“Or maybe that’s what is killing me,” she’d said. “You can’t go. We have a child to think about, Heinrich.”
In another time. Max thought about those words a lot after his mother died. And when he’d asked his father what he’d meant by it, his father had frowned and hadn’t answered at first.
“Like H. G. Wells?” he’d asked his father one afternoon in the shop. Max had just come back home after he’d been hospitalized in the city for months. The loss of his mother manifested itself into an unknowing, unyielding physical sickness that came on in fits, making it nearly impossible for him to breathe.
“Do you have a time machine?” he’d asked his father. It was hard to fathom, unbelievable even as he said it. But the idea fascinated him with little-boy wonder, a little boy who already lost himself in books and stories. His lungs had been gasping for air for months, but it had not been hard to keep on reading books and imagining, even in his sickest state.
His father hadn’t answered for a little while still, and then he’d simply said: “H. G. Wells is fiction, Max.” He knew. “Time machines aren’t real.” He paused a few moments before continuing. “But time isn’t always linear. There are . . . gaps.” He had walked over to the closet in the back of the shop, the one with the achtung! sign on the door, a lock on the handle that only he had the key to. “But it is extraordinarily dangerous, Max,” he’d said. “And you must promise me you will never go in there. No matter what.”
Max had promised. And he had kept that promise, until last June, nearly a year ago now when he had very briefly unlocked the closet door with the key he’d inherited upon his father’s death and walked inside. With both his parents dead, with the bookshop floundering, with the feeling of loneliness creeping up inside of him, and with his lungs again threatening to refuse to pull the air in and out, the tightness lingering in his chest, he had thought: Why not? What have I got to lose?
When he had walked inside last June, the closet was long and deep, and he had walked farther and farther back, until suddenly everything changed, brightened with a light so intense he was momentarily blinded. Then all he could see was fire and smoke so thick, he really couldn’t breathe. He coughed and gasped for breath and turned back around, running through the closet the way he’d come in.
Back inside the bookshop, the street out front had looked quiet and calm; there had been no smoke or fire. In fact, it was night, and he would later learn, it was not that same night, but a week later than he thought. Johann had come in frantically searching for him the following morning.
“Grief will make you do funny things,” Elsa told him, when he tried to explain to her and Johann what had happened, where he had been. They had exchanged knowing glances, over his head. But Max knew what he’d experienced walking into the closet was different from grief. He’d suspected for a long time. He just hadn’t been able to put his finger on it until he’d actually gone inside himself.
Elsa had patted him kindly on the shoulder. “But you don’t have to lie to us, Max. If you need to get away for a little while, just tell us so we don’t worry next time, all right?”
And now, here he was, nearly ten months later, drinking his father’s scotch and eyeing the closet again.
He couldn’t go to bed after Hanna left. He would never fall asleep, and the thought of his bed, without her, or that she would never stay here with him again, never kiss him again . . . It was all too much to bear.
His throat burned from the scotch, and he nearly gagged, coughing in a way that reminded him of Hanna’s sick mother and her awful words to him. He ignored the coughing, the burning, and he took another sip. And another. And another. Until his body grew hot, and the words Hanna had spoken to him felt dull, far away.
If Hanna didn’t want to be with him, would never marry him, then what was there for him here? Business was so slow, and Johann and Elsa had Emilia now. Germany was changing rapidly with many people voting for Hitler. He couldn’t sit here day in and day out, bored and lonely. And angry. And tired. He suddenly felt so tired.
He eyed the closet again. What if he went in it now? The future could be brighter, better than this. And what did he have to lose now, really?
He stood, wobbled a little, and steadied himself by holding on to the counter and catching his breath. He moved the bookshelf out of the way, and then before he could change his mind he unlocked the door, opened it, and stepped inside.
Hanna, 1947
Stuart lived in a small loft, just a fifteen-minute tube ride from the station near Julia’s house. Still, I lied about where I was going on Wednesday night, having told only Henry where I’d planned to spend my weekly salary from now on, and only because I knew he’d approve. I told Julia that I had joined a small group of women I’d befriended at the hospital who also played instruments, and she’d clucked her tongue approvingly, as now she believed me to be making friends with coworkers and playing only as a hobby. In truth, I barely spoke to the women I worked with. Aside from Henry and Friedrich, of course, I barely even knew anyone at the hospital, a fact that Friedrich might have known if he bothered to pay attention, but I was pretty sure he didn’t. His interest in me spanned only as far as making my sister happy, and that ended at having secured me the part-time job.
It was lightly raining when I walked up from the tube, and the buildings here were not as nicely kept up as on Julia’s street. Many of the buildings surrounding Stuart’s had been flattened, and a small neighborhood of prefabs, set up after the war to deal with the housing shortage, and what Julia called, with an upturned nose, eyesores, sat just behind his building. Julia would have been appalled by where Stuart lived.
I shielded my violin case under my coat to prevent it from getting wet, and I walked the three flights of steps up to Stuart’s apartment. By the time I knocked on the door I was breathing hard, and I suddenly felt a little nervous. I didn’t really know Stuart, after all, and here I was completely alone, having told no one where I was going.
“Ah, you came,” he said, when he opened the door, as if I’d surprised him by showing up at the time we’d agreed upon. “Come on in.” He smiled kindly, and my nervousness subsided.
I walked inside and took off my coat. His apartment was small. I was only steps from the kitchen and his bed, in the living area, where he had a couch, two chairs, and a music stand. The symphony, unsurprisingly, must not be paying him well.
“Have a seat.” He gestured to one of the wooden chairs, and I sat down and took my violin from the case.
He let out a low whistle. “Is that a Strad?” He held out his hands, wanting to examine my instrument, and I hesitated for a moment before passing it to him. He caressed the wood gently with his fingertips. “She’s beautiful,” he said, though in truth, she had sustained a bit of wear in the ten years I couldn’t remember and was in somewhat desperate need of a tune-up and cleanup. I wasn’t sure there was anyone left in London after the war who could do it, though. Not that I could afford it anyway. “How did you ever get her?” Stuart was asking.
“My zayde.” He looked confused. “Grandfather,” I corrected myself with the more English term. “He used to play himself, when he was younger. He was the whole reason why I picked up a violin in the first place, and he gave this to me for my sixteenth birthday.” I smiled a little, remembering how Zayde had presented her to me, wrapped with a red ribbon, and how excited Mamele had been for me to finally have a good instrument to play on. “I don’t know how he afforded it or where he got it, honestly. I didn’t ask. I was just so excited to have it.” That was before everything: before he died, before Mamele got sick, before Germany began to change into something ugly. And Julia had been spitting mad with jealousy. Zayde had given her a small heart necklace when she’d turned sixteen years earlier, which was lovely but not nearly as extravagant as my violin.
Stuart handed my violin back to me. “Play something,” he said. “I want to see where you’re at before we get started.”
I put my vi
olin to my chin, lifted the bow, and closed my eyes. I didn’t think about what I was going to play but just began, letting my fingers move on the strings, the bow moving my arm where it needed to go. Mozart came out. Sonata no. 21. My favorite one. I’d played it at the Lyceum once, and Max had come. He’d told me he was going to, and as I’d walked onstage I’d searched the crowd for him. He’d been in the back, holding on to a bouquet of flowers. Fire lilies. My heart had lurched a little in a way it never had before, and though I’d closed my eyes and performed the sonata perfectly, my head had been in the back row of the auditorium with the sweet man who had brought me lilies, who’d actually wanted to hear me play.
I finished the piece now, put my bow down. I opened my eyes and I realized my cheeks were wet; I’d been crying. I wiped the tears away quickly, hoping Stuart hadn’t noticed. He stared at me, his mouth agape. “You’re quite good,” he said, sounding shocked. He hadn’t expected me to be. Because I was a woman? Or because he’d won the seat over me?
“I used to be,” I said. “Back in Berlin.”
“No,” he said, adamantly. “You still are. I mean your technique is a little sloppy, but you play with passion. I can feel it.”
My cheeks burned with the compliment and the criticism. I was sloppy because I hadn’t practiced, really practiced in months, or maybe, years. He wasn’t wrong about that. Herr Fruchtenwalder would’ve said the same thing. “So you will teach me then?” I asked. I took the two pounds out of my pocket and held them out to him.
He hesitated for a moment and then pushed the money back to me. “We will teach each other,” he said. “I can correct you on your technique. You will help me to learn to play with more passion.”
Could passion, fire, as Max called it, be taught? Deep down I felt that you were either born with it or you weren’t. But I pressed my lips together tightly. If Stuart was willing to teach me, for free, I would play along.
He stood and went to the bookshelf behind the couch, skimmed across it with his fingers. “Here,” he said, and I had the sudden vision of Max, standing in his shop in Gutenstat, trying so hard to find something for me to read, something I would love that would keep me coming back to the shop. Virginia Woolf had bored me, Shakespeare had annoyed me, William Faulkner’s American books had intrigued me . . . But Max’s earnestness was so sweet. I had returned for that much more than any books.
“My favorite book of scales,” Stuart said now, pulling a thin volume from his shelf. “You can take it and practice this week.” I knew all my scales by heart and had since I’d first started taking lessons at age eight, but I took the book. “Should we play through a few now, together?” Stuart asked. He took his own violin out of its case—not a Stradivari or a Guarneri or even a Willhelm. In fact, I didn’t recognize it as any particular instrument of significance and so I didn’t ask him where he’d gotten it. He raised his bow and I raised mine, and we began playing through the exercises in unison.
“Wait.” I stopped him. He put his bow down and turned to me. “You don’t really need the book. Close your eyes.”
“But how will I . . . ?”
“You should feel the music in here.” I put my hand on his chest, over his heart. “Not on here.” I pointed to the notes on the page.
“Shall we play number six again?” Stuart asked. I nodded. He closed his eyes and then I did the same. He counted to three, and we played D Major again, with arpeggios, in unison.
I felt almost giddy as I left Stuart’s apartment. I took the scales book with me, promising him I’d practice with the music this week, while he promised me he’d practice without.
I skipped to the tube, and when I got back to Julia’s, all the lights were out. Everyone was already asleep. In my bedroom, I lit a candle, and I fingered through the scales in Stuart’s book until I was so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
I blew the candle out and lay down in bed, my violin still in my hand. And when I closed my eyes, I put my hand over my heart, the way I had with Stuart’s earlier, feeling it beat slow and steady beneath my palm. The beholder of all my passion, just like I’d told Stuart.
Since I’d come to London I’d thought maybe my fire was gone. That without Max, without a way to play violin, without my memory, I would be dead inside. But now, tonight, I was alive again. I felt warm from within and vaguely happy.
Run away with me. I heard Max’s voice in my head as I was drifting off to sleep. His name was on my lips; he was so close. I could almost touch him. But in an instant, everything changed, grew dark. Run! Max was screaming now.
And then there was the man with the gun, the cold barrel against my forehead commanding me to play my violin, louder, faster, better, again.
Play like your life depends on it. It does.
Max, 1932
Max awoke the next morning, his head aching, feeling foggy, his sheets damp with sweat. It took a moment, but then he remembered why he felt so awful: Hanna coming to the shop, saying she wanted a break, drinking too much scotch, walking into the closet. Oh, the closet. Why had he done that? He moaned and pulled the pillow over his head. His head ached so badly that it was hard to think. What had happened after he’d walked into the closet? Where had he gone?
It came to him first in feelings: fear and loneliness and despair. And then in brief flashes of memory: he had walked outside of the bookshop, and everything had been . . . different. Soldiers had been marching on Hauptstrasse, shouting Heil Hitler, over and over again, but not Reichswehr. Judging from their bright red armbands with the broken cross, they were SA, Sturmabteilung. In fact, the broken cross had been everywhere, hanging up in every storefront.
Herr Feinstein next door had been standing outside his shop, sweeping the sidewalk, and he’d been very upset. Something bad had happened to his wife, and Max was trying to ask him if he was okay. But then he’d seen an SA, holding on to Hanna. No, dragging her out of his shop, arresting her. And he had been powerless to stop it. Hanna was in terrible danger.
He jumped out of bed, put his hand to his throbbing forehead in an attempt to quell the ache, found his shoes, and ran down the steps, out of the shop, and toward the train station. It was Sunday, and he expected the streets would be empty, but they weren’t.
The train, too, was bustling and busy. And as he sat on the packed train car, it occurred to him that maybe it wasn’t Sunday after all. The time he’d walked into the closet, in June, Johann and Elsa said he’d been gone for a week. Had he lost time again?
The man next to him on the train was reading the newspaper, and Max sat up a bit, glanced over the man’s shoulder trying to catch the date. Friday, April 15, 1932. That would be . . . two weeks since he’d been to Hanna’s apartment for the Sabbath dinner. Two weeks? He had missed the runoff election. Had Hitler done the impossible and won? Is that why the soldiers had been shouting Heil Hitler in the street? He broke into a cold sweat. Where had he gone, or rather, when had he gone?
The train finally stopped at Maulbeerstrasse, and Max stood, steadied himself. He got off and gulped the fresh cool air. It was a pleasant spring morning, the sky a crystal blue, the sun shining brightly, illuminating the mulberry trees that lined the path from the station to the street. He stumbled past them, barely noticing, barely breathing. If it was a Friday morning, not a Sunday, then Hanna would not be at home; she would be at the Lyceum, finishing up her lesson, and he ran there, across the green, past the auditorium, where Herr Fruchtenwalder held his lessons. He waited outside, and when Hanna walked out a few minutes later, he ran to her, grabbed her in a hug, so relieved to see her, to feel her, to know that she was okay.
“You’re safe,” he whispered into her hair.
“Max?” She pushed him away and took a step back. “What’s wrong with you? Have you been drinking? You smell like a tavern.”
“Listen,” he said, and then he hesitated, not wanting to shout it all out here, in the middle of the green, which was teeming with students. “Can we go to Herr Brichtman’s b
akeshop to talk?”
She shook her head. “I have to get home. It’s my turn to make dinner.” She started walking, briskly, and he had to run to keep up with her.
“Hanna, wait,” he called. “I’m worried you’re in danger.”
She stopped walking, spun around quickly, her violin like a weapon that almost hit him. He jumped back. “You disappeared for two weeks. I looked everywhere for you. I was worried you were dead. And now you’re here, worried for my safety? I don’t think so.”
“You were worried?” Last they’d left it, he wasn’t sure if Hanna would ever want to see him or talk to him again. “But I thought you wanted a break?”
She sat down on the bench at the edge of the green. He sat down next to her, put his hand gently on her leg, and she didn’t pull away this time. “I couldn’t sleep all that night. I came back to your shop in the morning to apologize and tell you I was wrong, but you were gone. I saw the bottle of scotch. You’d obviously had too much to drink and just . . . decided to leave town. I didn’t know if you were ever coming back.”
He opened his mouth to correct her, then shut it again. If he told her about the closet, she would think he was crazy. And maybe, he was. “I’m sorry,” he said, thinking it better to apologize. “I was so upset after you left. I . . . I had to get away. I needed to think.”
She put her hand on top of his. “I’m sorry too,” she said. “But don’t ever do that again. You scared me half to death.”
He laced his fingers with hers. “Now that Hitler has won, things are going to get bad. We should get out of Germany . . . Run away with me.”
She pulled her hand away, narrowed her eyes, and tilted her head. “Hitler didn’t win,” she said.
He could still hear the chants of the Sturmabteilung on Hauptstrasse. Heil Hitler. Heil Hitler. Heil Hitler. And the Hakenkreuz was everywhere. “Are you sure?”
In Another Time Page 9