The Stranger From Berlin

by Melissa Amateis

  ‘It’s hard to read the newspaper account of that night,’ Celia continued. ‘This group of men just showed up and dragged the people out of the church. Forced them to kiss the American flag, sing patriotic songs, things like that. Then they started burning all the German books used in the parochial school and set fire to the church. Dietrich was inside when it happened. A terrible accident.’ She shuddered. ‘Awful. I can give you the article if you’d like to read it.’

  The ham he was chewing started to taste like rubber, and he had to force himself to swallow it. This all hit far too close to that night in Germany in November of 1938, when the Jews became innocent targets simply for having Jewish blood.

  As a historian, he should follow his training and say yes to Celia’s offer, gather sources, learn as much about Mrs Stanwick’s past as he could. But already the content he would be translating – the words of a mother writing to her son beyond the grave – was absolutely the last thing he wanted to absorb himself in for days on end.

  This was going from bad to worse, and he’d only been here two days.

  ‘I doubt it will be necessary,’ he said finally. ‘My colleagues at the university told me about the anti-German hysteria here during the Great War. I assume this incident was part of that?’

  Celia nodded. ‘I think so. They even renamed the town. It used to be called Schoneburg.’

  ‘Roughly translated, Schöneburg means “beautiful hills”. I imagine that is why they went with Meadow Hills.’

  ‘Lots of other German-named towns changed their names as well,’ Celia said. ‘As a history professor, I imagine you know of it?’

  ‘That part of American history is not my specialty, but of course I learned of it from my colleagues at the university. It was very fresh in their minds when America entered the war in 1941.’

  ‘You should have seen this place after Pearl Harbor,’ Hank said. ‘We were patriotic before, but wowsers, this town pulled out all the stops and never quit.’

  ‘Yes. It is a bit… overwhelming.’ Max set down his knife and fork. ‘Do you think…’ he began, then stopped. How to ask this question? He tried again. ‘Will my being German disturb the people here?’

  Celia took a long time cutting a piece of ham before finally responding. ‘That question isn’t easy to answer. This town was settled mostly by Germans, but ever since that night in 1918, you’d never guess it.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s no nice way to say it, but yes, some will be upset at you being here because you’re German, but they’ll mostly be suspicious just because you’re not from here. I’m from Brooklyn. You would have thought I came from Timbuktu the way they treated me when I arrived to take the curator position. Truth is, it hasn’t got a whole lot better, even though I married one of their own.’

  Hank frowned. ‘You make it sound like it’s a secret club or something. “One of their own”.’

  ‘It feels that way, Hank,’ she shot back. ‘This town is very unwelcoming to strangers.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Hank held up his hands, though whether it was a placating gesture or one of surrender, Max couldn’t tell. ‘But it’s the same in every small town in America. That’s just how they are. Give them time.’

  ‘Time? It’s been a year.’

  Max spoke up, as much to stop their bickering as to reassure them. ‘Please know that I will not cause any trouble while I am here.’

  ‘Oh, we know you won’t,’ Celia reassured him, though he knew she couldn’t possibly know anything of the sort.

  ‘Honest truth is,’ Hank said, ‘you will stick out like a black eye around here.’ He shrugged. ‘But I don’t think they’re going to charge over to your place with pitchforks and burning torches. You might get a few snide remarks and stares, things like that. But most folks are pretty decent.’

  ‘After a while, you get used to it,’ Celia mumbled, shoving corn around on her plate. Then she put her fork down and gave him a bright, though clearly fake, smile. ‘I’m sure it will be just fine.’

  Which meant he’d better be prepared. Underneath the table, his hand twisted his trouser leg. Scheiße, he needed a cigarette.

  ‘Anyway, I’m sorry I don’t have more information for you on Mrs Stanwick,’ Celia continued. ‘I would suggest you go on one of the tours and then I’ll give you the short biography of her that I wrote up for the museum. We do have a lot of her journals that discuss the plots of her novels. I don’t know if those would be of interest to you or not.’

  ‘Sometimes the oddest sources yield the greatest results.’

  ‘I suppose as a trained historian, you’re more equipped to find those things than I am. Y’know, I’ve always found history fascinating.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘What area do you study?’

  ‘I focused on the French Revolution and Napoleon’s impact on Prussia.’

  He was hoping she wouldn’t pick up on his use of the past tense.

  ‘How interesting. But now you’re on sabbatical?’

  Here it came. A cold sweat broke out on his neck and he tried to disguise his discomfort by buttering his third piece of bread that evening.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  Celia stared at him expectantly. He cleared his throat and took a sip of water to wet his dry mouth.

  Think, man! Say something, anything!

  ‘It was time,’ he blurted. ‘A long break from academia is necessary to keep one’s mind sharp. It is a demanding profession.’

  There. A response full of absolute drivel. Hopefully that would put an end to it.

  Without missing a beat, he said, ‘Were you able to find someone to help me with the diary’s transcription process? I’m afraid I’m rather helpless with an American typewriter.’

  Celia appeared to accept the change of subject, though he felt Hank’s gaze on him for a moment longer than necessary. He tried to ignore it, but he knew he’d aroused suspicion. Professor Watkins assured him the university would maintain the sabbatical story should anyone ask. Heaven help him if they changed their mind.

  It had been so much easier in Lincoln. No one asked him about his past. With Bruce’s help, he’d established an unwritten rule that talking about Germany caused him too much distress, and everyone understood. No one ever came close to guessing the real reason he refused to discuss those years in Berlin. Until Goldberg, that is…

  ‘Yes, I found someone to help you,’ Celia said, bringing him back to the conversation. ‘In fact, I believe you’ve already met her.’

  Max furrowed his brow. ‘I’m not sure who you’re referring to.’

  ‘She works here at the museum. She said she met you in the cottage yesterday.’

  The comment hit him like a fist. ‘Mrs Fields?’

  He didn’t mean to make it sound like a gunshot, but there it was. Celia looked taken aback at his outburst and he couldn’t say he blamed her. He sounded half insane.

  ‘You did ask for help…’

  Mein Gott. Yes, he had, but he’d had in mind some grey-haired biddy with tiny glasses perched on her nose who did her job and didn’t ask questions, not a beautiful girl who’d already taken an active dislike to him.

  ‘Of… of course.’

  Celia lifted her water glass, but when she saw his expression, she lowered it. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘No. When I met Mrs Fields, she told me she was a tour guide, so I naturally assumed…’

  ‘Oh yes. She’s one of our best. But she’s also a writer and an excellent typist. She’ll be able to help you with any grammar issues, things like that.’

  Grammar issues. If only that were the only thing he needed to worry about! Good heavens.

  Max took a bite of bread and nearly choked on all the butter. He made a half-hearted attempt at conversation after that, asking how many visitors the museum usually had, the different events they held, anything he could think of that had nothing whatsoever to do with him. But his hands were shaking, his craving for a cigarette almost unbearable, and he declined
a mouthwatering piece of hot, tart apple crisp simply because he didn’t want to embarrass himself by possibly dropping his fork.

  After supper, Celia handed him the diary. ‘Would you mind looking at the first few pages, see if I was right about her writing to her son?’

  ‘Of course.’

  It was a small, leather-bound book, with Mrs Stanwick’s full name embossed in gold on the cover. He carefully opened it to the first page, then read out loud.

  ‘ “November 25, 1918. My dearest boy, it has been a month since your death. I don’t remember much about those first few days after you were taken from me. They say I was hysterical with grief. Of course I was. How could I not be?” ’

  He swallowed and looked up at Celia. ‘It appears you were right.’

  ‘I’m sure it won’t be easy to read.’

  ‘No. But I will be as faithful to her words as I can.’

  He closed the diary and placed it in his coat pocket. It sat like a leaden weight.

  ‘I do thank you for this opportunity, Mrs Draper,’ he said, meaning it. ‘I want you to know how grateful I am.’

  ‘We know you’ll do an excellent job.’

  Hank shook his hand. ‘So long, professor. I’ll drop by sometime and take you out for a beer.’

  Max nodded, wondering if Hank was just being nice or if the offer was genuine. ‘I’d like that. Goodnight.’

  As soon as his feet hit the pavement, he pulled out his cigarettes and lit one, inhaling the smoke so quickly his eyes watered. But finally the shakes started to subside and he walked back to the cottage, the darkness enveloping him, the cold penetrating his skin.

  Damn it. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to go through this… this farce of lying about his job to these people, and he certainly didn’t want to translate a mother’s words to her dead son.

  He wanted… He sighed, watching his breath steam in the air. He wanted to go home. He wanted to go back to the stately stone house in Stuttgart with its curved, marble staircase, its rooms adorned with paintings and tasteful furniture, the walls lined with bookshelves, his mother’s lilac perfume wafting through the hallway, his father’s jar of tobacco on the sitting-room mantel, Trudy’s discarded sketches littering her bedroom floor.

  Only he didn’t know if their house existed anymore. And what about the family department store? Had Allied bombs found it? He had no way of finding out. And his family had no way of knowing his own fate. Besides, better if they didn’t know what he truly was: a coward.

  When he allowed himself to think about home, the hole in his chest grew so wide and so deep that it encompassed the entirety of his body. If he pushed but a little, he knew the hole would consume him.

  The frost-tinged glow of the cottage lights beckoned, pulling him out of that dark place in his mind, and he hurried towards it. America was to have been a new start, a chance to reform and repent. Instead, the demons grew stronger, more insistent, clamouring for all of his soul instead of just a piece of it. It was a constant battle to fight them off, but daily it grew harder instead of easier. In this instance, time did not heal all wounds – it only deepened them.

  * * *

  At ten minutes to midnight, Jenni rolled the paper out of her typewriter and smiled. Switching the scenes around had done the trick. If the editor of Ladies’ Home Journal still didn’t like it and asked for further revisions, why, she could go soak her head.

  Oh, she really didn’t mean that. No way would she blow this opportunity. This could very well be her first published story and with one of America’s leading women’s magazines, no less. If the editor wanted revisions, Jenni would give them to her.

  She switched the desk lamp off and yawned. Best to get as many stories as possible circulating with the mags before the baby’s birth. She wouldn’t have time after that, especially with no one to help her with the children.

  Well. She didn’t need any help. She could do this by herself, thank you very much.

  ‘Keep feeding yourself that line of baloney, sister,’ she muttered. She needed help. Desperately. But telling Mom was one thing. Breaking Dad’s heart would be something else. And goodness knows what her two snotty sisters-in-law would do. Her brothers would never hear the end of it.

  Time to take a cue from Scarlett O’Hara and think about all of it tomorrow.

  Feeling like a midnight snack, she wandered into the kitchen and popped a piece of bread into the toaster, then went through the stack of mail on the table. A headline in the Meadow Hills Gazette caught her eye.

  PFC Brian Janicek Killed at Tarawa.

  ‘Oh no,’ she breathed, sinking into the chair. ‘Not you, Brian.’

  They’d all gone to school together, Brian and Danny and Hank, and she remembered how Brian used to sit behind her in history class and wrap her hair around his pencils. More than once she’d walked out of class with pencils sticking out of her head.

  One more American boy lost to this brutal war. When would it end? She was so damned sick and tired of it. And to hear Professor Koenig worry about Berlin, of all places. She’d almost hauled off and slugged him. She didn’t care if he was a political refugee and hated the Nazis.

  Seeing him for the first time had shocked her. She’d been expecting a decrepit old man with a stooped back and erratic white hair. And what did she find? A striking, dark-haired foreigner with mysterious eyes the colour of burnt umber.

  He’d thrown her for a loop, that’s for sure, but then he’d opened his big mouth and talked about the war.

  She spread chokecherry preserves on her toast and thought about her response to him. My husband died bombing Germany. A bit harsh, and she regretted it. How could he possibly know about Danny? Really, it was only natural for him to be concerned about his country. Why, wouldn’t she feel the same if old Adolf sent his Luftwaffe to bomb America?

  Maybe she’d wanted to put him at arm’s length, keep him at a distance. But why? He’d done nothing to make her uncomfortable save for that crack about Berlin.

  It was because she’d been in that damn cottage again, she fumed, taking a bite of toast. Memories and shame had made her act like a louse, and she’d made him feel like he was the one who’d done something wrong when nothing could be further from the truth.

  Which meant she needed to apologize, not the professor.

  How did she get herself into these situations?

  Because she didn’t think before she acted. All her life, regret had been a constant companion. Since she was little, everyone in town thought her wild and untamed, and sometimes she went out of her way to prove their point. Too much make-up. Shocking comments. And then she’d married Danny, the son of a bartender, a loose cannon, with a reputation as a troublemaker. People talked. Judged. Assumed. And of course, Mom and Dad got the worst of it.

  She rubbed her belly. She regretted what she’d done with Rafe, of course. But she would not, could not, regret this child.

  If she stayed in Meadow Hills, though, the people in this town would make her feel like she needed to regret it. And wasn’t that, well… wrong? She carried an innocent life. But wrong or right, it didn’t matter. It would happen. She and her children would be the target of disapproving stares and whispered gossip. Kids would taunt Marty at school and he’d grow up trying to defend his mother.

  Her shame would pass to both of her children.

  Bile rose in her throat and she rushed to the sink, putting her mouth under the faucet and gulping the water greedily. She might as well pin a scarlet A on her chest now. They’d rake her over the proverbial coals.

  Wiping her lips with the sleeve of her bathrobe, Jenni leaned against the sink and stared out of the window at the night sky. Well. Time to formulate a plan. She figured she was about nine weeks along, and if she carried this child as she had Marty, she wouldn’t begin to show significantly until early in the fifth month. Which meant she had time, two months at most, to pick up her life and move… where? Omaha? Lincoln? No. They were too close, and the c
hances of running into someone from Meadow Hills were better than good. She’d have to go further than that. And money… she could sell some of her jewellery, maybe. Squirrel away every spare penny she earned at the museum.

  But first things first. Tomorrow, she needed to apologize to Professor Koenig. She grimaced. She could certainly do without that. But better to mend fences now, especially since they’d be working together. If only they didn’t have to use the cottage. Maybe she could type up the pages at home… but if she couldn’t read his scribbles, what would she do? Call him on the phone every time she had a question?

  No. She’d have to buck up and deal with it.

  She yawned again. Tomorrow. She’d think about all of this tomorrow. There was plenty of time to come up with a suitable solution to everything.

  As Dad had always said, worrying got you nowhere but right back where you started. And she would never again go back to the beginning.

  * * *

  The apartment above the aptly named Last Stop Pool Hall and Bar once housed Tony and Sue Fields’s four rambunctious boys, though it could be said that the entire building alternately served as their jungle fort, foreign battlefield, sinking ship or New York skyscraper, depending upon what escapade they happened to embark on next. During those halcyon years, footsteps had pounded up and down the flights of stairs so regularly that Tony used to turn up the radio in the bar to drown out the noise and keep his loyal patrons from complaining.

  The first time Jenni visited the apartment after she and Danny started dating, she’d been astonished that the family of six fit into the compact space. The white stucco walls held crucifixes and pictures of Jesus with a sword through his heart that she didn’t understand, and though Tony liked her well enough, Sue only said hello before largely ignoring her. Jenni barely noticed since Danny’s three brothers crowded around and started asking pesky questions as only little brothers could do.

  Now, as she sat at the scratched kitchen table, she wondered how Sue coped with the deathly quiet. Her father-in-law’s warning flashed like a neon sign in her head.