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by Randy Wayne White

  We were upstairs, standing at a wall that was a museum of photos. Nearly all black-and-whites. They documented the vacation activities of the three family branches—Dorn, Engle, and Brusthoff—who shared this beach house, Southwind.

  “Marlissa was my godmother,” Chestra said. “I was an infant when she died, but she’s remained an important figure in my life. Why shouldn’t I get involved now? I can afford it. I’m not the kind of gal who sits back and expects the world to come to me. At this stage of life?” She left that out there, but didn’t seem to be fishing for compliments.

  I said, “There’re a lot of wrecks in the Gulf of Mexico. What makes you think this is the one? Why would you associate your godmother with Nazi artifacts—”

  “I’m not certain, of course. I don’t know…it’s a feeling I have. Legends invite all sorts of theories, from the silly to the possible. I’ll show you one possible explanation.” She had a scarf in her hand, and motioned for me to follow. We crossed before the open balcony to another section of wall, where she pointed to a photo of two men. One was dark-haired, with a pointed, ferret face. Beside him was a younger man, tall and blond, with a prominent jaw and nose.

  Chestra touched her finger to a second photo: the same dark-haired man was there; the blond man behind him, a drink tray in one hand, a towel draped over his arm. The dark-haired man was sitting next to a good-looking guy wearing jodhpurs and a leather flight jacket.

  Surprised, I said, “That’s Charles Lindbergh,” having already realized who the dark-haired man was.

  Chestra said, “That’s right, and Henry Ford’s beside him. I live in Manhattan, so it isn’t snobbery when I say I don’t consider this area to be, well…metropolitan. In those years, though—these photos are from the 1930s and ’40s, I think—Sanibel, Naples, Sarasota were all small towns. Everyone knew each other. The famous and the not-so-famous. Saw each other in stores; went to the same dances.”

  I almost asked, but stopped myself. She interpreted my uneasiness correctly, though, and answered. “No, I’m not telling you this stuff from memory. Kiddo, I’m well aware I’m not a girl anymore, but I’m not so blasted old that I was attending dances in nineteen forty.”

  She touched her hand to my chest, silencing my apology. “I inherited Marlissa’s diaries. She was a marvelous writer, and I’ve read them all many times.

  “That’s how I know that the handsome young blond gentleman in the photo worked as a jack-of-all-trades in the area, including some part-time jobs for the Ford estate. You’ve seen Henry Ford’s house, of course, next to Edison’s estate, on the river in Fort Myers.”

  This was like listening to Arlis, but without the irritating jabber.

  “The blond gentleman was German. From Munich, I think. His name was Frederick Roth.”

  “I see.”

  “He was also my aunt Marlissa’s lover—not something she revealed anywhere but in her diary. This was during an era, of course, when it wasn’t proper for young ladies to have lovers.

  “Marlissa and Frederick met coincidentally aboard the ocean liner Normandie. They were both making the transatlantic crossing to America to start new lives. He worked in the ship’s kitchen; Marlissa was in a first-class cabin.

  “The crossing took several nights in those days, if the weather was bad. And the weather was bad.” Chestra’s expression was dreamy and distant. “Have you seen photographs of the Normandie? She was the most luxurious ship of her time. Marble floors and rare wood; formal dances in halls with orchestras and ice sculptures. My godmother had a sly way of writing. Certain letters meant certain words. It took me years to figure out her…code, would you call it?” The woman smiled. “I gather that Frederick was a very good dancer…and a wonderful lover.”

  She added, “The night my aunt was killed, when her boat sank off Sanibel, Frederick was aboard with her. That’s how the story goes, anyway. Marlissa’s body washed up on the beach. His body was never found.”

  The woman looked toward the open balcony, hearing storm waves rumble ashore. Her smile became bittersweet: See? Isn’t it romantic?

  I still didn’t know why she felt there was some connection with the artifacts. I also wanted to hear why her godmother and lover were twelve miles offshore at night, during a storm. It was a nice story, but it didn’t make sense.

  “You’re saying that the Nazi medals we found belonged to Frederick Roth?” I found it improbable. Diamonds weren’t the sort of thing awarded even for combat heroics, and the man in the photograph was too young to earn medals for anything else.

  “No. I’m not saying that at all. Frederick and Marlissa came to America a couple of years before the war started.”

  “Then I don’t see the connection. He didn’t return to Germany?”

  “They both remained in America. He worked, sometimes at the Ford estate, and Marlissa wintered on Sanibel. Sometimes spent the entire year. Here, in this house. They wanted to be married.

  “According to Marlissa’s diary, Freddy—that’s the way she referred to him sometimes, ‘Freddy’—he was determined to make a fortune so her family would accept him.” Chestra’s tone became sardonic. “Money is the great unifier, is it not? It’s the only religion that offers heaven on earth.”

  Roth believed that Florida real estate was the fastest way to get rich, she told me. During those years, fishing and farming were the main sources of income in the area, supplemented by tourism. Farmland was valuable, bay frontage less so, but it was still much preferred to beachfront.

  Because I knew it was true, I nodded as she said, “Apparently, locals thought beach frontage was worthless. It was sandy, hot, buggy. A garden won’t grow near a beach, and you can’t dock a boat because of the waves.”

  Tourists liked beaches, though, which is why Roth began to buy up inexpensive beachfront anywhere in Florida he could find it.

  “In her diary, Marlissa wrote that Freddy owned ‘miles and miles of the stuff.’ He bought waterfront for as little as ten dollars an acre, and seldom more than fifty dollars an acre. Marlissa kept very accurate records.”

  I said, “I don’t understand.”

  “Marlissa wanted Frederick to become rich so they could marry. So she loaned him the money. That’s why she kept records. She had an inheritance, and our families have always been…comfortable. Fifty dollars for an acre of beach may not sound like much now, but Frederick was hired help. He made a buck a day.

  “I see. He was a hardworking guy in love with an heiress. I still don’t understand, though, why you think there’s a link between the artifacts we found and your godmother’s lover?”

  The woman shrugged, and swept her scarf through the air, frustrated. “Oh…I don’t know. Wistful thinking, I guess. Silly hopes? They are from the same era.” She looked toward the balcony again where wind moved the curtains, bare trees visible out there in the darkness.

  Theatrical? Once again, I got that impression. The woman could be frank at times, but she also maintained a distance. Drama was an effective shield.

  Chestra wasn’t telling me everything. Why? She seemed to lead me close to the truth in the hope I’d provide my own answers. Or that I would discover information that she possessed but didn’t want to share.

  I provided her with a possible explanation now. “The fact that Frederick Roth lived in Florida during the war doesn’t mean he wasn’t a Nazi. He could have been a sympathizer. Or an operative sent to gather intelligence for the German regime.” I was referring to the brotherhood I know so well.

  I looked at the photo again: an athletic young man serving drinks to two of the most powerful men in America. Add to the mix the famous names Arlis had mentioned: John L. Lewis, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Edna St. Vincent Millay—all of them living or vacationing on the same rural coastline, in the relaxed atmosphere of palms and surf.

  Why hadn’t I thought of it before? During that era, Sanibel was an ideal location to drop an intelligence officer. Infiltrate the local social structure, find the sort of job
that allowed him to eavesdrop on conversations. Rifle personal papers and appointment calendars while his powerful employers swam or fished. Perfect. A smart operative could blend in for years, generating a quality of intelligence worthy of a diamond pin. How the German military got the medal into the agent’s hand was problematic. But not impossible.

  Chestra was silent for a moment, her expression troubled—her godmother’s lover was a Nazi?

  “I’ve always thought it was extremely unlikely that Frederick worked for the Germans. Quite the opposite, in fact, from what Marlissa wrote about him. Which is why I never gave it serious consideration until…now. Until Tommy told me what you’d found. Medals and diamonds and coins, all from that time period. It’s too coincidental.”

  I asked, “What did you read in your godmother’s diary that made you believe he wasn’t a Nazi sympathizer?”

  Chestra gave me a sadder version of her I told you, it’s romantic look. “Because Marlissa was doing something else that wasn’t considered proper during the time. Particularly for a wealthy young woman of her class. Frederick Roth was a Jew. He didn’t advertise it—working for Henry Ford? But it’s there in her writings.”

  20

  Bern Heller sat in the marina’s business office, still queasy from being seasick, looking at a computer screen in the late-night quiet, his condition not improved by what he had just read:

  At the request of Swiss authorities, Nazi Adolf Eichmann required that all Jewish passports must be stamped with a large red letter “J.” It was not only to restrict Jews from emigrating to Switzerland. The infamous red “J” was also a way of identifying Jews who wanted to leave Germany, so they could then be diverted to death camps…

  Bern couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe. He read the same paragraph several times.

  He’d brought a few items from the briefcase, including the old man’s earliest passport, the one with the swastika embossed on its green cover. He had Googled a few key words, then opened an Internet article that included a photo of a German passport that also had a swastika embossed on its cover.

  The passport was identical to his grandfather’s: Nazi eagle, and the word REISPASS on the inside cover. Stamped on the word was an oversized J. J for Jew. The passport had been issued to a woman, but everything else was the same.

  Bern opened his grandfather’s passport and checked again. There it was, a big red letter J on the page opposite the old man’s name and photograph. Frederick B. Roth, issued 1938, Berlin. Just like the passport on the computer screen. Hard to believe that the J didn’t stand for jerk, knowing his grandfather. But Bern couldn’t argue with history, which was right here staring him in the face.

  A Jew? My grandfather was a Jew?

  Bern thought: Perfect. I spend the day puking, wanting to die. Now this.

  Shock and self-pity, his first reaction. A dizzy unreal feeling. Then he began to think about it.

  His grandfather was a Jew? No way. There had to be another explanation.

  The Internet article contained more photos—peasant faces with graveyard eyes; skeletons covered with skin. There was also an article. Bern reread portions of it now, hoping to find something that would hint at another explanation. Had to be one: Nobody hated Jews more than Grandpa Freddy.

  …Hitler was determined to solve what he called the “Jewish problem” (Judenfrage), and put Eichmann in charge of Zionist Affairs. On August 17, 1938, legislation forced German Jews to adopt the middle name of either “Israel” or “Sarah” if the bearer did not already have a very distinct Jewish name—

  Bern paused to look inside the passport again, seeing Frederick B. Roth written there, signature below. He didn’t know what the B stood for, but at least it wasn’t Israel. Was there a distinctive Jewish name that began with B?

  Bern sat thinking about it. There could be hundreds of them, for all he knew. He’d never had reason to keep track.

  He said it again, whispering: “The old man was a Jew.” Thinking: Finally, something that explains why he was such a world-class asshole.

  He spun the passport onto the desk, as if the thing was poison, and stood. He ran a hand over his bald head, and looked out the office window toward the bay where, for no reason he could think of, someone had started the bulldozer. He could hear the irritating bleep-bleep-bleep the machine made in reverse. Probably that retard Moe out there doing extra work to make up for puking all over his boss who had every right to rip the Hoosier’s head off—and he would, when the time was right.

  Not now, though. Bern was dealing with something a lot worse. He felt dazed. This was about the most shocking thing he’d ever experienced. It was right up there with the first time he went a little too far; felt a woman—a stranger—go limp in his arms, breathing stopped, heart silent…which he wasn’t going to think about…no, he wasn’t going to revisit that nightmare again. Not right now.

  He shifted thoughts to a more pleasant shocker, the Packers sudden death win against Chicago, tied 6–6, at Lambeau Field, when the Bears blocked a field goal attempt. But their kicker, this little Polack rocket, recovered the ball and somehow managed to run twenty-five yards without tripping or stopping for a cigarette. Packers win one for Bart, 12–6.

  No…this was far more serious and shocking because it meant that if his grandfather was Jewish, then…then his mother was Jewish, too, and …Wait a minute.

  Damn.

  How’d he missed that? Bern began with a B.

  Was Bern a distinctive Jewish name? Or Bernard, which he was sometimes called. He’d never been told that it was Jewish, but think about it: Who in their right mind was going to walk up to a guy his size and say, “Hey, what’s the deal with the Hebe name?”

  Evidence was stacking up.

  Son of a bitch.

  Some situations, profanity was appropriate, and this was one of them because there was no dodging the implications.

  Bern spoke aloud again, not whispering: “Shit! This means I’m a Jew, too. A Jew?”

  Talk about a brain zap. Meant that as a kid, that’s what he was, even though he didn’t know. Riding his bicycle, giving punks a pounding when he felt like it, working around the farm—pigs? Playing college ball, then two years in the pros, same thing. The whole time, he was a Jew but acted normal like anyone else because his grandfather had hidden it from them all these years.

  Bern felt as unsteady as he had that morning banging out into the Gulf of Mexico, Sanibel Lighthouse off to the right, into waves as high and gray as March snowdrifts back in Wisconsin. Who would know about this stuff? A doctor? Maybe there was a test you could take to find out for sure…

  On the computer, a timeline from that era was included. Bern took the time to read it, thinking he might be able to think better if he was calmer.

  1938

  April 26: Mandatory registration of property owned by Jews inside the Reich.

  August 1: Adolf Eichmann establishes the Office of Jewish Emigration and increases forced emigration.

  August 3: Italy enacts anti-Semitic laws.

  August 8: Concentration camps open in Austria.

  October 28: 17,000 Polish Jews expelled from Germany, 8,000 stranded.

  November 9–10: Night of Broken Glass: Anti-Jewish demonstrations destroy 200 synagogues; 7,500 Jewish shops looted; 30,000 male Jews sent to concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen).

  November 12: Jews forced to transfer retail businesses to Aryans.

  November 15: All Jewish pupils expelled from German schools.

  January: Hitler in Reichstag speech vows that if war erupts, it will mean the extermination (Vernichtung) of all European Jews.

  Whew—talk about yanking the welcome mat out from under a whole tribe of people. Jerk or not, he had to admit that his grandfather showed brains getting out of Germany when he still could, 1938 obviously not a good year for the Hebes…

  Careful.…for people of Hebrew extraction.

  “Solve the Jewish problem?” He’d done
the six-year red-shirt program at Badger U, and knew what that meant. Truck innocent people off to the gas chambers or burn them alive. What kind of scum did that sort of thing to their fellow human beings?

  Bern spent a moment picturing himself in Germany, 1938, a group of soldiers dressed in gray approaching him, but each one scared crapless because Bern wasn’t about to run from a bunch of cowardly Nazis. Grab one by the throat, that was the way to start, then kick the legs out…

  Enough, enough…

  He wanted to be damn certain of this before he started casting Nazis as bad guys.

  Thing was—and this still made no sense—Bern couldn’t think of anyone who hated Jews more than his grandfather. Of course, the old man hated every shade of colored person, too, plus Catholics. People from the South—rednecks or white trash. Florida? They were retard Crackers, and who could blame the man, frankly. California Commies, same thing. The Wegian Legion from Minnesota, don’t get Grandy started on them. The Wegian weenie whiners. But why would his grandfather, Frederick Roth, hate Jews if he was one?

  Or…maybe this was all bullshit. Everything in the briefcase fake.

  His grandfather had done some bizarre things in the twenty months he lived after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He’d changed his will umpteen times, depending on who in the family had pissed him off most recently. Bern, who he despised, was suddenly made chief executive officer of all the old man’s holdings in Florida. A shocker—apparently forgetting that Bern had spent three weeks in a teenage psych ward for braining the old bastard with a ball-peen hammer. Also forgetting the feud the assault had signaled, grandfather and grandson trying to top the other’s vicious attempts to get even.

  Another shocker: Augie, the old man’s pet, had been demoted from his cushy executive job in Oshkosh and transferred to Florida to be Bern’s assistant.

  Behavior that was as weird as the old man leaving a briefcase that contained passports and other stuff—and Bern had to admit this—that were sucking the joy right out of knowing the old bastard was rotting in his grave. Which probably was the intent.