by Pam Jenoff
As we near the city, I peer out the window, eager to glimpse the familiar skyline. Through the dirt-clouded windows, though, I can tell that everything is different. Berlin has become a behemoth on the scale of Paris but with none of the grace of its older sister, like an awkward adolescent growing too quickly for its own body. Construction projects sprawl across fields and streets, cranes hovering over gaping holes in the ground.
We cross over the wide expanse of the Spree where the barges have begun to flow again, the much-needed goods trickling into the city, an intravenous drip. The train slows, weaving between the apartment buildings like a clattering snake. On either side, people in their flats eat lunch and read papers and iron clothes, as indifferent to being on display as the animals at the Tiergarten.
The train screeches into Alexanderplatz and I step off into the swarm of travelers moving haphazardly in all directions. Outside the station, I stop uncertainly, overwhelmed by the bright lights and noise after the months in bucolic Grunewald. The square is choked with motorcars and hackney cabs and omnibuses that have worn the cobblestones flat.
Struggling to breathe in the exhaust-filled air, I begin to walk, past the beer halls and Aschinger’s restaurant belching forth sausage fumes and cigar smoke from its open windows. At the corner, a young Romani boy sits on the ground playing an accordion, its open case turned hopefully upward like an outstretched hand. I wind right and then left, feeling my way toward the Jewish quarter as if propelled by a force outside myself. Away from the square, the streets are narrow, tall four- and five-story row houses lean upon one another, giving off a claustrophobic feel. New wooden poles climb high, wires lashing the sky overhead.
As I near our old neighborhood, the streets grow narrower still and the smell of onions and cabbage overtake those of petrol and exhaust. I turn onto Hirtenstrasse and stop. It is as if I have been transported back a century. The pavement is thick with bodies, women and children clustered by the vegetable carts, men queuing outside the Jewish community building for work or assistance. Foreign languages, Russian and others similarly eastern, fill the air. Refugees, I realize. The pogroms had always sent small groups of immigrants to Berlin, tiny ripples in our pond. But now with the war and the borders redrawn hundreds of thousands have been displaced, the ripple becoming a giant wave that threatens to engulf the entire quarter.
I am suddenly mindful of the eyes watching me, my pressed skirt and blouse so clearly out of place. I do not belong here anymore. Quickly I press onward. Our house sits in the middle of the next block, the overgrown garden beside the front steps like something out of a forgotten dream. My eyes travel to the upper floors. Though the broken glass has been cleared little is left but the shell. There is no sign of the work Papa had told me was taking place in anticipation of our return. He had lied to me, kept the dream alive, but in truth even if the house could be restored, the neighborhood is changed forever.
Despite the devastation, I see ghosts of myself as a girl everywhere, memories of games of hopscotch on the pavement, watching eagerly out the window for Papa to return. They seem tainted now, though, by a sad dark-haired woman who had not wanted to be there with me, and later, hushed whispers about her designed to conceal the truth. I turn and walk from the house with a sense of finality, a door closing.
A sharp breeze blows down the street, sending the newspapers scuffling along the pavement. The sun has begun to set sooner than I expected, the shortening of the days as summer runs into fall a trick that I seem to forget each year anew. It’s getting late and Papa will be worried. I turn my back on the neighborhood and start toward the station.
It is evening now and as the train crosses the canal, I gaze out the window to the water where moonlight dances on the surface. Why had I come? There is nothing left here. I was searching for myself, or the girl I had once been. Could I find her if I returned to Paris or London? But retracing my steps will not provide the answers I seek.
A breeze ripples the surface, shattering it into a thousand fragments of light. I am dying inside, like that poor sprig of plant I brought back from Versailles, unable to survive in a cup of hard earth. Perhaps I always have been. But the time in Paris changed me, brought it to the surface, and it’s as if I am drowning once and for all. I understand what Krysia was trying to tell me, that I am not living my own best life if I am not being true to myself.
I cannot stay with Stefan and live the rest of my life as a lie. For too long, I have blamed Papa, society, anything and everything but myself. But the truth is that this is a predicament of my own making. I should have been honest with Stefan that I was not ready to be married before the war, honest with Georg that I was married, honest with Papa about my feelings. Honest with myself.
I can start being honest now.
When the train reaches Grunewald, I cross the platform and climb on my bike, pedaling toward the villa with new resolve. I will talk to Papa, tell him again, firmly this time, that I’m not ready—perhaps a sojourn to England, some more time to study before settling down. It would not be a life with Georg, something far short of that. But I would be free.
At the villa gate, I stop. Papa will be angry, Stefan devastated, the family scandalized. But I have to do it. The relief of my decision is like air whooshing out of a balloon. I am suddenly energized, empowered. I walk in the house, race up to the apartment.
I stop again. Opening this door will be irreversible, no chance of going back. But I already pried it ajar in Paris; now I am just flinging it wide. There is little to be afraid of anymore, so little left to lose. Scandal will hardly bother me, or Papa who has already been so decimated by the aftermath of the conference. Uncle Walter will be livid, of course, perhaps withhold support. But I’ve never needed much to get by.
At the entrance to our rooms, I stop again, bracing myself to open the door to my future. I walk through. Papa is standing at the desk, leaning over some papers. I wait for him to rebuke me for not leaving word that I had gone out, for the questions that will necessitate a confession of my trip into the city. But he remains still.
“Papa, if you have a moment I’d like to tell you...” I stop. He isn’t reading, I realize, but leaning over, grasping the desk for support and trying to breathe. “Papa...”
He turns toward me with a sudden lurch, then collapses to the floor.
Chapter 18
I do not remember screaming.
The moment I saw Papa fall to the floor I was back in the hotel elevator in Paris, the one that used to make my stomach jump. Only the bottom had dropped out and I was falling through the darkness. My mind reeled. It was August 24. It couldn’t happen on August 24, not on a Sunday, not with our dinner sitting uneaten on the tray, the eggcups giving off that funny little smell. “Please,” I said aloud, once, then over and over again. “Please.” Papa was my entire world. Not like this. Not so soon. I would do anything, give anything. Was God punishing me for my transgressions, for stepping out of line and being unfaithful? I promised to never see Georg again, to stop even thinking about him. I would be a better daughter, woman, person—anything for a second chance.
One of the servants heard my screams, Tante Celia later told me, and called an ambulance. I rode to the hospital with Papa, sitting back from the gurney, pressed against the cold metal side of the vehicle to allow the medic to minister to him, but holding his fingertips all the while. Then, when Papa disappeared from sight behind the clinic doors, I collapsed onto Uncle Walter, who had somehow appeared beside me.
That was three days ago. Papa lies in a hospital bed, his face as white as the sheets beneath it. He was not dead as I originally feared, but had a heart attack. I’ve been at his bedside since then, hours bleeding into days, the antiseptic smells and whirring machines now as familiar as my own breath.
My mind now recalls our Sabbath meal in our apartment last Friday, less than a week ago. It was a routine affair just the two of us. Had that unremarkable occasion been our last? Parents leave first, or are supposed to, anyway
. That is the way of the world and no one knew it better than I, the lesson imprinted young and deep at the age of nine. But Papa was everything and he could no more cease to exist than the sun not rise.
Stop. I push the thoughts from my head. There will be time for memories later. Right now he is still here.
I gaze out the wide window at the courtyard where nurses wheel patients who are well enough to sit. It must be midafternoon, I judge from the way the sunlight angles onto the stone path, trying to center myself from a place where time has ceased. The hospital is one of the finest in Germany. Papa has a private room with round-the-clock care, better food than most Berliners are enjoying these days.
On the far side of the bed, Celia dozes in a chair, mouth agape. She, too, has scarcely left Papa’s side since she ran into the hospital and threw herself across the stretcher. “Darling,” she cried, no longer concerned with propriety or who might hear. Observing her hold his face and run her fingers through his silver hair as though they were young lovers, I realized then how little I knew of my father’s other life. He had kept me, or I had chosen to remain, a naive child.
Watching Celia hover by his bedside, I cannot help but think of Georg and how I cared for him when he was ill. If only he were here with me. Just a few hours ago I was about to tell Papa everything and make my bid for freedom. The gulf between that recent time and the present is a lifetime. How simple and silly that plan seems now. I thought that I had nothing left to lose. I had not understood how far there was still to fall.
“Margot?” Stefan is at my side then, holding out a cup with a shaking hand. “I thought you might like some tea.” His hand is damp, I notice as I take it from him, and drops of pale brown liquid stain the front of his shirt. He still struggles gamely through the simplest of tasks, like carrying a drink while using his cane.
“Thank you.” He stands above me as I take a sip, looking uneasily around the room. Does he mind coming here after his own months of convalescence? He has been with me without complaint each day, trying to help, though there is nothing to be done. “You should go home and rest,” I say.
Relief crosses his face. “Are you certain?”
“We’ll be fine. I’ll ring you if there is news.” I watch as he retreats down the hallway, guilty that his is not the comfort I seek.
I turn back to my father. “Papa?” I should let him sleep. He has awoken a handful of times, only to fall back into the long, deep slumber that the doctor assured us is so good for his recovery. But I am suddenly desperate to hear his voice. He does not respond and I am flooded with panic, hurtling back to the moment when I found him on the floor. “Papa?” I reach for the bell to summon the nurse.
But then his eyes flutter open. “Liebchen?” At the sound of his voice, Celia sits upright, her always perfect hair flattened to her forehead.
I lean forward. “Are you in pain?”
He shakes his head. “Not at all.”
Celia stands. “I’ll get the nurse,” she says, unpersuaded.
When she has gone, Papa swallows. “I want to tell you...” He pauses for breath, licks his lips. “If I should...” His voice trails off. He is not struggling to speak, but to find the words.
“No, don’t say it. Don’t even think it.” I squeeze his hand, the need to touch him more acute now.
“I’m not giving up, I promise. I wouldn’t leave you alone with Walter and Celia.” Tears fill my eyes as he smiles gamely. “But someday it will happen. And when it does, take comfort in the fact that we’ve had everything.”
I nod. Papa and I have lived closely and loved well, had years of conversations and shared meals and moments. It is the beauty of our relationship that makes the idea of losing him so hard to bear. There is nothing left to ask for but more time.
“About your mother,” he says. “I want to explain.” He speaks as though the revelation about her leaving had occurred days and not months ago. For a moment I wonder if he is confused. But his eyes are clear.
“It’s fine. I understand.” And I do. Even if he had told me and I had gone to find her, nothing would have changed. She would still have been the person who wanted to leave, and the rejection would have been worse if she had seen who I had become and turned her back, anyway. He lied all of these years to spare me that pain.
“Before I collapsed, you were going to tell me something.”
I press my lips together. I had been standing on the precipice, staring into the abyss, about to tell him the truth and shatter something that could never be made whole again. But all of that changed when he collapsed. Papa needs the peace of knowing that I am cared for—it is the one thing I can give him by marrying Stefan. “I don’t remember what I was going to say.” In his weakened state, he seems to believe me. “I’m sure it was nothing important.”
“Everything you say is important,” he says, and in that moment I have never loved him more.
I take a deep breath. “Papa, about Paris... I’m so sorry.” I am still steering well clear of the truth. “I never meant to cause you any embarrassment or difficulty.”
He shakes his head, squeezing my fingers. “You are young and were lonely. But what if it’s more than that?” He pauses to catch his breath then stares deep into my eyes. “It was more, wasn’t it?” I look down. “With Georg, I mean.”
I open my mouth to tell him that it is too far gone, that the world that was destroyed in Versailles that night cannot be rebuilt. But before I can respond, Celia returns with the doctor in tow.
We sit silently while the doctor examines Papa. I watch Celia. She was the one who summoned Stefan to Paris and I might hate her for it. But instead, I find myself regarding her now with pity—these stolen moments with my father are all she has, not a family or husband of her own. Did she want more or didn’t she think she deserved it? And she’d tried, really tried. She would have done anything to see that the marriage went through, that the family honor remained intact. I suppose in some way she was protecting Papa from yet another blow.
“He should be fine,” the doctor pronounces. Celia exhales audibly and my whole body goes slack with relief. “He can go home in a day or so.”
“That seems soon,” I remark.
The doctor shrugs. “He just needs rest.” Papa’s condition cannot be treated, but will always loom in the background, a ticking clock.
“We should postpone the wedding,” I say, too eagerly, when the doctor has gone. Celia’s right eyebrow arches. “Just until you are better, Papa. I won’t get married without you.”
“Of course not,” he soothes. “The wedding is still a few days away. I would be there even if I was on a stretcher. But I won’t be—I will walk you down the aisle.” I nod, not placated by his response.
“But perhaps we should widen the aisle, in case you need a chair,” Celia frets, her preoccupation with the wedding returning.
“We can discuss that later. He needs his rest,” I say protectively.
“So do you,” Papa replies, his voice quiet but firm. “You should go home and sleep.”
“I can stay,” Celia offers.
I eye her uncertainly. Her goodwill toward my father is undeniable, but it is still a battle over territory.
“Fine,” I relent, reluctantly acknowledging her place and sharing the responsibility for his well-being with her at last. I kiss Papa’s cheek. “I will come back later.”
I walk from the hospital, then hesitate. The sun is high above the buildings now, the Kurfürstendamm bustling with shoppers. The bucolic scene is a seeming interlude to the chaos that has recently grasped the city. Electric streetcars glide silently down the middle of the wide thoroughfare. I stroll past the terrace at Schwanneckes, filled with diners enjoying the lovely weather, the waiter offering newspapers to well-heeled coffee drinkers whose world has not been stopped by illness.
Watching the couples laugh over drinks, my longing for Georg is stronger than ever. After we’d left Paris, when I assumed he was there or had perhaps returned to
Hamburg, it was easier somehow, picturing him in a faraway city. I imagined him in Versailles, sitting in the hotel library or walking in the park. But now knowing that he is here in Berlin, just miles away—the fact that we cannot be together is somehow even more unbearable.
Suddenly weary, I walk to the corner and get into a Renault taxi. As we speed from the city, I slump against the seat, overwhelmed. Papa nearly died. Georg is not far away, but he might as well be across an ocean since I cannot go to him.
At the villa, I walk up the darkened stairs. At the door to our apartment, I stop, remembering the moment I stood here just days earlier, planning to tell Papa the truth. Of course, that it impossible now. My plan to free myself from marrying Stefan begins to fade and blow away like dust.
I throw myself across the bed, sobbing.
Chapter 19
The next morning I am awakened by the chiming of the doorbell. I open my eyes. Sun slants brightly through the filmy lace curtains, creating patterns that dance on the cream bed linens. Through the open window, I hear a familiar voice on the doorstep below. Krysia!
I jump up and dress hurriedly, then run from the apartment. Krysia stands in the foyer looking uneasy in the grand, unfamiliar surroundings. “You came!” I cry as I fly down the stairs. I throw my arms around her, forgetting in my excitement the proper kiss on each cheek.
She removes her hat. “I’m sorry to arrive unannounced. I sent a response, but only just days ago when I was certain I could come.” I’d sent her a wedding invitation on a whim, with no real expectation she’d actually make it. “With as slow as the post is these days, I suppose I arrived before it did. I just got off the train,” she adds, gesturing apologetically toward her dress. But she appears fresh and unwrinkled, her hair immaculately in place. “I can book a room.”
“Nonsense, there’s plenty of space here.” I turn to the butler. “Charles, you’ll have the one next to mine readied please?”