Ashes

by Kathryn Lasky

  “Don’t be so pessimistic, Otto. It won’t be like twenty-nine,” Mama said.

  Papa ducked his head and raised his shoulders slightly. It was a faintly apologetic gesture that I had seen him do countless times. “I’m not pessimistic. I mean, look, it could be worse. Thank God he lost those thirty-four seats. I just worry about Goebbels.” Papa still seemed far from optimistic to me.

  Two days later I witnessed a scene between my father and an unfamiliar visitor that made me think Papa’s pessimism had been justified. It was in the evening. I had just come from Ulla’s room where she had helped me with a math problem, and I was heading toward the kitchen for a snack.

  “I can’t believe that you have come here, into my own home, and brought this . . . this foulness!”

  Papa was speaking to someone in the foyer of our apartment. I froze when I heard these scalding words. “Are you actually suggesting that I . . .” Papa’s voice dropped. I could not hear the end of the sentence. I crept down the hall just a bit to see if I could catch a glimpse of whoever this was. I pressed myself against the wall and inched forward. Luckily Papa’s back was to me, but a tall figure stood facing him with his hand raised in a scolding gesture. His hair was dark and he wore a Kaiser Wilhelm beard although his mustache was not as long and flowing as the kaiser’s.

  Papa raised his voice again. “Look, that idiot of yours lost two million votes and thirty-four seats in the Reichstag two days ago and now you come to me and you really expect me . . .” Again Papa’s voice dropped and I could not hear him. Then I saw him move toward the front door and hold it open. “Gute Nacht, Herr Professor Lenard. Go back to Heidelberg.”

  Lenard! I had heard Mama and Papa speak of him. He was another physicist, the man who had practically invented the term “Jewish physics.” That was really all I knew about him, except for the fact that he hated Einstein and had referred to his theory of relativity as the “Jewish fraud.” I wondered what he could have possibly said to Papa that made him so mad. It was as if his anger seeped into the very air of the apartment. I forgot about getting a snack.

  Not five minutes later I heard Papa actually laughing. He was in his study and evidently on the telephone. I had been on my way to ask him about the man Lenard.

  “What, Albert? No! Read that to me again.”

  I slipped into his study, and he motioned for me to sit down. “Yes . . . yes . . .” He nodded, his face wreathed in smiles. “Yes . . . yes, you’re right. I won’t give Lenard another thought. Gut! Gute Nacht.” He hung up the telephone and rocked back in his chair, smiling as if at some private joke.

  “Papa, what’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Einstein. A group of patriotic American women don’t want him to come to CalTech in Pasadena for his December trip.”

  “Why not?”

  “They find him dangerous.” Papa giggled as he removed his spectacles and wiped them. My own glasses were sliding down my nose. I pushed them up. It was amazing how much better I could see with them. “Imagine anyone thinking Albert dangerous?”

  “Dangerous—Einstein dangerous?” Mama shook her head in wonder as she walked past Papa’s study on the way to her music room.

  “He’s a pacifist, isn’t he, Papa?” I asked.

  “Most assuredly,” Papa replied.

  “Then he should be anything but dangerous,” I said.

  “They apparently don’t think so, but that won’t stop him from going.”

  “And what about this man who visited you tonight? Lenard?”

  Papa’s eyes darkened. “Gaby, were you eavesdropping?”

  “No, Papa. I was just coming down the hallway to go to the kitchen for a snack and I heard you. You were talking pretty loud, you know.”

  “Hrrerf.” This was the way Papa growled when he did not like something.

  “Well, who is he?” I persisted.

  “An idiot.”

  “So is Hitler. I heard you say that.”

  “Aachh!” A different growl from his repertoire of gruff animal noises. Slightly more intense, it denoted not mere dislike but disgust. He waved his hand in front of his face the way he did when he was trying to clear away smoke from his pipe, but he wasn’t smoking his pipe. “You shouldn’t be troubling yourself with this kind of thing. You are too young.”

  “Papa, I am not too young! In five years I shall be going to the university. I want to know about this man. This Lenard. It’s ‘Jewish physics,’ isn’t it?”

  “So it is.” He sighed, and his shoulders sagged. He now reached for his pipe and the pen knife he kept on hand for digging out the old tobacco. He became completely absorbed in tending to his pipe, jabbing the point of the knife in. It was a challenging occupation for Papa, for the hand on his weakened bow arm could not be of much help. “Philipp Lenard is a disgrace to science and culture. He epitomizes why Nazi rule and what we call German culture—the culture that produced Goethe, Heine, Bach, and Beethoven—cannot exist at the same time as men who are fundamentally dogs.”

  “But Lenard is a scientist?”

  “He won the Nobel Prize in nineteen-oh-five.”

  “He did?”

  “Three years ago,” my father continued, “he was part of a group that authored a book called One Hundred Authors Against Einstein that condemned Einstein’s physics as ‘fantasy, ’ ‘deceit,’ and ‘fraud.’ There had been talk of Jewish physics before, but no one paid much attention. That book put it on the map.”

  “What did he want from you, Papa?”

  “Oh, for me to sign some stupid manifesto.”

  “What kind of manifesto?”

  “Something against Jewish scientists. He’s trying to get them all kicked out of the Institute and the Prussian Academy.”

  “This was what you were worried about when you said Goebbels would come back and fight, right?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Goebbels will of course use people like Lenard for propaganda. But just remember, the Nazis lost thirty-four seats in the Reichstag.”

  “Is Professor Einstein worried?” I asked.

  “We were just discussing a series of meetings for next spring at the Institute and his travel schedule, for he’s going to CalTech in December no matter what these ladies say. And he plans to be back in time for the meetings.” Papa smiled. “So I suppose he’s not too concerned. But the good news is this.” He reached for a paper.

  “What?”

  “Your school report. It’s so good! For the first time your literature marks are as high as your mathematics. And I know Fräulein Hofstadt teaches literature on a very sophisticated level.”

  “Oh, really?” I had forgotten that reports were to be sent out to our families this week. I brightened considerably. This was the first time my literature marks were as high as my math ones. Although I loved to read, in the past I made careless errors in my compositions for literature class.

  “Yes, Fräulein Hofstadt cannot say enough nice things about you. Listen to this: ‘Gabriella is an inspiration to any teacher. Not simply a hard worker, diligent, and precise, she has an extraordinary grasp of the subtlest nuances in literature. Her analyses of the poetry and rhetorical treatises we have been reading indicate a sophistication beyond her years. Many of her papers really are what I would call university level. She is a pleasure to have in the classroom. Truly an extraordinary young woman!’” Papa looked up. “Can’t beat that, can you, Gaby?”

  “Well, she makes it easy to love literature. She’s an inspiring teacher.”

  “Mama and I are very proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Papa.” I caught a certain wistfulness in his eyes, almost like a mist.

  “And Gaby, don’t worry about all of this. I think times are getting better; maybe by spring everything will be back to normal. And that reminds me, will you help Mama plant the new tulips? The bulbs just arrived. She always orders too many. Then she has a stiff back for three days.”

  “Sure, Papa.”

  “And remember, things are getting bett
er, I really think so. By spring there will be no more Hitler, just lovely tulips.”

  He wanted me to believe this so much. So much! I wondered if he would lie to me, or maybe he was lying to himself.

  chapter 22

  Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

  -Albert Einstein

  A few days later the telephone rang as we were eating breakfast. Once Hertha finished serving me, she walked hurriedly back to the kitchen to answer it. When she returned, she said, “It’s Frau Blumenthal, madame.”

  “Oh, Baba! I was supposed to call her about the theater tonight. Are you going, Otto?”

  “No, I can’t. I’m behind on a lecture I have to prepare.”

  Mama got up to take the call and returned a few minutes later. She turned to me and Ulla. “So now since Papa can’t go, I have an extra ticket for this evening. Do either of you want to go to the National Theatre tonight?”

  “I have a date with Karl,” Ulla said. She had hardly touched any of the food on her plate.

  “Can I have your bacon, Ulla?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  I began to reach for it.

  “Not that way! We are not barbarians here,” Mama scolded. It drove Mama crazy when we would pick food off of each other’s plates. She insisted on an entire choreography in the transference of food in this situation. Said bacon would be forked by the giver, Ulla, onto a butter plate that would be passed to me. I would then take the bacon off that plate with my fork and put it on to my plate. It seemed like about three times as many steps as were necessary. It would be so much easier to just pluck the bacon off of Ulla’s plate with my fingers.

  “So do you want to go with me, Gaby?” Mama asked when the bacon operations had been successfully completed.

  “What’s the play?” I asked.

  “Gabriel Schilling’s Flight.”

  “Never heard of it. What’s it about?”

  “It is a rather old-fashioned play about a so-so artist who’s trying to escape his wife and his mistress and winds up drowning himself.”

  “Aachh, sounds like such fun!” I said.

  Papa laughed.

  “We’ll be sitting with Hessie and Baba, too.” Now that did sound like fun, and I could wear one of the dresses I bought with Baba last summer.

  “All right, I’ll go.”

  “Good. It’s silly to waste a perfectly good ticket.”

  Karl was there that evening when I came out of my room dressed in my gray dress. Mama had lent me a pearl pin, which made it a bit fancier.

  “You look lovely, Gaby!” Karl said. “That color becomes you. You look quite grown-up, in fact!”

  It had been my observation that whenever someone commented on how “grown-up” I looked, it actually meant that I still looked rather like a child. But it’s not that I didn’t take part of his compliment seriously. I think Karl did really believe that I looked nice in my dress and that the color did became me. I was working very hard to try to forget that afternoon in the beer garden. Karl had never been anything but kind to me. Mama and Papa were always saying how courteous they found him, and they actually attributed Ulla’s renewed academic vigor to Karl, whom they learned did quite well in his studies of mechanical engineering. “A serious student,” Papa said often in reference to him.

  Uncle Hessie picked us up in his Mercedes—the big one. An evening at the National Theatre was indeed a dazzling affair. It was very different from going to the Palast Theater, which was rather dingy in comparison and hardly a palace at all. The lobby of the National Theatre glittered with a thousand twinkly lights from sparkling chandeliers. There was a grand central staircase with plush red carpeting and gilt ornamentation everywhere.

  Much to my surprise, Professor Einstein and his wife were in Hessie’s box with Mama and Baba and me, along with the British ambassador, Sir Horace Rumbold. I knew that Einstein was a music lover but I hadn’t realized that he enjoyed theater. The British ambassador was talking with Einstein, asking him about his impending trip to Pasadena. And just as Papa had told me, Einstein said something about returning to Berlin in the spring to attend some meetings. My English had greatly improved since studying with Fräulein Mayer this term in school. She had a much better accent then my former teacher and I could understand much of what Einstein and Sir Horace Rumbold were saying. I heard Rumbold say that he felt that although it was a relief Hitler had lost the thirty-odd seats in the last election, he still felt that the greatest danger was the private armies—the SA and SS. “Just another way around Versailles,” Rumbold said. I heard this, but my eyes were fastened on the crowd swirling below and in the boxes near us.

  The Quotation Empress was there with her stepson, Prince Auwi. “They put on a show of affection,” Baba whispered to Mama behind her program, which she was using like a fan. “But they loathe each other.” Both the empress and the prince wore the ceremonial sashes, hers across a vibrant pink dress, which I saw that Baba noted as a Schiaparelli with a question mark in the little notebook she always carried when she covered such occasions for the newspaper. I leaned over and asked if Schiaparelli was French.

  “Italian by birth, but she lives in Paris. You know Hitler is now quite enchanted with Italy. Don’t put it past you-know who”—she nodded toward the Empress—“to try and curry favor with him by any means. So I think she has decided to wear this new young Italian woman’s design. Too bad she spoils it with that stupid ceremonial sash.” The empress’s sash and her stepson’s were royal blue, beribboned and bejeweled with at least a half kilo of symbols and crests, just to let everyone know who exactly they were, and to remind them that once there had been a monarchy. It seemed to me that the empress wanted to have her cake (the monarchy) and eat it too (Hitler and the Nazi Party).

  “Look, Goebbels!” Baba whispered. “Can you see what his wife is wearing, Elske?”

  “Not Schiaparelli,” Mama replied.

  “Where? Where ?” I asked, poking Baba’s arm. I was so afraid I was going to miss something.

  “Over there in the mezzanine. He hasn’t taken his seat yet.”

  I saw him immediately. Joseph Goebbels, the man Papa said was the real power behind Hitler. I could tell from where I sat that he was quite odd-looking. He was standing up and shaking hands with several people who were greeting him enthusiastically. The first thing I noticed about him was not his size or stature, but how he used his hands when he was speaking. He was slashing the air almost violently, and yet he was smiling all the while. His smile cut across his narrow, dark face like the blade of a knife.

  “Look, see the Countess von Oberland!” This was another socialite whose name I had read in Baba’s column. Baba pointed discreetly with her program. “She has her arm around Magda Goebbels’s waist. It is nauseating how people try to ingratiate themselves with her to get close to him.”

  “She’s very pretty, Frau Goebbels, isn’t she?” I said.

  “Yes indeed. She was married to a rich man named Günther Quandt. Shortly after they divorced, she met Goebbels. He is a ferocious womanizer. You see, you do not have to be movie-star handsome to get a woman if you have political power, or if you are close to it. There are already rumors of him with a half dozen other women.

  “Watch him now,” Baba whispered. “He’s going to take his seat.” He was hobbling down the aisle to his row in the mezzanine, all the while waving his arms wildly in greetings to people. Now and then I could see his hand flatten and slant upward in a Heil Hitler salute. His wife was as lovely and delicate as he was grotesque. She walked in mincing little steps behind him. It was like Mephistopheles and a fairy princess.

  Then just before the house lights dimmed, as I followed the path of the Goebbelses to their seats, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face.

  “Mama, it’s Fräulein Hofstadt!”

  “Where, dear?”

  “Down there, mezzanine level in the row right behind the Goebbelse
s.” I could almost detect the scent of roses and narcissus.

  But then the theater went completely dark and the curtain came up on the first act of what had to be the most boring play ever written. During intermission I was determined to seek out Fräulein Hofstadt. Mama came with me.

  “Gaby!” my teacher cried out. And as always, never rushing, she effortlessly glided toward me. She looked breath-taking in a pale, rose-colored velvet gown embroidered with beaded crystals. She wore long, silvery opera gloves. Velvet became her. If one could have a signature fabric, this was Fräulein Hofstadt’s. Velvet epitomized her sleek, soft beauty. Every head turned to look at her, and I felt quite special that she was making a fuss over me.

  “And of course Frau Schramm, the mother of this extraordinary young lady, and how fine she looks. My goodness, I love your dress, Gaby.” I had loved it too until that moment when, standing next to Fräulein Hofstadt, I felt as dull as a pigeon. I was very happy to see that she was with an elderly man whom she introduced as her uncle. He was not especially attractive. His collar was a bit frayed. He was not “well barbered,” as my mother would say. I spotted hair growing out of his ears, and his beard was ill kempt. I would have been crushed if she had been with a handsome man of her own age. It would have seemed so unfaithful to the memory of her soldier boyfriend. I had told Rosa what Ulla had told me about the rumored fiancé, and we were both convinced that she was still mourning him and would for the rest of her life. Baba came up to us and we introduced her. I noticed Baba’s nose twitch as she took in the scent of roses and narcissus. I was sure it was some new stylish perfume, but Baba didn’t seem to like it.

  Fräulein Hofstadt seemed rather impressed that the celebrated social columnist was our friend. This gave me a little thrill of excitement. The lights began to blink signaling us to return to our seats. Fräulein Hofstadt gave my hand a little squeeze. “See you in class.” I couldn’t wait to tell Rosa about all this.