She’d often come in breathless, as if she’d run the entire way from the train, as if she couldn’t wait to see him, as much as he couldn’t wait to see her. She’d run up behind the counter and kiss him, and whether it had only been a few hours, or a few days, Max would pull her toward him, hold on to her, close his eyes, and just for a moment feel that everything was all right with the world.
Then he would close down the shop, and she would take out her violin and she would play. He knew she was practicing songs for school and for Herr Fruchtenwalder, but when she played there in his shop, it felt like she was giving a concert just for him. Playing love songs that only he got to hear.
After she practiced for a few hours, they’d go upstairs and eat a light supper together that he would prepare for her so she could rest her fingers. And then they’d get into his bed.
Every time they were together, every time he touched her warm skin, felt her naked body, he felt so much, he wanted so much. It was still so new and wonderful that it felt like the first time. But it also felt like they had been together forever. That their bodies knew each other, fit each other. He could barely remember that his life had existed without her, without this.
But then he would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, Hanna’s leg entwined with his, her sleeping soundly next to him. He would wake up in a sweat, breathing hard, and it would hit him all over again, all at once. She was in danger, in another time. They couldn’t stay here like this forever, no matter how much he wanted to. The world would move on, time would move forward.
In November there was another election, and the Nazi Party vote shrunk from the previous spring. “See,” Hanna told him pointedly when they heard the results come in on the radio. “You worry too much.” He was still somewhat frequently telling her how concerned he was about the anti-Semitic sentiment in Germany, about Hitler getting elected. About what that would mean for Hanna and her family.
But it was also getting easier and easier to believe that what he’d seen wasn’t real. Easier to believe that he’d dreamed it or had simply drunk too much scotch or that time, in the closet, was no more than an illusion. Because the alternative was believing that his city, his country, his home would soon turn into something terrible, something beyond belief. A place where Hanna wasn’t safe. That everything they had and knew, everything he loved, was about to be taken from him.
Life went on and on each day, as it always had: the seasons changed; he unlocked his shop each morning and smelled the aroma of Herr Feinstein baking bread next door; there was fresh fish on ice in the window of the Fischmarkt across the street. Emilia even started sleeping through the night, and Max grabbed an ale with Johann on Saturdays again before sundown, when Hanna came to see him.
Elsa and Johann invited them over for Christmas Day brunch, and though Hanna said she had never once celebrated Christmas before, Max bought her a present, a gold violin pin he’d seen in the window of the jeweler’s, down the block. He wrapped it up neatly in silver foil with a green ribbon and had it waiting on the counter for her when she arrived that afternoon.
The bookshop was closed for the holiday, and the train was running on a slow and intermittent schedule. It was bitterly cold outside, but not snowing as he’d hoped it would. When Hanna arrived, she knocked against the locked door with a mittened hand. For once, she did not have her violin with her.
“You look incomplete,” he teased her when he opened the door, kissed her cold forehead, and drew her into the warmth of the heated shop.
“Incomplete?”
“No violin.”
She smiled, took off her hat and mittens, and placed them on the counter; her eyes caught on his silver-foil-wrapped box. “What’s this?” she asked.
He pushed the box toward her. “Open it,” he said.
“Oh, Max,” she said, shaking her head a little.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You didn’t have to get anything for me. And just so you know, it’s not a Christmas present. It’s a Hanukkah present.” Max had never bought anyone a Hanukkah present before, but he knew the holiday was happening this week, too, that gifts were given and a menorah was lit. He imagined Frau Ginsberg and Julia and Friedrich and Hanna standing around the flames each night and he wanted Hanna to see that he could do that too. That he could be a part of her world and learn her religion if she wanted him to.
She laughed and put her hands into the pockets of her coat. “Well, actually I did get you something. Merry Christmas.” She pulled her hands out, held them up, and showed him she was holding a thick cream-colored envelope. She handed it to him. “Julia and Friedrich are getting married in February.” He took the envelope from her, opened it up. An invitation, to the wedding. For him? “I want you to come with me.”
He hadn’t seen her mother or her sister since that Sabbath dinner at their apartment last spring. And neither he nor Hanna had mentioned any words like wedding, marriage, or family lately. It was easier if it was only the two of them. If they pretended everyone and everything else didn’t exist. “But won’t your mother be upset?” he asked her, turning the invitation over in his hand. The wedding was at the Hotel Adlon, a beautiful historied hotel in Mitte, Berlin.
She shrugged. “I love you, and I want to bring you with me. Friedrich’s family has money and they’re making it into a grand affair. Dancing and champagne, and Friedrich’s sisters are both bridesmaids with me and are both bringing dates. I’m going to bring one, too,” she said, somewhat defiantly.
“Okay.” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. Then he took the silver-foiled box off the counter. “Now you open mine.”
She unwrapped the ribbon slowly, precisely, her strong, small fingers undoing the bow, neatly undoing the wrapping paper. Then she opened the box underneath, saw the gold violin pin, and gasped a little. “Oh, Max,” she said. “It’s stunning.” She took it out of the box, fastened it on the lapel of her dress. “What do you think?” she asked. He smiled. “I’ll wear it always,” she said.
Hanna, 1948
I used to have this exquisite gold violin pin that Max gave me. I’d wear it when I auditioned or when I performed, and I’d started to believe, however foolishly, that it gave me luck. That I needed it to do well. The superstition started a year or so after Max gave me the pin, the first time I auditioned for the symphony in Berlin. I didn’t wear the pin to the audition, wanting to show up looking austere, dressed in black, no jewelry as Herr Fruchtenwalder suggested. Also, I was furious at Max then; I didn’t want to wear a pin he’d given me, didn’t want to think about him at all. I was focused on the audition. And then I completely blew it in a way I hadn’t even imagined possible beforehand.
I’d played the Ravel piece that I’d insisted upon: Tzigane. I’d rehearsed it hundreds of times, maybe even thousands, perfectly. I knew it by heart. My fingers could move on the strings without the music, gliding through with muscle memory. And then in the middle of the audition, halfway through the piece, they fumbled. My fingers slipped off the fingerboard, I played a wrong note, and I did the worst possible thing: I stopped. I could’ve kept on going—one wrong note wasn’t the end of the world. But I froze, opened my eyes, and could not for the life of me remember the next note or the next or the next. The sheet music sat in front of me on a stand, but I hadn’t been following along—I’d been playing the music by memory. I couldn’t place where I was, where exactly I’d stopped. I stood there onstage completely silent. “Are you finished?” the maestro had asked, sounding surprised. And I honestly hadn’t known what to do—I’d never messed up in that way before, and the only thing I could think to do was to run off the stage.
“It was the pin,” I told Max later, as he’d brushed my tears back with his thumbs, trying to console me. I’d given my anger a rest and run to him after the audition because who else was going to comfort me and understand? Certainly not Julia, who hadn’t wanted me to audition in the first place. I couldn’t bear the thought of telling Mamele, imagining
the disappointment would hurt her heart even more. Or Herr Fruchtenwalder. I had already begun concocting a lie in my head about there just being someone better there auditioning. “The pin brings me good luck. I should’ve worn it. Why didn’t I wear it?” I’d moaned and rolled over in Max’s bed. He’d stroked my back.
“It’s going to be okay,” he told me. “You will have another chance. There will be other auditions, other orchestras.”
“Other orchestras?” I was incredulous. “There are no other orchestras worth playing in in Berlin. This is it. This is the symphony. I may as well just give up violin forever.” My eyes hurt from crying, but other than that I felt numb. Everything I’d worked so hard for my entire life was gone. Just like that.
“You’re not going to give up the violin.” He moved his hand up, brushed my hair back. “I promise you, Hanna, there will be other auditions. Other orchestras.” He was trying to be kind, trying to make me feel better. But what did he know? “And you can’t give up,” he’d told me. “You play the violin like fire, Hanna. You can’t give up on your fire.”
I thought of that night, Max’s words, sitting onstage with the Royal Symphony, waiting for the curtain to open. I didn’t have my violin pin now, of course. God knows what happened to it when I didn’t even know what happened to myself. I wore it the next time I auditioned for the symphony and it had brought me all the luck I’d needed; my audition had been perfect. But then of course no luck, no pin, could’ve stopped Hitler.
But somehow I had gotten here, without the pin. By chance or by luck. Or, as Max surely would’ve corrected me, by my own talent. My fire. How I wished Max could be here now, to see me on the stage, finally. I closed my eyes for a second and wished for him to bring me luck, wherever he may be.
The curtain opened, I held my violin under my chin. Maestro Philip raised his arms and my bow went into the air, ready to strike. I didn’t look out into the audience for Julia and Friedrich and the boys, and I didn’t look at my music, either. I had memorized it, practicing this week. When Maestro’s arms went down, I closed my eyes again and I played.
“You were very good,” Moritz told me after the concert was over. He handed me a bouquet of flowers that he proudly told me he had picked himself—albeit without his mother’s permission—from their tiny backyard garden. Julia sighed as he handed them over to me. And I kissed him on the top of the head and thanked him.
“What did you think, Lev?” I asked.
“It was very . . . long?” Lev said. His voice was sweet, like he was searching for a compliment and couldn’t quite find one.
“Yes.” I kissed his head, too, and being a little older than Moritz, he squirmed away embarrassed.
“It was very nice,” Julia said. She’d come without Friedrich, just her and the boys, and I didn’t ask where he was. I didn’t care. I was thrilled that the three of them had come to see me.
We began to walk toward home, and the boys skipped ahead of us. Julia and I hung back a little, and Julia linked her arm with mine. “You know, you looked beautiful up there,” she said. That was hardly the point, and somewhat insulting. I didn’t want to look beautiful onstage. I wanted to sound beautiful—I wanted people in the audience to hear me, not see me. But she was trying to be kind, and I thanked her.
We were having a nice moment, so rare for us, that I actually blurted out what I was thinking. “I wish Max had been here to see me. He always believed in me.”
“Oh, Hanni.” She opened her mouth like she wanted to say more but she didn’t for a moment. We kept walking. “I know you loved him,” she said. “I know you did. But you were so young. So much has happened since then.”
Everyone kept telling me that. But it still didn’t feel that way to me. “He could still be alive,” I told her. “I am.”
“Yes,” Julia said. “But he could be married to someone else. He could be anywhere in the world. It’s been twelve years since you remember seeing him last. Do you really think he’s fixated on you like you are on him?”
I shrugged, not sure what to say. What was easier to believe, that he might be dead? Or that he might’ve forgotten about me, moved on?
“You would not be hard to find. He knew where I lived.” Julia was still talking. “That hasn’t changed in all this time.” I swallowed hard, not wanting to admit out loud that Julia was right. So I didn’t answer her. I looked straight ahead, let go of Julia’s arm, and walked faster. Julia ran to keep up.
“Hanni, don’t be angry,” Julia said. “I just want you to move on. Be happy again.”
“I am happy.” I stopped walking and spun to face her. “Today, playing with the orchestra. That’s what makes me happy.”
She nodded like she understood, though she never had. “But what kind of life is that, Hanni? You will play and play and play your violin, and then what will you have to show for it?” Her eyes wandered ahead of us to her boys, and though I loved my nephews with all my heart, I had no yearning for children of my own. Especially not without Max.
Later that night, I couldn’t sleep. The music still played in my mind. I could feel it in my pulse, and my fingers twitched wanting more, wanting to play again. I didn’t know when Stuart would return, and of course I wanted his mother to be okay, but now that I had a taste of playing again, doing what I always dreamed, I couldn’t let it go, either.
There will be other orchestras, Max had promised me once. And he had been right.
You will play and play and play your violin, and then what will you have to show for it? Julia had said.
And it occurred to me for the first time that I did not have to stay in London. That I could leave and audition somewhere else. That an entire world was open to me. I had no one or nothing to hold me back. Except for maybe money.
But if I did what Julia wanted, begged Mary for my job back on Monday and continued saving my weekly salary? Eventually I’d have enough saved up to find another orchestra, to move somewhere else. And with that thought, I finally fell asleep.
Stuart telephoned Monday evening in the middle of supper, much to Julia’s annoyance. Now that she knew the truth about where I’d been going on Wednesday nights, she didn’t at all like the idea of me being alone with a strange man in his flat. I told her that there was nothing going on between Stuart and me, that it was purely about playing the violin, and that I would not betray Max that way. That had only made her frown more. Still, she’d said. It’s improper . . . Sounding exactly like Mamele when she’d learned I was spending nights at Max’s.
But I didn’t wait for her to respond when Stuart’s call came in on Monday. And I didn’t even finish my meal before grabbing my violin and running to catch the tube to his apartment.
“How’s your mum?” I asked when he answered the door.
He shrugged a little. “Not great,” he said. “She’s quite weak and not remembering things so well. But my brother and his wife are nearby and they’re making sure she takes her medicines, eats her supper, and all that.”
“Well, it’s good she has them.” I’d had no idea that Stuart had a brother before he said that. I actually knew surprisingly little about Stuart, considering how many Wednesday nights we’d spent playing together, moments that had felt oddly intimate to me. But they had only given me the illusion that I’d known him. Playing a duet with someone was like that. In a way, it was almost like making love with a stranger.
“How did the performance go?” Stuart asked.
“Great,” I said.
“That’s what Maestro said too.” I felt a little hurt that he’d asked Maestro first, as if he trusted his opinion more than mine. But then he added, “He said you can fill in anytime. For any of us.”
“Oh, okay.” The performance had gone well, but I was surprised about Maestro’s enthusiasm, given his skepticism over a woman even auditioning for his orchestra just last year. I didn’t want to fill in, of course. I wanted to play all the time, every day. But I supposed filling in was better than nothing . . . for now. I
had begged Mary for my job back this morning, and she had said she’d give me another chance. Next time, she wouldn’t. So I wasn’t sure how feasible filling in would be anyway. “I want more than that,” I admitted to Stuart. “I need more than that.”
“I know,” he said, kindly. “And you’ll get it. I know you will.” There will be other orchestras.
Stuart reached down and took his violin from his case. “Shall we play?” he asked.
I sat next to him, took my violin out of its case, too. We both closed our eyes, and we played for an hour together without saying another word.
Max, 1933
January of the new year was very cold in Gutenstat, the winter a harsh one. And Max was spending more money on coal to heat the shop than he was bringing in from selling books.
Next door Herr Feinstein was having only a little bit better luck, as people needed bread much more than they needed books. Feinstein confided he’d had to lower his prices to attract enough customers, to keep his shop afloat; he said he was barely getting by. But from Max’s viewpoint, the bakeshop looked busy. Some mornings Feinstein would even have a line out the door.
One morning near the middle of the month, Max was sitting behind the counter in his shop, reading a book, when he suddenly heard a large crash, the sound of breaking glass, and screams from the street. He stood up and ran outside. Shards of glass littered the sidewalk, a few in front of his shop, many more in front of Feinstein’s, where there was a large gaping hole in the front glass window.
“What happened?” Max asked a stunned-looking man standing on the street.
“A brick just went flying through the window, straight out of nowhere,” the man said. He held up his hands and backed away from the shop. “I’ll get my bread in the city today.” He walked away, and the rest of the line dispersed as well.
In Another Time Page 11