From the Ashes

by Sandra Saidak

  “Not until second year,” said Adolf. “But I’ll be fencing in a saber tournament in early spring. Perhaps you can come see me.”

  At this, all three of Adolf’s sisters nodded eagerly and looked at Helmut with hopeful eyes, but their father remained impassive.

  “If there’s time while you’re home, we can practice,” said Edwin, Adolf’s brother-in-law.

  “I doubt I’m up to your level,” said Adolf. “But I’d appreciate the chance to work out with a provost.”

  “Well, I’m not a provost,” said Edwin. “Not yet.”

  Seated next to her husband, Adolf’s sister Frieda looked small and pale. Adolf noticed that she kept her eyes down and said little all evening. Frieda and Edwin had married shortly before Adolf left for college, but five months later, Frieda was still not pregnant. Naturally, she was concerned.

  Strange, Adolf thought, that while no woman could legally marry until tests had verified her fertility, their husbands could divorce them if they failed to get pregnant within a year. A woman in such a position could be shipped off to the Colonies, unless her family was willing to take her back. He hoped things would never reach that point for Frieda.

  After dinner, Helmut went to his home office to make a phone call, while Adolf and Gustav retired to the smoking room. Adolf sat in one of the leather chairs, drumming his fingers on his father’s favorite ashtray. It stood nearly three feet tall, decorated with figures of marching soldiers and huge inlaid swastikas. Gustav stood before the trophy wall, and gazed at the family’s many accolades.

  “I suppose it could have been worse,” said Adolf.

  “What do you mean?” asked Gustav.

  “Dinner. At least my father didn’t launch into one of his speeches. And my mother didn’t try to set me up with another ‘beautiful young girl from a fine family.’”

  “Your father really is proud of you, Adolf,” Gustav said. “Though I know he doesn’t always show it.”

  Adolf sighed. “Thank you for trying, Uncle, but we both know I don’t measure up. Maybe he’ll have better luck with Kurt.”

  “Kurt is a fine boy, but you are your father’s heir. I don’t know why Helmut is so hard on you. I don’t even know how he became so driven; so serious. Helmut was really quite a clown when we were boys.”

  Adolf shook his head. He’d hear that before, but still couldn’t quite believe it. “I’ve always assumed it came from being the only son of the Right Hand of the First Führer,” he said.

  “That and growing up with five sisters,” his uncle added. “But that driven side was always there, too. Helmut...he always had to achieve more; be noticed more. And now, with times so uncertain....”

  “Have times ever been anything else?” asked Adolf.

  Gustav stopped in front of a shelf that held a commemorative coin from 1983, struck in honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Reich.

  “Did you know that only one hundred of these coins were ever made?” asked Gustav. “And I was there, Adolf. In Berlin for the festivities. You don’t remember; you were just a baby. But that year, Adolf. I look back on that year and say, ‘that was when it was perfect.’ It was the year we reached the moon! We held the world--the universe, even!--in our grasp.

  “I stood beside your father when the Third Führer presented this token to him and I thought, ‘this is what all of it was for: our parent’s sacrifices, the awful years of war, the terrible choices that had to be made.” Gustav stared at the coin in its red velvet case, and seemed to forget Adolf was there. “I don’t think I’ve felt that way since that day.”

  Coming back to himself, Gustav added quickly, “But those days will come again! Greater days, even! It will be young men like you, Adolf, who will do it: quell these silly rebellions; get the economy back on track. Who knows, maybe even get our space program going again.”

  “I know how much you loved working there, Uncle. The Department of Space Conquest was lucky to have so dedicated an engineer.”

  “Too bad my wife didn’t agree. Too many nights alone while I worked, I suppose.” Gustav sighed.

  Adolf suppressed a twinge of discomfort. While Gustav had handled the ugly divorce well, no one in the Reich spoke of women who deceived their husbands. It had been Gustav’s right to kill her and her lover, although he had not, something Adolf had always admired about his uncle, while Helmut had only added it to his long list of weaknesses.

  It was, perhaps, easier for Aryan women, who had no expectations of fidelity from husbands whose duty it was to father as many children as possible. Adolf tried to imagine his father’s reaction if Elena were to have an affair. Then nearly laughed when he realized that Helmut would never believe such a thing were possible.

  Gustav continued talking with no sign of distress. “But no matter. It is my privilege to serve the Fatherland. In any capacity.”

  Even inspecting waste disposal units? Adolf wondered.

  The door opened and Adolf’s father marched in, followed by Elena. Automatically, Adolf jumped from his chair and stood at attention.

  “Good news,” said Helmut. “I have secured for our family an invitation to attend the Winter Ball in Vienna this year.”

  Adolf made appropriately impressed murmurs. His mother dimpled with pride. “Helmut?” she said. “You didn’t forget that other matter, did you?”

  “Of course not.” Wilhelm turned to Adolf. “Also in attendance with be the Mauser family, lately of Amsterdam. Bruno Mauser has just been appointed senior advisor to the Department of Commerce and shows every sign of having a brilliant future. He also has a daughter, in her last year of secondary school. I have arranged for you to be her escort to the ball--and her guide for the season. See that she enjoys herself.”

  Adolf was careful not to meet Uncle Gustav’s eye. It would not do for them to both break up laughing in front of Helmut.

  The rest of the season proceeded quietly. Gretchen Mauser turned out to be a lovely girl, with pale golden hair and china blue eyes that were so huge Adolf wondered if she were taking belladonna. She was a skilled dance partner, never once stepping on Adolf’s feet, even as she avoided being stepped on by him. She laughed at his jokes, asked him about himself, and listened with a look of practiced intensity.

  She was, in short, the perfect match for a future Aryan power broker like himself.

  And, Adolf admitted to himself, if things had not changed, he might well have rated Gretchen as the top choice of all his mother’s selections.

  But things had changed. Or, more accurately, Adolf had.

  When they sat in his family’s box at Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Adolf found himself wondering what Ilsa would have thought of it; of all the meaning she would draw; the symbols she would catch. Gretchen’s only comment was, “A great triumph of German culture!”

  At a movie starring Heinz Heinie, a famous comedian, Adolf put his arm around Gretchen’s slender shoulders. She snuggled easily into his embrace. But her constant giggling annoyed him. He thought of Ilsa, and how her scathing review of the film would be more entertaining than either the movie, or the girl who sat next to him.

  One night, after a party at the Mengele mansion, Adolf found himself unable to sleep. He went to the kitchen for a glass of milk, smiling at the childhood memories this simple act stirred up. As he starred out the window at the searchlights and the marching soldiers, he heard the creak of floorboards behind him. It was yet another scene from his past: Leisl had joined him in the kitchen.

  “Still having trouble sleeping?” he asked.

  Leisl poured milk for herself, and sat opposite Adolf at the table. “Mother took me to another doctor a few months ago. He gave me more pills.”

  “I take it they don’t work?”

  “Oh, they make me sleep, okay, but they give me bad dreams. I quit taking them. Don’t tell mother, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “So what are you doing up, Adolf?”

  Adolf sighed. “Gretchen Mauser. Every time I start to fall as
leep, I hear her stupid giggling. It gets under my skin.”

  “Adolf, I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work,” said his little sister. “I think you’re supposed to get under her skin. Or at least between certain folds of it.”

  “Leisl!” Adolf looked around, then lowered his voice. “When did you start talking dirty?” He didn’t know whether to be amused or outraged.

  “I’m not a little kid anymore, you know! And I know—certain things.” Even in the shadows, Adolf could see Leisl blush, as she walked the line between showing off her adult knowledge, and fear of where it might take her. Steering the conversation back to safer territory, she said, “So what’s wrong with Gretchen? She seems nice.”

  “She is. Nice. Pretty. But so stupid! And so…empty! And don’t say it’s my job to fill her up, or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap, young lady!”

  Leisl laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t. But you can’t be too surprised she’s stupid. After all, Mother picked her out.”

  “True.” Adolf starred moodily into his empty glass.

  “Anyway, I hope you won’t be in too much of a hurry to get married. After you, it’ll be my turn.”

  Adolf laughed. “There’s six years between us Leisl; you’ve got lots of time.”

  “Maybe not.” Leisl’s playful mood had vanished. She was awake because she was worried about something, Adolf realized. Leisl worried a lot, despite the popular myths about the carefree years of childhood that all Aryan children enjoyed.

  “What’s going on?” asked Adolf.

  “I overheard Father on the phone a few days ago. Nothing is certain yet, but he’s trying for an alliance with the Heydrich family. He’s considering marrying me to their oldest son.”

  “Josef?” Adolf asked in horror. Leisl nodded. “That’s insane! He despises that entire family! Calls them upstarts—“

  “You know how fast things like that can change,” said Leisl. “Some guy; one of the Bormanns, who Father sponsored, was arrested just before you came home.”

  Adolf whistled. That was serious. A typical enough occurrence in the Inner Circles, but for someone like Helmut…of course he would be scrambling to control the damage and bolster his position in any way possible.

  The Heydrich family was the Führer’s new golden boy; Josef their shining star. In the shifting sands of Third Reich politics, Helmut was behaving normally.

  But…Leisl? Married to Josef?

  “Father can’t marry you to anyone until you’re sixteen,” Adolf said. “A lot can change between now and then. And girls aren’t being married off that young anymore. At least two years of Domestic Engineering is becoming a requirement in our circles. An ambitious little snot like Josef won’t want to wait that long to be married.”

  “He’ll do whatever his father tells him to,” Leisl said glumly.

  It was a truth Adolf could not refute. And he was painfully aware that it applied to himself as well. For all that he might be the daring rebel at school, Adolf was about as likely to defy Helmut as to sprout wings. Though he might wish it with all his might, the power to save Leisl from a horrendous marriage, or to court the only woman he was interested in was beyond him.

  “Hey, Adolf?” He looked up to see Leisl peering at him intensely. “You’re in love, aren’t you? Someone you met at school?”

  “Well—“ As Adolf stammered, Leisl slapped her thigh through her pink nightgown. “I knew it!”

  “Shh! Look, I’m not sure I’d call it love, but there’s this girl—“

  “What’s she like? Tell me all about her!”

  Then Adolf imagined himself bringing Ilsa—beautiful, blonde, intelligent Ilsa—home to meet his family. Oh, yes, they would love her—until they saw the bar code on her wrist. After that—it didn’t bear thinking about.

  “She’s not someone I could bring home,” he said. Leisl’s eyes filled with sympathy. No more explanation was needed.

  “I’m homesick,” he said. “I want to go back to school.”

  “Home sick for school? Isn’t that kind of a…what’s it called? Oxymoric?”

  “An oxymoron,” said Adolf. “Maybe. Or maybe ‘homesick’ really means something else.”

  “Like being sick of home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know just what you mean,” said Leisl.

  CHAPTER 6

  The New Year arrived at last, and with it, the new semester. Although he kissed his sisters farewell with genuine regret, Adolf felt only relief when the train carried him away from Munich.

  Back at school, the flurry of new classes, deadlines, and lectures washed away all memory of Gretchen Mauser, formal dinners and his father’s endless demands. The Friday after his return to Berlin was Adolf’s first opportunity to visit the Judenmuseum. The familiar room, crowded with books, relics and friends, enveloped him like a warm blanket.

  “...So there I was,” Klaus was saying, “The wedding about to start, my cousin the groom, looking for his best man--me--and I’m locked in the tool shed. I finally get us out, and she says, “Best man, hah! You weren’t even the best man in that shed!”

  Karl, Franz, Heidi, and Peter all exploded with laughter. Adolf smiled as he joined them. “I guess I don’t have to ask how your holidays were, Klaus,” he said.

  “I don’t believe you for a minute,” Heidi said. “But you tell a great story.”

  Klaus gave Heidi an extravagant bow and grinned. “I can arrange a private performance for you, anytime you like.”

  Ilsa appeared from the shadows carrying a stack of books. Krista was at her heels, taking excitedly. “I wish I could have brought it with me,” the dark haired girl was saying. “But it belongs to my grandfather, and bringing it here probably wouldn’t have been safe. Hi, everybody.”

  “So what’s this big discovery you’ve been telling Ilsa about?” Heidi asked.

  Franz and Peter began setting up folding chairs. Krista, too excited to sit, spoke quickly. “At my grandparents house, over the holidays, I found this book. In the back, it has the names of everyone in my family, going all the way back to my great-great-great grandparents, in the 1800s! But what’s really weird is that the stories in the beginning of the book are almost exactly the same as the stories we’ve been reading in the Jew book--I mean Torah,” Krista corrected herself proudly.

  “Written in German?” asked Frederick.

  Krista made a face. “Of course it’s in German! Do you think my grandparents could read anything else? Anyway, it’s got the same people: Adam and Eve, Jacob and Joseph, that stuff in Egypt--”

  “What was it called?” asked Adolf.

  “Die Bibel,” said Krista.

  Franz nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes, that’s the old name for the Lutheran Prayer Book. You can find one in any--”

  “I know what a Lutheran Prayer Book looks like! But this book was at least five times as long, and some of the words were just like Torah.”

  Ilsa stood up from behind her desk, holding out a thick, dusty book. “Was this what you saw, Krista?”

  Krista opened the black volume, whose crumbling gold letters proclaimed with words “Die Bibel” on the cover. After a moment, Krista nodded. “Look here,” she said passing the book to Franz.

  When Adolf’s turn came, he let out a grunt of surprise. He was not scanning the first pages, but rather the tops of all the pages. “Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus...what are these doing in a German Christian bible?”

  “And what is an outdated Christian bible doing in a Judenmuseum?” asked Franz.

  “I can answer your question first, Franz,” said Ilsa. “Though I think it is connected to Adolf’s. Several of these books were mixed in with the Jewish relics that came here in the last few years. I’m not sure of their origins. Others came more recently, from the Palestinian digs.”

  Karl, who had just picked up the book, suddenly dropped it. “Sheisse! How do you know it’s not hot?”

  “Relax,” said Ilsa. “I keep a Geiger counter
in the back. Only safe items remain here.”

  “What happens to the ones that aren’t safe?” asked Heidi.

  Ilsa smiled a small, and, Adolf thought, rather frightening smile. “As I was saying, this book, and a few others like it, came here years after the new translations of the bible came into use. My guess is that when books like these are found, they make their way to some kind of depository where some bored clerk--my counterpart in another city, I suppose--flips through them. They check their contents against lists of censored material, or something particular that the Party is looking for--in this case, Jewish relics. Since the verses are similar to Torah, they are assumed to be related. The clerk just sends them to the Department of History, who sends them here.”

  Adolf nodded. “Of course. Even those clerks who are practicing Christians would never have seen a bible this old.” He picked up the book that Karl had dropped. “And no Aryan alive today would imagine any connection between the teachings of a dead, inferior race, and a faith that was once the cornerstone of civilized Europe.”

  “But what is the connection?” asked Krista.

  “I’m not altogether sure, yet,” said Ilsa. “But look here.” She opened a lower drawer in her desk, and took out a thin volume entitled Lutheran Prayer Book.

  “Oh, are you a Lutheran, Ilsa?” asked Heidi.

  “No. This was here when I took the job. The current translation has two hundred pages.” Adolf opened the earlier version. It had nearly one thousand.

  A murmur went through the room.

  “This one appears to be fairly typical,” said Ilsa. “Most of the others are in different languages, and of course, size of type varies. But from what I’ve read and translated so far, huge sections have been removed or rewritten.”

  “Nothing new about that,” said Karl. “Books are always being ‘corrected’ these days.”

  But Adolf could see where Ilsa was going. “Not every book needs corrections for having identical script with Jewish writing,”

  “Their most holy writing,” added Franz.

  “What would the Party do,” Adolf continued, “if it were revealed that a religion practiced by nearly a quarter of the world--with strong German roots--shared its beginnings with Judaism?”