Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle

by Warsh, Sylvia Maultash

  “I’m sure you will,” Frieda says, smiling uneasily at both of them. She is thrilled at such hope. Thrilled and appalled. When she looks across the hall, Hans Brenner and his friend have left.

  In the coming weeks, the German Students Association announces an “Action against the Un-German spirit,” which will climax in a cleansing, a purge by fire. They intend, they say, to burn books. Students with swastika armbands stand at the head of classrooms, in hallways, in the square of the university, shouting about the German revolution that will free them from the humiliation of the last war. In those fourteen years, the libraries became filled with Jewish filth. Poison-literature. Now the struggle begins against the un-German spirit and they will win. Shout hurrah! Sieg Heil!

  The day of the purge Frieda can scarcely get close to the square on her way to the hospital. The trucks and vans that line the Opernplatz are being unloaded by brown- and black-shirted men. Their cargo is books.

  Frieda works late that night so that she can observe the scheduled event. She admits it’s morbid curiosity, but she wants to see it for herself, this primeval degradation of the German soul. One-third of the way through the twentieth century, the most cultured nation on earth is pedalling backward. How far will they go?

  Leopold insists on coming to escort her home. A new distress is on his face when he greets her in front of the hospital. “They won’t let me take my final exams.” His skin is ashen, his eyes glazed behind the wire-rimmed glasses.

  “I’m so sorry, Leopold,” she says, the words hollow in her mouth.

  “People I thought I knew ... people who used to be friends. And now ... I can’t graduate.” He rubs his eyes beneath his glasses.

  She takes his arm to comfort him. She herself feels lucky for the moment, but how long will that moment last? How long will Vati’s Iron Cross protect her?

  They start to walk, a slow pace compared to the scores of people hurrying in the same direction.

  “Can you go somewhere else to finish? I hear Prague has a decent university.”

  “I’d have to take my year over again.” He keeps his voice low. “I’ve checked into Prague, Warsaw, even Paris. They don’t have the same courses — history is taught differently everywhere — so naturally their exams are different. It’s too late to do anything. The exams are next week. My career is gone. Everything I worked for. Everything I dreamt of.”

  He looks shorter, his lanky frame stooped over.

  “You’re young,” she says, not knowing how to comfort him. “Can’t you go an extra year?”

  He stares blankly at the crowds of excited students passing them in their rush to the square where the pyre has been building all day.

  “My father’s business is not going well. Suddenly customers are finding fault with the brooms from the factory. The same brooms they’ve been ordering for years. How can I ask him to pay for an extra year? And living expenses in another city.” He shakes his head. “My family needs me to make some money, not spend it.”

  They stop talking as they approach the back of a throng of people. Somewhere a band is playing martial music that is transported above the crowds by speakers set high off the ground. Frieda and Leopold are pushed forward by a sudden swell of students eager not to miss anything. When this group reaches the crowds already stationed around the square, each side shouts to the other, “Heil Hitler!”

  Frieda and Leopold could try to extricate themselves from the mass of people — she feels his arm tugging her aside — but she can’t take her eyes off the centre of the square, once so dignified and familiar with its sweeping porticoed buildings stationed around the perimeter. The Roman-style statues perch high at the edges of the roofs, watching over the wide plaza. The whole place has been transformed, unrecognizable in the beating dark, illuminated by the procession of torches and flags held high.

  Frieda cannot pull herself away. In the centre a massive pyre of books has been built high over a base of logs. The darkness of the night deepens when torches are thrown from all directions onto the mountain of books, setting them alight. The flames are mirrored in the faces of those standing around her. Then a group of students steps forward, their arms filled with books. They shout a fire-oath: “We dedicate ourselves to the struggle against class warfare and materialism, for the community of the people and an idealistic way of life.”

  They fling the books onto the burning heap. Flames leap up. The air is filled with the pungent odour of burning words.

  Another student group steps forward and shouts, “We dedicate ourselves to the struggle against the Jewish character of journalism alien to the nation.” They throw their offering to the god of fire. The books include works by Karl Marx, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Remarque, Sigmund Freud, and, of all people, Helen Keller.

  Whispers float through the crowd. Dr. Goebbels is here. Dr. Goebbels. Look, there he is.

  On a makeshift stage, someone shouts above the din, introducing the Reichsminister, Dr. Josef Goebbels. He steps up to the makeshift microphone with a clumsy, uneven gait; one of his legs must be shorter than the other. Frieda shudders at the appearance of the strange, thin insect of a man, his round eyes bulging. The leaping flames throw shadows on his face. He begins to speak in a didactic voice.

  “The age of an overly refined Jewish intellectualism has come to an end, and the German revolution has made the road clear again for the German character. This revolution came not from above; it broke out from below. It is therefore in the best sense of the word the fulfilment of the will of the people. Revolutions that are genuine do not stop anywhere. No area can remain untouched. As men are revolutionized, so are things revolutionized. For that reason, you do well, in these midnight hours, to consign the unclean spirit of the past to the flames. The old lies in the flames, but the new will arise from the flame of our own hearts.”

  Frieda is filled with disgust. And bewilderment. The man is eloquent in a base, primitive way that is terrifying. They are all listening so intently. They believe him. Leopold finally manages to pull her away while mobs of young people sing the Horst Wessel song and dance around the flames that reek of gasoline. When Jewish blood spurts from the knife then all will be well. Ashes float around the edges of the fire. What is left in the libraries, Frieda wonders. Nothing worth reading.

  When they walk out of earshot of the crowd, Leopold says, “You know what Heine said? ‘Where they start by burning books, they end by burning people.’”

  chapter seven

  The maternity wing of Mount Sinai was the one section Rebecca could count on for an aura of optimism. It was the only place in the hospital where patients arrived for a hopeful event and not because they had kidney disease, heart congestion, or cancer. Her sister’s case would be different, and Rebecca would somehow have to deal with that. In the afternoon she entered the strange world of the preemie unit, where incubators were laid out at random angles around the nurses’ station. Rebecca had to pull on a hospital gown and scrub her hands in the sink inside the unit.

  Her niece’s tiny body lay naked in the incubator except for a diaper, her skin thin and translucent, the veins visible just beneath. An IV was inserted into the skin of her scalp. Wires taped to her little chest snaked through the porthole of the box to a heart monitor. Her miniature hand reached awkwardly into the air. What was going to happen to this little girl whose mother wouldn’t look at her? She weighed in at three pounds, ten ounces, respectable for a preemie. But she would need more than the usual love and care, not less, in order to survive her early tumble into the world.

  When Rebecca walked into her sister’s room, Ben was already sitting at the foot of the bed, which was hidden behind a curtain. He got up to embrace her and, to her surprise, held her for a long, emotional moment. She had phoned him early that morning when they arrived at the hospital. She had also called her parents in California, who were thrilled at the news of the baby but less than thrilled at the prospect of a rushed packing to get home.

  Ben finally pulled aw
ay, his narrow, unshaven face drawn with anxiety. His shape reminded Rebecca of her father, tall and lanky, but his curly hair was dark and crowned with a skullcap.

  “She won’t talk to me,” he said with wonderment. “What did I do that was so terrible?”

  In the semi-private room, Susan’s bed near the window was completely encircled by the curtain. She had shut him out. Her roommate in the bed closer to the door had smiled a greeting when Rebecca walked in.

  Rebecca pulled Ben toward the window and lowered her voice. “She’s overwhelmed. You have to be patient and understanding. She’s deeply disappointed about law school.”

  “Well, I had my doubts about that anyway.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Kids are too young. They need their mother.”

  Rebecca examined him a moment, made sure she had his attention. “Their father could pull up the slack. You’re an academic, Ben. Universities are more flexible than businesses.”

  “I’m overloaded at work. I can’t do any more than I’m doing. If I get behind, there are five guys waiting for my position. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Work something out that lets her get to law school in September. Does McGill have a day care centre? Do you have a neighbour who’ll babysit?”

  He leaned his head in one hand. “I didn’t need this now. They just gave me more classes.”

  “You have to deal with this. It’s not going away.”

  He looked up at the closed curtain. “She won’t even talk to me. I don’t know what to do. She won’t go look at the baby. She’s like a different person.”

  Rebecca gestured for him to sit down at the foot of the bed again. She drew the curtain aside just enough to step in, then pulled it behind her.

  Susan was lying on her side with her eyes open, staring into space, her blonde hair dull on the pillow. Rebecca’s heart contracted at her pain.

  “Susan ... how are you feeling?” Susan blinked but didn’t answer.

  “Would you like me to bring a wheelchair and take you to see the baby? She’s gorgeous. Looks just like you.”

  Susan turned her head to look at Rebecca. “I don’t want the baby. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to touch it.”

  Her grey eyes told Rebecca to leave her alone, but Rebecca couldn’t.

  “I know the problems seem insurmountable right now ...”

  Eyes open but not listening.

  “... and your mood is down after the delivery. You’ve had baby blues before. But you want to look beyond this. We can all sit down and talk about the options, sweetheart.”

  Eyes half closed, closing.

  “With the right support, you should be able to start school next fall.”

  “It’s just talk,” Susan said, with closed eyes. “Nothing will change. I don’t want the baby.”

  “Susan —”

  Her sister turned over to face the other way, dismissing her. Rebecca felt like a traitor, but she was going to have to speak to the obstetrical resident about calling for a psych consult. I should talk.

  Before she left, Rebecca again entered the otherworldly preemie unit. After scrubbing her hands once more, she stepped toward her niece’s climate-controlled Isolette. The nurses had needed a name to put on the incubator, and Ben had suggested Miriam, his late grandmother’s name. Rebecca put her hands through the two portholes that extended into gloves on the inside of the plastic box. It was the only way she could touch the tiny body. Little fists balled into the air as Rebecca gently placed her hands around Miriam’s torso.

  “You’re a fighter, aren’t you? Yes you are. You’re going to be okay.”

  She left Ben an extra key to her house with the offer of the spare bedroom while he was in town. The same bedroom his tiny daughter had been born in. Cleaning it up hadn’t been fun.

  She was walking the four blocks back to her office to pick up her car, thinking that tomorrow would be a better day. Pamela Forbes, one of her classmates who had gone into psychiatry, would take a look at Susan tomorrow. Their parents would arrive back from California tomorrow. Her mother was always a soothing influence.

  The sun was still shining late in the day, though the air was brisk. The streets were quiet on this Sunday afternoon as she walked along D’Arcy. Then she heard the voice.

  “Where is it? Where is it? You can’t have it! It’s hers.”

  Rebecca approached the backyard encircled by the tangled hedge. In the bright daylight she could make out the old woman through breaks in the gnarled branches the twilight had veiled the other day. The woman was standing with her shoulders hunched in a defensive posture, arms crossed around her chest. In her circumscribed view through the hedge, Rebecca searched the yard. It was empty. The woman was still talking to herself. Suddenly, she began to march back and forth, back and forth.

  Rebecca didn’t know where the impulse came from, maybe because she felt so helpless with Susan, but she turned around and went into a sandwich shop on Baldwin Street a block away. She ordered a cheese and bacon sandwich and coffee with lots of cream and sugar, and returned to the house on D’Arcy.

  She entered through the rear where the hedge began and was astonished to find the old woman still marching around in the backyard in her oversized man’s coat. Three steps forward, turn, three steps back.

  “Where is it?” she muttered. “Where is it? You can’t have it!”

  “Hello,” Rebecca said.

  The woman’s head snapped back. “She’s so tired.”

  “Well, why don’t you stop and sit down? I’ve brought you a sandwich and some coffee.” She held them in front of her.

  “Mittverda.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mittverda makes her do it.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Mittverda.”

  “But there’s no one here. You can stop and rest.”

  “Mittverda orders her. Can’t stop.”

  “Where is Mittverda?”

  She pointed to the house. “Leave her alone! She won’t listen anymore. Go away!” She put her hands over her ears, shaking her head back and forth. Suddenly, she stooped to the ground, picked up a stone, and flung it at the house. Next, she picked up a book from her wagon and threw it in the same direction.

  “Where is it? Where is it?” she yelled. “You can’t have it!”

  Rebecca, standing with the sandwich and coffee in her hand, turned to look at the house. Did a curtain move in the window? “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “She doesn’t exist.”

  “Who?”

  “The lady. Doesn’t exist.”

  Rebecca was taken aback. The woman was talking about her. She had felt this often since David had died, but no one else had ever suggested it. “Can’t you see me?”

  “Only the teeth.”

  What was it like in this woman’s head? “My name’s Rebecca. What’s yours?”

  “BirdieBirdieBirdie.”

  “Is that your name?”

  “Terrible smell.”

  Rebecca sniffed the air: nothing.

  “Bad bad smell. Can’t stand it!” She covered her nose with a dirty hand.

  “What do you smell?”

  “Worms underground. Dead.” She pointed to the brown grass around them.

  “Are you hungry? I brought you something to eat.”

  The woman scowled at the package Rebecca was holding out. She shook her head. “Poison. Can’t fool her.”

  “Why would I want to poison you?”

  “Mittverda orders.”

  “I don’t know Mittverda.” Rebecca opened the paper wrapping. “Ummm, this looks good. Do you mind if I take a bite?” She took a nibble off one corner. “It is good. Let’s try this coffee.” She took a sip. “Lots of cream and sugar, just the way I like it.”

  The woman watched her closely, her thin face streaked with dirt.

  “Do you want to try some before I finish it?” Rebecca said, preparing to take another bite. She held o
ut the other half.

  The woman stared at the sandwich but didn’t move. Rebecca took one step forward. The woman stiffened. Stepped back, put her arms around her stomach protectively.

  “Where is it? Where is it? You can’t have it! It’s hers!” Did she want it or didn’t she?

  The book the woman had thrown earlier lay between them. It looked like a children’s picture book. Aesop’s Fables. Rebecca placed the sandwich on top of it, the coffee on the ground beside. She flapped her hand in what she hoped was a friendly wave and took a step toward the exit.

  “Precious!” said the woman in an urgent voice. “Keep Precious safe!”

  The woman had taken a plastic shopping bag from inside her coat and stood leaning forward, as if she wanted to move toward Rebecca but someone had glued her to the spot.

  “Lady. Precious keep safe!” Slowly, with much hesitation, the woman brought the bag forward until she held it in front like an offering. Her mouth was open, lips quivering. The bag appeared lightweight, its contents rounding out half of it. She lifted it higher at Rebecca.

  Rebecca stepped back toward her. “You want me to take it?” The woman’s fist clenched the top of the bag. Rebecca put out her hand to take it. The old woman held her ground this time, didn’t fade back, intent on passing on the dirty thing. Rebecca tried to hold onto it with thumb and forefinger, as if it were a dead cat. Which it might be. At least there was no obvious smell. The woman fixed her eyes on the bag until Rebecca left the backyard. She would throw the filthy thing into the trunk of her car, hope nothing crawled out of it.

  As Rebecca stepped toward McCaul Street, a man’s voice boomed into the quiet.

  “Birdie! Where’s the little Birdie? Look what I got for you! It’s a surprise!”

  Rebecca turned around. A man wearing a dirty maroon ski jacket and a grey wool hat approached the corner yard she had just left. Behind him he pulled a collapsible trundle buggy filled with bags. He walked with a pronounced waddle, one arm held against a bulge in his jacket where he must have been hiding the surprise.