The Stranger From Berlin

by Melissa Amateis

  ‘Is what true?’ Jenni asked.

  ‘Did that German sleep here last night?’

  Oh no. Who had talked now? And why on earth had they told Sue? Whoever it was obviously had no idea of her fragile mental state, otherwise they would have kept their big yaps shut.

  Jenni straightened her shoulders. She’d done nothing wrong.

  ‘It wasn’t safe for the professor to be at the cottage last night. Someone broke in and hurt his dog.’

  ‘So it’s true!’

  Jenni flinched at the venom in Sue’s voice. ‘I’m not going to lie to you. He stayed in the guest bedroom. Absolutely nothing happened.’

  ‘So you say,’ she sneered. ‘I know what type of girl you are, Jenni Fields! I never should have let Danny marry you.’

  ‘Don’t you dare bring him into this! I loved your son. You know that, Sue.’

  ‘If you loved him, you wouldn’t even think of being around this German. He killed my son.’

  Not this again. It was useless to try to convince Sue otherwise. In her mind, Max and Hitler’s Nazi thugs were one and the same.

  But after seeing the photo and finding the gun, Jenni was no longer so sure that wasn’t the case…

  ‘We have already been through this, Sue. The professor did not kill Danny. He wasn’t even in Germany when the war started.’

  But her words hit empty air. Sue pushed past her and headed towards the guest bedroom. Panic clutched at Jenni’s heart. The gun!

  ‘Where is he?’ Sue called from the hallway. ‘Is he still here?’

  Jenni hurried after her. ‘No, he left this morning. Sue, wait!’

  Sue stood in the middle of the bedroom, gaze narrowed, searching each corner for evidence of Max’s presence. ‘I can smell him,’ she muttered. She took a step towards the bed and Jenni involuntarily gasped.

  Sue whirled to face her, sensing betrayal. ‘You’re hiding him, aren’t you, Jezebel?’

  Jezebel.

  And incongruously, Jenni wanted to laugh at the name, because she was a Jezebel, just not with the man Sue thought! If her mother-in-law reacted this way to Max staying in the guest room, what in blazes would she do when she found out her daughter-in-law had been unfaithful to her favourite son?

  Suddenly, Jenni saw it all too perfectly – Sue would find the gun, turn it on Jenni and shoot her for daring to show kindness to a German. Then she would wait for Max and kill him too.

  She had to distract her somehow, get her out of the bedroom.

  Buckling down her fear, Jenni lifted her chin. ‘Have a look, Sue. Look under the bed. Look in the closet. He’s not here.’

  Sue frowned, then got down on her knees and peered under the bed. Jenni glanced towards the pillow and saw the edge of the gun sticking out. Oh dear Lord, she prayed, don’t let her see it.

  Sue staggered back to her feet and marched over to the closet, flinging the door open so hard it banged against the wall. Boxes, old clothes and various odds and ends were crammed into the small space, and Sue began haphazardly yanking them out and tossing them on the floor.

  ‘Sue, this is ridiculous!’

  Sue ignored her and threw a shoebox on the bed. To Jenni’s horror, she watched as the box slid into the gun, scattering photos and pushing the gun towards the edge of the bed. It teetered for one agonizingly long second before slipping over the side and landing with a thud on the wooden floor.

  Sue froze. ‘What was that?’

  Don’t let her see it! Keep her away from it!

  Suddenly switching tactics, Jenni glared at Sue. ‘Look what you did!’ She hurried over to the bed, and as she leaned over to pick up photos, she used her foot to push the weapon out of sight.

  ‘I thought I heard something,’ Sue muttered.

  Jenni blew a strand of hair from her face. ‘Of course you heard something. You’re making a mess, throwing everything around like this. Do you really think the professor is hiding in the closet?’

  But Sue was no longer interested in the closet. She had picked up a photo and was staring at it. Her face suddenly crumpled.

  ‘My boy!’ she cried, and before Jenni could move, Sue sank into the mattress and buried her face in the pictures, heaving sobs wracking her frail body.

  Jenni stared at the bent head, at the wrinkled strands of grey hair, and didn’t know whether to feel pity, anger or relief. But then Sue lifted anguished eyes to her and held the picture out to Jenni.

  ‘Look at him,’ she whispered. ‘So handsome. So brave and strong. So fearless. Gone. How could God take my boy? How could He?’

  It was an impossible question to answer. Jenni had asked it herself so many times she’d lost count. But hadn’t everyone who’d lost someone asked the same thing?

  ‘I don’t know, Sue,’ she murmured, her eyes roaming over the picture, one taken after Danny had bought his first car. He did look young and invincible, and even now, she couldn’t help but smile at the roguish grin on his face. She’d fallen in love with that grin the first time he flashed it at her their sophomore year in high school. And she’d continued to love it until he’d started using it against her, grinning when he came home drunk. Grinning when he told her she shouldn’t be writing those corny stories of hers, but patching his shirts because, after all, she was his wife and she loved him, didn’t she?

  Sue curled up in the scattered pictures, her coat hanging open to expose her pink nightgown. One by one, she picked up the photos, gazing at them in awe, worshipping the image of a boy, both the one on paper and the one in her head.

  The pity came then, pity for a woman who would never see her son for who he really was: a man with faults and vices and problems, just like the rest of humankind.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  Max stood in the doorway, holding his hat in his hands, his hair slightly tousled, Katya by his side.

  Jenni hurried towards him. ‘Max! You have to go.’

  He peered over her shoulder. ‘I heard shouting and crying. Can I help?’

  ‘Yes,’ she hissed, shoving him into the hallway. ‘Get out of here. Now.’

  He stumbled back and gaped at her. ‘Scheiße! What is the matter with you?’

  Sue’s wails reached a fever pitch and Jenni hurried to shut the door. ‘That is my mother-in-law in there and she thinks you killed my husband.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘You’re a German, Max, and she’s so confused with grief that she can’t distinguish between you and a Nazi.’ She shuddered. ‘And I don’t want to find out what happens if she knows you’re here.’

  His face paled and he didn’t protest when she steered him towards the living room.

  ‘By the way,’ Jenni said through gritted teeth, ‘would you mind telling me why there is a gun in your room?’

  He stopped midstride. ‘That’s why I came back, to collect it. Mr Janssen gave it to me. For protection.’

  She grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the door. Later she’d consider if she believed him or not.

  ‘Never mind that now. Just go and get my father-in-law. His name is Tony Fields and he works at the Last Chance Bar on the corner of Second and Main Street. Can you do that for me?’

  Max opened his mouth to respond and then froze. Jenni yanked on him in frustration, but he refused to budge.

  ‘Jenni,’ he whispered. ‘Turn around.’

  She already knew what she would see. The wailing had stopped, and a deathly silence had settled on the house. When she slowly pivoted on her heel, she saw Sue standing not ten feet from them, the gun in her hand pointed at Max.

  ‘Oh dear God,’ Jenni whispered.

  Sue tilted her head. ‘Did you think you could trick me, Jenni? Did you?’

  ‘No, Sue.’ Cold fear filled her chest. ‘Of course not.’

  Sue took a few steps towards them, the gun steady, the light in her eyes determined and unwavering. ‘I knew he was here. I knew if I just looked hard enough I would find my son’s killer.’

&nbs
p; Max stepped in front of Jenni, shielding her from Sue’s aim, and she felt Katya’s furry body pressed against her leg.

  ‘Mrs Fields, I did not kill your son.’

  ‘You are a German,’ she hissed. ‘You are our enemy.’

  Jenni’s fingers dug into Max’s arm. This couldn’t happen. She couldn’t let Sue murder Max in cold blood, not when grief had its tentacles wrapped so tightly around the poor woman’s heart.

  ‘Sue, listen to me,’ she said, ‘your other sons need you. Bill and Bobby and David. You need to be there for them so they can come home to you. And you can’t leave Tony all by himself. He will fall apart without you.’

  But the gun didn’t waver and neither did Sue’s gaze. ‘I can help them more by getting rid of the enemy in their own hometown.’

  Jenni saw sweat pop out on the back of Max’s neck.

  ‘I am not the enemy, Mrs Fields,’ Max said. ‘I am on your side. I swear it.’

  ‘Ha! You won’t trick me like you’ve tricked her.’

  A pounding on the door startled them all and Jenni cringed as Sue nearly dropped the gun. But then her father-in-law burst into the house, chest heaving.

  ‘Sue!’ he wheezed. ‘For the love of God! What… what are you doing?’

  With the appearance of her husband, Sue faltered, but then she shook her head and lifted the gun again.

  ‘Fighting the enemy.’

  ‘The enemy?’ Tony asked, taking slow steps towards her. ‘Sue, honey, you’re confused.’

  ‘I am not confused, damn you!’ She suddenly swung the gun towards her husband and he squeaked in shock. ‘You with your empty promises. You told me Danny would come back and you lied.’ Her voice went an octave higher. ‘You lied, Tony! You sit in that bar and drink and drink and think you can avoid me. Well, you can’t avoid me anymore.’

  Sue cocked the pistol, ignoring Tony’s increasingly urgent pleas. Jenni watched in horror as Sue waved the gun between Tony and Max.

  ‘Eeenie… meenie… miny…’

  Jenni waited for the last word in the rhyme and the shot sure to follow. But then, a faraway look entered Sue’s eyes and she murmured, ‘I used to play that game with Danny every night to pick out which stuffed animal he’d sleep with. Oh he had so many, remember, Tony? The duck and the teddy bear and the sheep. We’d count… eenie, meenie, miny, moe. Catch a tiger by the toe…’

  Underneath her fingers, Jenni felt Max’s bicep tense. With hands raised, Tony stared helplessly at his wife, and Jenni knew her father-in-law would do nothing.

  She had to stop this madness, distract Sue somehow and grab the gun—

  Suddenly, a rush of air hit her leg where Katya had stood and she saw the dog running towards Sue.

  ‘Katya!’

  The dog jumped on Sue and she screamed, knocked off balance. Dog and woman crashed to the floor. A loud BANG and Jenni froze as she saw Katya sprawl on Sue’s chest.

  Max rushed over to them and kicked the gun away, then pulled Katya off, running his fingers along the dog’s body.

  ‘Is she okay?’ Jenni asked.

  In answer, Katya scrambled to her feet and began licking Max’s face in excitement.

  Max held Katya close. ‘Mein Gott. She saved all of us.’

  Tony knelt beside Sue, who was now sobbing, and he gently pulled her into his arms, rocking her like a child. His eyes met Jenni’s over the snarl of Sue’s dishevelled hair. Exhaustion lined his face.

  Relief sent shock waves through Jenni’s body. But then she turned and her eyes fastened on a bullet hole in the wall mere inches from where she’d been standing.

  Bile burned her throat. She could have been killed just now.

  Her breath hitched in her chest, her vision blurring. So close…

  ‘Jenni?’

  Max’s voice echoed in her head, as if he were standing at the end of a tunnel, and she wanted to say something to reassure him that she was all right, but the fact was she was not all right. At all.

  She reached for something, anything, to hold on to, but all she grasped was air. Her knees gave way and gravity pulled her down, down…

  The baby…

  Two arms wrapped around her and her head fell against the scratchy wool of Max’s coat.

  ‘Jenni! Are you all right?’

  She clutched her head, trying to loosen the cobwebs. ‘I – I don’t know.’

  He led her to a chair and she sank into it, trying to focus on Max. ‘Is it the baby?’ he asked.

  As his words cut through the dizziness and shock, her hand caressed the swell of her abdomen, and for the first time, the small flutter of butterfly wings beat against her fingers.

  ‘Max,’ she whispered, catching his hand in hers, wanting, needing, to share this first memory with someone. ‘It… it moved.’

  The tension drained from his face, replaced by delight. No one but Max could understand how precious this moment was to her. Caught on a sudden wave of euphoria, she pulled him to her, smiling into his chest, thinking how such a beautiful event had replaced the terror of only a few moments ago.

  But then she heard a shocked gasp. Reality crashed into the room like a bomb.

  Slowly, she turned to look at her in-laws, sitting there on the floor, Tony staring at Jenni in slack-jawed astonishment, Sue’s eyes wide.

  They’d witnessed it all.

  And now they knew her secret.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jenni didn’t cry. After the ambulance came and took away Tony and Sue, after the neighbours had dispersed, leaving clustered footprints in the snow, after Chief Thompson had showed up and grilled them both, Max half-expected her to break into sobs or hysterics, or both. She did neither. Instead, she took several deep breaths, kicked off her shoes, and sank into the couch, holding a throw pillow over her stomach. Katya nestled at her feet and soon fell into a deep sleep, snoring away, oblivious to the tension in the room.

  Even after smoking two cigarettes, Max’s nerves were still too jumpy for him to sit, so he wandered around, trying to process it all. It was simply incongruous that a person could feel the whisper of death and the exhilaration of life within seconds of each other, but he and Jenni had. He was glad he’d been there to witness her feel the baby move for the first time, but it had come at a cost.

  ‘Did you see the look on Sue’s face?’ Jenni asked, her tone flat. ‘Almost vindication, like she knew I was guilty of something and she finally had her proof.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll tell anyone?’

  Jenni snorted. ‘Not a doubt in my mind. She may be off her rocker, but she’ll drag my name through the mud anyway. The whole hospital staff will know by now, and it’ll be tomorrow morning’s gossip around every coffee table in town.’

  Her words were sharp, biting, but for some reason, he felt they were directed towards him and not her in-laws. Well, she had a right to be sore at him. It was his fault they’d almost died from a gun he’d been stupid enough to leave. If Katya hadn’t knocked the gun away, if the bullet hadn’t ended up in the wall…

  Enough. If he thought about all the possibilities, he might well and truly lose it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jenni.’

  Inadequate. But all he had.

  Jenni drummed her fingers on the pillow, her mouth twisted in what he could only describe as bridled fury. A warning bell clanged in his head.

  A couch pillow sailed towards him, and knocked his head back. He yelped. ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘Why did you bring a gun into my house?’ she demanded.

  Max snatched the pillow from the floor and tossed it on the chair, then rubbed his neck. ‘It’s for protection. You’ve seen what’s going on in this town. They went after my dog, Jenni! What kind of person does that?’

  ‘You could have told me you had a gun!’

  ‘I didn’t want to scare you.’

  She snorted. ‘It takes a lot more than a gun to frighten me. I grew up on a farm, remember? I had three brothers who took me goose hunting
every winter. I know how to shoot.’

  He couldn’t stand being this far away from her, and he moved to the rocking chair beside the couch. ‘Jenni, I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I don’t want to put you under any more stress. This whole thing has gotten completely out of control.’

  Jenni snatched another pillow and began pulling at the loose button in the middle. ‘Lying bothers me more than anything else. I hate it when people lie.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  But it was as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Tell me why Professor Goldberg thought you were a Nazi spy.’

  The blunt question threw him. He reached for his packet of cigarettes, then dropped his hand. Stalling would accomplish nothing. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Why was it so hard to talk about? This was Jenni, the woman he loved and trusted probably more than anyone else in the world. But letting her into this part of his life terrified him for one simple reason: he might lose her forever.

  ‘When Hitler came to power in 1933, many Jewish professors, like Goldberg, lost their jobs. Many professors resigned in protest. Some stayed and supported the Nazi regime while others… others said nothing and kept their jobs.’

  ‘And what did you do?’

  Acid burned in his throat but he swallowed it back. ‘I… I stayed.’

  Her shoulders tensed. ‘Why?’

  Ah. The question he’d been asking himself for years. Why, indeed? Because he was a fool? A collaborator? A coward? Perhaps all of the above.

  ‘I stayed because I thought…’ He clutched his hair. ‘I thought it would all be temporary, that Hitler wouldn’t last. Of course, I was wrong.’

  ‘And as the months went by, you still didn’t leave?’

  ‘No. And when Goldberg found this out, he accused me of siding with the Nazis. He complained to the head of our department at UNL and it became too contentious for me to stay. Rather than risk a huge controversy, they let me go.’

  ‘So…’ Jenni said, her body perched on the edge of the couch, as if poised for action, ‘you didn’t leave the university in Berlin in protest, but you didn’t side with the Nazis either. You stayed and did nothing. And that’s it.’