The Stranger From Berlin

by Melissa Amateis

  Why this vivacious, brave woman should want to help him, he didn’t know. He certainly didn’t deserve it.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked, keeping her eyes on the road, her hands gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly.

  ‘I just…’ He stopped, trying to form the right words. It was important he get it right. ‘I would understand if you decided not to help me any longer.’

  Still she didn’t look at him. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because to these people, I’m the enemy. I don’t want them to think you’re the enemy too.’

  At that, she laughed, a deep husky sound that reminded him of smoky cabarets and sultry late nights in Berlin. He suddenly realized that this woman was the first to hold his interest, the first to ignite a spark of attraction in him ever since he’d left Germany. Had he really been so obsessed with Ilsa that he’d suppressed his desire for any other woman all these years?

  ‘Professor, I’m not exactly this town’s favourite dame.’

  Given her encounter with Chief Thompson, he wasn’t surprised. ‘All the more reason not to further antagonize them.’

  ‘Believe me, they don’t need any antagonizing. They get themselves riled up all on their own. I’ve lived here my whole life and I still don’t understand why they feel so threatened by people who don’t think like they do.’

  Bitterness crept into her voice, and he wished he understood the root of it. But they didn’t know each other well enough for that yet, couldn’t claim the friendship he so longed to have with another human being again. He’d kept himself isolated for so long that he sometimes didn’t realize the extent of what he was missing.

  ‘Still,’ he continued, ‘I’m giving you the opportunity to, as they say, bow out gracefully.’

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate it. But…’ She shrugged. ‘I’m in it now.’

  * * *

  I’m in it now. Max just gave her the chance to back out, a chance she should have seized immediately, and yet she hadn’t. Why?

  The answer to that question, she mused, might very well explain why her life had run off the rails so many times in the past, and why it would continue to if she didn’t learn to curb her impulses.

  But the plain and simple fact was that no one else in this town would step in and help him, save for maybe Celia, but she was too worried about losing her own job. If Jenni were truly honest, though, she’d admit that something else drove her – a chance to prove to these people that acting as judge and juror without knowing the facts was simply wrong.

  It took all of Jenni’s concentration not to slide off the icy road snaking through the cemetery and up to the caretaker’s cottage. Snow-covered gravestones lined each side, and Jenni avoided looking to the west side of the cemetery. There, a white headstone marked Danny’s empty grave – his body was buried in a cemetery in England. She had only visited this grave in Meadow Hills once – the day of the funeral.

  It wasn’t callousness on her part. Danny wasn’t there. She knew it, sensed it. When she’d stood over his grave at the end of the service, while people mulled about, whispering uncertainly, her heart had felt as empty as the earth beneath her. Some people had told her this is where his spirit would be. But it wasn’t. It had picked some other place to rest.

  Lights burned through the frosty windows as they pulled up to the brick cottage. She probably should have called Mr Kohl to see if he was home or even in the mood to entertain guests, but as usual, her impulsive nature was running the show.

  ‘Just so you know,’ she murmured as they got out of the car, ‘the stroke Mr Kohl had affected one side of his face. It’s a bit unnerving to see him the first time.’

  Max nodded and followed her up the walk. Almost as soon as she knocked on the door, it opened, revealing a man in a red and black plaid shirt and blue overalls. Even though she’d seen Kooky numerous times, it still jolted her to see the lazy eye, the sagging flesh. One side of his face drooped like melted wax while the other side remained normal.

  To her relief, he greeted them with a warm smile. ‘Good day, Mrs Fields. I thought you might be bringing the professor by today.’

  Jenni faltered. ‘You did?’

  ‘Of course. You’ve come to talk about the diary and the vandalism on Main Street.’

  Jenni gaped at him, but Kooky merely opened the door wider and said, ‘Please, come in.’

  In the comfortable sitting room, a fire burned in the brick hearth and Jenni warmed the backs of her legs while Max settled on an old-fashioned red Victorian couch next to a grey tabby. Kooky relaxed in a faded wing-backed chair that apparently doubled as a scratching post, if the broken threads along the side were any indication. The cat jumped down from the couch and hopped onto the chair, settling itself around Kooky’s shoulders.

  Kooky gave them a lopsided grin. ‘I’m glad to have some company today. It’s been far too long.’

  Jenni opened her mouth to ask him how he could possibly have predicted their arrival, but before she could say a word, Kooky started speaking in rapid German to Max. The professor’s eyes lit up and he leaned forward eagerly. Though she didn’t understand it, the radiance in their voices told her all she needed to know.

  To think Max had fled his country, and his culture, everything he knew and loved, to immigrate to the United States where the language he spoke and his customs were not only different, but suspect. And then, to move to a town that had once fostered that culture and now rejected it, rejected him… How could he handle it?

  She took off her coat and sat in the rocking chair. Would she be so strong to leave everything behind? But… that’s exactly what she would be doing to give her children the life they deserved. She wouldn’t move to a different country, but a different town, possibly even a different state, where no one knew her and she was just another war widow with two children. Alone.

  Think about that later…

  Kooky’s laugh jolted her back to the present. ‘Oh, how I have missed speaking my language, professor!’ he said. ‘You do not know what joy you have brought to an old man.’

  Max inclined his head. ‘Or you to me, Herr Kohl. I haven’t spoken German to anyone else in years outside of the classroom. But…’ He glanced around the cosy room with its books, and framed black and white photographs hanging on the walls, and knick-knacks tucked between every nook and cranny. ‘This room is not wired, is it? I am told the German language is verboten in Meadow Hills.’

  Kooky sighed and nodded. ‘Ah, yes. You’ve discovered one of our secrets. I can assure you no one else is listening. They’ve all forgotten about me. You should have no fear of being arrested.’

  So sad that Kooky had become an outsider too, Jenni mused. He rode his bicycle everywhere, the grey cat curled around his neck – the town eccentric. Everyone conveniently ignored his previous standing as an important man of the community.

  Kooky crossed his legs. ‘I must say, I’m rather surprised you haven’t been arrested already for the vandalism, even if the only evidence they have is that you’re German.’

  Jenni couldn’t hold back any longer. ‘How do you know about all of this?’

  ‘My dear, I may be invisible to everyone in this town, but that does not mean I do not know their secrets.’

  The way that single eye of his stared at her was unnerving, and Jenni dropped her gaze and began to fiddle with her wedding ring. He couldn’t possibly know about her secret… could he?

  ‘We just came from the police station,’ Max said. ‘I’m afraid Chief Thompson thinks I’m guilty of not only what happened on Main Street, but of stealing the diary too.’

  Kooky rubbed his stubbled chin. ‘They are frightened, of course, to have you here. You are a German, which only serves to remind so many here that they are German, as well.’

  ‘And they certainly don’t want to be reminded,’ Jenni murmured.

  Max frowned. ‘Mrs Draper said Germans settled this town. If this is true, then why do they fear me so much?�
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  ‘Because being German is what made them a target in the first place,’ Kooky replied. ‘You know about the anti-German hysteria during the Great War, yes?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘It’s important to understand just how terrible it was on the German people of America. It had a devastating impact on their culture, and Meadow Hills is living proof of that.’

  Kooky pulled a well-worn scrapbook from the bookshelf beside him and laid it on the coffee table. Jenni moved to sit beside Max on the couch.

  Clipped and yellowed newspaper articles filled the pages. Each article had been meticulously cited with the name of the newspaper, the date and its location.

  ‘My Lutheran brethren from around the country sent me these articles,’ Kooky said, settling back into his chair. ‘Each one documents the prejudice against Germans.’

  The headlines were lurid. Lynching. Tar and feathering. Beatings. Book burnings. One woman in Illinois even wanted to divorce her husband because he had made ‘pro-German statements’ and wouldn’t allow her to buy Liberty bonds.

  ‘What is this?’ Jenni pointed to an article and read aloud, ‘Regents Ready to Rid University of Every Suspicion of Disloyalty.’

  Max peered at the article and she could feel him tense beside her. ‘That is about what my colleagues at the university called the Loyalty Trials. Twelve professors were charged with being disloyal to America. None of them were found guilty, but many were forced to quit or were fired.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I remember that.’ Kooky stuffed tobacco into his pipe. ‘It caused quite the hubbub in the area. And if I remember correctly, it started in the history department, didn’t it?’

  Max nodded. ‘It did. It’s still very much on their minds, especially in this heightened war climate.’

  ‘Good time to take a sabbatical then, I would say,’ Kooky said.

  Max hummed in response, but didn’t say anything, only turned the page. Jenni eyed him from underneath her lashes.

  The smell of cherry tobacco from Kooky’s pipe flavoured the air. ‘It’s how the people responded to this persecution that is so very sad.’ Kooky nodded towards the scrapbook. ‘You’ll also find stories in there of how they changed the names of towns or even their surnames. Anything that sounded German was Americanized, and it happened all around the country. But here in Meadow Hills, they went a step further. They banished everything that smacked of the evil Deutschland.’ He shook his head. ‘Such a terrible shame. So much wonderful culture has come from our homeland. Beethoven and Goethe and Rubens. Even our language is beautiful in its own way, and yet speaking it is against the law.’

  ‘I wish I could remember when all this happened,’ Jenni said in frustration. ‘But I suppose I was too young.’

  ‘You were only a baby. And, of course, no one talked about it afterwards. It was far too shameful.’

  ‘But finding Mrs Stanwick’s diary has brought it all back for everyone.’

  Kooky puffed on his pipe. ‘Yes, it has. I do wonder what Mrs Stanwick wrote about.’

  ‘I wonder why someone stole it,’ Jenni said, leaning back against the couch. ‘Do you have any ideas, Mr Kohl?’

  ‘There’s always someone wanting to cause mischief.’

  Kooky fell silent, his hand rhythmically petting the grey cat. He looked lost, distant, and Jenni realized the memories from the past had been too much.

  ‘There must be a connection between stealing the diary and the vandalism downtown,’ she said. ‘I just don’t see it what it is.’

  ‘I do.’

  Max spoke so quietly that it was almost a whisper. When she turned to him, his face had gone white.

  ‘Professor Koenig? Are you all right?’

  ‘Tod dem Verräter,’ he murmured. ‘Death to traitors.’ He looked at Kooky. ‘Perhaps there’s one theory we should consider. Whoever did this wants to remind the town of what happened that night and of what they did afterwards. This person believes the people of Meadow Hills betrayed Germany and their identity by abandoning their culture.’

  Kooky’s eyebrows rose. ‘Spoken like a true academic. You may have the right of it. Or…’ Here he paused, his gaze turning sombre. ‘It could be someone who is very eager to see you destroyed, professor.’

  A nervous laugh escaped Max’s lips, and he shut the scrapbook, pushing it away. ‘I don’t know who. Perhaps a disgruntled student whom I didn’t pass?’

  Jenni saw the obvious attempt to make a joke, but he didn’t fool her, and with Kooky’s sharp eye, she very much doubted he’d fooled him either. No, Kooky had hit a nerve. Though Max told her about someone at the university making accusations against him, he’d not mentioned who. That seemed a rather important point.

  ‘I don’t know who is behind this,’ Kooky said, ‘but I suggest you both prepare yourselves. This is far from over.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The last time Max had worked with a hammer and a screwdriver, he’d been fixing a loose shelf at his grandparents’ country home in the Black Forest. Oma had hovered nearby to make sure he did the task correctly. Now, at the museum, he was surrounded by not one but three women watching him work on a sticky door knob.

  He didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended that his handiwork skills required that much supervision.

  Jenni and Celia he knew, of course, but the third girl, the tour guide named Georgie, was a shy, quiet woman with thick glasses and a pointed nose. She hung back from the others, but her eerily dark, button-like eyes rarely strayed from him.

  ‘There,’ he said after he finished. He opened and shut the door with ease. ‘That should do it for this one.’

  ‘A man of many talents.’ Celia smiled broadly and tried the doorknob herself. ‘Much better.’ She consulted the list she held. ‘Now let’s go look at the light fixture in the upstairs bedroom.’

  Celia sailed past them towards the stairs and Max picked up the wooden box of tools he’d borrowed from Hank. He caught Jenni’s eye. She’d been strangely subdued around him today, and he wondered what he could possibly have done. He hadn’t seen her since she dropped him off at the cottage yesterday afternoon after they returned from Kooky’s. But her manner towards him had decidedly cooled.

  Maybe she’d come to her senses and was having second thoughts about helping him. He wouldn’t blame her one bit if she decided to leave him to his own devices, though he hated the sudden hollowness in his chest at the thought.

  He looked at Jenni and said, ‘Mrs Draper has quite a list.’

  Only the hint of a smile touched her lips. ‘She started it when she first came here last year, so that’s probably why it’s so big.’

  ‘Well, it will keep me busy, and that is a good thing.’

  Jenni nodded. ‘We’ll leave you to it then. Georgie and I need to get ready for the next tour.’

  He frowned as he climbed the stairs. Definitely not the same Jenni who’d stood up to Chief Thompson at the police station yesterday. What had changed?

  ‘In here,’ he heard Celia call.

  He found her studying a wall sconce near the big four-poster bed. ‘It’s very loose. I know we need to tighten the screw, but as you can see, it’s been stripped. So the screw will have to be replaced altogether.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s more than I’m qualified to do. Do you think it will be a problem?’

  ‘I don’t believe so, but it may take me some time.’

  ‘Well, time is something you have a lot of,’ Celia murmured. ‘I’m sorry for everything that’s happened, Professor Koenig. I can’t help but feel partly responsible for it.’

  Max studied the brass fixture. ‘Why? You did nothing wrong.’

  ‘I asked you to come here.’

  ‘And I had the choice to accept or not.’ He rummaged in the tool box, not sure if Hank would have the proper tool, and not sure he wanted to get into this conversation with Mrs Draper. ‘So you are not to blame.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right, but still. This town gets all screwy whenever a
nything comes up about that Oktoberfest during the Great War.’

  ‘So Kooky told me.’

  ‘Jenni said she took you out to meet him.’

  ‘Yes.’ He found a rotary tool. As he unwrapped the cord, he wondered if he dared ask Celia about Jenni’s mood. There was the danger that Celia would read too much into his question.

  ‘To actually talk to someone who was there is always a good thing,’ he continued. ‘Though I am sorry the town has shunned him like they have.’

  Celia leaned against the cherry wood dresser behind her and folded her arms. ‘That makes two of us. Kooky is a wonderful man. He helps out here sometimes. Jenni said you were able to talk to him in German.’

  He froze in the act of plugging in the tool. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘A problem?’ Celia laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to turn you in to Chief Thompson. He doesn’t need one more thing to accuse you of.’

  ‘Jenni told you what happened?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m glad she was with you. She’s a good person to have on your side. Although…’

  She trailed off and Max straightened, turning to her. ‘Although what?’

  ‘It’s just… things have been tough for her is all, with her husband’s death and trying to raise her son Marty by herself. He’s only eight years old.’

  Jenni had a child? She’d not mentioned it to him. But then, why should she?

  ‘I have not known her long, but I think she is one of the strongest women I’ve met.’

  He saw the thoughtfulness in Celia’s gaze and wondered if he’d said too much. But he’d only spoken the truth. On top of everything else Jenni had to deal with – raising a child without his father, working at the museum, processing the loss of her husband – she had volunteered to help him. Maybe that’s why she’d been withdrawn around him today. It was all too much.