Islands of Deception

by Constance Hood

  Rochester, New York

  July 1948

  “We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Hank looked at his lioness, stretched out languidly on the beach blanket, her mane of long hair moving gently in the breeze. Greta’s long legs were bent to fit into the space, and her swelling abdomen moved slightly as she lay on her side. Hank was wide awake, alert and anxious. His import-export company was not doing well. It was a modest living, but not enough. People didn’t want imports. Americans had come back home and there were more than enough men to make things the people didn’t even know they needed. Like all women, Greta loved pretty things, a necklace here and there, maybe a set of inlaid steak knives or something for her attractive supper tables. But now she was seven months pregnant and a third person would soon be entering their lives.

  Hank had not told her about the difficulties with his business. Instead, he had written checks and deliberately placed them into misaddressed envelopes so that nothing would be cashed too quickly. It wasn’t actually cheating, just a little delay, no explanations needed. Explanations crowd the things that people want to believe about you. But now he would have to come up with some explanation. He promised Greta that, when his claim in Amsterdam had been processed, there would be plenty of money, enough even for them to purchase a small home of their own. Yes, it would have a washing machine.

  The letter sat on his desk. A woman claiming to be Esther Bernsteen had filed a duplicate claim to the house in Amsterdam. When the Dutch letters arrived, he told Greta that they were for his business, and in a way they were. He wasn’t lying; he just wasn’t saying anything. He had protected himself with silences his entire life. Silence never hurt anyone. In the quiet of the August afternoon, he looked up into the sky, where a few white fluffy clouds moved along overhead. Would thunderheads be forming? He hoped not, and anyway, there was time before it would be necessary to pack up their picnic.

  A trail of ants led from the picnic basket to a bare spot of ground, marching like soldiers in a column, bearing food and occasionally dragging the body of one who had fallen. Where were they going? He followed the trail with his eyes, and saw the small rise indicating an anthill. With the gleeful smile of a young boy he took a stick and poked it in, just to see what was inside.

  The ants scrambled every which way, some digging into the hill, and some exiting with their possessions. My God, is that all we have done for the past ten years, run around an anthill? He had left Holland with a camera, keeping a sharp lookout for his safety. His sister had dug further in. With the stick he began to examine the anthill for tunnels, supplies of food and other creatures.

  What if Susani Lutz really was his sister? How would that change things? Did he want to meet her and learn what had happened? Probably not. Were other family members alive? He wasn’t interested in ghosts. In some ways, they made their own graves when they… what? What choices had they really had?

  He would have to meet Mrs. Lutz if he wanted to claim property in Amsterdam. Who knew what it was worth now? He had avoided looking at the newspapers and at the modest shops of displaced Jews, or the paths that Jewish properties took through the maws of mixed currencies and uneasy new alliances. Oh, and one last detail. Greta must never know that he had been born a Jew.

  He scheduled a business trip to New York City.

  ***

  The Brooklyn address was in a noisy neighborhood. The houses looked like Amsterdam row houses, but instead of quiet canals, tires screeched, horns honked and children were running everywhere. Once Hank was on Prospect Place, he had no need to look at the addresses to identify the apartment. If Susani Lutz was indeed his sister, she lived in the yellow brick building with the sunny bay windows.

  The drab hallway with its dark woodwork was not inviting. Old-fashioned wallpaper covered the space in muted patterns, and a dirty mirror kept the visitor from looking too closely at himself. The doorman, busy accepting deliveries and buzzing apartments, finally noticed Hank and pointed him to the elevator. A door was cracked open on the fourth floor, and he knocked. A strange man opened it and looked him up and down.

  “You must be Hans? I am Georg Lutz. You have come to see my wife, I believe.”

  “Yes, if she is originally from Amsterdam.” Hank twisted the wedding ring on his finger. An entire life had been deconstructed and rebuilt since he last saw Amsterdam.

  “Please come in.”

  A vase full of roses and Queen Anne’s lace stood in the hallway, strangely reminiscent of the trailing vines and wildflowers that his mother used to arrange. He stepped into the sunny living room, tears beginning to form in his eyes. A pretty brunette came toward him.

  She was Esther, and not Esther. There was no laughter in the green eyes. They were haunted, fearful and submissive. Her high cheekbones were translucent, not rosy. Her proud shoulders and bosom were covered by a loose housedress. Then she laughed, “My God Hans, I wouldn’t recognize you – tall, mustached, come here.”

  He was very wary of the strange woman in front of him, a ghost of his sister. Her arms went around him, and she kissed him on both cheeks, then pinched his elbow, a warning gesture from their childhood, an alert that secrets should not be shared.

  The pinch dissolved his suspicion. He choked on the tears, and she began to sob into his white shirtfront. He handed his camera to Lutz. “Could you take a picture of us together?” then took a fresh handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her smeared mascara as the two of them faced the camera.

  Lutz looked at the shining new camera with its elaborate system of dials for focus and light, snapped the picture and wondered who would want this photo. He was the only family Susani had. As for the strange man with the intense blue eyes, was he a Jew too? A brother would want to know that his sister was an obedient wife, well cared for

  “Come, Zus, may we eat a little something? Hank, would you like a beer?”

  Hank demurred. “Not right now, but thank you.”

  “I have bought my Susani a new refrigerator. Now she does not need to go to the market every day. She is turning into a real American housewife.” Lutz said nothing about how they had met.

  Susani held her tongue, taking in every feature of the man who was a stranger and a brother at the same time. The eyes and the high forehead were the same. His mouth and jaw were now resolute. The slouch was replaced with a square shouldered stance. Where had he been for nine years? She stepped into the kitchen and prepared a tray of light sandwiches and cake. A pitcher of iced tea would have to do, and Lutz could complain about beer later. The three of them discussed grocery stores and shops – funny soft American bread, cheese with no flavor, and no butter or cream to make a proper cake. They laughed about the mushy fruits and vegetables in cans and complained about the lack of greengrocers and butchers. They were unified in their criticisms of the country they had chosen.

  An awkward silence fell as Hank tried to open the discussion about Amsterdam. Had Susani/Esther been successful in locating mother? Max? She wept and, by a glance, they decided to not discuss where each had been for the past several years. She couldn’t tell him about captivity, and he couldn’t tell of his specialized tasks. Lutz broke the ice. “I say live and let live. I’m not so sure we even needed the war.”

  Hank strangled in his own silence. The Germans had been defeated, and only then did they decide that the war was a bad idea? News of Russian attacks on German civilians was reaching American papers. Hank had heard one story after another in his work with the POWs. An agreeable comment would make it possible for him to visit with his sister. “Let’s face it, our common enemy is Russia, and we have not solved the problem. Stalin could make Hitler look like a schoolboy.”

  Lutz continued with his friend’s story, passing it off as his own. “In 1941 we were on a march, an awful cold march, along the Moscow to Vladivostok line… the Russians were marching
toward us… no one could shoot because you would end up shooting the guys in front of you. Both columns stopped, it was bitter, very bitter cold. We shared our flasks of schnapps and vodka. I asked for the red star from his uniform, and he gave it to me. I gave him a patch from mine. That was our great victory, our battle with no bullets. We liked each other, a bunch of 18 year-old boys, and that morning we didn’t even know why we were marching in columns to fight each other. Then we marched on. They were nice. We were embarrassed. I often think of them.”

  Here was one of the “Black Ones – die Schwarzen” alive and well, with a nice apartment and a wife in the United States. The bastard had escaped against all odds. Hank knew his sister. She was alive, with a new name and in a new country, and that was enough. If Lutz could accept friendship from anonymous Russians, he would accept Lutz as her husband. He was American now, and Americans were fair in conquest. It would be necessary to win the peace.

  The doorman’s buzzer rang incessantly and Lutz went to respond to a call, changing into his overalls and picking up his toolbox. He didn’t want to be seen as a manual laborer, but there was no choice. An elderly lady on the first floor was certain that she smelled gas. She smelled gas all the time, afraid that she would die like her mother and sisters in Sobibur. She was terrified by his German accent, but he was extremely kind to her. She didn’t trust him, but she liked him, often baking little treats for him and his pretty wife.

  As soon as he left the apartment, Hans nervously explained to Esther that their past could not be disclosed. It was as dead as the family. She laughed.

  “You think I don’t know this? Look at me, married to a captor and making dinner for him each night. He’s hardly a movie star. There is no Clark Gable at this tea party.”

  “Are we still Jews?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m an atheist now, but my Catholic husband does not need to know that. I tried to become a good Catholic wife. I have even been pregnant twice.”

  He looked around. “You have children then?”

  “No, no children.”

  “My wife and I are expecting a child.”

  They began to discuss the Herengracht property, agreeing to use Dutch for all their written communications. Greta did not understand Dutch, and Lutz was not a reader. They would conspire as they once had when they were children, wheedling things from their parents. Esther’s cat slept on the windowsill.

  Cats have nine lives, and they were only on their third.