Time-Travel Duo

by James Paddock

  Chapter 69

  Saturday ~ November 13, 1943

  The phosphorescence of the breaking waves in the starlit night mesmerized Bronson. He went down to the beach to walk and think. He stood and stared at the flash of white foam and listened to the rhythmic movement of the water across the sand. He shut her in the beach house because he didn’t want to think about what she was saying. He just wished she would be quiet. He wanted to not believe her words, wanted to ignore them but he couldn’t, so he locked her away so that he could walk the beach in the still night and remind himself why he was here; why he chose to be who he was; to remind himself of his mission.

  He hadn’t thought about those days in a long time, a century ago, it seemed; another life time.

  He was younger, so much younger when he used to sit on the window sill of his temporary room in the big house in northern Chicago; the window sill, packed with pillows and blankets, where he could soak up the sun on those chilly, windy days and read the books his uncle would bring home for him. He took his time paging through one of those books. He wished he could keep it because this one was indeed a keeper but it wasn’t to be. He overheard them, his father’s sister and her husband, talking about how this sudden interest in biology would be short lived. He heard them say he would give it up once he discovered how difficult it really was.

  Ha!

  They had no idea how much he really knew, not only about biology, but medicine as well. They had no idea that when he went over to his friend Timmy’s house to play, he sat looking through Timmy’s father’s medical books while Timmy and his little brother played soldiers or some equally childish activity. Some day they would see. When he becomes a doctor, they will feel badly that they laughed at him and doubted him.

  He sure did like this big house, though he missed his own on the other side of the city. He still wished he could have gone with his parents, however, back to Germany.

  “There’s war, Nate, and it is dangerous. No place for little boy,” his mother told him.

  Nate ignored the “little boy” comment, even though he was nearly eleven. “If it’s dangerous then why are you going?”

  “We have been over this hundred time, Nate. You’re not going and that’s final.”

  “Why can’t you just send money to Grossmutter and Grossvater and they can just come here? Why do you have to go there?”

  His mother sighed. “It not that simple, not that easy. Your grandparents have to be convinced. It should take only a few months and we’ll be back here in Chicago, safe and sound.”

  “Even Uncle William?”

  Nate’s mother forced a smile. “I don’t know about William. May be impossibility.”

  “Why?”

  “He is – how would I say it – rather involved in Germany’s war effort. He has very important responsibilities.

  “It be just a few months,” she promised him again.

  The next day they left. That was late March. “Be back no later than beginning of summer. Love you,” was the last thing he remembered her saying as the man with the dark blue uniform folded up the steps and closed the door. He remembered the noise as the train car was jerked into motion and then waving to his mother and father even though he could barely see them through the grimy windows.

  He looked at the calendar his auntie gave him to hang in his room and keep track of the days. Tonight he would mark out October 26. Two hundred thirteen days. He laid his head against the windowpane and looked out across the neatly trimmed bushes to the mail carrier walking up the street. It was in August that the last letter from his parents came. He didn’t even get excited to see the mail carrier any more.

  He watched the man until he turned up toward the house, and then slipped off the windowsill, dropping easily to the floor. He went out into the hall where he could observe what was going on in the family area below. He lay the book open, and then lay down himself so that he could see through the slats of the railing. He really liked this spot because the sounds of conversation carried up really well and it was difficult for anyone to see him. He heard the knocker just as he got himself comfortable and watched his auntie come from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. He flipped a page to one showing a diagram of the human eye and began his routine of reading and concentrating on each part, thus committing it all to memory. Then he would carefully read the text, relating that to the diagram in his head. He seldom needed to refer to the diagram again. He listened as the door opened and there was an exchange of words and then the door closed. His Auntie walked into the family room and then stopped to pick up a letter opener from the desk.

  “Is it from my mother and father, Auntie Aileen?”

  His auntie looked up and about for a few seconds before she saw him and smiled. “No, dear, but almost as good. It’s from Great-Uncle Albert in France. This may be news of when we should expect your parents’ return.”

  Nate stood, leaving the book, and started for the stairs. He moved slowly, afraid of being disappointed again, afraid the letter would say many more months yet. He watched as his auntie removed the pages from the envelope. He started down the first few steps and looked down at her again. Her look was serious. They weren’t coming yet. He already knew it. He stopped and closed his eyes, attempting to bring his disappointment under control, and then turned and headed back to his room. At the top of the stairs he glanced once more in her direction. She was sitting on the floor, her head on the sofa, her body moving oddly. The letter and envelope were lying on the floor beside her. He turned back down the stairs, not wanting to know what was in the letter, but knowing he had to know. His auntie was crying. Something had happened.

  He walked up quietly and poked at the letter with his foot. He could tell it wasn’t in French. Of course. His great-uncle was German. Nate could have managed the French a little, but German was no problem. He was just as fluent in that as he was in English, though he had been told many times not to let anyone know he was German or even that he knew one single word of the language. He understood the reason to some extent with the war and all. He reached down and picked up the letter.

  My Dear Niece,

  It is with a heavy heart that I must pass to you news of the worst form. Please sit down before reading on.

  Nate backed up and sat against the chair.

  Several weeks ago, September 10, the American Army destroyed your parents’ home during an attack. It has taken me some time to get confirmation but I know now for certain that not only were your parents killed but your brother and his wife as well. I feel very badly for Nate. You must be strong for him.

  As the tears began, Nate could no longer read. His auntie’s arms came round him and together they cried, for hours it seemed, until there were no more tears. Then he read the letter again and became angry. An anger he never showed. An anger that would be long in going away.

  Bronson felt a cold sensation seeping into his feet. He looked to see that the waves had pushed past him and he had sunk several inches into the sand. Obviously he had been nearly ankle deep for some time and had not been aware of it.

  He backed up to the dry area, sat on a drift log, pulled off his shoes and socks, and rinsed the sand away as best he could. Leaving the shoes upside down on the log, and the socks spread out, he strolled up the beach, let the waves lap at his bare feet and remembered those closing months of 1918.

  The biology and medical books became forgotten. He spent much of his time in his room, sitting in his window watching the weather change, wondering if he would ever care again, wondering if he would ever be happy again. His depression worried his auntie and uncle, but they didn’t know what to do. They could only wait and hope he was as resilient as most children, that he would bounce back. His auntie wasn’t sure she, herself, ever would, but having him gave her purpose. She wasn’t able to have children of her own so there was some pleasure in taking over the job of mother to her brother’s son. As hard as she tried to make Christmas joyous, Nate was having none of it. H
e refused to be involved. His uncle took him out to hunt for the perfect Christmas tree but Nate acted with the interest of a zombie; staring off in the distance as his uncle cut the chosen tree; sitting in the wagon, his eyes closed while his uncle secured the tree so it wouldn’t fall off.

  Christmas came and went. Auntie was relieved that the holiday was over. Too many memories for Nate. Too many memories for her.

  “What is meant by New Year’s Resolution?” Nate asked out of the blue several days into the New Year.

  “Well, Nate, it’s a promise a person makes to oneself around the stroke of midnight New Year’s Eve.”

  “What kind of promise?”

  “Any kind. Usually being a better person of sorts, like stopping drinking or losing weight. Like let us say you made a resolution to make your bed every day in 1919. It’s a promise to yourself that you will carry out your resolution.”

  He was silent, thinking.

  “I believe that would be a great resolution, Nate. Make your bed every day without being asked.” She tried to tease him into a smile, or at least some kind of non-serious response. He thanked her and turned away, then slowly, almost methodically, climbed the stairs to his room.

  Later that night, sitting on his windowsill watching the snow blow sideways, beating like little icicles against the panes, Nate made the one and only resolution of his life, a resolution he would renew with each and every New Year for the next two and a half decades.

  Bronson became aware once again that he was standing in the water. He hadn’t walked very far before stopping and staring at the white tips of the breaking waves again. Twice he drifted off and he wondered how much time had passed. He retrieved his shoes and socks and returned to the beach house.

  Anne was asleep. Bronson started a fire in the wood stove to dry his shoes and socks. He watched her breathe and waited for the time to pass. Two and a half hours left and he would begin the trip back to his homeland. He looked forward to being aboard the U-boat where he could converse in his native tongue and learn how the war really was progressing instead of hearing it filtered through American news agencies. He wondered what direction his life would have gone if his Auntie and Uncle hadn’t allowed him to go to Germany when he asked. He remembered that after that New Year in 1919, he took a very serious outlook toward his studies, almost a vengeance. They began to recognize his ability and interest and supported him all the way to his early completion of high school, five years later.

  On the evening of his graduation, they threw a party for him. He put on his best face for as long as he could, not wanting to appear ungrateful. When the attention eventually turned away from him to discussions of politics and Wallstreet, and when his friend, Tim, went home, he took the opportunity to retreat alone to his room. It was a gloomy day with a spring thunderstorm keeping everything dark and dreary. Rain was beating hard against his window when his auntie knocked at his door.

  “May I come in?” he heard her ask as the door opened.

  “Sure.”

  She smiled at him sitting in his windowsill, an atlas of the world propped up against his knees. “We missed you downstairs. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine, Auntie.” He turned to face her, his legs swinging off the edge of the windowsill, the book in his lap. “You said you wanted to get me something for graduation but didn’t know what I wanted.”

  “Yes, dear. Your uncle thought it best to let you decide. Apparently you have an idea, no?”

  “Yes, I do.” He stood and walked over to his desk, laying the book down, open to the map of Europe. He turned and looked at her. “I want to go to Germany.”

  Auntie Aileen’s mouth dropped open and she moved over to sit on his bed. “That isn’t exactly what we had in mind, Nate, when we spoke of a graduation gift. We were thinking more along the line of some materialistic thing. No doubt you deserve anything you want, but a trip to the other side of the world? You’re only sixteen.” She looked at him, taking her time to formulate her thoughts. “My first inclination is to say no, if for no other reason than because you are too young to really understand what you want.”

  He sat down next to her on the bed. “I thought that was what you would say...”

  She put her hand on his arm. “Let me finish. Further reflection, however, brings to mind that you are an extremely intelligent and mature young man. With the loss of your folks, I really worried about you and how you would recover. You’ve done quite well; however, I know you have a dark side and maybe that dark side is simply the need to go to the place they died. Is that it, Nate? You have a need to make that journey and close that chapter?”

  How did she know? Nate thought. He never talked about it and they never brought it up. Yes, he had a need to see the place, but what he hoped she didn’t know was that it went a lot deeper than that. He wanted to know why that house, supposedly in a rural area away from any military targets, was destroyed with innocent civilians inside. He wanted to know all the whys in that war. Why were the Americans involved? He had heard and read all the surface, political reasons the President committed his military forces against the German people, but he wanted to know the real reasons. He wanted answers to his parents’ deaths.

  “That may be it, Auntie. I want to go where it happened. I also want to see where I was born and spent the first five years of my life.”

  Auntie Aileen put her arm around his back. She gave him a hug. “I’ll talk to your uncle; get his perspective on it. How’s that?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Okay, how about we go downstairs? Your guests are starting to leave.”

  Anne shifted position. Bronson watched, expecting her to wake up. Instead she settled back and continued sleeping. He was surprised she could sleep knowing what was about to befall her.

  She shifted again and then rolled over and sat up. She blinked several times, noticed his bare feet and the shoes and socks drying. “It’s too hot in here,” she said. She picked up the cane and limped over to the door and opened it. She looked at her watch. “Little over an hour.” She pulled a chair over near the door. “It’s a bit cooler here,” she said and then sat down.

  “Why don’t you talk to me? It’s not like I’m going to run out and blast it to everyone I see. Besides everyone already knows you’re a spy. Your cover is already blown. I’ve told you my entire life story over the past couple months. You could share with me at least a little bit of the reason you’re doing this.”

  Bronson maintained his silence.

  “Were you born here or in Germany? Where did you get your education? Where did you go to medical school?”

  “Chicago,” Bronson said.

  “Chicago?”

  “I was raised in Chicago. I was born in Germany.”

  Anne laid the cane across her lap. “Oh. How old were you when you left Germany?”

  “I was five. 1912. Things were happening in Germany and my parents saw opportunity in America. My father’s sister already lived there having married an American a few years before.”

  Aileen! Anne almost said the name as the genealogy diagram flashed into her mind’s eye. Only days before the accident that took Anne’s mother, they were working together on building the family tree. After the funeral, the project was stuffed away, forgotten.

  Forgotten! A concept not too familiar to Anne. But now it came flashing back: the diagram, the pages of notes, the photographs, and the stories her mother spent hours telling. Even the box into which it all was placed and the exact location in the attic of her father’s house where she was sure it still sat, at least back in 1987.

  Although there were a lot of holes, as her mother either didn’t know or hadn’t told her everything, Anne now knew much of what happened. She didn’t know the why. “So nearly all of your education was here. When did you go back to Germany?” A leading question. She already knew when. She also knew why.

  “The summer after I graduated from high school.”

  What Anne didn’t know, an
d what her mother didn’t know either, was what happened in those twenty years between her grandfather returning to Germany and his marrying Francine Johnston in Chicago.

  “Germany was trying to recover from the first war.”

  “You went by yourself? Your parents just let you go?” Another leading question, but it seemed she was going to have to drag it out of him.

  “My parents were dead by then.”

  “Oh!” She waited. When he didn’t volunteer more, she asked. “How did they die?”

  “In the spring of 1918 they went to Germany to bring back my grandparents, my father’s parents. That was during the darkest time of the war. They were with them, in my grandparent’s home when it was shelled. They were all killed.”

  “Oh, my God.” Anne opened her mouth to say something, considered her words then fell silent.

  “They were innocent civilians and the American Army slaughtered them.”

  Anne remembered the story told to her when she was thirteen, passed down, her mother said, by her Great Auntie Aileen and also by her Great-Uncle Albert. The story, however, was different. “Americans killed them?” Here it was. The crack in which she could change things. But how? What could she do to convince him that what he was thinking was wrong; that his reason for spying on the United States for Adolf Hitler was based on false information; that if he knew the truth he would stop right now? “This is why you are doing this? This is like a revenge or something?”

  “Yes. It was cold-blooded murder.”

  “It was war. Bad things happen in war, even to innocent civilians.”

  “Still no reason.”

  “How do you know how innocent they were? Maybe the soldiers were being fired upon and they simply returned fire.”

  “That’s not the way it was.”