And After the Fire

by Lauren Belfer

  Next: the art exhibit in the former “delousing” building. This was a collection of drawings created at the camp. In exchange for food or a bit of money, the guards hired artistically talented inmates to draw portraits to send to their families. In these portraits, the young SS recruits were handsome, innocent, and eager-looking, reminding Dan of himself when he was eighteen. Mothers, wives, and girlfriends must have received the portraits with gratitude. The gulf between the ordinary-looking youths in the drawings and what they’d done here was incomprehensible.

  Dan and Susanna entered the museum, organized in the former warehouse used for sorting the stolen possessions of the prisoners. The exhibition began by presenting the context of fascism. Posters bore the Nazi slogan “Deutschland erwache, Juda verrecke!” This meant, “Wake up, Germans, die, Jews!”—awful enough, but Dan knew, further, that Verrecken was the verb for the death of animals, while Sterben was used for the death of humans. So the posters proclaimed that Jews were animals who should die. He glanced at Susanna, also studying the posters. He didn’t enlighten her by explaining the linguistic distinction. Susanna, slaughtered like an animal.

  The English captions on the displays were brief and gave overviews, not specifics. Dan had the curse of being able to read German, so he knew fully what the original documents said. Innumerable, mundane regulations governed life in the camp, for prisoners and guards both. The documents revealed an excruciating attention to detail. Some documents he translated for Susanna. Most, he spared her.

  As they left the museum, they saw Reverend Mueller standing at Exhibit 3.1, Barrack Life. As they approached him, he must have heard their footsteps. He turned to look at them. Dan thought Mueller looked devastated. A big man, collapsed in on himself. Bereft. As they came closer, Mueller waved a hand before him, not a welcoming wave, but a rebuff. He shook his head sharply no. His earbuds were hanging loose from his jacket pocket, where his iPod must be stored. He turned away.

  Dan and Susanna said nothing and left.

  What was there to say?

  Dan and Susanna got off the bus at Goetheplatz in central Weimar. They walked along the curving cobblestone streets with their eighteenth-century buildings meticulously, lovingly restored after the Allied bombing, the fires, and the battle for the town. Today Weimar was as captivating as it must have been long ago.

  Dan felt numb. Drained. “What should we do now?” The question was both global and particular: how to integrate what he’d seen at the camp into his thoughts and feelings, into his life, as well as how to fill the next hour.

  “Let’s go to a café and have coffee and cake,” Susanna said. “To celebrate the fact that we’re alive.”

  “That you’re alive.”

  “Both of us. Walking these streets together.”

  They found a café off the main square, in a shaded garden. He enjoyed the tart-sweet flavor of the apricot Kuchen they shared. He drank the marvelously bitter coffee. He greeted several colleagues from the Leipzig conference who were also visiting Weimar and strolling through the town. Jeremy Meyers offered him two extra tickets to tomorrow evening’s harpsichord recital by Bob van Asperen at the Weimar Conservatory, which Dan readily accepted.

  The older men and women stared frankly at Susanna, but by now Dan was accustomed to this. He and Susanna laughed about it and stared back until their fellow coffee drinkers looked away.

  Tomorrow, they’d search for the house where Henry found the cantata. Depending on what they found—and Dan was prepared for them to find anything from a vacant lot to an apartment complex—they’d go to the municipal archives to trace ownership deeds. They’d review online records. Might they find someone to whom they were obligated to return the cantata? Might they uncover other such artifacts that had survived? He was impatient to learn the answers.

  In three days, they’d return to Berlin. From Berlin, they’d fly back to the States, Susanna to New York and Dan to Chicago. In Chicago he’d change planes and travel to St. Paul, Minnesota, to his sister’s home, where Becky was waiting.

  Without conscious intention, he slipped into an alternate sphere, travel mode: determining what to take into the airplane cabin and what to check in his bag; figuring out how much time he’d have between flights. He saw himself renting a car, reuniting with Becky, and joining Julie’s family, as they did every summer, for a week of camping on the shores of one of Minnesota’s glistening lakes. Logistics pressed upon him.

  He was taken aback by how fast all this swarmed into his mind. In the past weeks, he’d been living in the moment, out of time.

  He looked at Susanna. They had decisions to make.

  Or perhaps not. When they returned home and resumed their old lives, they would know how things stood between them. Nothing needed to be said now. No promises could be made, today, that would mean anything afterward. He studied her. She sipped her coffee. She stared into the distance. He didn’t want to leave her. The ache of missing her filled him already.

  Tonight they had tickets for a Vivaldi concert, with the brilliant Amandine Beyer playing the violin. A summer music festival was in progress. Weimar was a UNESCO World Heritage site, teeming with culture.

  And yet not so long ago the ashes from the crematorium at Buchenwald had blown across the central square on windy days, dusting the windowsills and sidewalks, the trees and gardens, and the tables at the outdoor cafés of the town’s supposedly unaware citizens.

  Hours later, in her robe after a bath, Susanna sat on the window seat in their hotel room. The casement window was open to the cool night air.

  Dan, catching up on e-mail, sat at the desk with his laptop. The Chopin nocturnes played on his iPod, through portable speakers. The music was filled with melancholy.

  She understood Uncle Henry better now . . . trying to live on, after confronting the worst that humanity can do.

  “Almost finished,” Dan said. “Just one more e-mail: Becky’s cat keeps sneezing—okay, it’s my cat, too—and the house sitter wants my approval to take him to the vet.”

  Studying Dan, Susanna saw herself in New York, returning to her apartment, resuming work, seeing friends. She couldn’t imagine herself as a suburban wife in Granville, Pennsylvania. And yet, she loved him. For nearly three weeks, she and Dan had been living outside their normal lives. Soon the reckoning would begin.

  “Ready for bed?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He closed the computer. She watched him as he undressed, unbuttoning his shirt, placing it on the back of a chair. Undoing his belt. Removing his trousers, socks, underwear, until he was naked before her. Desire cut through her.

  Susanna turned out the lights. The Chopin nocturnes serenaded them. She opened the curtains at each window, and opened each casement, so that they’d wake in the morning surrounded by fresh air and sunshine. She joined Dan in bed. They made love slowly, gently, filled with gratitude for each other. Afterward, still linked, he eased her to her side so they lay enwrapped.

  Susanna felt him pull her closer even as she pushed herself more tightly against him. Sorrow filled her, as she anticipated what the coming days would bring.

  Chapter 46

  WEIMAR, AMERICAN-OCCUPIED GERMANY

  May 1945

  Grossmutter Lena was dead. She lay in the big bed in the room that Herr and Frau Gensler had shared. Her vacant eyes stared at the ceiling.

  Eva pressed Lena’s eyelids closed. When she took her hand away, Lena’s eyes opened again. Two pennies—that’s what Eva was supposed to use, to keep Lena’s eyelids closed. But wasting two pennies that Eva might need later . . . Lena wouldn’t want her to do that. Eva pulled up the sheet to cover Lena’s face, unveiling Lena’s bluish feet. That wasn’t good, either, but it was the best Eva could do.

  For weeks, Lena had been experiencing pain in her chest and trouble catching her breath on the stairs. Her ankles had been swollen. No doctor could help with everyday complaints like that, especially in an old person. Doctors had more important problems to de
al with, like amputating arms and legs that had been blown up or mangled.

  Eva had stayed with Lena throughout the night, sitting in this very chair beside the bed, holding Lena’s hand as she moved in and out of sleep. Lena had called Eva’s name and told her things that Eva couldn’t understand. Eva didn’t want to interrupt Lena and ask her to repeat herself. The electricity was off and they’d already burned all the candles, so Eva had made her vigil in darkness.

  This afternoon, when Lena was sleeping peacefully, Eva had gone downstairs. She’d boiled water in the kettle in the fireplace and pretended it was tea. She was lucky to have the water. She’d filled a bucket from a neighbor’s well the day before.

  With her tea, she’d gone outside to sit in the sun. Lena had used the time to die, as if she wanted to spare Eva the moment of her passing. Or maybe Lena simply needed to be alone, to let go of earth’s bonds.

  What now? Eva knew she should venture out to try to find someone to take Lena’s body away, or to help Eva bury her in the garden. Eva had seen enough of death in the past few months to know that you couldn’t leave a dead body on a bed for more than a few hours without gruesome results.

  Yes, Eva reflected, she was practical now. She was fifteen, almost a grown-up, and she was past crying. Lena was in a better place. On her way to Heaven. Eva would miss her grandmother, but didn’t begrudge Lena her good luck.

  For a time they’d both had good luck. After the Genslers went away, their friend Colonel Stefan Rukeyser took over the house. He brought his wife and his wife’s younger sister whose husband had died in the war, plus the wife of their son who was in the Luftwaffe, and their three grandchildren. The house was big enough for all of them.

  Colonel Rukeyser’s wife, whose name was Monika, kept Lena on. Lena was indispensible, that’s what Frau Rukeyser told her friends who visited. Lena knew the house, she was an excellent cook when food was available (the Rukeysers had access to special shopping), and even when food became scarce, Lena knew how to improvise. When the Rukeysers ate well, Lena and Eva ate well, too, feasting on leftovers. Eva attended school as usual, and she grew to become a star at math. Lena was proud of her—not that doing mathematics was good for anything, Lena also said. Eva would have to work for a living like everybody else, and she’d best get started on the laundry. At school, Eva met several boys she liked, but one by one they went away to fight.

  A month ago, Eva and Lena woke up one morning and the Rukeysers were gone. They didn’t even leave Lena’s final wages. For weeks, Lena had been working for nothing. Gradually the entire street became deserted, except for servants.

  After this, Lena and Eva decided that if the war was almost over, they might as well live in luxury until the Russians or the Americans arrived. Lena took over the master suite, with its silken sheets. Eva took the second bedroom, overlooking the garden. She enjoyed a bath every night while they had running water. She wrapped herself in thick towels. She dressed in the clothes left behind by the women of the house.

  When the electricity went off, Lena and Eva sat in the dining room with candlelight, whether they had food or not, until the candles were used up. Afterward a fire in the solarium fireplace took the chill off the evening air, or so Lena said, even if they had to burn books. They didn’t have firewood, and no one was going to be delivering any. Luckily, Lena had collected a large supply of matches, enough to last for years if they kept them dry and used them wisely.

  Eva didn’t go out to meet her friends. The streets weren’t safe. She couldn’t leave Lena alone, that’s what she told friends who visited, so they wouldn’t tease her about being afraid.

  And she was afraid, of this street with its big, dark houses. Of the thieves who might be peering into the windows, searching for food. She was afraid of the town down the hill, pocked by bombs. She’d seen dead bodies on the streets. She’d heard whispers about the camp called Buchenwald. Eva had gone on school outings to the forests near there, hiking and picnicking. Now the whispers said that if the Jews got free, they’d take vicious revenge. That’s the kind of people they were. Despicable criminals and Communists, the whole lot of them. They’d murder and steal from any German they could find. As everyone knew, that was the nature of Jews. Except for Frau and Herr Gensler, Eva always said to herself when she heard such talk: the Genslers were different. They weren’t like other Jews.

  A sound, from downstairs. Footsteps. Muffled conversation.

  Friends? Thieves?

  Eva took her pistol from the bedside table. It wasn’t really her pistol. It had belonged to Frau Rukeyser. She’d left it behind in its hiding place, pushed to the back of the top shelf of the bedroom closet, where her grandchildren couldn’t reach it. No doubt she’d regretted her forgetfulness later.

  Eva went to the top of the stairs. Men were talking below, in a language she didn’t understand. Whoever they were, they must be stealing. She wouldn’t allow it—not from her house. Now that everyone else was gone, it was her house. Her home.

  She had to protect it from the enemy.

  Chapter 47

  Dan parked their rental car across the street, and they peered at the house.

  “This has to be it,” Susanna said, again checking the map and directions Henry had given her. She’d expected the house to be a ruin, or at least shabby and decrepit, if it existed at all. Instead it was resplendent, with a mansard roof, modern windows, and luxuriant landscaping. It was a well-maintained mansion, surrounded by other mansions. The scent of pine trees filled the air.

  They got out of the car. Two BMWs were parked at the curb in front of the house, so presumably someone was home.

  Susanna felt paralyzed, here at the final stop. Her practicality deserted her.

  “Come on,” Dan said, squeezing her shoulder. “Whatever we find out or don’t find out, everything will be all right. In a half hour, it will be over.”

  He took her hand. With Dan leading the way, they walked to the front door. Dan pushed the doorbell. Susanna heard it ringing inside. No response. He tried again. Still no response.

  “They might be in the garden,” he said.

  They opened the gate in the low fence and walked around the house. They heard the voices of children playing. When they reached the back lawn, Susanna saw six children, two uniformed nannies, and one mother (or so Susanna concluded, because the third woman wasn’t wearing a uniform).

  Seeing them, the mother called, a question in her voice, “Guten Tag.”

  “Let’s stay here,” Dan whispered, “so we don’t scare her.”

  The woman was hurrying over to them. “Darf ich Ihnen helfen?” She was about thirty or thirty-five—my age, Susanna realized, although she was different from Susanna: she was blond, tanned, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a white short-sleeved blouse and tan Capri pants.

  “Wir sind Amerikaner,” Dan said.

  Susanna imagined how they must look to the woman: Dan in an oxford shirt and chinos, Susanna in her traveling outfit of black skirt and blue tee, sweater around her shoulders, both of them looking like staid middle-class Americans.

  “Ah, welcome to Weimar,” the woman said, switching to English. “How may I help you?” She spoke American English with only a trace of a German accent.

  “Forgive us for disturbing you. We’re on a voyage of discovery, is the best way to describe it,” Dan said.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Daniel Erhardt.” Instead of reaching to shake her hand, he took out his wallet and gave her his card. “I’m a professor in America.”

  The woman read the card. “Professor Daniel Erhardt.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Welcome. I’m Inge Oberweger.” They shook hands.

  Dan had told Susanna that the title Professor opened doors in Germany, but she was surprised to see how true this was.

  “And you’re a professor of music—that sounds like fun.”

  “I’ve been lucky.”

  “I spent a year at Bryn Mawr Colleg
e as an exchange student. I visited Granville once or twice. It’s beautiful.”

  “Yes, it is beautiful. Thank you for saying. Bryn Mawr is beautiful, too.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “This is my companion, Susanna Kessler.”

  The woman hesitated for a fraction of a second—or was this Susanna’s imagination?—before reaching out to shake her hand.

  “What brings you here?”

  “Susanna is trying to trace something that happened in the war. To her family.”

  Susanna heard Dan choosing his words with care.

  “Your family was here?” Inge said to Susanna.

  Was Susanna imagining things, or was Inge caught off guard? Parsing this, Susanna said nothing.

  “Yes,” Dan said for her.

  “My husband and I knew when we bought this home that Jews had once owned it, but we followed the proper procedures. We did all the required investigations related to restitution.”

  Of course: as in the breakfast room of the Hotel Elephant, Susanna didn’t have to identify herself as Jewish, for Inge to know. Germany wasn’t like America, the supposed melting pot (except if you were black or Muslim). Germany was a homogeneous society and others stuck out.

  “The process was very thorough,” Inge was saying, as if defending herself. “We hired a researcher to help us. We discovered that a married couple had owned the house before and during the war. The husband was a jurist here in Weimar, quite prominent. Ernst Gensler was his name. His wife was a pediatrician. Dr. Gertrude Gensler.”

  Now Susanna had their names. She could almost imagine them, sitting here on the terrace.

  “They’d inherited the house from her father, who was also a physician. Dr. Joseph Werner. The husband and wife disappeared during the war.”