At the train station, the date was posted up above the ticket booth: July 2, 1934. He blinked, looked at it again, praying he’d misread January for July. But anyway, it could not be January. It was much too hot. It was, despite his disbelief, actually July. He’d not only missed Hanukkah entirely, but he had been gone for six months.
He took the first train to Maulbeerstrasse, barely able to stand the ten-minute train ride—it felt like forever. The interminable field rolling by outside his window was no longer covered in snow, but it was brown, dead, as if it hadn’t rained the entire time he was away. He put his hand in his pocket and felt it there still: the ring he had planned to give to Hanna last December.
A memory or a dream came to him in a flash: We can finally get married now, Hanna had whispered to him in bed.
They could finally get married. He would go to her now, apologize, explain that he had been helping the Feinsteins get to safety, and she would understand that. She would still love him here, in 1934, though he had left her for so very long. She had to. He ran his finger over the cold, smooth diamond and clasped it in his palm as he got off the train.
In the summer, Hanna didn’t always have classes at the Lyceum, though she did keep up lessons with Herr Fruchtenwalder each week. Max decided to try her apartment first. It was more likely she’d be there and also, it was closer to the station.
He ran toward her building, then stood outside her apartment door a few seconds before knocking, listening for the sound of the violin, or even her mother’s cough. But when he heard nothing at all from inside, he knocked, softly at first, then louder. Finally the door opened, and Julia, not Hanna, stood there on the other side. She frowned deeply and folded her arms across her chest. “My sister doesn’t want anything to do with you,” she said, sharply, moving to close the door.
He held up his hand to stop her. “Wait,” he said. “Please. I just need to talk to her.” He squeezed his fist tighter around the ring.
“You think you can leave her for months and come back whenever you want?” Julia demanded.
“Hanna,” he yelled past Julia into the apartment. “Hanna, please. Just come out and talk to me.”
“Ssssh.” Julia put her finger to her lips. “She’s not even here. And Mamele’s sleeping.”
“Where is she?” Max asked. “The Lyceum?”
“And why would I tell you?” Julia said.
“I love her,” Max’s voice broke, understanding as he said it, how impossible that must look to Julia right now. But it was the truth, and he said it again.
“You have a funny way of showing it.” Julia frowned.
“Please, just tell her to come to the shop and see me later. Please,” Max implored her. But Julia swung the door shut, slamming it in his face before he could say another word.
He took the train back. He wasn’t going to listen to Julia, or give up. If Hanna wasn’t home now, she was likely at the Lyceum, practicing, and he didn’t want to interrupt her there. It would only make her angrier with him than she already was. But she would go back to her apartment for supper. She always had unless she was eating with him. He would return to Maulbeerstrasse later that night, armed with flowers, apologies, food . . . anything else he could think of to get her to forgive him.
He got off the train back on Hauptstrasse, his hunger nearly capsizing him, and he doubled over in the street, clutching his stomach. He walked the block to Elsa and Johann’s and knocked on their door. They, too, would’ve noticed his long absence, worried about him, but he hoped they would be less angry and more willing to offer him some food.
Elsa opened the door, and she opened her mouth, then held up her arms. But his eyes had already gone to her large, protruding belly. Grace, he thought. Apropos of nothing. Playing the piano.
Elsa grabbed him in a hug. “Max, really, I should string you up by your toes, running off like that. Johann and I have been worried sick.” As he hugged her, he felt an odd sense of déjà vu. They had just done this. But they hadn’t, had they?
Johann walked up behind Elsa now. “Jesus, Max. Where the hell have you been?” But he stepped past Elsa and clapped him on the back. Max hugged him, too, and he felt so happy to see Johann. He hazily remembered something would be wrong with Johann, in the future, but he couldn’t put his finger on what.
“I’m sorry,” Max finally said to both of them. The simplest and best thing he could say. “Please, can I come in?”
Johann opened the door wider and gestured for Max to follow him inside. “Have you been ill?” Elsa asked him. “You don’t look well.”
“No . . .” Max said. “But I am starving.”
“I have some brötchen in the kitchen,” Elsa said, and she brought him a basket of it, setting it in front of him on the table. He gobbled the brötchen down, slightly embarrassed about the crumbs he was leaving on their table, which he tried to gather into a pile with his fingers as he ate.
“So where did you go?” Johann asked, leaning forward in his chair. “And why didn’t you tell us like you promised? Or write to us . . . or anything?”
“I was traveling,” Max lied. The lie came so easily off his tongue; he didn’t even think about it. It was just there, as if he’d already made it up in advance.
Johann frowned. “Hanna was a wreck with worry. You left her a note that you’d be gone only days. She thought you’d been killed.” Killed. Max saw the worry in his oldest friend’s eyes and it sunk in his gut. He remembered in a flash: Johann had been killed in the future. That was why Elsa was so very sad.
He pushed the basket of bread aside. He’d eaten too much, too fast, and now he felt like he might be sick. “Oh, Jo,” he said.
“Come on, Max,” Johann said. “Where the hell did you go that you couldn’t even send a telegram?”
He wanted to tell Johann the truth desperately, but he had tried that one summer when he’d first gone into the closet and he and Elsa hadn’t believed him then. They would believe him even less now. He would sound crazy and they would worry about him even more. But maybe he could explain that he’d been helping his neighbors, which was also the truth. “You know the Feinsteins from next door to me?” he finally said.
“Yes,” Johann said. “They’re not there any longer. There was a rumor that the SA chased them off in the middle of the night or arrested them . . . There’s a Christian baker who runs the shop now. Elsa doesn’t like the brötchen half as much, so she’s been making her own.” Elsa sighed and folded her arms across her round belly. It wasn’t the bread she disliked as much as the idea of Jews being driven out.
Emilia called for her mother from the other room, and Elsa excused herself, walking out to attend to her daughter.
As soon as she left, Johann leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “Things have gotten so bad while you were away, Max. Jews are being arrested for nothing, taken away in the middle of the night. And not just Jews, but anyone sympathetic is in danger. A lawyer at my firm was arrested last week for ‘aiding criminal activity.’ He simply had a Jewish client he’d been working with. That was his crime. Helping a Jew with legal matters!”
Max opened his mouth to speak, to tell Johann that the Feinsteins hadn’t been arrested at all, that he had helped them escape instead. But if everything was as bad as Johann was saying, he also didn’t want to put his oldest friend in any danger.
Johann was still talking: “On top of that, Jews no longer have health insurance and they’re being banned from things left and right. I fear it is only going to get worse.”
They no longer had health insurance? What about Frau Ginsberg and her heart problems? How was she being treated without insurance? Hanna must be devastated, and he hadn’t been here for her.
“You need to get Hanna to forgive you,” Johann was saying now. “Then you need to marry her. And get her out of Germany.” He laid it out matter-of-factly, like it would just be that easy. That Hanna would forgive him quickly and consent not only to being his wife but also to leaving her cou
ntry, her orchestra, her mother.
Max nodded, but took comfort in knowing now that he had another way to get Hanna out. “It’ll be okay,” he assured Johann. And Johann frowned, as if he believed Max wasn’t taking him seriously.
“Well,” Elsa walked back in, holding Emilia against her hip, “did you find out all the details of his trip?”
Johann smiled at his wife and tickled Emilia’s toes. She giggled a little and rubbed her eyes. “No. Max, why don’t you tell us both.”
“I was, um . . .” He thought of his father’s old lie, where he’d always believed his father to be when he left for weeks at a time. “Going around Europe. Book buying.”
“Book buying?” Elsa raised her eyebrows. Emilia let out a little cry and Elsa turned her attention back to her daughter. “I have to get her a snack, excuse me, Max.” She kissed Johann on the head and walked back into the kitchen with Emilia.
“Elsa loves you so much,” Max said to Johann. “You know that, right?”
“I’m a lucky man,” Johann said, but he stared at Max, his blue eyes brimming with worry.
Max spent the afternoon cleaning up his shop, wiping away the dust, and looking at what books still remained. Mostly it was volumes of poetry that had been sitting on the shelves for years, books his father had ordered and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to clear away even though his patrons weren’t interested in poetry these days. He wasn’t sure what happened to all the other books, as he’d locked the shop before he’d left, and only Hanna had a key. But when he opened the cash register, it was also flush with reichsmarks, more than he’d seen in one place in a long time, so he couldn’t believe anything had been stolen.
He got his answer in the middle of the afternoon, when the shop door opened, the bell clanged, and there she was, so beautiful as always. Hanna stood in the doorway, her round green eyes wide open, staring at him, disbelieving. “Max, is that really you?”
He ran to her, hugged her, held her to his chest, and breathed in the molasses smell of rosin on her skin. They stood like that for a moment, until Hanna pulled back, put her hands on his chest, and pushed him away. “Where have you been? I thought you were dead,” she yelled at him.
“I know,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.” He reached for her, grabbing her shoulders gently, but she pulled away again. “Hanna,” he said. “Come on. Please don’t be upset with me. I love you.”
“Six months,” she said. “What could you possibly have been doing for six months that you couldn’t send a telegram or write a letter to let me know you were okay? Were you arrested?” He shook his head. “Held against your will? Imprisoned?” Her voice rose, and she began shaking a little. Her face was red, her eyes bright and hot with anger.
“No, no,” he said. “Nothing like that.” The truth was right there, on the tip of his tongue. He had helped the Feinsteins, touched the future, and she was in it, she was safe. He would rescue her, at some point. She would go into the closet with him. Eventually he would have to tell her everything. But he would wait until they needed to leave. He didn’t want her to be in any danger by knowing what he’d done before that. He reached out for her again, but she pushed him away, harder, so he lost his balance a little. A searing pain shot across his forehead, in a line above his eyes, and he reached his hand up to rub it, to attempt to quell the ache.
“We’re done,” she said. Her voice was calm, even. It wasn’t the anger talking; she actually meant it. The words cut him; his chest felt tight, and it was hard to breathe.
“You don’t mean that,” he said. “Julia told you I was back and you came to see me. Why else would you come here, if you didn’t still love me?”
“Julia?” She shook her head. “I’m not here because of Julia. I’ve been coming here a few times a week, opening the shop for you. I didn’t know what else to do . . . or when you were coming back. If you were ever coming back.”
So that explained all the missing books, all the money in the register. “Oh, Hanna,” he said, loving her even more, if that was possible. He tried to take her hand.
But she wouldn’t let him. “No,” she said. “Now that you’re back I have no reason to be here. I want nothing more to do with you.” She turned and ran out.
“Wait,” he called after her. “Please! Let me try to explain!” He ran out after her into the street, but she kept running and refused to even turn back to look at him.
An agonizing week later Max’s headache had finally gone away, and he understood that he was not going to die. Not now, anyway.
He used all the money Hanna had made in his absence to order more books for his shelves, and as he’d caught up on all the news in his absence, writing it all down in his journal, he also calculated a plan to win back Hanna’s love. He would visit her every evening and every morning until she agreed to talk to him, until she listened to him.
“Just give her time,” Elsa said kindly. “She’ll come around.”
But how much time did they have?
He rode the train to Maulbeerstrasse each morning and then again each evening, only to have her slam the door in his face twice, and not even open it up the other times. But he would not give up, and eventually she would have to listen to him. She would have to.
And then, two weeks had passed, and she came to his shop one evening before he had set out on the train himself. She didn’t use her key to open up the door, but she knocked on the glass. He opened the door, and she stood shaking, crying on the sidewalk. “I’m done,” she shouted at him as she walked inside his shop. “Everything’s done. Ruined!”
He opened his arms and was both surprised and relieved that she ran into them. He wrapped her in a hug, kissed the top of her head, smoothed back her hair.
“What happened?” he asked, wiping away the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “Did the SA threaten you?” He looked around on the street, but it was empty tonight. Quiet. The new Christian baker next door was friendly enough but closed his shop down much earlier than Herr Feinstein used to. “Is your mother okay?” Now that Jews no longer had health insurance, he had been so worried for Frau Ginsberg’s health.
“My audition,” she said between sobs. “I was so mad at you . . . and I didn’t wear the lucky pin . . . and I messed up my audition. I’m done.”
“Ssh.” He rubbed her back, wiped away her new round of tears. She buried her face against his chest. He saw a flash of her, playing a solo. A humid summer night in Paris. The music like a sudden rainstorm. “There will be other auditions. You will have other orchestras,” he told her.
“There are no other orchestras in Berlin.” She pounded her fists against his chest in frustration, and then suddenly exhausted, she just put her hands up in the air, sat down on the floor.
He sat on the floor next to her, pulled her into his arms, and let her cry for a little while. “I promise you,” he told her again. “There will be other orchestras.”
When her crying subsided, she finally kissed him. “I can’t lose you and my violin,” she said. “I’m still mad at you . . . but I can’t lose you.”
It felt like it had only been two weeks to him, but for her months had passed. And all her anger and fire and love and disappointment and passion entwined in her kiss as she pulled him to her again, and he could suddenly think of nothing but her, feel nothing but the hotness of her skin against his.
“You’re not going to lose me,” he said fiercely. And maybe if he said it like he believed it, he could make it true.
Hanna, 1950
I showed up on Julia’s stoop in London two days after my night with Max, without even telephoning her first. And when Lev opened the door and saw me standing there, his mouth formed an O of surprise, quickly followed by a frown.
“What? Are you not excited for a visit from your tante?” I asked him, forcing a cheeriness I didn’t quite feel.
“Mother’s not feeling well,” he said, staring at his bare feet. I picked up my suitcase and violin
case from the stoop and pushed my way inside. The air inside the house felt stale, the foyer dark, as if someone hadn’t thought to pull the shades or open the windows all summer.
“I should’ve telephoned,” I said.
Stuart had waited up all night for me the other night, had telephoned the hospitals looking for me. I hadn’t been able to look him in the eyes, as I apologized for alarming him, as I promised him I was completely fine. I lied and said I’d just been feeling ill and had spent the night at a hotel to avoid infecting him.
Then I quickly packed all my belongings and told him I needed to go to Julia’s for a visit. The orchestra was on break for the month of August. I hadn’t had the heart, or the courage, to stay and tell him the truth. Stuart deserved better; Stuart deserved someone who would love him and only him. And if Max was still alive, then that was never going to be me. I’d gotten on the first train to London, needing time away, space, to figure everything out.
“Julia,” I called out into her darkened house, now.
But Moritz walked out from the kitchen, and his eyes lit up when he saw me. He ran up and gave me a hug. He may have been bigger, looking more and more like a small man now, but he was still the same mischievous little creature I adored. I kissed his head and ruffled his hair.
“Where’s your mother?” I asked both him and Lev, who’d shut the door and walked up behind me. “And what’s wrong with her?” She’d been coughing when she visited me in France a few months ago but had passed it off as nothing. Now I was genuinely concerned. “Has she been ill?” I asked the boys.
“Not exactly,” Moritz said at the same time Lev said, “Yes.”
In Another Time Page 19