by M. E. Kerr
Later that night he told me that if he had found Slater, he would even have given his new five-dollar fedora to him, to help with his disguise.
By then we had both heard the news that Slater Carr was dead.
There was no way we could tell Elisa. The Stadlers were not answering phones or doors.
33
BEFORE WE KNEW it, the Stadlers were gone, evacuating with the speed of disaster victims. It had taken them only two days to pack for New York City and book passage on a ship to Germany.
Four days later the postman left a small package in our mailbox addressed to me.
1 November 1934
My dearest best friend ever Jessica,
Aunt Gretchen says Omi is really ill and may even be dying! That was all Vater had to hear. You know how he loves her. Even if Slater had not made a break, we would probably be going, just not as soon as we are.
I am so upset that now he is dead, Jessica, and I sail from New York City tomorrow with him a part of the grief I feel. Slater is the first person near my own age who has died and who meant something to me. Even though I never met him, he was part of my life in America, and I will never forget him or the sound of his bugle every night.
I did not know Mr. Joy, so I do not grieve for him, but I guess the whole town does. I believe Slater did not intend to kill him. He would only kill for passion, for love. You told me that.
Mutti was determined to get us away from that “Wild West” immediately and to keep me from the inevitable sad farewell. She said it was for my own good that I did not see you.
When I ran from your house still in the prison stripes because so much happened so fast, I forgot what I had on! You can imagine how that was received by my aunt and Mutti!
Inside this package are some things for you. My father is mailing this for me because he knows how much our friendship means to us. Lord Byron, a poet I should have introduced you to, said “Friendship Is Love Without His Wings.”
I will write you every chance I get, and you must write me too. I will send you my address the moment I know it. We will not stay with Omi, because she needs a nurse and her house is too tiny. We will return sometime in early January, for Father has his work at Cornell. Even though Mutti insists we have to relocate to Ithaca, I will see you very often, every weekend. It is not that far from Cayuta.
Love and many kisses, dear friend of my life,
Elisa
P.S. At least Wolfgang Schwitter does not have to be my gigolo now because that was almost what he would have been if he had gone home with me in January. Oh, Papachen wouldn’t have paid him to go with me, but it would have been a favor to Herr Reinhardt Schwitter, so is that not the same thing?
E.
Inside the package were the dachshund pin and a book of Sara Teasdale’s poetry.
34
“WHAT IS PURR doing here?” my father wanted to know when he came down from The Hill for lunch and saw the kitten.
“She’s been here for over a week,” Mother said. “Mugshot scared her, and she was living under the couch. Is that your name for her, Purr?”
“I didn’t name her.”
“I suppose that was the killer’s name for her.”
“Never mind, Olivia.”
“Well, she is called Dietrich now. Mrs. Heinz Pickle was going to turn her loose in a field somewhere. She said cats could always get along outside. And she is supposed to be some kind of brain!”
“How did we end up with her?”
“Elisa called Richard Nolan right before they left. She told Richard the cat was hanging around the Sontags’. Mrs. Stadler wouldn’t let her in. She told the cat to find another place to live. Can you imagine?”
My father shrugged.
Mother said, “If anyone should ride up on a bicycle and ask whose fault all of this is, it’s your Mr. Carr’s fault! All of it is!”
“It’s all my fault,” my father said. “I didn’t follow the rules.”
“Oh, the rules, the rules, Arthur. He was a bad apple.”
“I should have perceived that. Horace Joy might be alive today if I had paid closer attention to Mr. Carr’s character. Mr. Carr would be too. I got derailed by his musical ability.” Then he looked across the table at me and said, “Why aren’t you eating?”
“She’s still mooning over Miss Germany,” said my mother.
In place of any wanted poster on my bedroom wall was an enormous calendar I had made of November and December 1934 and January 1935. I was crossing off the days to whatever date Elisa would return in the first month of the new year.
Daddy had been spending so much time up at the prison, I don’t think what was going on anywhere else registered with him. Mother said he was in deep trouble with the authorities because of Slater. He was in so much trouble, she did not even bawl him out for getting the old convict uniforms from the cellar, for Elisa and me to wear on Halloween.
She said, “I still can’t believe those Stadlers left without a fare-thee-well, just pffft took off, all four.”
“You mean all three.”
“The twin sister was visiting them from Germany. The grandmother is sick, I heard. They plan to bring her back.”
“That’s not why they all left, though. They all left because Mrs. Stadler thought there’d be a prison break-out,” I said.
“And you two girls were dressed up as convicts!” my mother said. “That might have made me leave too, if I had a place to go!”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” My father tried to smile at me, but the truth was I don’t think he could have smiled if his life depended on it. I had never seen him so unhappy. He was hardly ever home, and when he was, he just sat in his chair in the living room and listened to the radio.
He reached over and put his hand on mine for a moment. “I think the Stadlers were unhappy here anyway,” he said.
“They’re coming back,” I said.
“And I’m from Paris, France,” my mother said.
“They’ll be back in January,” I said.
“Well, we’ll have to have a celebration for them, complete with party hats.”
“Ollie, let up.”
My mother said, “Richard Nolan told us the grandmother really is very sick.”
“They knew that,” I said. “That didn’t make them all decide to go at once. Slater Carr loose made Mrs. Stadler a raving maniac.”
“Ohhh, shush,” said my mother. “Your father feels bad enough.”
“You’re the one nagging him about it.”
“Jess, I don’t nag. I am not a nag. If the Stadlers do plan to come back, and I’ll believe that when it snows in August, then let’s not carry on as though it’s their funeral.”
“Who said they planned to come back?” my father asked me.
“Elisa said that in her letter.”
“So it’s not that bad, sweetie.”
“How can she come back?” my mother said. “That man won’t leave his wife there, and she will not come back here! Trust me!”
“He has a job at Cornell!” I insisted.
“That’s right, he does,” said Daddy. “Where’s Seth?”
“At the Joys’,” my mother said. “Where else?”
“I still think some sort of service would have been appropriate for Horace Joy.”
“Apparently he didn’t want one. Seth said it was in his will. Upon his death no memorial of any kind. He was cremated.”
My father sighed. “Did Seth say what was in the letter Horace wrote him?”
“He said Mr. Joy gave him permission to marry J. J. when they are graduated.”
“Graduated from where?”
“High East, I guess.”
“No college?”
“Ask Seth, Arthur. I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t Horace just tell Seth that? Why write a letter?”
“Ask…Seth…all right?” said Mother. “Have you heard anything from the powers that be?”
“No. The superintendent said the b
oard will meet next month.” My dad couldn’t eat. He was pushing his chair back from the table, depression visible in his eyes, his shoulders slumped.
My mother followed him down the hall, saying she would give him a massage to relax him. She looked back at me long enough to say, “We may be leaving Cayuta too. Do you realize that, Jess? If your father gets disciplined for what your Goldilocks did, we may be packing up ourselves.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t care about anything.”
“Oh, really?” my mother said. “Then why do you ask if there’s mail for you the minute you get home from school?”
My father sighed again. He said, “Lay off it, Olivia.” Then to me he said, “Mail takes a while, you know. You could wait a month or more.”
“If Elisa Stadler writes at all,” said my mother. “Don’t hold your breath while you’re waiting.”
PART TWO
November 7, 1934
My dear best friend,
We are experiencing a rough crossing, and poor Mutti is very sick and cannot wait to be home.
I will be glad to see my Potsdam again, but also I will eagerly await a return to Cayuta and you, Jessica, knower of all scandalous secrets. Please tell Richard I will write him soon, but probably not until we are there.
I miss our picnics and going to Hoopes Park. I miss our days on Alden Avenue and even at High East, which I hated so at the beginning. I miss you most of all.
Now I wish we could have said auf Wiedersehen, but Mutti was truly afraid of anything or anyone who had something to do with the prison. You know how afraid of our friendship she was and that it would make me admire crime.
Please for me thank your mother for letting Dietrich stay with you until we are back. It would have been so much more painful to leave worrying about my kitten off in the fields looking for a home. Maybe when I come back, Dietrich and Mugshot will at last be friends. Write please! You may use Omi’s address on the back of this envelope.
With love and your eyes in stars,
xxxx Elisa
P.S. I feel bad about our poor Slater. Your father must feel awful too, because wasn’t he his pet?
P.P.S. At least I do not have to tolerate Wolfgang Schwitter patronizing me. Apparently he is involved in the opening of that Broadway musical. I forgot the name and the song, but it was something about “your eyes in stars,” which gave me the inspiration to sign this that way. I heard he was going to Harvard University but decided to take a year off. Do you see him around Cayuta?
November 29, 1934
Dear Elisa,
I got your letter today, so by now you are probably in Germany.
I do not feel bad about Slater’s death. Slater Carr may have ruined our lives. If the authorities decide to demote my father and send him someplace he cannot have a band, that will be a punishment almost too hard for my father to bear. If he is fired or sent to another prison, I will have to live somewhere else and be gone by the time you get back.
I just don’t get it. Why would Slater do such a thing after my father was so good to him? I liked poor Mr. Joy too, but I still cannot stand J. J.
Something strange is going on here, which I can’t figure out.
The other night Daddy came home very late, held up by a meeting of the prison board. Of all things, Seth was waiting up for him, and they went into the living room to talk. The two of them haven’t just sat and talked for almost a year. All I could hear was this:
—Dad? I’ve been waiting for you.
—Is everything all right, Seth?
—Do you know about the letter?
—The one from Horace Joy?
—Yes.
—Giving you permission to marry J. J.?
—Can we talk about it, Dad?
—Of course. Come into the living room.
Come into the living room, where I can’t hear anything from the stairs. And they shut the door! We never shut the living room door. So that is a big mystery. You should have heard Seth’s voice. As you would say, he sounded full of bash.
One thing I did not think that much about until I got your letter. Yes, you are right: My father must feel terrible about Slater’s death. It might bring Seth back to him, but I think (and don’t quote me) my father was fonder of Slater. I know that sounds just awful, but when you think about it, a father has to be fond of his son, but my father picked Slater out of everyone on The Hill and gave him a radio and all that away time. Now I see better, thanks to you, why he is so down in the dumps. I have never seen him this way before. Yes, his job is on the line, but that isn’t news. He was always being bawled out for being too lenient with the prisoners. This time, though, he is a basket case. Don’t ask me to translate that. Just trust me, he’s in bad shape!
I did a paper on Sara Teasdale, which I am sending you. Tell me what you think of it. Miss Hightower wanted to know if I knew what became of Sara Teasdale. I said she killed herself, and Miss Hightower said why would you pick someone who did that? I said I didn’t pick her because of that, but what was wrong with killing yourself if life is unbearable? She said if life was unbearable you should learn to have faith in God. I told her what you once said to me: that I would like to believe in God, but I would wait until there was more proof. I should have told her I used to think of doing what Sara did. Remember the time we talked about it and you said everyone had suicidal thoughts? That was the last of them for me. That feeling is gone now. Who wants to be like everyone? Besides, I hope to see YOU again, soon, I hope.
I am doing a lot of reading, mostly poetry, which I am beginning to like, and for a combined early Christmas/birthday gift I am sending you Edna St. Vincent Millay’s collected works with my composition on Teasdale. Millay is my favorite as of this moment.
I will keep writing. You must too. Does your father say when you are coming back?
Love and kisses, Jessica
P.S. Guess who sleeps with my mother at night? Dietrich! At last she has someone!
P.P.S. I do not see any of the Schwitters around town. That does not mean they aren’t here. We just don’t run into each other. Do you still think of Wolfgang that way?
December 16, 1934
My dearest best friend, Jessica,
When we arrived in Germany, we stayed with Omi in the small village outside Potsdam where I grew up. We were not prepared for the signs we saw along the road as we entered.
JUDEN UNERWÜNSCHT! Jews unwanted!
That was mild for what was ahead. I wish you knew more German, because the words sound so much harsher to my ears, but I will translate.
THOSE WITH HOOK NOSES AND KINKY HAIR SHALL NOT ENJOY OUR LAND!
WHO HELPS THE JEWS HELPS COMMUNISTS! GERMANY!
WAKE UP! GET RID OF JEW TRAITORS!
Omi says it is a temporary thing and not to pay attention. I guess she is right, for there are more pleasant surprises, and it is not all so bad here. You should see the roads! There are no billboards advertising things and no food stands, no telephone poles, no gas stations. Trucks are not allowed either. The roadsides are planted with shrubs and trees, and grass strips divide the two ways of traffic, all kept immaculately.
I will write you in more detail when I have time, for we are looking for an apartment in Berlin. Mother thinks Omi is too ill to travel just now, and she must be out of her house next month. Do not worry, because I intend to return to America with Father. I will be company for Papachen, and we will be back across the street at least until school is out. He does not now mention finding a house nearer Cornell either, plus we have paid the Sontags rent already for months ahead.
How is Dietrich? I hope your mother will not be too fond of her, so when we return, I will be able to retrieve her.
Please tell Richard I think of him often and will write him when we get settled. Now, I write only you. My father said Richard could have been arrested for aiding the escape of a prisoner if he had found Slater that day. I love Richard for that.
I understand that you can’t forgiv
e Slater. I believe he was trying for his freedom and was caught attempting to steal Mr. Joy’s car. Vater says the gunfight that ensued killed them both. Do you know any more about the letter Mr. Joy wrote to Seth? What could he have said?