by Robert Elmer
“Now you have.” Liesl’s father wiped his mouth with his napkin and scooted his chair back. “And I have to meet a client in,” he glanced at his watch as he stood, “twenty minutes.”
“I’ll clean up,” Liesl volunteered.
“Danke, Schatzi.” Her mother smiled and gave her a peck on the forehead. She didn’t call her sweetie very often. “You’ll be okay by yourself tonight? Neither of us will be home too late.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me.” Liesl did her best to sound breezy, maybe a little breezier than she should have. “I’ll be fine, really. Take your time.”
She still didn’t know whether she had the courage to go back to the church, though. Weren’t those kids doing something, though? Not just talking and talking about it.
Maybe she’d go just for a few minutes. Maybe they really thought she was sixteen.
9
KAPITEL NEUN
INSANE
“Slow down, Mark!” Mrs. Wilder dug her fingernails into the dashboard of the little rental car. “We’re all going to die!”
“Nobody’s going to die.” Nick’s dad clutched the wheel and pulled around a slower truck in the right lane. “Just relax. This is the autobahn, remember? No speed limits on this highway.”
“Are you sure?” She peeked over at the dashboard. “We’re going 120!”
“That’s kilometers, Mom.” Nick thought he’d add that bit of helpful information as he pointed at the speedometer. “And since there are 1.6 kilometers in a mile, we’re going way slower than that in miles per hour.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” His mom still covered her eyes, as if she expected to crash any moment — or to take flight.
“Smart kid.” Nick’s father grinned. But Nick couldn’t remember holding on to the back of the seat this tightly, either. He looked down at his white knuckles and tried to convince himself to let go, one finger at a time.
“Uh, Dad, maybe we should slow d — ”
Whoooosh!
Something flashed by them on the right, a blur of black metal that nearly spun them off the road. Nick’s mother screamed and Nick reflexively ducked his head.
“What was that?” Nick looked up as the back end of a car disappeared down the highway ahead of them. His father wrestled the little car to the side of the highway and screeched to a stop. His parents looked at each other as if they’d seen a ghost.
Actually it had looked like a Mercedes. That, or a low-flying Air Force jet.
“Okay,” Mark Wilder said, taking a deep breath and putting the car back in gear. “No harm if we get to our hotel a few minutes later.”
For the rest of the trip they practically rolled down the shoulder of the autobahn, and even the delivery trucks honked at them as they passed by. At least Nick’s mom started smiling again, once in a while.
“You have the address of the office where you want to take your chalice?” she asked Nick, and he nodded.
“I’ve got it. But I’m thinking there’s no way anyone will be there. Seems like most offices are closed on Saturdays.”
“I apologized for that. I couldn’t arrange as much time off as I’d hoped.” His father didn’t take his eyes off the highway as he spoke, and he kept the speedometer needle glued to thirty-five. That would be thirty-five kilometers per hour, which would of course be a lot slower in miles per hour. With the window rolled down he waved for a farm tractor behind them to pass.
“You can go a little faster, now,” Nick’s mom whispered, “can’t you, dear?”
“Slower, faster — ” Nick’s dad pressed his lips together and kept his eyes on the road. The little car shook every time another autobahn racer flew by, and the speedometer nudged up to forty kilometers per hour. Nick took up a post as the tailman, watching out the back window and warning them every time a high-speed car approached.
“We’ll get there, Dad.”
And they did — over an hour later, and after asking directions no fewer than three times.
“Don’t know how anybody finds anything in this crazy city,” the master sergeant mumbled. But the tree-lined streets, the huge stone churches, and the busy shopping districts made the trip worthwhile. After circling for what seemed like hours, they finally pulled up in front of an average-looking three-story office and apartment building next to one of the city’s churches.
“This is the right place?” Nick squinted at the brass sign next to the main entry, trying to read the ten-foot-long German word: “Versöhningskirche — ”
“Forget it. You’ll never get the pronunciation right. This is the place.” Nick’s dad climbed out and led the way to the front door, while Nick grabbed Fred’s cup and followed. He hoped they’d find someone.
Nick’s dad tested the door, and a moment later they were standing at a reception desk, wondering what to say to the twenty-something woman sitting behind it. A nameplate announced her as Renate Schultz.
“I’m sorry,” she told them in English. Did they look that American? “We’re not open today. I didn’t mean to leave the front door unlocked.”
“That’s okay, Miss, uh — ” Nick’s dad looked down at the nameplate. “Fraulein Schultz. We expected to get here yesterday, but we ran into a little bit of a delay. Anyway, we’d just like to leave something that belongs, well — Nick, you explain it to the fraulein. This is your thing.”
Nick cleared his throat and began to unwrap the treasure.
“A girl named Liesl Stumpff wrote that we should just drop it off here.” He held up the cup briefly. “See, a friend gave it to me back home, and it’s kind of a long story.” He stumbled on, wondering how much to say. “But we thought it might belong here, so that’s why we decided to bring it.”
The young woman stared at them with wide eyes as she took the cup. “You’ve come such a long way, all the way to West Berlin — just to bring this?”
“Oh!” Nick understood what she meant. “No, actually my dad just got assigned to Rhein-Main Air Base, and we brought this ourselves, since we were already here. So it wasn’t out of our way or anything, well, except maybe this little trip to West Berlin, which isn’t really that far, except we almost got killed on the highway. Those cars were just booking past us. I mean, people drive fast back home in Wyoming, but this is nuts! This is like a Mercedes-Benz test track or something. You know what I’m saying?”
The woman paused for a minute before blinking and nodding, as if it took a little while to catch up with Nick’s words. “Of course,” she said then. She taped a note to the package and tucked it behind her inbox. “I will be sure to tell Frau Stumpff that you stopped by. And I am sure she will appreciate it very much.”
Okay, then. What else could they say? Nick smiled and his step felt tons lighter than when they’d come.
“Mission accomplished, huh?” his dad said with a grin and a salute as they folded themselves back into the little car where Nick’s mom waited for them.
“Right.” Nick saluted back, glad that he had delivered Fred’s — well, whatever it really was. He would write him back and tell him the cup made it back to the Reconciliation people. Back where it probably belonged in the first place, the way Fred had said it did. But still he couldn’t help wondering why it had been so important to Fred.
Was that really all there was to it?
10
KAPITEL ZEHN
QUARK
Liesl looked at herself in the mirror and smoothed her hair back once more. There. Not bad. If she decided to show up at the meeting with all the older teens again, she figured she’d better look the part. A little touch of lipstick, maybe? No, forget it. With a quick glance around the room she started for the front door, just as someone buzzed the intercom from downstairs.
“Oh!” She hadn’t expected anyone tonight, had she? She pressed the intercom’s talk button and said, “Hello?”
“Liesl, it’s Renate, from your mother’s office. Is she in?”
Liesl explained about her parents’ mee
tings. She liked Renate Schultz, but she didn’t know her well.
“Well, I had planned to leave this until Monday,” Renate explained, “but I’ve got something kind of unusual. Do you mind if I come up?”
Intrigued, Liesl pushed the buzzer that unlocked the street door and waited while her mother’s secretary hurried up the stairs to their apartment. As soon as she entered, she carefully unwrapped a parcel.
“The boy unwrapped it and showed me, I didn’t. Honestly.” Renate looked at the floor as she stood just inside the apartment door. “At first I thought it was none of my business, and the boy with his father looked perfectly normal. A little nervous, but normal. But you never know these days. It could have been something — well, you know, criminal, Or it might be something important to your mother.”
But as Renate spoke, Liesl stared at the chalice and at the ornate inscription. She sat down hardly believing she read it correctly.
“Could you read this for me, bitte?” she asked Renate. Because maybe she was just imagining.
“Sure. Of course.” Renate took the chalice, balancing it carefully in her hands, and held it up to the light. “It’s very pretty, don’t you think? I wondered if it could be valuable, which is why I thought I should bring it over tonight, rather than leave it in the office until Monday.”
“The inscription. Please, what do you see?”
Liesl needed to hear it from someone else’s lips, just to be sure it actually said what she thought it said.
“Oh, right.” Renate squinted. The inscription took some concentration. “It says, ‘Presented to Reverend Ulrich Becker, Reconciliation Church, 12 June 1936.’ ”
The secretary looked up and handed the chalice to Liesl.
“I can’t believe it,” mumbled Liesl as she traced the inscription with her finger.
“Yes, it’s a very nice artifact, isn’t it? I feel better knowing it’s not in the office over the weekend. You’ll tell your mother when she returns home that I made an extra effort to — ”
“My grandfather.” Liesl didn’t mean to interrupt. She just couldn’t help herself as the name Ulrich Becker rang in her ears. The secretary stopped mid-sentence and looked from Liesl to the chalice, then back again.
“Pardon me? Your grandfather?”
Oh! Liesl bit her tongue, wondering how much she should tell this woman. But yes, she had said it. The other grandfather, the one she had known about, Onkel Erich’s father. He was Oma Brigitte’s first husband — who had also died young, during World War 2, before she had met the American. Liesl only nodded.
“I had no idea.” Renate ran her fingers through her dark hair and studied the chalice once more. “And I even work at the Reconciliation Church Remembrance Society.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Mutti hasn’t told me much, either.”
“Then how — ”
“I started asking questions for a history paper. I’m starting to learn a lot more than I expected.”
“Hmm, yes. I’d like to see that paper sometime.” Renate headed for the door, but stopped short.
“I’ll be sure to tell Mutti how much of a help you’ve been,” Liesl said.
“Oh, it’s not that. I was just thinking. They said the package was from a ‘friend.’ But I think maybe they just wanted us to believe it was from someone else.”
“You don’t believe them?”
“They’re Americans, you know. Big talk, little do. And if you ask me, they had something to hide. I think they wrote the note, too, then made up that story to point the finger at someone else.”
“The note?”
“Oh! I almost forgot.” Renate reached into her purse and pulled out a small piece of paper, ragged around the edges. “This was taped to the outside of the package. I put it in my purse so it wouldn’t get lost. You understand, I’m not trying to be nosey, of course, but — ”
Liesl barely heard her. Her hand shook as she took the paper and read the tiny, precise handwriting: “Sorry for taking so long. I hope this belongs to you. Signed, a friend.”
What? Liesl turned the little note over and over again.
“See what I mean?” Renate sounded sure of herself now. “Just a phony note to cover themselves.”
“How can we get in touch with them?” Liesl asked. She had to know. She thought back to the note her mother had gotten from the American boy, Nick something. He must have delivered the tiny cup. She rolled the note around in her hand, looking for clues.
“I didn’t think to ask.” Renate cleared her throat and started out the door. “They didn’t actually say very much to me. Only that they were staying in the city on holiday. And that the father is stationed at Rhein-Main. Of course, who can believe that? After all, they’re — ”
“Americans, yes, I know,” Liesl repeated.
She’d forgotten all about the protest meeting.
11
KAPITEL ELF
FALSE REPORT
This is getting complicated, Liesl thought as she stood outside the impressive compound at Clay-allee 170. According to the bronze sign over the door, the old building housed the General Lucius D. Clay United States Headquarters. Oh, and the American embassy, complete with grim-faced U.S. Marine guards who stood at attention inside the main entrance. Liesl guessed the only rifle that wasn’t loaded was the one held by the American soldier in the bronze statue, also inside the high-ceilinged reception hall.
But she couldn’t think of any other way to get what she needed for her paper. Sure, Oma Brigitte had told her bits and pieces, and Onkel Erich had finally mailed her a few newspaper clippings about his experiences with her grandfather, Fred DeWitt, as a “Candy Bomber.” Maybe DeWitt had even worked in this building once. But she had to know more than just maybe. Ever since they’d received Ulrich Becker’s communion chalice, she’d felt driven to put together the pieces — all the pieces.
Because if she didn’t, she knew nobody else would. And the chalice had turned a simple school paper into a tantalizing mystery. So she took a deep breath and stepped up to the nearest marine.
I can do this, she reminded herself. In her mind, she heard Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, the old American Civil War movie she’d seen at least ten times.
“Excyuuuuz me?” She poured on her best Southern U.S. accent, the one she’d been practicing for months in front of the mirror. “But can ya’ll die-wrecked me to summun who kin help me dig up sumthin ’on a relashin o ’mine?”
She smiled as sweetly as she could and held her breath. That’s how Scarlett did it. Or at least she thought so.
But the tall American soldier only looked down at her, obviously puzzled.
“I’m really sorry,” he told her, “but I don’t think I understood a word you just said. Do you speak English?”
“I reckon that wuuuzz Englush.” She would try one more time. “And I’m lookin’ for some infoMAYshun.”
The marine rubbed his chin and looked around, then waved another man over to join him.
“Hey, Rickles! You gotta come listen to this! Sounds like a bad recording of Jimmy Dean played backward. Totally bizarre. Maybe you can make it out.”
A moment later the two soldiers huddled over her, and she realized she couldn’t back down now. Bravely she tried to tone down the Scarlett and convince them to let her talk with someone inside.
“I get it!” Marine Number 2 finally said. He looked at Marine Number 1. “I think she wants to know about a relative of some kind who was killed in a plane wreck — one of ours — back in the forties.”
Marine Number 1 seemed to ponder this. Then he turned to Liesl and said, “That’s military, Miss. We can’t help you with that. You understand?”
Liesl nodded but decided these guys would help her whether they liked it or not. She stood her ground until Marine Number 2 finally gave up and led her inside. “None of us were even born back then, you understand,” the told her over his shoulder. “But maybe Mr. Marshall can help you find what you’re lo
oking for.”
Mr. Marshall turned out to be Mr. Thurman Marshall, press attaché, who politely removed his feet from his desk and stubbed out his cigar when she entered his office.
“Sorry about the smoke.” He waved his hand then cleared a pile of foreign-language newspapers from a chair before he motioned for her to sit. “What can I do for you?”
This time Liesl decided to leave Scarlett behind, and Mr. Marshall nodded as she explained her story.
“So you’re looking for the scoop on this DeWitt fellow, sorry, I mean, your grandpa, and you think he died back in ’48?”
She nodded and showed him the notes she had taken when she’d talked to Onkel Erich.
“Here’s the date.” She pointed. “What my onkel told me.”
He took the notes and held up a finger, picked up the phone, and dialed out. A few minutes later he sat chatting with his friend somewhere, talking baseball — how ’bout them Yankees — about the mess old Reagan’s speech was still causing, and oh, yeah, can you dig something up in your archives for me?
He nodded and scribbled, scribbled and nodded. Waited a few minutes, then asked, “Are you sure?” Finally Mr. Marshall thanked his friend, hung up the phone, and held up his hands.
“Well, that wasn’t so hard,” he told her. “That was big news back in ’48. Fella I talked to remembered everything.”
“About my grandfather?” She leaned forward.
“That’s the funny part. My guy said three men died in that crash.” He looked at his notes again. “Zablowski, Aimes, and Nicholson. No DeWitt.”
“You’re sure about that?” Liesl asked, puzzled.
“Everything else lines up.” He waved his hand across the notes she’d given him. “The crash, the place, the plane. We’re talking the same one, all right.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear about him because he didn’t die until a few days later?”
“Maybe. But Zablowski was apparently in the hospital for three weeks. Either your grandpa didn’t die the way they said he did, or — ”