The Last Green Valley

by Mark Sullivan

  Both boys clapped and looked to Adeline, who was not entirely in the mood for singing. But she nodded. “That would be nice.”

  Frau Schmidt called out, “Peter!”

  “Greta?” he said.

  “You said there was something in the post for Adeline.”

  “Ahh,” he said, wagging his finger as if just remembering. “I put it here, I think.” He reached into his coat’s inner breast pocket and came out with a slim envelope. “I don’t know why they sent it here. You’ve been gone almost a year.”

  Equally puzzled, Adeline took it, seeing the typed address with her name, care of the Schmidts, and a return address, “IRC-DPC-Alfeld.”

  The boys went into the kitchen where Frau Schmidt was pulling cookies from the oven.

  “Where’s Alfeld?” Adeline asked as she turned the envelope over, seeing the flap was partially unsealed or had been resealed poorly.

  “No idea,” Herr Schmidt said. “Then again, my memory is not what it used to be.”

  Putting a finger under the raised flap, Adeline tore it open and retrieved a single sheet of paper before unfolding it. She began to read the typed letter. As she did, her free hand started to tremble and then to travel shakily to her lips. Her eyes blurred before she rocked back her head and threw up her hands, screaming in a mixture of disbelief and pure joy.

  “My God, boys, it’s from the International Red Cross! Papa’s alive and free! He’s waiting for us in the West!”

  The boys began to jump up and down and scream with her.

  “Where is he?” Will cried.

  “A displaced persons camp in a place called Alfeld! The British Zone!”

  Walt calmed down and looked confused. “How did he get there?”

  She looked at the letter through tears that she had to brush aside to reread it. “It doesn’t say. It just says he’s waiting for us to write to him.”

  The Schmidts shared in their happiness, which was contagious that night. They ate and drank and toasted before Herr Schmidt went to the piano and played a jaunty tune Adeline did not recognize. But it had a toe-tapping quality that reminded her of the song an accordion player had performed at her wedding and how she and Emil had danced to it like they’d gone to sleep in Russia and woken up in paradise.

  She held her hands out to Will and to Walt.

  “What are we doing?” Walt asked when she began to tug their arms this way and that.

  “We’re dancing,” she said. “We’re dancing the night away because your father is alive!”

  PART FIVE:

  THE LAST GREEN VALLEY

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  March 13, 1947

  Gutengermendorf, Soviet-Occupied east Germany

  Adeline closed the door between the kitchen and the dining area in the Soviet officers’ billet, checked the sugar beets she had stewing to make fresh molasses, and then dug out Emil’s fourth letter to her. When she opened it, her hands trembled, but not with the shock and ecstatic wonder that had erupted through her when she first learned he was alive and living at a displaced persons camp fifty kilometers south of Hanover, Germany, near the town of Alfeld.

  Adeline was thrilled to get this latest letter, of course, but she was also anxious to see that—once again—someone had opened the envelope and read the contents before she had the chance. Lieutenant Gerhardt, no doubt. The secret policewoman had known the Red Cross had written to her back on Christmas Eve. That was why Gerhardt had warned her about trying to go west.

  Since that letter, the woman had gone out of her way to let Adeline know that she was reading every word that passed between her and Emil. The secret policewoman knew that he had escaped Poltava, come all the way across Ukraine, Poland, and eastern Germany, then smuggled himself into the British Zone with a group of returning army soldiers and the invaluable help of one who liked sausage and gave Emil documents to wave at a border guard before his final crossing.

  “Your husband is a criminal, an enemy of the state,” Lieutenant Gerhardt said several times. “And you will be a criminal and an enemy of the state, Adeline, if you decide to run to him with your sons.”

  Gerhardt seemed to enjoy saying these kinds of things to Adeline, who knew the secret policewoman was trying to goad her into a revealing reaction. But she had grown up understanding that, in this sort of situation, the best reaction was either no reaction or a well-placed deflection.

  “I am filing the documents for the three of us to join him legally,” Adeline said every time Lieutenant Gerhardt brought up Emil, their letters, and her suspicion that she was preparing to try to leave Soviet-occupied east Germany.

  “They’ll shoot your sons as you run,” Gerhardt said when they last spoke.

  But so far, the secret policewoman’s suspicions were just that. Lieutenant Gerhardt may have read every word that passed between Adeline and Emil, but she had not figured out that not only were they declaring their love and describing their lives and longings for reunion in their letters, they were speaking in a “mirror code” they’d used earlier in life when dealing with Communist authorities. All the speaker or writer had to do was mention a mirror or a reflection or something silvery like the surface of a lake or river, and the listener or reader would know that the sentences that followed were the exact opposite of what was intended. The use of the words “I do” in a sentence indicated that the lying had stopped, and they were now telling the truth.

  Adeline, in her first letter to Emil, wrote:

  My dearest love,

  You don’t know how overjoyed I was to receive your letter on Christmas Eve. The boys were so happy, they were jumping up and down and screaming at the tops of their lungs! I looked in the mirror that night and thought how I wished you would come here to be with us. Our lives are so much better than they were in Friedenstal. We are happy here. No one listens to our conversations like the old days. I do think of you every hour while I work in a kitchen cooking. Walt is studying geometry, and Will is learning to read. Until we are in each other’s arms, I do love you with all my heart. Your Adeline

  Now Adeline read Emil’s latest response, which made her stomach hollow and shaky with adrenaline.

  My dearest Adeline,

  I pray you are well and happy, and the boys grow strong. There is a silvery pond near the camp, and I often stare at it, wondering if I should not wait here, if I should try to come to you and the boys. The border is almost completely closed now. I heard that the only way across for refugees in either direction is the official way. At the pond yesterday, I thought if life is the way you describe it, I want you to stay there and I will make the journey east to you. Slow down your plans and wait for me to knock on your door soon, or to call you before I come in at the train station there. Know that I do love you and I am in great spirits, hoping to see you very soon. Hug and kiss the boys for me. Your adoring husband, Emil

  Adeline put the letter down on the table and put her face in her hands. If she’d read the letter correctly, Emil was not telling her to wait for him to come to her. He was telling her that she, as a refugee, had to sneak across the border as soon as possible because there were still places where it could be done. But she had no idea where to cross where there were not already fences or patrols or dogs or towers or all four that she and her two young boys would have to avoid and evade.

  Emil’s words from long ago echoed in Adeline’s memory: At some point, you’ll have to decide where you want to spend your life—in slavery or in freedom—and if you choose freedom, you’ll have to run through a no-man’s-land with bullets zinging around your head to get there. I don’t think there’s any way around it. If we want that life, we’ll have to risk death for it.

  Adeline glanced at the clock in the kitchen at the Soviet officers’ billet and saw it was almost noon. Colonel Vasiliev and his staff were in Berlin overnight. Once the molasses was done and poured into two glass jars, the afternoon was hers.

  After the jars were sealed, she left them on the table and deci
ded to go for a walk to try to get her thoughts straight. Putting on her coat, she wandered through the village and found herself turning onto the road that led up to the Schmidts’ farm. She hadn’t gone more than a hundred meters when she saw Lieutenant Gerhardt’s car rolling her way.

  For a second, she considered walking into the woods to avoid the secret policewoman but decided that would be about the worst move she could make. Adeline stood there, waiting for the black sedan to pull up beside her. The window rolled down.

  Lieutenant Gerhardt smiled thinly. “I would think you’d be in the kitchen, Adeline.”

  “I was given the afternoon off.”

  “Yes, I know. How was your trip to the commissary yesterday?”

  “Later than I’d planned because they’ve changed the hours,” Adeline said, and handed her the list as well as the receipt.

  Gerhardt scanned the list. “Cigarettes?”

  Adeline had prepared for that question. “The colonel started smoking again.”

  “Hmm,” Lieutenant Gerhardt said, nodding. “And where are you going?”

  “I’m out for a walk. It’s the nicest day we’ve had lately.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Gerhardt sniffed. “I’ve just come from your friend, Frau Schmidt’s. Her husband has taken a turn for the worse. A stroke, the doctor thinks.”

  Adeline tried not to react, but did, wringing her hands. “Then I could be of help to her. May I go, please?”

  “I hear your husband is thinking of joining you?”

  She nodded. “That is his thinking.”

  “He is not worried about being sent east if he comes here?”

  Adeline didn’t know what to say, then blurted out, “I think he’s more worried about not seeing me and my sons.”

  “As he should be,” Lieutenant Gerhardt said, and rolled up the window.

  The car drove off. Adeline stared after it, feeling more and more anxious. Ever since Emil had contacted her, she had been trying to meet the midday train so she could talk to people in the stream of homeless refugees who came to the town to beg and barter and see what they knew about leaving the Soviet Zone safely. But every time she asked, she had gotten little solid information. And every time she opened her mouth to query another person, she risked one of them reporting her to someone like Lieutenant Gerhardt.

  Emil wants me to run, but he can’t tell me how, she fretted before turning and hurrying up the road to the lane that led to the farm. She knocked on the door a few minutes later. Frau Schmidt opened the door, saw her, and smiled sadly.

  “You heard?” she said.

  “About Peter? Yes. Where is he?”

  “Upstairs with the doctor,” the elderly woman said, a tear dribbling down her cheek. “He doesn’t know who I am, Adella.”

  Adeline hugged Frau Schmidt, who hugged her back twice as hard. When they parted, the farmer’s wife sat at the table and folded her shaking hands, saying, “It gets worse. The party believes we are too old and now too infirm to farm. As you predicted, we are to be moved.”

  Adeline’s heart ached for her friend. “I’m so sorry, Greta.”

  The doctor clomped down the stairs. He glanced at Adeline, greeted her, and then spoke with Frau Schmidt about her husband’s condition. He’d given Herr Schmidt a shot, and he was sleeping. He cautioned her not to try to feed her husband anything other than water until he returned the following day and left.

  The elderly woman went upstairs to check on her ailing husband and then came back down to the table, saying wistfully, “I wish we’d done it last week before he . . .”

  “Done what?” Adeline asked, looking at the clock and seeing she had another hour or so before the boys got out of school.

  Frau Schmidt hesitated before saying, “Tried to go west. We have relatives near Dusseldorf. But now . . .”

  Adeline debated, and then said, “What does Lieutenant Gerhardt ask about me?”

  “She wants to know if you are going to try to leave and go west.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “You’re going through the proper application process.”

  Feeling relief as well as a thrill of anticipation, Adeline reached over to cover Frau Schmidt’s bony hands with her own and looked into her friend’s eyes. “Can you tell me where you were going to try to escape? And how?”

  Greta swallowed hard and nodded. “But I have no idea if it will work, Adeline.”

  Five days later, on March 18, 1947, Adeline arose at two thirty in the morning and roused her boys. Walt came awake groggily while Will groaned, “Why are we up so early, Mama?”

  She whispered, “Quiet. We’re going to see Papa.”

  Will took the pillow off his head. Walt snapped alert. “Really?”

  “It’s now or never,” she whispered, and touched them both on the cheek. “Get dressed in your warm clothes. Lace your boots tight. We’re going to be taking a long walk. And please, quiet as a mouse when you come outside. We don’t want to wake our neighbors or their dogs.”

  Will said, “Mama—”

  “Not another word until I say so!” she hissed. “Do you understand?”

  Both boys shrank but nodded. It was rare to see their mother so intense.

  “Good. Wait for me outside. Close the front door slowly behind you.”

  Adeline left the room as quietly as she could, put on her coat and boots, and eased out the front door, leaving it ajar. It was above freezing and nearly pitch dark, with only a sliver of a waning crescent moon above, when she went to the front gate and opened it on hinges she’d oiled two days before. Then she padded over to the big sliding doors across an arch of the brick barn. She’d oiled the wheels on those doors, too, and pushed them smoothly aside before retrieving their little wagon packed with their essential belongings covered by two blankets.

  Adeline found the boys by the stoop and motioned to them to follow her. They went down the street to the other side of town and the small train station there. The three-fifteen to Berlin was late and largely empty that morning. The conductor recognized her when she paid for the tickets.

  “The early train and with the little ones today?”

  “We’re going to spend the day and evening with my sister and mother in Falkenberg,” Adeline said, and stared at the boys in a way that told them not to correct her.

  “You’ll be there before ten o’clock,” he said. “You’ll have to buy Falkenberg tickets in Berlin.”

  As the train began to roll, Adeline could see he wanted to linger and talk, but she got out one of the blankets and put it over their laps.

  “Let’s get some sleep,” she said to the boys, and promptly closed her eyes.

  She waited to pull the boys close to her until the conductor had walked off. She kissed each of them on the head, closed her eyes again, and imagined rushing into Emil’s arms, envisioned them all rushing into Emil’s arms, a family again. Once she saw that clearly in her mind, she began to pray to God over and over to make it real. She smelled Emil’s scent and felt his big arms around her. She heard his gruff voice telling her how much he loved her and how they would never, ever be apart. She surged with joyous emotions and saw herself in his arms again and again and again. The entire hour-long ride, while the boys drifted off and slept, she kept seeing herself in Emil’s embrace and thanking God for making it real, for bringing them back together after more than two years of separation and longing.

  It was still pitch dark when they arrived in Berlin at four twenty-five that morning. She shook the boys awake and then folded the blanket and put it back in the little wagon.

  “Are we there yet, Mama?” Will asked grumpily.

  “Another train, a walk, and a train,” she replied, pulling the little wagon down the platform into the central station. She checked the schedule, seeing the train she wanted was leaving at four forty-five on the far track.

  “C’mon boys, push,” she said. “We have to hurry now.”

  The station was surprisingly crowded for
that early an hour. They wove through the crowd, seeing two soldiers smoking cigarettes and chortling about something over near the main entrance. Adeline kept glancing at them until they reached the correct track, turned their backs on the soldiers, and hurried toward a ten-car train.

  The first car was packed. So was the second. A conductor was smoking outside the third car.

  He was in his midtwenties with a sparse beard and acne. He turned surly the moment he saw Adeline and the boys coming down the platform, pushing and pulling the little wagon.

  Grimacing, he pointed his cigarette at the wagon. “Where do you think you’re going with that? And you’d better have papers if you’re going through to Wolfsburg.”

  “Oebisfelde,” Adeline said.

  His chin retreated as he puffed and shook his head. “Last stop before the British Zone. You’re not getting on my train, lady. I know what you’re up to. If I let you on and don’t report it, I’ll end up on a shit list. And aren’t you putting your kids in danger, trying something like this?”

  Adeline looked over her shoulder and saw no one coming.

  “Not if we’re not caught,” she said. “And you won’t end up on that list. I promise.”

  “Why would I ever take the chance?”

  Adeline reached beneath the bottom blanket laid across their belongings in the cart and came up with two jars of molasses. “I made this from sugar beets I gathered myself.”

  The conductor looked at the jars and laughed. “That wouldn’t get one of your kids on.”

  She grimaced but reached beneath the blanket again and came up with a bottle of whiskey and a carton of Turkish cigarettes that had cost half her last paycheck at the Soviet officers’ commissary. She held both out.

  “They’re yours if you let us on, help put our wagon in the baggage car, and help take it off in Oebisfelde. The whiskey now. Cigarettes when we leave you.”

  The conductor chewed his lip a second, then dropped his cigarette and ground it with his heel before taking the bottle. “You and your brats wheel the wagon down there.”