Safe Haven

by Anna Schmidt

  “We are of German heritage, my family, yes,” Theo replied and went back to eating, although he had lost his appetite.

  “Seems off to me that old FDR would include Germans in those he picked to bring over here,” Hugh muttered. A beat of quiet was punctuated only by the clink of flatware on plates and ice shifting in glasses, but with the silence came Theo’s certainty that Hugh would finally drop the conversation. He was wrong.

  “I mean the French—sure. They’re on our side. Even the Polacks and Slavs I can see. After all, Hitler ran straight over them and took over their countries, didn’t he?”

  “He also took over Germany,” Suzanne said, her voice firm and dangerously soft. It was a warning for Hugh Kilmer to shut up, but it came through as clearly as if she had said those words instead.

  Hugh turned his attention to her. “You’re the reporter, right? From Syracuse?”

  “Washington,” Suzanne replied, concentrating on cutting her chicken cutlet into bite-sized pieces.

  Hugh released a low whistle. “Our nation’s capital. Impressive. What paper?”

  Suzanne’s cheeks reddened as if she was suddenly far too warm and needed air. “I … that is … there is … I am freelancing,” she finally managed just as Selma appeared from the kitchen carrying the pitcher of tea that she had gone to refill. “I am not feeling so well,” Suzanne murmured as she placed her napkin next to her plate and pushed back her chair. “Please excuse me.”

  Theo stood as he’d been taught to do whenever a lady entered or left his company. Hugh Kilmer just kept stuffing his mouth with mounds of mashed potatoes.

  Suzanne did not return to her room after her abrupt exit. When she left the table, Theo heard the screen door open and close with a soft click. Hilda and Hugh continued to chatter on, apparently knowing each other well. Selma told them all that the other two boarders on the second floor had left that morning for a camping trip and would be gone for a week.

  Theo let the conversation flow around him without comment. He was well aware that Hugh Kilmer made some passing references to the “Krauts”—comments Hilda apparently found hysterically funny. Theo cleaned up the last of the peas and potatoes on his plate, washed them down with the last of his tea, and stood up. “Mrs. Velo, if it’s okay with you, I’ll use the tools in the workshop to repair that rocker on the front porch.”

  “Oh, Theo, there’s no rush, and it’s so hot.”

  “The sun’s setting, and there will be a breeze off the lake,” Theo replied with a smile meant only for her. He nodded briefly to Hugh and Hilda and left the room. As he went out to the porch to get the chair and carry it to the workshop, he heard Hilda say, “He’s certainly a handsome young man.”

  “Maybe,” Hugh replied, taking no pains to lower his voice. “But he should be over there defending his country, not sitting here waiting for somebody else to save him and his Kraut relatives.”

  Suzanne was not on the porch as Theo had hoped. He had planned to suggest that she sit with him in the workshop while he repaired the chair so they could talk. He glanced up and down the tree-lined street where kids were out playing in the yards while the adults—women mostly—sat on the porches and talked about the heat. There was no sign of her.

  It took longer than Theo had expected to find the proper wood to replace the rotted arms on the rocker. Once he had sanded and attached the new arms, they had to be painted, so by the time he pulled the chain to shut off the light and stepped out into the yard, the house was mostly dark. He stood a minute, enjoying the yard filled with the scent of lavender and mint from Selma’s herb garden and the soft intermittent glow of fireflies sprinting here and there. Certain that at this hour everyone would be sleeping, he walked around the side of the house and mounted the wooden porch steps.

  Suzanne was sitting in the swing that hung from the rafters at one end of the porch. “Hi,” he said. “Hot night.”

  “Nothing stirring,” she agreed as she made room for him next to her on the swing. “Sorry about the talk at supper,” she added.

  “Certainly not your fault, and besides, I’m pretty used to it.” He sat down next to her, setting the swing in motion. “Back home my brother and I had to hear a lot of the same stuff.”

  “Didn’t it make you mad?”

  Theo shrugged. “I get it that for some people war—fighting—is the only answer.”

  “And we all know how well that has worked over the centuries,” Suzanne said sarcastically.

  “People get all worked up—they hear things on the radio, read them in the newspapers …”

  “Oh, so now this whole thing is my fault, after all?” She laughed.

  “I’m just saying that there are all kinds of ways to tell a story depending on the outcome you want to achieve.” He chuckled. “It’s a little like that game we played when we were little—I think it was called gossip’—where a bunch of kids would sit in a line and—”

  “The first kid would whisper something to the one next to him, who would whisper what he or she heard to the next, and so on—”

  “And by the time it reached the last in line, it was a totally different message than what the first kid had whispered. Seems to me this whole political thing is a little like that. But what do I know? I’m just a farmer from Wisconsin.”

  They rocked in the swing in silence for several minutes.

  “So how do you think I should tell the story?” she asked.

  “Depends on what story you plan to tell and on what you believe. If old Hugh were telling the story, it would be about the mistake the president made in bringing these folks here in the first place. If you told my uncle’s story it would be a story of fear and anxiety that when the war ended—a good thing—he and Aunt Ilse and innocent Liesl would be sent back to Munich where he has no job and they probably have no apartment and would have to start again.”

  “Why do you think President Roosevelt did this? I mean, rescued fewer than a thousand people when there are so many thousands in need? And why incarcerate them and send them back? And why—”

  He placed his hand on hers. “All good questions and ones I’m sure you plan to work into that story you plan to write. I’m sorry my uncle turned you down.”

  “He has a point. He and his family have been through so much. It’s understandable that he’s being cautious, not wanting to rock the boat.”

  “Tomorrow I’m picking up shoes for them from Mr. Vastano’s shop on Bridge Street. If you want to come along when I hand them over the fence, maybe Uncle Franz will have changed his mind.”

  “No. He needs some time, and I do understand. I’ll just have to find another way to report this so that it personalizes it for the readers. Statistics don’t get the job done, although they certainly help drive home the point. I need to put faces to those numbers.” She stood up. “Either way I have a deadline of sorts. Stories like this can become old news fast, especially when there’s a war on. Maybe I’ll see if I can find the French actress.”

  “You’ll do fine,” he told her, although he had no basis for knowing that. After all, she might be a terrible reporter. And he wondered why she had described herself as a freelance writer when he’d been under the impression that she was on an assignment for a newspaper.

  He stood up as well. “Good night, then.”

  She opened the screen door. “Coming?” she asked.

  “No. I think I’ll take a walk and maybe it’ll cool off a little more before I go up to the attic.”

  “Good night, then.”

  “Good night—and Suzanne? Don’t let Hugh and Hilda get to you, okay?”

  She laughed. “I was just about to tell you the same thing.”

  CHAPTER 5

  It’s not bad,” Edwin Bonner said when he called Suzanne at the boardinghouse after receiving her first submission about the arrival of the refugees. “What’s your angle? I mean overall. People talking through the fence and all—where are you heading with this?”

  Suzanne sat on the cha
ir next to the phone and twirled the cord around her finger. Above her she heard the soft click of Hilda Cutter’s door opening and knew the busybody was listening. Leave it to Edwin to raise the one question she couldn’t answer. At least not yet. “I’m not sure,” she admitted.

  “Well, that’s refreshing. A few months ago you would have been full of bluster and blarney about your plan.”

  She winced. Would Edwin ever let her forget the past? Unlikely. At least not until she proved to him that she had changed and would never again go down that road.

  “Do you wish to know my thoughts?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I am thinking of a kind of diary approach. Little vignettes about life in the fort. I can get the political angle at this end. But you can perhaps raise questions for people to consider. Not blatantly, of course. Delicately. We have to take this in baby steps. Anti-Semitism is every bit as rampant here on this side of the pond as it is over there—the difference being Americans are more subtle.”

  “Edwin, that’s really getting into a dangerous area.” She glanced up the stairway and lowered her voice. “I think if we stick to stories about the refugees as just people like anybody’s neighbor or the man who owns the local shoe shop or—”

  “That’s good. Yes. Stay away from religion and politics.”

  Suzanne sighed with relief.

  “We could run a couple hundred words two or three times a week,” Edwin mused absently. “Do you have enough material to do that?”

  “More than enough, but at some point Americans are going to have to face facts. We—”

  “Baby steps, Suzie,” Edwin said softly as if he knew that she was about to protest that she wanted to tell the bigger story—the one they both knew had to do with the State Department’s isolationist views and the country’s immigration quotas established after the Great War that had set the ground rules. “We’ll get there,” Edwin promised.

  “All right,” she agreed reluctantly.

  “And keep in mind that just because you write a piece doesn’t mean I will publish it.”

  Any more stumbling blocks you want to put in my way? Suzanne thought, her irritation barely in check. She felt like a schoolgirl who had been called to the principal’s office. “You’ll want to publish these,” she told him.

  He laughed. “That’s my girl. Get me two more articles by Monday,” he said and hung up.

  Suzanne returned to her room and sat down at her typewriter. The piece that Edwin had called about had seemed to simply flow from her fingertips that night after she and Theo had sat talking on the porch. Of course now as she read through her copy of the article, she was struck by how much she had left unsaid. She’d not even mentioned people like Hilda. The woman was becoming more blatantly outspoken about “those people” every day, especially now that Hugh Kilmer was back in the house agreeing with her.

  Suzanne fit a piece of carbon paper between two sheets of typing paper and rolled them into the typewriter then sat back and stared out the open window. Theo was mowing, and the smell of cut grass floated across the room. She wondered how long it had been since those inside the shelter had smelled fresh-cut grass. How long had it been since they had heard the rhythmic clacking of a lawn mower being pushed in a steady, straight line? How long had it been since the children had been free to play on the newly cut grass?

  She closed her eyes and let her other senses take over. Overhead she heard Hilda moving around her room as the music from the woman’s radio filtered down through the walls. She wondered what Hilda did all day. She certainly did not seem to have a job, and she rarely left the house except to get her hair done every Wednesday morning, go to the movies—or “picture show” as she called it—every Saturday afternoon, and attend church services every Sunday. Hilda had not received any visitors or phone calls—at least not while Suzanne had been in the boardinghouse.

  Suddenly she had an idea. She pushed back her chair and climbed the stairs to Hilda’s room. The door was open a crack, so she tapped lightly. “Hilda?”

  Hilda opened the door, and the expression on her face told Suzanne that she would have been less surprised to see a ghost standing there. “Yes?” She leaned against the partially open door without inviting Suzanne inside.

  “I wasn’t sure if you had heard the news or not,” Suzanne began and saw Hilda’s eyes flicker with interest. “The shelter is holding an open house on Sunday—open to the public, that is. The quarantine will be lifted, and well, you’ve obviously been curious about … the facility.” Heaven help her, she had almost said those people.

  “The government is lifting the quarantine?” Clearly the woman was horrified at the very idea that this might happen.

  “That’s right, and from what I hear, the children will be allowed to attend the local schools. The principal from the high school—a Mr. Faust—has made all the necessary arrangements. Isn’t that good news?”

  Hilda snorted derisively. “If you ask me, those people are getting far too much attention. Mixing them in with good Christian children?”

  “The occupants of the shelter are not all Jewish,” Suzanne snapped and then hid her annoyance at the woman’s prejudice with a smile. “I just thought you—and perhaps Mr. Kilmer—might like to tour the place.”

  “I’ll think about it. I have church that morning, and while the calendar might say September, with this heat …” She was easing the door shut.

  Suzanne stepped back toward the stairway. “Okay, well, just thought you’d like to know.” She turned and was down to the landing when Hilda leaned over the banister.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” she said. “I suppose there’s little I can do about your typing during the day, but at night the racket is keeping me awake, so no typing after supper.” Not waiting for a response, she turned and went back inside her room and closed the door with a definite click.

  “But it’s fine for you to play your radio and tramp around in those ridiculous high-heeled bedroom slippers you insist on wearing until well past midnight, I suppose,” Suzanne muttered to herself as she returned to her own room and sat down at her desk. Oh yes, there was a story here that she had failed to include in that first piece, and it was time the public understood that not everyone—even in Oswego, New York—had welcomed the refugees with open arms.

  By the time he finished mowing the lawn, Theo’s shirt was completely soaked with perspiration. He turned on the garden hose and held it close to his mouth to drink the tepid water then turned the flow onto his head and neck, shaking himself off like a dog coming in from the rain once he’d finished. When he looked up, Suzanne was standing on the back porch, holding a glass filled with ice and water. “Maybe you don’t need this after all?”

  Theo grinned and held out his hand for the glass. He drained the water and then dug out an ice cube and ran it over his throat and neck, closing his eyes at the cool relief the melting ice gave him. “Thank you.” He looked at her as if really seeing her. “How come you look so cool?”

  “I wasn’t cutting grass,” she pointed out. She sat down on the top step of the porch and shaded her eyes as she peered up at him. “I have a favor to ask.”

  He propped one foot on the bottom step. “Okay.” The one thing he had noticed about Suzanne—other than the fact that she was gorgeous—was that her thoughts rarely strayed far from the business that had brought her here. It was one thing to be dedicated to your work, but Suzanne seemed to be driven as if her very life depended on her success. “What do you need?”

  “I was wondering if maybe you would consider letting me attend the open house with you this coming Sunday.”

  “Well sure, but this isn’t like last time. This time everybody can come—in fact I think they want people to come so they can dispel some of these rumors. You don’t need me to get you in. …”

  “I know, but I think maybe that first time I got off on the wrong foot with your uncle and aunt. I do that a lot.”

  “Why
?” It seemed a perfectly reasonable question to Theo, but he saw that Suzanne was a little shocked.

  “Why?” she repeated. “I don’t know. It’s the nature of the business, I guess.”

  “The business?”

  “The newspaper business?” she said, squinting at him.

  “So to be a good reporter, a person needs to …”

  “You’re twisting my words. Forget it, okay? I just thought maybe if I went with you I would have a chance to let your relatives see that I can be nice.” She got up and headed for the back door.

  “I think you’re nice,” Theo said. “I also suspect that you’ve got something riding on getting this story about the refugees.” He sat down on the step she had vacated. “I’ve been told I’m pretty good at listening.”

  He heard the squeak of the screen door and could not tell if she had continued on inside or had let the door close and was still on the back porch. But then she walked to the step and sat next to him. “I kind of got myself in a mess, and you’re right: this story is my way back from that. I don’t want to … I cannot fail. This is my life.”

  “You mean your life’s work—your calling. No job is a life.”

  “You know what I mean. Everything links to the job, and if it’s not there—as my job has not been for the last couple of months—other stuff starts to fall apart.”

  He gave this some thought. “Maybe there’s a plan in this. I mean if you hadn’t lost your job, would you be here covering this story?”

  “No, I would be in Washington covering something bigger.”

  “What’s bigger than the lives of nearly a thousand people who have been hunted and harassed finding a haven here in America?”

  “I didn’t mean to belittle the lives here, but the key to what happens to the refugees lies within the halls of power in Washington, and that makes it the larger story.”

  He tried to frame her words into something that made sense to him. “Seems to me that as the storyteller you get to figure out where the larger story lies. All that finagling down there in Washington is pretty dull reading, but the stories inside that fence …” He jerked his head in the general direction of the fort.