But it had the opposite effect: She could see the blood drain fromhis face. “It was my job to protect you. I’m so sorry that I failed. Not a day went by when I didn’t think of you.”
She looked from Mrs. Gathers back to Ozzie and asked the question that had burned inside her since this quest began. “Why did you leave? How did we get separated? Jutta said she didn’t know.”
Ozzie leaned back in his seat. “I received my reassignment orders with a thirty-minute notice. Couldn’t even let your mother know that I was leaving or where I was going. Once I got to my new post, I had no way of getting in contact with her. I sent letters and money to the Federal Eagle Club, where she worked, but I never received a response. Now I know why she never wrote back. Because she had given you up.”
“Mr. Philips, if I may interject,” said Mrs. Gathers, “I’ve worked with hundreds of German women, and it was my experience that many of the mothers wanted to keep their children, but they had no support in raising them.”
Ozzie nodded. “Even though Germany appeared to be more color-blind, I guess the truth was a lot more complicated.” He reached for Sophia’s tin canister. “May I?”
“Of course.”
Sophia watched as he fingered the letters that he had written. Then he pulled the family Polaroid close to his face. “How is Jelka doing? I bet she lost her mind when she saw you.”
Sophia looked up at him and then blinked several times. “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“She died. Jutta said… she took her own life,” and the words still felt surreal as they left Sophia’s mouth.
“Oh my God.” Ozzie brought his hands to his heart. “No. Jelka.” He dropped his head, and his chest heaved. After a few moments, he pushed back from the table and went to lean over the sink. “When?”
Mrs. Gathers spoke up. “According to Jutta, it happened in September ’64.”
He turned to face Sophia. “So you never reconnected?”
Sophia told him that they hadn’t. “I have no memory of her.”
“I’m so sorry. God knows if I could rewrite history I would.”
Another moment of silence passed between them, and then Ozzie reached for a napkin and wiped his nose.
“Do you need some privacy, Mr. Philips?” Mrs. Gathers asked.
“I’m fine.”
Sophia waited until Ozzie sat back down at the table before continuing with her questions. “Could you tell me about her? Please. What was she like?”
Ozzie’s eyes were sad, but his lips pulled back into a smile. “She was kind, took really good care of her family and you. She liked to dance. I taught her how to Lindy Hop and jitterbug.”
As Ozzie talked about Jelka, Sophia watched his posture straighten and the memories flood out of him. He went on for over an hour, telling her about her infancy and early toddlerhood. The things they did together, how he spent every weekend with her, his time in the army, and what it was like living in Germany, away from his family, at such a young age. And she hung on every word as he gave her the missing memories of her history, what she had always known was absent from Ma Deary’s rendering.
“As you were talking, Mr. Philips, I just realized that I hadn’t actually considered the men in this story. I have always been so focused on the women and children,” Mrs. Gathers said. “I’ve never reflected on what it was like for the Negro men to also lose their children.”
“Not a day went by when I didn’t feel Katja’s absence,” Ozzie said. “I wanted her with me.”
To Sophia’s delight, he recounted her young milestones, from the first time she crawled, to her first tooth, to the books he read to her as a little girl. Sophia clung to his every word like a life raft.
“Jelka was always speaking German to you, so I read you English books, and you loved them.Curious Georgewas your favorite.”
This man was really her father. Her flesh and blood. They shared the same DNA.
Ozzie straightened up in his chair. “I know some men left kids behind without a second thought. But that’s not me. I’ve spent the better part of my life suffering the loss of my daughter. It sent me down a spiraling road—”
Sophia wondered what that meant, but before she could ask, Mrs. Gathers pressed on.
“I write a column in theBaltimore Afro-Americannewspaper. Usually, I recount the first year of the adopted child’s life in the new, happy American home. But your story and perspective of losing contact with your child, seemingly against your will, needs to be told. I’ve never written a story from that perspective before.”
“I’m not too sure that people will care about the story of a black man. Especially in these times of race riots and civil rights leaders being gunned down.”
