The Things We Cherished

by Pam Jenoff

  Charlotte watched helplessly as Brian and Jack helped the old man back into the chair. The trips to Poland, the search for the clock. For Roger, it had always been about learning the truth about Magda. Surely he could not have thought after all of these years that the result might have been anything but this.

  But at the same time she understood. Against reason, part of Roger had stubbornly clung to the belief that the answer might have been somehow different. That Magda had escaped and lived, even briefly. Now he was faced with the undeniable truth that the desperate measures he took to try to save Magda, which resulted in the deaths of so many, had all been in vain. Everything else he had been able to take over the years, but this was the breaking point.

  Jack walked to the intercom to summon the guards, waving Charlotte and Brian away. “How could you?” Brian demanded of Charlotte as they stepped out into the hall.

  “He had the right to know the truth.”

  “You’ve taken away everything he had to fight for.”

  “No,” she protested, eyes flaring, unwilling to back down. “Now that he knows the truth about Magda, he can concentrate on fighting for his freedom.” But inwardly she cringed, hearing the weakness in her own argument. Had she made a fatal mistake by telling him?

  A few minutes later, when the guards had come and gone again, they walked back in the room. Roger sat slumped to one side, calmer now, eyes glassy from a sedative of some sort. “Excuse me,” he said, as though apologizing to guests for being late.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m sorry the news was such a shock.”

  “I suppose I always knew.” He dipped his chin at the admission. “Still, part of me thought …” He did not finish the sentence.

  Charlotte nodded. Despite its vast improbability, Roger had held fast to that one shred of hope that perhaps Magda had somehow survived, might even be alive today. It was the thing that had kept him going, enabled him to live with his ghosts and demons for all of these years. With that now gone, his entire world had crumbled.

  “Herr Dykmans,” Jack began more softly than she had heard him speak. He stepped forward. “I know that this is an incredibly painful time for you, but we must think about the trial. We only have a week—”

  Charlotte looked up, surprised. Surely he didn’t mean to tell Roger about the possibility of the case being elevated now, on top of everything else. Jack cleared his throat. “That is, we simply don’t have the evidence we need.” But Roger turned to the wall. The news about Magda had taken away his will to live, any reason he might have had to fight.

  “Dammit,” Brian swore half an hour later, running a finger along the rim of his glass. Roger had sat stone-faced, unwilling or unable to respond to their entreaties for additional information that might help his case. When it was clear they would get no further, they had left the prison and now sat on stools clustered around a high table in the hotel bar. “Three countries and we’ve got nothing.” She held her breath, waiting for him to berate her again for sharing with Roger the news about Magda, but he did not.

  “I think,” Jack spoke slowly, “we need to consider a plea deal.”

  Charlotte watched him uneasily. Brian had returned from the bar a few minutes earlier with three vodka tonics. He did not, she realized, know the story of his brother’s recent drinking problem, his need for abstinence. Jack had lifted the glass once, almost reflexively, and she had held her breath, waiting for him to take a sip and bring a wrecking ball to the thin wall of sobriety he’d rebuilt. But then he set the glass down and did not pick it up again.

  “Hell no!” Brian exploded so loudly that a couple of women at the next table looked up to stare. He dealt in the world of high-stakes litigation, going for the big wins. He hadn’t learned to swim in the murky waters of compromise, where sometimes meeting in the middle was the closest thing to a victory you got.

  “We have less than a week,” Jack pressed, making his case. “If we lose, it’s life in prison without possibility of parole.”

  “And if we plead, he’s still going to get five or ten years at least,” Brian replied. “That’s a life sentence when you’re Roger’s age.”

  Brian had a point, Charlotte reflected. Jack, however, was not convinced. “But we have to try to do something,” he persisted. “If we walk into court with nothing, they’re going to eat him alive. The Germans have been under a lot of international pressure and they’re looking for a big case with which to make a statement and show the world they’re serious about chasing down the war criminals. They want to make an example of Roger.”

  Charlotte took a large sip of her own drink, savoring the sting. She tuned out the debate between the two brothers, which played itself out like an old record. Always on opposite sides of the fence, vying for control.

  What were they fighting for, anyway? Roger had admitted to doing the very thing he’d been accused of and he was willing to accept his punishment. Maybe we should just make a deal and get him the most lenient sentence possible, she thought. Not because going to trial would be risky, as Jack feared, but because it was what Roger wanted.

  Charlotte thought back to her cases over the years. She had defended some of the most broken kids society had to offer, kids who had hurt others seemingly without any remorse. Yet she had always found a shred of redemption, a shred of humanity she could cling to in order to push forward with their defense. Here, there was no doubt Roger had acted out of his love for Magda and Anna, his desire to save them. But the futility of his actions and the magnitude of the tragedy that had resulted from them were simply too great, and there was part of her that was tapped out, unwilling to go any further.

  “So you just want to quit?” Brian demanded of his brother.

  “I’m not saying that,” Jack replied. “But sometimes you have to cut your losses.”

  Brian did not respond, but stood and stormed from the bar. “He just doesn’t understand how these criminal matters work,” Jack lamented. “And I don’t want to approach the prosecutor until we’re all on the same page. Because if she picks up on any sign of weakness and smells blood—” He stopped as she turned away. “Charley, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m sick of it. This goddamned game between you and Brian. Always being caught in the middle. Like the thing that no one wants but can’t take the trouble to give away.”

  He stared at her blankly. “What—?”

  “I heard you on the train, telling Brian not to bother with me.”

  “What? Oh God no, you’ve got it all wrong.” He stood up, running his hand through his hair as he paced. “I was telling Brian not to be an asshole and hurt you all over again.”

  She slammed down her glass. “Brian and I are none of your concern. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself.”

  “No, that’s not it either. I’m really fucking this up, aren’t I?” She was surprised. Profanity was Brian’s style, not Jack’s. “Charley, do you remember the day we met?”

  Her mind reeled back to a barbecue at the Warringtons’ beach house in the early autumn. Weary from the endless introductions and inane conversation, she had escaped down the back terrace to a dock overlooking the bay. “You were standing by the edge of the water,” he continued. “Your skirt was pink and you had some sort of flower in your hair, iris, maybe.”

  “Aster,” she said, the image crystallizing in her mind. She had turned, expecting to see Brian approaching. Instead, there had been this thinner version of him, watching her from a distance.

  “You were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And then when we spoke, I thought I was dreaming.” There was more emotion to his voice than Charlotte had ever heard before. “Our conversation, our interests, your sense of humor, everything was perfect. Then Brian walked up and I realized you were his. I wanted to die.”

  Charlotte’s breath caught. Was it possible that Jack liked her back then? She had never imagined he might, had always taken his aloofness for distaste. “I thought maybe you would see me too,” h
e added. “But you were so wrapped up in Brian the Great, you never even noticed.”

  That’s not true, she wanted to say. Well, partially it was—she had been young and consumed with Brian. And Jack had terrified her in a way she could only understand now, with experience and the passage of years, that had in fact been born out of raw attraction. But remembering, it seemed so clear—how her throat seemed to seize whenever he entered a room, making it difficult to speak or breathe, the way she’d found it unbearable to be alone with him.

  Later that night she’d been unable to sleep and had slipped from the guest room out onto the terrace into the cool evening air. It was a clear night and the sky, unmarred by the city lights, was a carpet of stars, dancing above the water. She craned her neck upward, so engrossed that it was several minutes before she heard a scratching sound and realized that she was not alone. Jack sat in a lawn chair a few feet away, also gazing upward.

  “Oh!” she said, and his eyes dropped, meeting hers. Bathed in moonlight, he seemed almost mythic. Neither spoke for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, she had turned and fled back into the house, heart pounding.

  He continued, drawing her from her memories. “And now you turn up here out of the blue after all these years, and I think, maybe it’s fate, or at least it could be if I believed in fate. But you still look at him like that.” She wanted to protest, but found that she could not. “Not that I deserve anything good in my life after the mistakes I’ve made and the things I’ve done.” He cleared his throat. “But I won’t stand here and watch him hurt you again.”

  She understood even more clearly then why Jack had been so aloof all those years ago and why he’d been so prickly since she’d arrived, even going so far as to deny his feelings for her. He’d been destroyed once by the baroness and Charlotte was the one person who could hurt him again—if he let her get that close.

  “Jack—” She wanted to tell him it wasn’t like that, that she knew the kind of pain he’d suffered and the fear of letting it happen again, that her feelings for Brian were all in the past and that she would not hurt him if given the chance.

  But before she could continue, Brian reappeared at the table. “Another round?” he asked, as if he and Jack had not clashed, his bravado amplified by the liquor.

  She shook her head, overwhelmed by it all. “I’m going to turn in.”

  “Then I guess I will too.” Brian summoned the waiter and signed the check. Charlotte looked at Jack but he stared at his glass, seemingly miles away. She did not want to risk leaving him here alone, fearful he might take a sip of the now-watery drink. But a moment later he stood and followed them back out the hotel lobby.

  At the elevator bank, they paused. Jack’s eyes met hers and despite all that had happened, she could not help but wonder if he wanted to come up again. But with Brian here there was no possibility of a repeat encounter. The elevator doors opened and Brian stood aside expectantly, waiting for her to enter. She could feel Jack’s gaze, sense his resentment, as she stepped inside. She turned back. It’s not like that, she wanted to tell him. She and Brian were just sharing an elevator, going to their separate floors. But the doors began to close.

  “G’night, Charlotte,” Brian said fuzzily a minute later as the door opened at his floor. He stepped off, oblivious to what had just taken place.

  She made her way to her room and closed the door, still stunned by Jack’s revelation. What would have happened if she had met Jack first? Would they have been drawn together or would the timing have been just as wrong then as it was now? It was impossible to roll back the clock, to imagine not having fallen for Brian. That blinding, all-encompassing first love and the heartbreak that followed had become part of who she was, so inextricably linked to her identity and the story of her life that she could not disentangle them and get a clear picture of what might have been. No, she simply would not have been ready for Jack then, and he had the baroness and his own heartbreak to weather to make him who he was today.

  And now? She turned the question over in her mind, considering. If she and Jack had been reunited under different circumstances, would it have worked? The question was a moot one. There was Brian and their history and this case, not to mention the fact that they lived on two separate continents, so their feelings, as undeniable as they were, would have to remain untapped, a great what-if in their lives. Perhaps that was better than trying it on and seeing that it really wasn’t what she thought.

  As she undressed, she still wondered if there might be a knock at the door, Jack venturing up to see her. But he would not, she realized as she climbed into bed, push his way in where he feared he might not be wanted. She couldn’t help but listen for footsteps in the hallway, though, hoping until she fell asleep.

  Sometime later, there was a pounding at the door. Jack, she thought, sitting up. Had he decided to come see her after all? Charlotte leapt to her feet, nearly stumbling, her head still fuzzy from the liquor.

  She hurried to the door, opened it a crack. “Brian,” she said, wondering with a sense of déjà vu if it was morning and she had overslept. But this time he wasn’t dressed in his usual suit. Instead he wore sweatpants and a T-shirt and sported an unshaven jawline, images from almost a decade ago that had no place here. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  He pushed past her into the room. “Wait, I’m not—” she began.

  But Brian burst in like an oversized puppy, unable to contain his energy. “We got a call,” he announced breathlessly. “It’s from a woman in Italy and she claims to have proof that Roger is innocent.”

  Twelve

  EAST BERLIN, 1961

  Anneke looked up from the beer stein she was drying. Across the bar, a group of students clustered around a table in the corner, laughing boisterously. One of the men lifted his head from the gathering. His eyes caught Anneke’s and for a second she thought he might smile, but he turned away quickly.

  She had first seen him nearly two months earlier when he came in with his friends, and he had returned nightly with the group ever since. He was about twenty-two or so, she guessed, with shaggy black hair that curled at the collar and pale skin that reminded her of the porcelain tea set that sat on the Stossels’ mantelpiece. For weeks she had watched him when she was sure no one was looking, shivering when she got close to clear the table where he sat.

  Anneke had taken the job at the bar the previous spring as a way to supplement her income and earn a few extra marks to help her mother pay the rent. It was little more than a ground-floor shop that had been converted, worn wooden tables and crude benches scattered throughout the room, a deer’s head mounted above the fireplace. The job was a welcome break from her position at the Stossels’, cleaning floors and polishing silver with only her mother and the dour-faced cook Inge for company. Not that the actual work here, clearing tables and washing dishes, was so much better. But the crowd, a mix of bohemian artists and students from the nearby university who willingly consumed the Schwarz bier or whatever liquor was available without complaint, was livelier than any she had ever seen. The occasional snippet of political debate or gossip she overheard as she picked up the glasses almost made up for the fact that the clientele were notoriously bad tippers.

  When it was almost eleven and the crowd had thinned, Anneke went reluctantly into the kitchen to collect the garbage. It was always the least favorite part of her night, not so much for the drudgery of the task itself, but because it meant the bar would soon close and she would have to return home.

  As she carried the trash out into the darkness of the alleyway behind the bar, she heard a rustling sound. “Oh!” she exclaimed. Fearing a rat or worse, she jumped, dropping the bags. One opened as it hit the ground, scraps of food and soiled paper scattering across the pavement.

  “Easy,” someone said through the darkness, a puff of smoke rising in the glow of the streetlight. A tiny shiver ran through her as she recognized the voice of the dark-haired young man f
rom the conversations she had overheard in the bar. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  What was he doing out here, she wondered? Patrons smoked freely inside. “I wanted to get some air,” he added, answering her unspoken question.

  Then better out front and not in the alley, which smelled of old food and urine, she wanted to say. He moved closer with the swiftness of a cat. “Let me help you.” He bent to pick up the spilled garbage she had nearly forgotten was there. The tip of his cigarette gave off an acrid smell as he knelt and refilled the bag without any sign of hesitation or distaste. She dropped down, working beside him in silence.

  “I’m Henryk,” he said when they finished, straightening in unison.

  “Anneke.” They shook hands somewhat formally, and she was surprised that his fingers were as soft as the kid gloves Frau Stossel wore.

  From the entrance to the bar there came a clattering and the portly silhouette of Herr Ders, the proprietor, filled the doorway. “I’ve got to go,” she whispered, and Henryk seemed to vanish before she could finish the sentence, a lingering hint of smoke the only indication that he had been there at all.

  She walked back inside with a sinking feeling, certain that Henryk’s foray into the stench-filled alley had been a mistake and that the experience of helping her pick up garbage would ensure that he would never return. But the next night, as she stepped outside, she smelled the now-familiar perfume of his cigarette once more.

  He held the pack out to her, an offering. Anneke shook her head. She had seen the way that smoking had drawn her mother’s once-beautiful mouth into a tight pucker, caused her voice to go raspy. “Are you a student at the university?” she ventured.

  He nodded. “Yes. That is, I’m on sabbatical this semester.” She didn’t know what that was, but it sounded terribly intriguing. “Are you in school?”

  She smiled inwardly, brushing her hair, which was a color she’d seen described in magazines as dishwater blond, from her face. People always took her for much younger than twenty. “I graduated two years ago.” She had managed to finish, fighting her mother’s insistence that she drop out at fifteen to earn a living, instead working nights and weekends to bring in money. “I would have loved to study at the university.” Of course that had been out of the question. It was almost impossible for a woman from her background to become eligible for higher education under the state system.