by Anna Schmidt
She thought of the man in the orchard. Could he be this man?
“I have no way of meeting this man, Gordon, and besides, I have my own project. I’m writing a book to tell the stories of the refugees or at least as many as I can tell.”
“And I have friends in publishing who can get that book in print. Work with me, Suze. Once upon a time we made an incredible team.”
“Once upon a time I believed in fairy tales,” she said softly and folded her napkin. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Thank you for dinner.”
He half rose from his chair, but she had already started for the exit. She would not permit herself to get caught up in one of Gordon’s schemes—not again.
The library was almost deserted. She passed the librarian’s desk and headed for the area where back issues of magazines and newspapers were stored. She took a stack of recent issues of the local newspaper to one of the tables and started methodically going through them page by page. Her purpose was twofold. One, she was on the lookout for any articles about POWs in the Oswego area, and two, she wanted to get a sense of the style of reporting the paper’s editors preferred. If she did go for an interview, she would be expected to bring along samples of her work, and she wanted to be sure she chose samples that were a good fit. As for the POWs, it had been her intent well before her conversation with Gordon to learn more about them.
She had been at it for about an hour when a man entered the area and took the chair at the opposite end of the table. He was carrying his hat—a worn brown fedora—as well as the current issue of the newspaper—the one the librarian had fixed onto one of the long wooden poles to set into the current periodicals rack. He laid it on the table and pulled the chair closer as he began to read. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t place him and decided that she had probably seen him in town.
He was so still that except for the occasional turning of a page Suzanne found it easy to ignore him. But eventually the fact that he continued to read the same paper long past the time when any normal person would have finished made her start to watch him. She kept her gaze lowered, of course, not wanting him to know that she was watching, but gradually the time she spent observing the man far outdistanced the time she was spending studying the papers before her.
She knew she had stepped over the line when he looked up and met her eyes. “I am a slow reader,” he said in perfect English colored by a thick German accent. “Did you want this newspaper? I could perhaps read one of those.” He motioned toward the stack of papers next to her.
“No. Sorry. It’s just … I mean … you seem to …”
“Are you looking for something specific?”
“Well, yes. I’m a reporter—or I was. Anyway I was looking for recent articles about the …” She stopped, and her hand covered her mouth as she realized who this man was. “You are … You were …”
“My name is Detlef Buch, and I am a prisoner of your country.” He delivered this introduction without embarrassment or bitterness. “And you are the reporter who came to the orchard last fall when we were picking apples for Herr—Mister Walls.”
“That was several months ago. How can you be sure?” She was more than a little wary. Had this man followed her here? And what did he want?
His smile was a mere crooking of his mouth. There was no warmth of joy in it. “It used to be my business to be sure. You are Miss Randolph, are you not?”
He knew her name—a name she did not remember giving as she stood by the fence in the orchard that day. And then she realized that he had also been at Franz’s funeral reception. He was following her. She stood up, prepared to flee or at least signal for help. “What do you want?”
“Please do not be alarmed, Fräulein. I have thought about what you said that day in the orchard when you spoke to the guards about the POWs and how their story could be very interesting.”
“Well, yes, but since that time I have decided to go in a different direction.”
He smiled. “And yet you are seeking articles about the prisoners.”
“You are very observant, Mr. Buch.”
“I wish to know if you might be willing to write my story. You see, Miss Randolph, like many of the people you know here in America, I chose a side in this war. Now I see that it was the wrong side. I will not defend myself by saying that I did not know or that I had no choice. I knew.” An expression of utter agony crossed his features. “God help me, I knew.”
“And did nothing,” Suzanne guessed, relaxing slightly. “Why would I want to write your story, Mr. Buch?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps because it would be a story that no one else in your country will have the opportunity to write? Perhaps because selfishly I hope that through telling my story I may lessen the severity of my punishment once the war is ended.”
Suzanne began to gather her notebook and pencils and purse.
“Miss Randolph, please hear me out.”
“Why should I?” She clutched her belongings to her chest, her eyes darting around, seeking the best escape route since he stood between her and the exit.
“Because I will tell you only the facts, and any interpretation or judgment you put on those facts will no doubt be kinder than I deserve.”
She could not deny that she was tempted. Standing across the table from her was a man who could give her the story that might lead to the redemption she sought for the career she loved so much. Yet the similarities between this man’s offer and the one she had accepted from Gordon that had destroyed her career made her suspicious.
Gordon! Could this man possibly be …
“What was your role in the war?” she asked.
He met her gaze without flinching. “I was a member of Hitler’s secret police—the Gestapo.”
Okay, Randolph, go now before you get in too deep. She took a step and then hesitated.
The German stepped to one side of his chair as if to leave her a clear passage for escape. “You are right to be cautious, Miss Randolph. After all, I am your enemy.”
“Your country and my country are enemies,” she replied.
He lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “Another young woman from America once said that,” he told her. “She and my son …” His voice trailed off and he shook his head as if to banish the thought.
“Is your son also a prisoner of war?”
He looked at her for a long time as if considering his answer. Then very slowly he said, “I do not know what has become of my son. He and that young woman I mentioned stood against the Reich. They married and were sent to a concentration camp but escaped, and the last I heard of either of them they had made it to an island off the coast of Denmark.”
Suzanne was surprised at the sympathy she felt for him. In that moment he was not German or a Nazi. He was a father who grieved for his lost child, and that made him no different than any parent in any country.
“Mr. Buch, you are correct in saying that writing about you would be a very different story than anything being done by my fellow journalists.”
“Yet you do not trust me.”
“These days I cannot afford to trust anyone who promises to tell me his or her story without embellishment. How will I know that what you tell me is true?”
The quirk of his lips that passed for a smile reappeared. “I see your point. But I promise you it is an amazing story. I daresay that young man you dined with earlier—the one from your government—would find it extremely interesting.”
“You have been following me. You came to the funeral and—”
He shook his head. “I came to Herr Professor Schneider’s funeral. I knew him—and his wife—back in Germany. I had thought to pay my respects but then reconsidered.”
She laid down her belongings and pushed the notebook and three of her pencils toward him. “Write down your role in this war or about how you came to be captured and brought here.” That was something that she could check for facts. “I will be here tomorrow at this same time. Br
ing me the pages. I will read them, and then I will decide.”
“This is a fair offer,” he said as he collected the notebook and pencils and placed them in the patch pocket of his coat. “It has been my pleasure to speak with you, Miss Randolph, whatever the outcome of this conversation may be.”
He closed the newspaper and with a slight bow turned away. He replaced the newspaper on the rack, nodded to the librarians, and left.
Suzanne watched him go, and only when he was through the double doors and she could no longer see him did she realize how her pulse was racing with excitement. He was right. This could be the break she was looking for. Perhaps she was not being led to write about the refugees at all. Perhaps Detlef Buch was the reason she had returned to Oswego.
But then there was Gordon.
Theo had news he could not wait to share with Suzanne. That afternoon Joseph Smart had offered him a position on his staff at the shelter. Theo was to have the responsibility of acting as a liaison between Director Smart and the chair of the congressional committee on immigration affairs in Washington. In truth it was little more than a secretarial position, for his job really was to gather the data and forms the committee requested from time to time, but it was a direct connection to Washington. He would have experience in working with a congressional committee. He would perhaps even have the opportunity to meet members of the House or Senate.
But Suzanne had news of her own, and her obvious distress made him reluctant to share his good news until he knew what was upsetting her so much.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said after they had finished supper and Hilda and Hugh had returned to their rooms while Selma remained at the table reading the newspaper. “I need to talk to you about something and …” She glanced up the stairway and he understood that whatever this was she did not want anyone else to hear.
“I’ll get my coat.”
Selma had given him a room on the second floor now that she had vacancies, and he was grateful not to have the attic room, which no doubt would have been as cold in winter as it was hot in summer.
“Going out?” Hilda’s door was as always partially open, and she called to him as he passed her door on his way back downstairs.
“I am. Do you need anything?”
“No, but it’s supposed to snow again so bundle up.” Her motherly advice did not surprise him. Hilda liked him. It was Suzanne who ruffled her feathers.
“I will. See you in the morning.” He hurried down the stairs to Suzanne, who was waiting for him by the front door.
She was wearing her heaviest coat, a wool scarf, mittens, and a hat that covered her hair, ears, and forehead. As soon as he reached the bottom step, she opened the door and stepped onto the porch.
“What’s going on?”
“I met someone at the library today.” She told him the story as they walked into town. The streets were mostly deserted, and as Hilda had predicted, a light snow was falling. “His name is Detlef Buch, and according to what he told me, he was someone of importance back in Germany—an officer or high-ranking person in the secret police. It’s not hard to envision him in such a role. His whole demeanor suggests a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed.”
“He just started talking to you at the library?”
“Not exactly. He … I think he has been following me. He was one of the men in the orchard last fall and overheard me interviewing the guards.”
“And what does he want of you?”
“He wants me to write his story. I think he believes that if he can just find a way to tell his side, things will go better for him.”
“Does he understand that when the war ends it is not the American court but one in Europe that will determine his fate?”
“I have to assume that he does. He is obviously an educated and intelligent man. His English is flawless—something that surely helped him in his position back in Germany.”
“So what did you say?”
The details of her meeting with the German POW had been rolling off her tongue like water over a falls, but now she hesitated. “It’s not a simple decision for me, Theo. He made the point that his story could be a huge break for any reporter. How many newspeople are going to have the opportunity to sit with someone who was a part of the Nazi regime and ask the key question of why?”
“So you are considering it?”
She released a sigh of utter exasperation as if she could not believe what she was about to tell him. “I am. I told him that he needed to start writing down what he had done in the war. I have friends in Washington who will check the facts for me. If he tells me the truth about his role before he was arrested, then …”
“Think this through before you decide, Suzanne. You came here to write the stories of the refugees at Fort Ontario—stories that could help the cause of those who wish to stay in the United States.”
“I know, and believe me, I am torn. But what if the real reason I was led back here was to meet this German and write his story?”
Theo smiled. “ ‘Led back here’? Careful there. You’re beginning to sound like a Quaker,” he teased.
“I’m serious,” she said. “What should I do?”
He took his time considering his answer. “Well, let’s think this through together. It seems to me that there are several different questions here. One question has to do with you and your career. Will this help?”
“And the other questions?”
“How will the people at the fort feel if they learn you are writing the story of a POW? Will they understand or might they become more reticent to speak with you about their stories?”
He took hold of her arm and led her into the small café across from the movie theater, where they had gone a couple of times for coffee. She sat in the booth they normally shared, pulling off her outerwear, while he went to the counter and got two mugs of coffee. He set them down and removed his coat and hat, hanging them on the post that separated each booth.
He nodded to two men at the counter who had glanced their way. They returned his nod and went back to visiting with the waitress. No one else was in the café.
“Do you want some pie?” he asked.
“No thanks.” She poured sugar from the dispenser into her coffee. “But if you want some …”
He shook his head and took the seat opposite her. “I’m fine with just this.” He watched her stir her coffee slowly, drawing the spoon through the dark liquid as she stared out the window at the falling snow. “So those are the questions you need to consider as far as I can see plus one more.”
She gave him her full attention. “What?”
“You might want to ask yourself what’s in this for Detlef Buch. You said that he appeared well educated and intelligent. Surely he can’t believe that a story published in an American newspaper—assuming any paper would agree to print such a story—would do him any good once he returns to stand trial in Europe.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“My dad once told me that whenever I had trouble figuring something out I needed to consider it from all sides.” He sipped his coffee.
“You’re right. It has to be something else. Something more that made him choose me.” She studied her coffee as if she were reading tea leaves. “What could it be?”
“Ask him. Make that another condition of considering whether or not to do this.”
“I will.” She finally took a sip of the coffee. “How do you think Ilse would react if she found out that I was working with a POW?”
Theo shrugged. “I don’t know my aunt that well. She’s a complex woman who has been through a lot. She also practices a faith rooted in forgiveness and not taking sides. I would imagine after everything she and Uncle Franz went through and after everything she’s lost in the bargain, those are two challenges that would be tough for anyone to meet.”
He waited until the waitress had come by to offer a refill and then reached across the table to cover Suzanne’s hand. “Whateve
r you decide, take the time you need.” He almost encouraged her to join him and his aunt and niece for a meeting for worship but decided that would be going too far. He was about to withdraw his hand when she surprised him by linking her fingers with his. “How was your day?” she asked.
He had a momentary vision of his parents sitting at the kitchen table in the farmhouse long after the last supper dish had been dried and put away and long after he and his siblings had supposedly gone to bed. They would sit there talking for an hour or more, sharing what had happened while they’d each gone their own way during the day.
“Smart gave me a job,” he told her.
“Theo, that’s wonderful.” She tightened her hold on his fingers. “What kind of position is it? Tell me everything.”
So he did. They sat in the booth, holding hands and drinking their coffee, until long after the two men at the counter had left and their places had been taken by moviegoers stopping for some pie and coffee after the late show.
“Closing up, folks,” the waitress said as she leaned across an empty booth and switched off the neon sign. “Looks like that snow is getting heavier.”
Theo glanced out the window and saw that several inches had fallen while they talked. He put on his coat and hat while Suzanne did the same and then handed the waitress payment for the coffee plus a generous tip. “Thanks,” he said.
“Anytime,” she said. “You two make a nice couple, but then you probably don’t need me telling you that. You married or just planning on it?”
Theo’s discomfort at the woman’s assumption struck him momentarily dumb, but Suzanne seemed to take the comment in stride.
“Married to my work,” she told the waitress.
“Pity. I wouldn’t kick this one out if he showed up at my door.”
“Thanks again,” Theo called back over his shoulder as he headed for the door.
Outside Suzanne started to giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
“She thought we were married. All the times we’ve been in there she’s been thinking of us as a couple.”
Theo had no idea why her words stung so. “Well, maybe in another time and under other circumstances we might have been,” he said and thrust his hands into his pockets as he started breaking a trail through snow that now covered their shoes.