“Yes, I know.” Alina nodded.
“When we hired you, we hoped that somehow you would be able to control him with a strong hand. But that was foolish on our part. He is much too far gone. I see that he doesn’t listen to you either. He needs discipline, and neither Gunther nor I are able to control him. We are thinking that maybe we will send him to one of the bund camps. Personally, I don’t like the Nazi ideology that they teach. After all, I don’t want to get into trouble here in America. Gunther and I have a comfortable life here, and if for some reason the United States decided to deport us, it would be terrible. But as you know, Mr. Meister and I don’t have a lot of money to spare and we are living on very little. The summer camp through the bund is inexpensive, and from what I hear they are very strict and will help him to get on the right path.”
Nazi camps for children in the United States? Right here in New York? Alina felt woozy, like she might faint. She’d run all the way across the ocean, she’d suffered losses and made sacrifices all to escape from Hitler, but his shadow was still here hovering over her. Who could ever have thought that there would be Nazi summer camps in the United States?
“Nazi camps for children?” Alina asked, hoping she’d heard wrong.
“Yes, they are summer camps where the children get a lot of exercise outdoors. They keep them busy and out of trouble, but more importantly, they get a lot of discipline. It would take him away from the neighborhood and from that crowd of hoodlums who have become his friends, at least for the summer. Unless, Adelheid, you truly believe that you can turn him around. It won’t be easy. Mr. Meister and I know that he is a difficult boy and we won’t fault you if you feel it would be too difficult for you. What do you think?”
“I am not sure what to think. I mean, I don’t know if I can handle Hans. He doesn’t listen to me at all. But, well, Nazi summer camps for children in America?”
“I usually don’t like to tell anyone this, but Gunther is a member of the bund, and he was very involved before he became ill. I didn’t approve. But that didn’t matter to him. He is a man, you know how men are. They do what they want to do, and once they are married, their wives have to put up with it. But now, he’s too sick to participate. He has no energy for it any more. It doesn’t matter anyway, because after Kuhn was arrested in 1939 everything with the bund started slowing down. Kuhn was the leader, you know, and he was a terrible man. He stole a lot of money from the members. That’s why he was put in jail.”
“I don’t know anything about the bund or about anyone named Kuhn.”
“Well, you just got here from Germany didn’t you, Adelheid?”
“Yes,” Alina replied, deciding it was best to keep her mouth shut and listen rather than say anything that would bring suspicion on her.
“Well anyway, like I was saying, Kuhn was arrested. But Gunther refuses to believe that Kuhn is guilty even though he was convicted. Gunther’s quite sure that it’s an American conspiracy to destroy the Nazi Party in the United States. And as I said, between you and me, I am glad my husband has stopped being so involved. We don’t need any trouble. I thought that after Kuhn was arrested, the camps for children would be gone. But, one of my lady friends told me that a few of the summer camps are still in operation. Now, if Hans weren’t such a difficult boy, I would never consider sending him. But what can we do? He is getting into more trouble every day. I am afraid he is going to end up in prison, maybe for a long time. Who knows? Maybe his whole life. He is going in the wrong direction. And, Mr. Meister and I are too old to take hold of him. When we hired you we hoped that you would be able to straighten him out. But now we see that a young girl is not strong enough to control a boy like this. It’s not your fault. But of course, you understand that we cannot afford to keep you and send Hans off to camp too. It has to be one or the other. I am sorry.”
Alina looked down at the ground. Hilda Meister was right; she wasn’t strong enough to handle Hans. And now he was going to become another Nazi in the making, and she was going to go back to the convent as a failure. She nodded, feeling defeated.
She’d only been with the Meisters a month and already she had been fired. Alina packed her bag and left. She was not ready to face the reverend mother, who would be so disappointed in her. She would have to explain why she’d not been able to keep her job. The reverend mother would not accept her backing down from the challenge. Alina was sure she would say that Alina should have been able to handle Hans. Heartsick about her future, Alina walked through the streets, not ready to go back to the convent. The nuns would probably not send her out on another job for a long time. She might even be punished with extra chores. What was she going to do with the rest of her life? She couldn’t live in the convent forever. Some of the other girls had decided to join the order and become nuns, but this was not even a consideration for Alina. She needed time to gather her thoughts, so she stopped to sit on the ground under a large maple tree in a small park. Over the past month, she had learned a little English when she’d gone to the markets buy food for the Meisters, but she still did not know enough to get along on her own in America. Well, at least she knew her way back to the convent, so she wouldn’t have to go through the misery of finding someone who could speak enough German to give her directions. Her empty stomach growled with hunger and she wished she had something to eat. It was not good for the baby that she had not eaten in hours.. Alina sat in the park for a long time wishing she could talk to her mother about how she felt. She needed Michal now. Her body was changing with the pregnancy, and she wasn’t sure what was normal and what was not. When Alina was young, this was not how she imagined it would be when she grew up and had a family of her own. She always thought that her mama and papa would be by her side. Her husband would be excited about the arrival of his child. And all would be right with the world. But that was before Hitler had blown the top off the mountain of dreams she’d kept in her heart and turned her life into a volcano spewing hot lava. “Don’t cry,” Alina told herself. “If there is one thing you have to have learned from all of this, it is that crying doesn’t ever help anything.” Alina sighed. What was she going to do? She couldn’t talk to the nuns or the other girls about having a baby. She had been forced to tell the nuns that she was pregnant and that her husband had died on the boat to America. However, instead of the lie working in her favor it had turned everything in her world upside down. The mother superior kept insisting that she give the baby up to a rich family for adoption as soon as it was born. The very idea of losing touch with her child horrified her. This baby was all she had in the world. But what other choice did she have? She had no income. Fortunately she still had a little of the money Johan had given her, but no husband. There was only one person who might be able to help and that was Johan’s father. But Johan had warned her about him. Still, she had to try. Her mind began weighing her options. The well-worn yellowed paper with Johan’s father’s name and address was still in her bra. She’d kept it there so no one would ever find it. With trembling hands she took the paper out and read the name aloud. “Trevor Powell.” This was Johan’s biological father. She looked down at the paper and read his address. She would show the paper to strangers and ask them how to get to this location. Then once she found Trevor Powell, she would tell him everything. In exchange for his help getting settled, Alina would swear never to tell his wife about Johan. His wife need never know about his affair in Germany and the child he left behind. She wouldn’t blackmail him. She would only ask for a little help. Being devious wasn’t her way of doing things.
But instead, Alina would beg with all of her heart for him to allow her to work for him and his family as a maid so that she could have her baby and keep the child. It was farfetched. Trevor Powell would probably deny he ever had a son. He would probably throw her out and she would have wasted money for carfare. But she had to try. So, Alina, or Adelheid as she was known in America, got up and began looking for a woman who she could ask for directions. It was dangerous to approach a
man and let him know that she was alone and lost. She passed couples and men alone, but did not see a woman until she looked into the window of a coffee shop. There was a heavyset middle-aged woman with graying blond hair at the counter serving food. Alina walked in. Her mouth watered from the smell of the food. At that moment she thought about going back to the convent. At least she would be assured of something to eat. But she was so ashamed at having been let go from her job that she just couldn’t face the sisters. Sitting on a stool at the end of the counter, she waited for the waitress to come over and try to take her order. In the best English she could muster, she stumbled over the words.
“Bitte, you can help me?” Alina put the paper with the address down in front of her. “Wei kann I go to this address?”
“Let me have a look, honey,” the waitress said, taking the paper in her hand. “Let’s see. This here address is located in a pretty damned nice part of town. You can take the A train for three stops, then get off and walk three blocks to the north….”
Alina’s eyes were glued to the woman as she spoke, but Alina only understood bits and pieces of what the woman was telling her.
“You don’t understand me, do you?” The woman smiled. Then she yelled across the counter, “Anybody here speak German?”
“Who the hell would want to speak Kraut?” One of the businessmen at the counter dressed in a suit and tie said, “I hate those bastards.”
An older man sat at the counter. His hair was combed back neatly, and he wore a clean button-down shirt said, “Yeah, Doris, I speak a little German. I learned it when I fought in the Great War. What do you need?”
“This gal here needs some directions. She’s tryin’ to get to this here address, but she don’t speak English. So, I can’t help her. Can you give her a little help, Joe?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Joe’s German wasn’t perfect, but it was enough for Alina to figure out how to navigate her way to Johan’s father’s house.
“Danke, Danke so Viel,” Alina said to Doris and Joe, and then she left the restaurant and walked down the stairs to the subway station.
Twice Alina went the wrong way and got lost because she had trouble reading the signs, but by seven that evening she arrived at the home of Johan’s birth father. The house was large and well maintained, as were all of the homes on the block. This was an expensive area. They were all brick or stone with beautiful landscaped lawns. Her head ached from the full day of travel, and she wished she felt more confident in what she was about to do. If Trevor Powell sent her away, she would have to return to the convent. Soon it would be getting dark outside. And to make matters worse, she was lost. Because she’d taken such a roundabout way to get to Powell’s house, she had no idea how to get back to the convent. Sweat trickled down her armpits and pooled under her bra. Her fingers felt for the small roll of dollar bills that she’d stashed inside her bra, and once she was sure they were still there, Alina straightened her back, knocked on the door, and waited.
A tall man with a semi-bald head and slender build answered the door.“I’m sorry. I don’t want to buy anything.” “Are you Trevor Powell?”
“Who are you?” the man asked suspiciously, and Alina felt her stomach sink.
She stammered, “I can come please inside, and talk to you.”
“I am not interested.” He began to close the door.
Alina was exhausted. Her shoulders and neck were so sore that she reached up and rubbed them. She felt tears stinging behind her eyes. “Bitte … Please….”
“Who are you?” the man asked in perfect German.
“I am Alina Margolis. But, my papers say I am Adelheid Strombeck. My betrothed was Johan Strombeck. Please, I need to talk to you,” she answered in German.
The man studied her. Then he shook his head. “I should have expected this,” he said. Then to her surprise, he added, “Come in.”
“Sit down,” he said, continuing to speak to her in German. “My wife, she should rest in peace, passed on last month. If she were still alive, I would not have welcomed you in. She knew nothing about my indiscretion in Germany.”
“Johan said not to come. He said you would not help me. But I had no place else to turn.”
“And I would not have. But I guess fortune is in your favor,” he said, and his voice sounded bitter. “So, what? You need money?”
“I need help. I need work. I am pregnant with your grandson.”
The man got up and walked to the window. “Pregnant? Where is Johan?”
“He died on the ship on the way over from Germany.”
“Oh….”
“Bitte … don’t send me away….”
Trevor Powell paced the room with his hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t speak until he stopped and looked out the big picture window in the living room. Then without looking at Alina he said, “Well I suppose could use a housekeeper. My wife managed everything in the house. She supervised our housekeeper, and our cook. After she passed away, I fired them. That was an act of insanity. Of course I realize that now, but at the time, I was rather out of my mind. I just wanted to be alone. There were too many people in the house. It’s very strange, but I am still grieving my wife. When she was alive I didn’t realize how much she did for me. I suppose you can say I took her for granted. Now, I am lost without her.”
Alina looked around and noticed that although the house was not filthy, as the Meisters’ home had been, it was in disarray. She could see that he had neglected it for a while. “I could take care of your home, do the cooking, and manage things for you. I would stay out of your way. You wouldn’t even know that I was here.” Alina cast her eyes to the marble floor. “Mr. Powell, please, I need help. I desperately need a place to stay.”
“Hmmm, I suppose you could work for me. My Norma, my wife, could not be hurt by learning about my past anymore, so it really doesn’t make any difference. You don’t know the guilt I’ve felt for so long over the affair I had with Johan’s mother in Germany. Thank God, Norma never found out,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. There was a deep line between his eyebrows that grew deeper when he talked of his past.
“I would be so grateful to you…” Alina whispered, her voice trembling.
“There is a room on the second floor for the housekeeper. You see, Norma and I never had any children of our own. She loved children but she couldn’t have them. I want you to understand that it would be just you and I together in this house. How do you feel about that? Would that be all right with you? People might get the wrong impression. A young girl living alone with a man who is not her husband.”
“I don’t have the luxury to care what people say. I need a place to stay. I need work.”
“All right then. Go up the stairs, turn left, and the housekeeper’s room is the second door on your right just after the bathroom. I will pay you a small salary. Mostly your payment will be room and board. If that is alright with you, you can start work tomorrow.”
“Yes, it is wonderful. Thank you … Thank you.”
He nodded. “Yes, go now, please. I need to be alone.”
Chapter 33
Alina, 1941
Alina found life in Trevor Powell’s home to be pleasant. He was an undemanding employer. In fact he hardly spoke to her, and she was very quiet and made it a point to stay out of his way. Still, she prepared his food and kept the house immaculate. Her heart sang with gratitude for the roof over her head and the full belly for her unborn child. Trevor didn’t go out much, so he didn’t dress up very often, but when he did, she immediately pressed the shirt and trousers that he’d worn so he always looked well-dressed. Slowly, Trevor began to open up and talk to Alina. It seemed that he was beginning to enjoy having human companionship. Since he spoke perfect German they were able to converse easily. Never again did he mention his affair with Johan’s mother and Alina didn’t ask any questions. Of course she wondered how they’d met, what had happened between them. She wondered if he’d ever seen pictures of Johan
or if he’d ever even thought about him. But if she asked those questions, it could easily have changed the congenial atmosphere that Alina and Trevor shared, and she wasn’t about to lose her home over mere curiosity.
For the first two weeks, Alina was nothing but a servant to Trevor. She ate alone in the kitchen while he ate alone at the dining table. But one evening, Trevor asked her to join him for dinner in the dining room, and from that day on they took their meals together. Soon they began going for long walks in the afternoon, sometimes taking the subway to Central Park and bringing a picnic lunch. Trevor was a great deal older than Alina. Although she dared not ask his age, she assumed from Johan’s age and from Trevor’s appearance that he was somewhere around fifty. As the weeks went by, she could see in the way Trevor looked at her that he was beginning to find her attractive. Perhaps it was her youth, perhaps it was his loneliness, but Alina could see that he wanted something more from her. And because he had never really known Johan, he didn’t see her as a daughter-in-law. Instead it began to feel as if he was courting her. Alina wasn’t sure if he expected her to be his mistress or if he wanted a wife. So far he had not shown her any disrespect by attempting to take her to his bed or even to kiss her. Alina was glad for this, but she knew instinctively by the way he looked at her that it was only a matter of time. This caused her distress, because she was getting further along in her pregnancy and she knew that if she rejected him, she would risk being back out on the street.
Trevor enjoyed having the company. Since he’d lost his wife he had been drifting, in many ways even waiting for his own death so that he could join her. He’d been a terrible husband in his youth, mean sometimes, difficult, and unfaithful. In fact there had been more indiscretions than just Johan’s mother. But Johan’s mother had been the longest and most serious affair he’d had. And, as far as he knew, Johan had been his only child. But as the years rambled on, the sexual hunger that had once driven him to have affairs faded, and he and Norma became more than husband and wife-they became best friends. He sometimes wondered if she ever knew about the other women. If she did, she never mentioned them, and he never told her. But it wasn’t until she was gone that he realized how her constant presence had been a comfort to him through their years together. She’d listened to his problems, never questioned him when he traveled for months at time. The truth was Norma had loved him. No one else in his life had ever really loved him. Trevor was abandoned at birth and raised in a Catholic orphanage. He never knew his parents. But from what he had been told, it was believed that his mother was an unmarried teenager who’d abandoned him on the steps of the orphanage late one night when he was just an infant. A week before little Trevor was found on the steps, a young girl from a farm had arrived in town. She’d taken a room in a flophouse a few blocks from the orphanage. Because she was not accompanied by a man and big with child, the people in the neighborhood took notice of her. In fact she was the topic of gossip among the ladies because no one knew where she’d come from. Then, from the day that the infant was found on the steps, the girl was never seen again. This was all Trevor knew about his background. But although he was born into poverty, Trevor was not about to spend his life after the orphanage in a flophouse. He was willing to work hard, as hard as was necessary to rise above the stigma of his shameful birth. Over the years he’d made every effort to befriend important people at any cost and became involved in the building of skyscrapers. Money was his first love. But women and illicit sex were his second. When he met Norma she was young and very beautiful. But more importantly, she was from a wealthy and respected family. Trevor saw the opportunity to leave his pathetic background behind. So, he seduced her and she became pregnant. Of course this was exactly what he wanted, and he married her. If Trevor could have had it his way, he would have fallen in love with her. But instead he found himself resenting the loss of freedom that came with marriage. And because all of his success was dependent on Norma, he resented her too.
A Family Shattered: Book Two in the Michal's Destiny Series Page 16