, the so-called Ribbentrop-Molotov pact signed in Moscow. Poland was doomed. Even before the Panzers rolled into Poland and slaughtered the Polish dragoons who charged them with lances, the Ministry recalled me to Dublin to prepare for assignment as Irish ambassador to Berlin.
11
“WELL,” NUALA Anne observed, “their story isn’t over yet. He’s returning to Germany, just as he promised.”
“He’ll probably be there for Claus’s Putsch against Hitler.”
“In which Claus will die?”
“Yep.”
“And he will meet Annalise again?”
“Maybe. You can’t have happy endings all the time in real life, Nuala Anne.”
“Why not?”
“That’s the way of the world.”
We were in our room dressing for dinner at the Cape Cod Room with Siobhan, Des’s sometime date at Marquette. She was coming to Chicago for an interview at Children’s Hospital about her internship in child psychology, the subject of her doctoral work.
“I don’t mind talking about Dizzy Des,” she said. “He’s a fun subject. I’m not sure I can tell you very much, however. He’s always been a mystery to me.”
She would come to our house after the interview, meet our childer, and then we’d take her to the Drake for supper and drive her back to her home in Oak Park.
Spring having made an unexpected arrival, me wife was dressing in her “light blue” outfit, which she affirmed was her best color, an observation with which I could not argue.
It meant totally light blue—lingerie, nylons, knit dress, hair bow, shoes, all emphasized with silver jewelry, including a Brigid Cross and a Newgrange pin.
“Would you ever stop staring at me while I dress,” she demanded. “Letcha get dressed yourself.”
“No,” I said firmly. “’Tis the privilege of the husband to ogle his wife while she’s dressing.”
“I never heard that rule,” she protested, not altogether displeased with my attention.
“’Tis true just the same … And remember you can’t read ahead in that manuscript to find out how it ends.”
“Haven’t I promised?”
“You have.”
“I won’t cheat, Dermot Michael, and would you ever hook up me bra.”
“Wouldn’t I be delighted?”
I hooked it and kissed her neck. She shivered with delight.
“He promised to return to Germany, and he’ll be doing that, won’t he?”
“So it would appear. And his lover married to a veteran of the Flying Circus.”
“And that means that Des will return to Chicago, doesn’t it?”
“We don’t know that he has a lover in Chicago and I’ve never accepted the parallel between our stories.”
“Is this the same Red Baron that fought with Snoopy?”
The ultimate historical fame is to be identified with Snoopy.
“Annalise’s husband is his cousin.”
“Why do they call it a ‘Flying Circus’?”
“The planes were all those three winged Fokkers painted different colors. The pilots lived in tents to back up the circus image. It was not a circus for those English and French pilots they shot down. They had developed a tactic of flying around with a massive number of planes, cornering a single enemy pilot, and forcing him into a position were von Richthofen could jump on him and shoot him down. It piled up eighty victories for him and apparently provided a boost for German morale, which was in sad shape in those days.”
“He was shot down himself eventually, wasn’t he?”
“Killed by a single bullet from an Australian gunner on the ground.”
“War is stupid, evil nonsense, a silly game played by men with high testosterone levels and led by old men trying to make themselves famous.”
“You won’t get me to disagree.”
We arrived in the parlor just before our guest, who was on a high because she had aced the interview at Children’s.
“I’m so happy that I’ll be back in Chicago next year,” she told us. “I miss it so much, and it’s more beautiful every time I come back.”
She was an attractive young woman, not quite as tall as me wife, with brown hair and eyes and an elfish grin.
“I couldn’t believe it was you on the phone, though actually you sounded just like yourself … That’s an Irish Bull, isn’t it?”
“’Tis close enough,” Nuala admitted, deciding that she would bond with this exuberant young woman. “These canines are respectively Fiona and Maeve. We work for them. They like to meet everyone who comes in.”
Each of the snow-white doggies presented a paw and then curled up on the floor.
“Gorgeous creatures! Will one of them come home to Omaha with me?”
“You have a deal,” I said, “but you’ll have to take the four kids along or the pooches won’t leave.”
Said kids straggled in, Patjo in Nellie’s arms, and were solemnly introduced. They politely greeted the guest as they were told to do. Socra Marie, her glasses askew, tried, as always, to steal the show.
“Patjo is my baby brother. I’m not a baby anymore, I’m a little girl!”
“And a very pretty little girl too!”
That was all she needed to make her night.
The kids and the doggies returned to the playroom and we went down the stairs to my Benz. I opened the front door for both young women and assigned myself to the backseat as I was expected to do.
“The little one is the preemie?” Siobhan asked, apparently having been informed about her on the phone.
“Twenty-five weeks.”
“She seems fine … Tiny but filled with vitality.”
“More than enough of that. The doctors say she might even outlive the glasses still.”
“You worry about her all the time, I suppose?”
“Not that it does any good!”
“She fades a little at the end of the day,” I said, “but which of us doesn’t.”
“We’re getting much better at working with them,” Siobhan commented. “The neonatal care people are more cautious about making grim predictions.”
“But the trick of it is to prevent premature births, isn’t it now?”
“It certainly is … What did they tell you when she was born?”
“That the odds were against us ever taking her home, but it was our call.”
“And you called for life?”
“We did and never regretted it.”
“Good for you!”
“Don’t we take her over to the unit every couple of months and meself singing for them. Herself comes along and tells the small ones that they’ll be all right just like her.”
“So it’s a mark of pride to her?”
“If you had stayed five more minutes, she would have told you the whole story,” I said.
It was good for Nuala to hear the opinion of a professional, though she had heard many such opinions before. Every new one was still a help.
We turned to the subject of Des—or Dizzy Des—only after we had ordered dinner at the Cape Cod Room. Herself had not explained to me why our interview with Siobhan was solemn high, herself in her trademark light blue, meself with a suit (brown) and tie, dinner at a classy restaurant. Such decisions were usually instinctive and unassailable. Sure weren’t the reasons obvious!
“We’re trying to find out what he’s like,” Nuala began after she had ordered a bottle of Cakebread Chardonnay, “and why he might have gone off to Iraq at the beginning of the war?”
“I’d say he had cooked up some kind of deal over there and, being Des, wasn’t about to back off just because of Donald Rumsfeld.”
“Weren’t we thinking the same thing?” Nuala said. “Only one glass of wine for you, Dermot love! Won’t you be driving home.”
“He’s the nicest boy I ever dated,” Siobhan observed.
“And the most unpredictable. I don’t believe he’s dead, not Dizzy Des. He’s too clever for that.”
“You wouldn’t be hearing from him now, would you?”
“No, but I wouldn’t be surprised to get an e-mail from him any day now, just like he’d written last week. A roadside bomb or an exploding car might have caught him, but I don’t think so. His luck is legendary and his ability to talk himself out of trouble is fantastic. He could win over even Osama himself.
“I’ll never forget the night in Milwaukee when his parents sent the local cops to a bar where his Irish band was playing. It was a pretty seedy place, filled with pugnacious Irish drunks, some of them from the old country and all of them looking for a fight Dessy and I were the only sober ones in the place and I was scared silly. He cooled the whole scene and when the cops came there was not the slightest hint of disorderly conduct. Just the same we got out of there in a hurry. I made him promise never again.”
“His parents wanted to put him in jail?”
“They’re nice folks, but creepy and dull. His mom tells me that she hopes I’ll settle him down.”
“And what were you after saying to her?” Nuala asked.
“I said that Des was who he was and I liked him the way he was. What else could I say?”
“You were in love with him?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that. I liked him a lot. I had a crush on him. I could have fallen in love with him, but his sig
nals said not yet, maybe not ever. Dessy was still exploring.”
“You thought that was all right?”
Siobhan was exploring with obvious delight the Bookbinder soup.
“I liked him enough to want him to have all the time to explore that he needed. He was a special guy, you see … Besides I was in no hurry for permanency either.”
Herself was quiet. So I figured it was my turn to ask a question.
“You admire him very much?” I said lamely.
“What’s not to admire? He sent me a thousand-word letter every week while he was in Eritrea, publishable stuff. Hilariously funny at his own expense and a very sensitive depiction of the Horn of Africa. I edited it and sent it to an agent. We have a publisher, all we need is his signature on a contract.”
“And he didn’t object?”
“See, that’s the problem with trying to describe him. Most guys wouldn’t want their personal mail turned into a book without someone asking their permission. And they’d be right, I suppose. There wasn’t much personal in the letters anyway and I knew Des. He was delighted when I told him. Loved it. Said I was wonderful, even kissed me.”
“Did he now?” Nuala asked with a wicked gleam in her blue eyes.
THE BRAT IS ALWAYS MAKING MATCHES.
Comes with the gender.
“I’m not waiting for him, Nuala Anne,” Siobhan said, serious for a moment. “I waited through the Peace Corps years, because I was busy anyway with my studies. Then he came back and he was magical as ever but still frying his own fish and marching to his own drums. He wasn’t ready to be serious and I figured it might be a long time before he would be. So I made a decision in my head that I should be open to other options. So I’ve been dating guys out in Omaha, which isn’t a whole ton of fun, and even found a nice boy here in Chicago, who is a little like Des, but sane.”
“’Tis sad,” me wife said.
“Oh, Nuala Anne, guys are like L trains; you miss one there’s always another one coming along.”
“That’s what me Dermot told me when he went home from Ireland and left me there!”
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