“Very wrong. That is forbidden by the Hague Convention.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t pin me down, dear. There are a lot of conventions governing what von can and can’t do in war. For instance, the use of gas was outlawed after the last war. And other things.”
“Like what?”
“Well, we just spoke about bombing civilian populations.”
“Is that outlawed?”
“I could not give you chapter and verse, but I certainly assume so.”
“If you pray for an Allied victory, then you pray for successful bombing raids by the RAF and by us. You’re praying, at least, that bombers will find their legal targets. That means that a bomb aimed at a — whatever, a bridge, a building that is a part of the military — would be hit. That could be a building where Papa is working. So God would be saying it was all right to kill my father?”
Henrietta stood up. “We don’t know that your father is working in a military operation. Let us hope not.”
“And pray not?”
Henrietta walked away toward the kitchen, and hid tears of sorrow and of impotent rage.
Chapter Ten
Phoenix , July 1943
Dressed in a loose, floral-printed skirt and blouse, Henrietta sat on La Quintana’s terrace under the awning. The sun was well past its zenith and soon, she knew from long experience, she could reasonably expect the comfort of the breeze generated by the Santa Quinta mountain fork on hot summer afternoons. She brought the radio in from the living room. With its long extension cord she could prop it on the glass table next to where she sat, her book in hand, and her iced tea. She would bring in the midnight news from the BBC — 1700, Phoenix time.
The day before, they had got word of the British-U.S. landing in Sicily. “We are, finally, fighting in Axis territory,” Henrietta had exulted. She was eager to hear now how it was going, twenty-four hours later, for the Allied troops. She still had eight minutes to wait for the BBC when the postman arrived. Spotting Mrs. Chapin outdoors, he took the mail to her directly, tipping his postman’s hat.
“Evenin’, Mrs. Chapin.”
“Good evening, Sam. How’s your boy enjoying basic training?”
“Not much. They work you pretty hard at Fort Sill where he is. Oklahoma. An’ it’s hotter than here, he tells us, Minnie and me. His mother and me. How’s your boy enjoying the Grand Canyon? He must feel pretty good, at his age, being made an official guide.”
“He likes it fine, Sam. But not my boy . My grandson . Yes, Sebastian is glad to be doing something. You know, there’s a great shortage of people everywhere to do anything. Ten, fifteen million people in the army, factories working day and night. No wonder they’ll allow a seventeen-year-old to be an official tourist guide. Now Sam, go away.” Henrietta talked that way, her native German accent pronounced, her manner hortatory, and that was just fine with everyone in Phoenix she dealt with, the tradesmen, the workers at the gas station from which she eked out mobility, drawing only the licensed three gallons per week of rationed gas. “I’ve got to listen to the war news.”
“On my way, Mrs. Chapin.” Sam smiled, waved his long arm, and left, adjusting his cap to the sun.
Henrietta looked down at the little assortment he had left. A newspaper, Life magazine, a bulletin from the local movie theater, a couple of bills, and a letter addressed in heavy’ script to Mrs. Axel Reinhard.
Henrietta stared at it.
The BBC news broadcaster came on, but she didn’t focus on what he said. A half hour later, Annabelle returned from work. Her mother was in the kitchen preparing a salad.
“There’s a letter for you,” Henrietta said, and nodded at the coffee table in the living room.
*
The letter was in German, from the War Ministry in Berlin. ‘There was no salutation. The text read simply WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT HERR AXEL REINHARD IS A CASUALTY OF THE WAR FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE FATHERLAND. HIS NAME WILL BE HONORED AFTER OUR VICTORY. The signature was indecipherable. The signing officer’s rank was Technical Sergeant, Oberscharfuchrer. The date, affixed by stamp, was May 17, 1943.
Henrietta stayed in the kitchen, shredding carrots mechanically.
A few minutes later, Annabelle joined her.
Henrietta tried to say something, but failed. Henrietta’s arms were close around her daughter, and together they wept, mother and child, both of them now widows.
*
Not much was spoken during their dinner.
Turning on the water tap to wash the dishes, Annabelle said, “I haven’t decided how to tell Sebastian.”
“When is he coming home?”
“He has Mondays off. This is Wednesday.”
“Sebby wasn’t here last Monday, was he? I can’t remember.” Even Henrietta had given up. Now, often, Sebastian was “Sebby” to her.
“No.” Annabelle ducked into the living room and brought out the penny postcard. She squinted her eyes to read the tight script. “ Mama , I won’t be home Monday . Will be shooting rapids with Cherokee Bill. Getting real good at it . He might take me again next Monday . I hope so . Please get me some more sun oil, I’m running out , and also a paperback Agatha Christie , ditto . Oh , and please buy a frame for my diploma . When they draft me in January I’ll tack it on the wall behind my bunk to impress whatever general gets assigned to look after me . I hope basic training camp will be close by to a FAST river rapid . I will go SWOOSH down the river and the fastest helicopter being built won’t be fast enough to catch me ! Tell Oma hello . No, give her a big kiss — ”
Annabelle had to stop reading. “I don’t see much...much point in going up there just to — ” The tears began again.
Henrietta nodded. She thought to say something but it was all banal, mechanical. “You’d have to travel to Flagstaff by bus, you couldn’t make it with the gas coupons we have.”
Annabelle looked yet again at the letter.
“What I wonder is, Mutter, what I wonder is...was he dead a long time ago? Months ago? Last year? I think so . I think he would have found a way to get a letter to us, if he was alive until — May 17th, the date on this. But if so, I can’t think why the War Ministry delayed so long. Waited — ” Her voice trailed off.
She went to the bureau and stared at the picture taken at the Hamburg Pair, July 1939. Four years ago. Sebastian, a broad smile on his face, his hair loose over his forehead, was holding tight to his airplane model. Annabelle, with faint signs of matronliness on her cheeks and torso, wore glasses and only a forced-for-the-camera smile. Axel had on his beloved lederhosen, and a green hunting cap with a feather. His eyes were alight with intelligence and enjoyment, she thought, reaching for her handkerchief.
Just four years ago . How many millions since then had died from war’s violence? How did Axel’s life end? Could he have been a victim of an Allied raid? Of Soviet tanks? Yes, yes, he must have been dead long ago. She taped the picture back on the wall.
Chapter Eleven
January 1944
The telegram, six months later, was hand delivered at La Quintana soon after breakfast. DARLING SEBASTIAN. THINKING OF YOU TODAY. I HAVE BOOKED A CALL FOR EXACTLY ELEVEN PM GMT SO BE SURE TO STAND BY AT LA QUINTANA AT FOUR PM. AND PRAY THEY’RE NOT BOMBING US WHEN I MAKE CALL. THEY DID THAT YESTERDAY. FUEHRER’S NEW YEAR’S DAY PRESENT. LOVE TO OMA. --MAMA
Sebastian adjusted his crutch, reached over, and poured himself more coffee. When he spotted Sam through the window he called out to him to bring the mail into the house. Sam opened the door and walked in.
“Thanks.” Sebastian took in his outstretched hand the little mail packet. “I could have got to you and opened the door myself but...Sebastian smiled up at him, “I can’t move very fast, not for a while.”
“Your leg knitting up all right?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. Sam — want to know something? Today’s my birthday. I’m eighteen.” Sebastian’s tanned face, with traces of freshly shaved blond hair on his chin, lit up with a smi
le.
“Well, if you could stand up, you could dance a jig! Congratulations, Sebby. Selective Service is going to have to wait a bit before they get their hands on you, the shape you’re in. They nabbed my Lester when he was eighteen years and thirty days!”
“Les doing okay? Still in the Pacific somewhere?”
“Yep. We don’t know exactly where, of course, but he writes every couple of weeks. He wants Minnie and me to send him, guess what, some comic books. Got to go on my rounds. Stay away from the rapids, Sebastian Reinhard.”
His mother — the telegram had said — asked Sebastian to pray that that night in London should be without bombs. They had last prayed together in July, widow, grandmother, and son, at the little church service in memory of his father. Nobody in Phoenix had ever met Axel Reinhard. Anybody in America who ever knew him, Sebastian reminded himself, would have to have been with him at MIT. Sebastian didn’t remember his father’s making any mention of his classmates. His mother Annabelle, on the other hand, regularly responded to alumnae notices from Radcliffe. (“Here’s a picture of my former roommate,” he remembered her saying one day. “Lillian Booth.” His mother had pointed to a picture of a statuesque woman who had been appointed professor at the School of Music at Indiana University.) So there were none of his father’s schoolmates at the service in the Lutheran church, only a dozen friends of Annabelle, paying their respects. It was nice that Sam and Minnie were there.
The outsiders had been kind to come, Sebastian thought. Like just about every human being in America, all of them there at St. Mark’s Church had been directly affected by the war’s reach. Killed or wounded father, husband, son, sweetheart, best friend. The minister’s words were (had to be) carefully chosen. Nobody at the service knew what Axel Reinhard had been doing when he died. They knew only that he was — a German; in Germany. Doing what, nobody asked; and if anyone had done so, Annabelle wouldn’t have been able to say. In 1943, Axel Reinhard was thirty-nine years old. Everybody who knew anything knew that anyone of that age living in Germany was doing service, directly or indirectly, for — the Fuehrer? The Fatherland? Or just plain Germany? “ Take your choice, ” Sebastian had said a year ago to the new young teacher at Central High School who asked whom his father served.
The minister talked about the solace of the next world. He spoke of Axel as a fine husband and father. He went on to say that the dead man had been “distinguished in his profession.” Sebastian had never really thought about that! Was his father, at age thirty-five when last they were together, a successful civil engineer? A very successful civil engineer? A rising star in his profession? A risen star in his profession?
He thought to ask his mother about it after the service, but it was safer not to talk about his father anymore. Letters from Axel had stopped so very long ago. Sebastian could come up with the exact day after which Mama didn’t seem to want to talk about his father. It was last year, May of 1942. The letter in the post office box, stamped in Germany, had been addressed by hand to her. She had torn it open.
It was a black-bordered death notice from their former landlord’s wife at 38 Hempelstrasse. Annabelle’s address had got into one of those Prussianlike files, renowned for their comprehensive exactitude; the widow had evidently sent the news of her husband’s death to all of Herr Ausnitz’s former tenants.
Ausnitz. Sebastian wondered. Was Herr Ausnitz Jewish ? Without his mother’s noticing, he scrutinized carefully the gothic German text in the notice. It gave Herr Ausnitz’s date of birth, the names of his mother and father, of his wife and son and daughters. There were several lines of poignant, solemn thoughts and memories. There was no indication of a Christian burial service, or of burial in a Christian cemetery.
If Herr Ausnitz was Jewish, would the Nazis have taken away his apartment house? In the wanton spirit of Kristallnacht? Sebastian felt a fury in his stomach.
It was after opening that letter that his mother had said: “I don’t think we are going to hear anything more — ” she corrected herself ” — anything much more — about Papa. We just have to do what we can. Without him.” Annabelle had hastily arrested the melancholy in the room. She congratulated Sebastian on the home run which, that afternoon, had tipped the score against Valley High, making him Central’s hero of the day. “Maybe you will be a professional baseball player.”
“Yep,” Sebastian said. “I’ll practice baseball in the army. Or in the navy.”
“I don’t think the navy has boats that negotiate Sebastian’s rapids,” Henrietta intervened. “Can you practice batting on one of your canoes?”
“Not canoes , Oma. They’re rafts.” And he grinned.
*
A week after the memorial service, Annabelle had come back from her work at the army intelligence unit and broken the news to her mother and son. She had been recruited for special work. “It has to do with decryption.”
“Will it change your work schedule?” her mother asked.
“Mama, they want me to work in London.”
*
It had been an awful wrench, but then — as Henrietta remarked to her grandson a fortnight later, lips tight, after the tearful goodbyes and the departure of Annabelle on the DC-3 — the whole war was a terrible wrench. “Your father is dead. You and your mania had to leave your home. And now your mother has gone off to get nearer to the front lines. It is a wrench for everybody.”
*
That wrench would now affect Henrietta, though it was less than a wrench. She had spoken with “Major Henry” at the army unit, agreeing to take on the German-language course Annabelle had had to abandon when called to duty abroad. Henrietta Chapin, grandmother, would no longer be at La Quintana all day. Never mind. “You’re seventeen now, Sebby, very bright and resourceful, and when you graduate from Central High in June, I know you will be going up to flagstaff to your beloved Grand Canyon until the army picks you up.”
Indeed he would; but Sebastian, that summer, continued to come home to La Quintana on the bus every other week, on his days off, to mow the lawn and place records on the record player and play Russian Bank with Oma and talk voraciously about the news of the day on the war fronts. After studious inspection of news of the battlefronts in Europe he fancied himself something of an expert on army divisions, brigades, regiments, and their commanders, studying also the nomenclature, both of the regular German army and the SS, and the corresponding ranks in the U.S. Army. The older woman and the boy wondered what exactly had gone on at conferences of the heads of state. In Cairo, Chiang Kai-shek had met with Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt. Allied leaders had met in Teheran the following week. Imagine! Prime Minister Churchill, President Roosevelt, and General Secretary Stalin! The RAF had bombed Berlin. The Allies entered Italy and quickly occupied Naples; the Soviet army had retaken Smolensk.
*
Sebastian was gleefully happy with his work at the Grand Canyon resort. It was that primarily, of course — a resort. The naturalists there — the botanists, geologists, speleologists, vulcanologists — were everywhere, focusing hungrily on their separate disciplines and ignoring the tourists who came to see, stare at, and experience the vast source of their endless fascination.
But it was the tourists who were indispensable. Their income was critical to the maintenance of Grand Canyon, Inc. Sebastian, age sixteen when he first started, was given to do only work maintaining the trails — keeping them open and even trimmed for the tourists who climbed down them, or rode down on horses and donkeys. But his enthusiasm for the entire scene caught the attention of Dennis Howard, the personnel supervisor. He was a tall, angular figure in his range hat with his obtrusive mustache. He told Sebastian that he would have to spend more time on the tourist end of the enterprise.
“What does that entail, Mr. Howard?”
“Well you ought to know by now. There are tourists here every day, and they come in heavy, nine, ten months every year. Some want to think of themselves as explorers. But they aren’t, mos
t of ’em. They need guidance. I want you to be able to act as a guide for them. Show them how to get down the trails, try to keep them from falling a thousand feet into the canyon; help them climb back up. If they’re lame and numb from their workouts, get them hot dogs or whatever they want, bring it to them from the cafeteria. The whole bit. Oh. We’d lift your pay to $1.25 per hour.”
“I’d like to think about that, Mr. Howard.”
“You’d what?”
“I’d like to think about it. What I like most is the wildlife. And, especially, the rapids. I want to learn how to handle those. I mean, that’s what I really want to do.”
Dennis Howard waited. He assumed that Sebastian would quickly capitulate and simply take on whatever work he was assigned. But he studied the muscular young man with the tanned face and the guarded smile and the bright eyes: he had a mind of his own. Dennis Howard didn’t resent those who came to the Grand Canyon enthused by nature or adventure, but he had his own priorities. So he settled for, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
“Yes sir, that would be fine.”
*
A compromise was struck. On even weeks Sebastian would act exclusively as a tourist guide and aide. On odd weeks he would continue to work on maintenance, but he would serve also as assistant to Cherokee Bill, if Bill approved of him.
The wiry American Indian had worked in the Grand Canyon since he was a boy, thirty years ago. He maintained the little fleet of rafts for adventurous and demanding tourist explorers. Cherokee Bill kept a private kayak and exultantly set out in it once or twice a week, after hours. He surveilled Sebastian carefully, observed him at work on the trails and in the workshop, and agreed to take him on. Carefully, he introduced him to the lore of boat maintenance and rapid river work, and helped him to acquire carpentry skills which Sebastian practiced at the lodge’s workshop on the long nights, after supper.
By the summer of Sebastian’s seventeenth year, Bill was giving Sebastian more time for the river work; and, a few weeks later, he entrusted Sebastian to guide river-bound tourists down to rapids territory. Bill kept a close eye on Sebastian but there was no way to do that around the clock, and Sebastian was now, after work hours, going downriver in the auxiliary kayak he had persuaded Bill to let him experiment with, an experiment that led, one bright day when the gorge and the resplendent cliffs that served it as gigantic color guards seemed to ache for young adventurers to test its resources, to a high-speed collision with the jagged rock lying just below the swirling surface. The kayak was gone. Sebastian lay, crippled, on the narrow, rocky embankment when — it was after ten that night — Cherokee Bills searchlight discerned Sebastian’s white, shivering frame. There was no way to take the crippled boy upstream. Bill massaged him, wrapped him in a blanket, and gave him to drink from a flask Sebastian’s first taste of whiskey. The next morning, Cherokee Bill was back with a rescue party.
Nuremberg Page 5