8
THE TRUTH—OR MOST OF IT
Joe wasn’t laughing when we were in his parents’ compartment, crowded together across from them as the train continued its noisy journey, swaying and rattling, sending us on into the winter night. Joe had again suggested gathering in our own compartment, but his father had said, “Better come to ours,” in a final sort of tone, and Joe had acquiesced. What else could he have done? It was appropriate for the elder to select the meeting place. Mr. Stark had summoned the porter once we’d arrived, and now told him, “Scotch on the rocks, please.” Joe asked for the same, then asked me, “What would you like?”
“Oh,” I said, a bit confused. I hadn’t had anything to drink, other than rather inferior beer, for a very long time. “A Cognac, please.” My father had had such a cellar! Were the Russians drinking his port and Cognac now, and the wine and Champagne he’d put down so carefully, always after a great deal of serious discussion with Herr Wolmer, our ancient and most lovely butler? Almost certainly.
When would I stop caring about such things? I couldn’t doanything about them, and my parents weren’t even alive to know, so why did they still bother me?
I didn’t mention any of that, because Mrs. Stark clearly disliked talk of my past life, even though she’d said she wanted to know me better. Which was also confusing. Now, she was looking at me in a steely-eyed sort of way, but smiling at the same time. Which part was real? Not the smile, I thought.
“Lena?” her husband asked.
“A cup of tea, please,” she said, then looked at me again. I didn’t understand, so I left it, deciding to ask Joe later.
The Cognac didn’t taste much like my father’s, which had been so smooth and rich, almost buttery. It had tasted of fruitcake, cinnamon, and nuts, and had been laid down by my grandfather, the old King, around the turn of the century. I’d last had it at my sixteenth birthday nearly three years ago, which is a long time to remember a taste, but surely this was nothing like it. This tasted sharper, nearly burning my throat. I took a second sip to make sure, then set it down. As with the cheese, I’d have to waste it.
Joe said, “Remember that Schnapps we drank on the floor of the bakery, the day I met you?”
“Oh, yes!” I smiled. “It was kind of Dr. Becker to share it. And how delicious it tasted that day!”
Joe told his parents, “When Daisy pulled me into the bakery after I’d been shot, and Dr. Becker had patched me up some, he pulled out this little bottle of real GermanApfelschnapps,and we all had a drink. Well, all but the kids.”
“The kids,” I said, “wished most passionately to throw your grenades out into the street and watch them blow up. Perhaps we should have giventhemthe Schnapps.”
“And I told you they were bloodthirsty,” Joe said, “and you wondered how I knew, since I didn’t speak German.”
“Yes!” I said. “I liked you very much that day, for you were strong and brave, and kind, too, to share your food. He gave the children his chocolate,” I told his parents, “and an orange. You can’t imagine what a treat those were. I doubt they’d ever had chocolate before. Certainly Dr. Becker’s children had not. They wereMischlinge,you see,and he a Jew, so their rations had been very poor.” Surely this part of my past was appropriate to discuss, as it was about what had happened to the Jews? Or was the topic too painful, and inappropriate to mention? I could only feel my way.
“I need to understand this,” Mr. Stark said. “How you came to be living with a Jewish doctor. We’re grateful to you for saving Joe’s life, but we need to know.” He exchanged a glance with Mrs. Stark. Why? But I’d clearly been right to bring it up. All these undertones, these unsaid thoughts that nearly vibrated the air, were too much for me.
“He was our doctor,” I said, “brought in for my father, but he treated the rest of the household also. My parents helped him afterKristallnacht—in secret, of course—when life became so difficult for the Jews. Frau Dr. Becker must have been a strong woman, for she was Aryan and could have divorced him at any time, but she stayed instead. Something as simple as that, you know, took great courage in that time. After she died, Dr. Becker and the children were marked for transport to the camps, as he no longer had the protection of his privileged marriage. He camein extremisto my father, who hid all of them and I believe had a plan to get them out. Father only told me about it after the first bombing. This is why I was with them for the second one. We were in a lower cellar, you see, the Beckers and I. A secret place that had once been—what is the word I want, Joe, where prisoners were kept?”
“The dungeons?” he said.
“Yes. We were in the dungeons, which were safer, andescaped together. Dr. Becker helped me so much when—” I stopped.
“When what?” Mr. Stark pressed. But he was a lawyer, and lawyers questioned people, didn’t they?
“When we found my family,” I said, “and the servants, the next morning, all of them dead in the cellar.” My voice trembled on the words, and I couldn’t help but picture the scene, the bodies piled together in the corner where they’d retreated, fighting for life. My father cradling my mother, whom he’d loved and protected to his last breath, and Frau Heffinger cradling Lotte, the simple little kitchen maid, in the same way. So much love there had been in that cellar, but love like that didn’t just die, did it? For I held the knowledge of it still, and it nourished me.
The feelings should have been more remote now that I was so far away, embarking on my new life. Perhaps it was exactly that, though—that Iwasso far away, and traveling farther still, unsure of myself as I hadn’t been when my only goal had been survival. I’d known how to fit in when I’d worked in the bakery, though, hadn’t I? Or I’d learned. I could learn again.
Joe pressed my hand, and I thought,I am my father’s daughter,and instead of hiding my face in my Cognac glass, lifted my head and said, “Dr. Becker gave me a reason to go on. My parents had told me to leave, to run from the Russians, for they would want to imprison me, maybe even to kill me. My father told me also, though, to hide the Beckers from the Gestapo, and that last was what made me leave the cellar. One needs a purpose at such a time, a way to focus one’s mind on more than the present misery, and on more than self. That was where I found my strength. I was their camouflage.”
“Where are they now?” Mr. Stark asked.
“In a camp for displaced persons. For Jews. They are happy there, with the other survivors, or perhaps ‘happy’ is the wrong word. Or perhaps the right one, I don’t know. There ishappiness in surviving, don’t you think, even with all the sadness? Dr. Becker wanted to go to the camp very much. To have schooling for his children, you know, and to practice his profession. To be a … a normal person again, living in a normal way, and perhaps to live as a Jew in a way he hadn’t before. To believe that his children would survive, and that he didn’t have to look behind him anymore.” I took my courage in my two hands and went on. “I’m not a Jew, and I’m a German. This is true. No wife you would have chosen for Joe. I knew that, and at first, when he asked me to marry him—” I stopped.
“She turned me down.” Joe said it quietly, but oh, what strength there was in his voice! “She said that marrying me would hurt you. But we were miserable without each other. This isn’t a compromise, not for me. It’s the only choice.”
“But not even to consider becoming a Jew?” Mrs. Stark burst out. “How is that love? Ruth said to Naomi, ‘Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.’Thatis sacrifice, and that is love.”
“In that case,” I said, “should I ask Joe to become a Catholic? I wouldn’t, for that’s not who he is, and does love, even for a woman, require such an .. aLöschen …”I looked at Joe.
“Erasure,” he said.
“Thank you. Does love require such an erasureof self? Shouldn’t it instead require acceptance of the other’s … otherness?” Not the most tactful of questions, you’ll admit, but Iwasmy father’s daughter, and humility was not our strong suit.
