“That will never happen. I’d be too ashamed to look her in the eye.”
“Greta, please. What we have is unique, powerful, inexorable. We both know it. Do you think this happens every day?”
“We’ve had two months,” she retorted shakily. “You’ll forget me in another two.”
“You know I never will. Greta, I love you.”
The words she had so longed to hear rang hollow. “Then call me when you’re single.”
Heart aching, she pushed past him and strode off to the theater, blinking away tears of anger and disappointment. He did not follow.
Chapter Three
October 1930
Sara
After her last class of the day, Sara Weitz hurried off to meet her brother and sister for lunch to celebrate Natan’s promotion to associate news editor of theBerliner Tageblatt. Glancing at her watch, she decided to walk from the University of Berlin to the Palast-Café rather than take the Untergrundbahn. Why descend into stifling underground darkness on such a beautiful autumn day when cool, refreshing breezes swept the streets and sunlight streamed down from cloudless blue skies? Winter would be upon them soon enough.
From campus she strolled west on Unter den Linden, her satchel slung over her shoulder, heavy with books and papers. With the first few days of the term, American literature had become her favorite course and Frau Harnack her favorite teacher. Like Sara, Frau Harnack was new to the university, a graduate student in American literature who had recently transferred to the University of Berlin. At first Sara and her classmates had not quite known what to make of their lively, warmhearted teacher, who treated her students as equals and sometimes broke into song to illuminate a particular literary point, but Frau Harnack soon won them over with her kindness and genuine concern for their well-being. Her stories about life in America so vividly illuminated the texts the class analyzed that Sara had recently begun to think that perhaps she ought to pursue a doctorate in the States after graduation.
She shook her head to clear away the daydream. It was tempting to lose herself in fond imaginings in such uncertain times. Her father’s job as a manager at the Jacquier and Securius Bank was secure, Natan’s career was on the rise, Amalie was happily married to a wealthy baron, and so the family did not struggle to make ends meet, unlike so many unfortunate others. Yet they could not ignore the political turmoil that stalked the borders of their comfortable home in the Grunewald. They tried to ignore the surge of antisemitism in Germany, concealing their apprehension and living exemplary lives, taking care not to provoke spite and fear from their Christian neighbors. That had always been enough to shield them in a modern, cosmopolitan city like Berlin. Their Jewish elders assured them it would suffice this time too.
Sara cut through the Tiergarten to avoid the Reichstagsgebäude and whatever crowd might have gathered to observe the opening of the new Reichstag that afternoon. The results of the September 14 election had stunned everyone—except perhaps the leader of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, an Austrian named Adolf Hitler. Although the National Socialists had existed as a fringe party for years, this time they had won six and a half million votes, increasing their representation from 12 seats to 107.
“How could anyone vote for the party of Adolf Hitler?” Sara’s mother had wondered aloud, aghast, after the results had come in. “He served nine months in prison for treason.”
“People are struggling,” Sara replied, thinking of her fellow students, their weary faces, their threadbare clothes, their grim prospects, their anger and hopelessness. “They can’t find work and they’re afraid of what the future holds.”
“Then along comes this loud, angry man,” Natan said, “promising to take them back to a mythical golden age of prosperity, swearing to punish Germany’s enemies for wronging them. Some people respond to that—in this case, vast numbers of people.”
As Sara approached the Palast-Café, it occurred to her that it might have been more appropriate to celebrate Natan’s promotion with a picnic in the Tiergarten near the Reichstagsgebäude. He probably would have preferred to munch a sandwich while observing the size and temper of the crowd awaiting the arrival of the new deputies.
She spotted Amalie standing alone outside the Palast-Café and hurried across the street to meet her. Although only a few days had passed since Sara had seen her sister for Shabbat at their parents’ home, Amalie greeted her with a fond embrace as if they had been apart for weeks.
Amalie was breathtakingly beautiful, willowy and tall, with dark, expressive eyes and ebony hair that shone like silk whether it cascaded down her back or was put up in a carelessly elegant chignon, as it was then. Some kind people generously said that Sara resembled her, but Sara was dubious, and not only because she was several inches shorter, her hair was a lighter brown, and her eyes were hazel. Amalie was the beauty of the family, and everyone knew it.
Amalie’s hands were smooth, her fingers long and graceful, and even when resting on her lap they seemed poised to move to music she alone heard. She was a wonderfully gifted pianist, but a few years before she had given up the professional concert circuit for marriage and motherhood. She rarely played in public anymore, restricting herself to a few benefit concerts a year and informal performances at the numerous parties they hosted at their luxurious home on Tiergartenstrasse or her husband’s ancestral estate in Minden-Lübbecke. Her husband, the Baron Wilhelm von Riechmann, was an officer in the Wehrmacht and as handsome as she was beautiful. Their daughters, three years old and ten months, were dark-haired and lovely like their mother and cheerfully exuberant like their father.
Sara had never seen a couple more devoted to each other or more perfectly suited, despite the difference of religion. She sometimes wished that Dieter looked at her the way Wilhelm looked at Amalie, but she knew that wasn’t quite fair. She and Dieter had been together only a few months, and surely true love needed more time to take deep root and flourish.
Unlike Wilhelm, Dieter had not grown up surrounded by comfort and luxury. After his father died in a muddy trench in France in the Great War, his mother had raised him on a housekeeper’s wages. He had gone to work in a carpet shop when he was only twelve, continuing his education on his own as well as he could with borrowed books. Eventually one of the shopkeeper’s suppliers, a successful importer, had recognized his latent abilities and had taken him on as an apprentice. Since then Dieter had risen steadily in the business, determined to become a partner one day. He was pragmatic and sensible, and he expressed his affection by bringing Sara American and English books he collected on his business travels, and by encouraging her to pursue her education, even though hers already far surpassed his. Unlike many other men Sara knew, Dieter did not need her to be helpless and ignorant so that he might feel strong and wise.
“I suppose we could have chosen a better day to celebrate Natan’s promotion,” Amalie mused after they had chatted for a bit and their brother had still not appeared.
“He’s probably at the Reichstag as we speak, cornering delegates and pressing them for exclusives.”
“But he’s an editor now. Shouldn’t he assign that to a reporter?”
Sara laughed. “Can you imagine Natan content to sit behind a desk managing things instead of chasing down an exciting lead?”
They waited a while longer, joking about how to punish Natan for his tardiness when he finally appeared, but eventually hunger drove them inside the café.
“Shall we talk politics?” Amalie teased as they were seated at a small round table covered in a white damask tablecloth.
“Please, no, anything but that.” Sara kept her voice low and glanced about, suppressing a smile. “I wouldn’t want to start a brawl. They might not let us come back. How are my darling nieces?”
Amalie’s face glowed as she described her daughters’ latest antics, from the baby’s attempts to walk to her elder sister’s amusing observations and turns of phrase. The conversation shifted from family matters to Sara’s studies and back to the children, diverting now and then, as the waiter took their orders and brought them their savory soup and delicate sandwiches, to wondering aloud about how Natan might be spending his afternoon.
