by L. E. Waters
She looks at me. “How can you have any fun while Georg is suffering?”
“Because wallowing won’t do anything to help him right now. I have to keep my spirits up in case I ever see him again.”
She fights back heavy tears. “At least you have that hope.”
I hug her from the side. “You still have me.”
She winces and the tears fall. I hug her completely until she stops crying. She sucks back the remaining tears. “I just want to start it all over, Annelie.”
“Carsten wouldn’t want that. He’d want you to be happy.” I look to them dancing. “If Carsten was here, he’d be spinning you all around the room. I’ve never seen a couple dance the way you two did. In every life, you both danced on clouds.”
Her face only darkens. There is an instinct to tell someone who has lost something about how good things were. You think reminiscing will make them happy. That bringing back a moment in time—a love, a joy—will give them something when they have so little. Silly attempt, really. You only miss a candle when it’s gone out. Once you’re in the darkness, does it help to remember what it was like to have light? No. It only makes the darkness darker.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Lee returns on New Year’s Eve with his weekly rations and a wide grin. “Go and get your coats on, girls. I have a surprise for tonight.”
“But we can’t go into town, remember?” I say.
Lee points a finger at me. “I said you can’t speak to anyone, but you will certainly be able to watch a film.”
“A film!” Elfi squeals as she searches for her shoes.
Kathrin looks unimpressed. “We won’t be able to understand it.”
“I said watch a film, didn’t I? The Wizard of Oz is playing, and I heard it’s very visual.”
Sibylle hands me my coat as she slips hers on. “What a treat. I haven’t been to the cinema since I went to Pirna.”
“Come on, Kathrin. It will be a nice distraction,” I say as I slip on my tight gloves.
She begrudgingly gets up. “But it’s dark out. Didn’t you say that you don’t drive in the dark?”
“I said I don’t like to drive in the dark, but I manage very well in special circumstances, and this is certainly an emergency.” He grins. “Four beautiful girls stuck at home on New Year’s Eve.”
Elfi slips on her gas mask.
“No, no, no.” He yanks it back off. “All gas masks have to be carried or you’ll start a panic.” Then he hands me the bag he carried in. “That reminds me. For you.”
I stare at it. “You already gave me a mask.”
“Open it.”
I unzip the bag to pull out a much larger gas mask with an accordion-like contraption on the side. “What is it?”
“For Teresia.”
I smile immediately. “How will it work for her?”
“It’s an infant’s mask. I realized we can put her inside and you have to pump here to deliver fresh air to her.” He demonstrates for me.
“It means so much to me that you thought of her.” I put it by the stairs where we keep all of our masks.
Elfi sighs and sticks her mask away in her bag. We grab ours and head out of the cottage we haven’t left for days.
In a few minutes, the excitement we had in getting out is squashed by the terrifying drive in the pitch-black darkness. Even though Lee drives as fast as I can probably walk, it’s all he can do to keep the car on the dirt road. We breathe a sigh of relief when the first light of town can be seen.
“What is that strange light?” Elfi asks, pointing at the muted, circular glow.
“Those are the streetlights. They’re few and far between, and only the base is lit up.” He shakes his head. “They tried to not have them completely, but people got terribly hurt crashing into all sorts of things.”
“Thank goodness there aren’t any other cars out tonight or I’m sure we would have collided with them.”
“That might be the only fortunate part of the petrol ban.” He leans as far forward as he can to squint into the darkness. “I had to paint my bumpers white so that pedestrians could see me coming.”
We inch closer to the center of town. Everyone stares at us as they hurry on to the cinema line or the crowded pubs, each person carrying a flashlight in their hands.
“Do you think they know who we are?” Elfi asks.
“No,” Lee says. “It’s because we’re driving.” He parks and immediately opens my door first. By the time I step out, the other girls have emerged.
“Don’t forget your masks,” Elfi chides, and I can’t believe it when nearly every man, woman, and child carries a similar mask tote. I reach back in to fetch mine. Lee shines his flashlight on the gorgeous full-color poster of the movie we’re about to see.
We stand back out of the way as Lee purchases our tickets and an older man behind him says something to him and spits in his direction. Lee acts like it never happened and returns to us with our tickets fanned for us to pick.
“Why did that man spit on you?” I ask.
Elfi answers first. “He’s been watching you since you got out of your car. He might be from the hospital. I think I’ve seen him before.”
“No,” he says to Elfi. “He thinks I’m dodging service. Forget about him. We better get a seat before that line gets in.”
We’re not able to sit together since the theater is packed. Lee insists on sitting with Kathrin and me, and Elfi and Sibylle sit a few rows behind us. Before the movie begins, we’re forced to watch seemingly endless public announcements about readiness, contributing, and safety. I can’t understand a word of it, but the images convey all necessary information for even toddlers to absorb. Faces tense up while drills are explained, images of war are flashed, and photos are shown of soldiers writing home. No one came here for this. I turn to see Elfi clutching her gas mask bag tightly. It’s a relief when the movie finally starts. I watch Kathrin in the dark with the shadows flashing across her face, and when the movie turns into color, Kathrin comes to life. For the first time, she smiles. I look around at all the faces mesmerized by the plight of Dorothy, a girl whose troubles are so far away from our own. Thank goodness for these little distractions among so much misery. These are the things that keep everyone calm until they take their gas masks home and pray not to hear any sirens in the night.
Chapter 29
Lee hasn’t forgotten about us like Elfi keeps saying. We hear his cheerful rap on the door for the second time this week. Sibylle reaches for one of the two boxes in his hands before they both topple over as he tries to slip through the narrow door. She says, as she peers into the box, “Another feast?”
He clutches the box to his chest. “I’m afraid it’s not. I’m really not very good at this shopping bit, it turns out. I’m sure there are many clever ways to figure out a way around these shortages and rationing, but I haven’t figured it out yet.”
I get up from my book to take a peek in the box. “This is plenty, Lee. Thank you again.” I take the box from him. “I think we’re the only ones that have come from a worse condition to think rationing is wonderful.”
Lee says, “Well, then, Kathrin and I will only have to suffer, then.”
“Kathrin doesn’t even eat much now,” Elfi says.
“I eat plenty.” Kathrin wraps a blanket tighter around her disappearing frame. “I just don’t like to eat anything with my tea.”
Thing is, she drinks tea all day except for dinnertime. Then she eats half a meal and goes to bed.
“Bacon and ham, four ounces a week; sugar, twelve ounces; butter, four ounces.; tea, two ounces; cooking fat, two ounces per person per week,” Lee says as he unpacks each item.
“Did you find any onions?” I ask, not seeing any.
“No. A woman in line told me they were scarcer than cigarettes.” I can tell by the way his hands are shaking that that must be very scarce. “But I did find plenty of Spam.”
The blue tin cartons spill out on the ancient table.
Sibylle turns her nose up. “What’s Spam?”
“American canned spiced ham. The women seem to swear by it. They say they can make all sorts of things like sandwiches, ‘pork’ pies, casseroles, omelets.”
“We’ll have to get creative.” I tap one of the tins. “Onions are so easy to grow. Maybe you can ask the owner if we have permission to start a garden.”
“Good idea, because even though vegetables are not rationed, fresh ones are hard to come by.” He pulls out a cluster of floppy carrots for proof.
“They’ll be good enough for Teresia.” I pull out a large tin that says ‘dried egg’. “What’s this?”
“Since real eggs are also hard to come by, this is how people are making do.”
Elfi shakes the tin. “I think I’d rather eat the Spam.”
“Maybe I can find a local farm around here that has some fresh eggs.” He laughs as he holds up yet another tin. “What’s better than dried egg?” He spins the can around for us all to see. “Dried milk, of course.”
“Uck. I didn’t think it could get any worse,” Sibylle says.
“Well, you only get one tin a month, so this will have to last you all for the week.” He sighs. “No fresh fruit, only preserves, and this will have to do for all of you for the next few weeks.” He holds up a rather small jar for that duration.
“Tell me you have a package of coffee beans in there.” I already know there won’t be. I haven’t had a cup since we left France.
“Sorry. I’ll keep looking, though.” He holds a finger up to us as he searches. “But I’ve saved the best for last.” He pulls out four large chunks of glorious chocolate.
“How long is that supposed to last us?” Elfi always has a way of seeing things half empty.
“Everyone’s allowed eight ounces of sweets or chocolate a month.”
“That’s supposed to last us the whole month?” Sibylle looks worried. “Do they expect us to take one bite a day?”
“Or you can eat it all at once.”
Kathrin pipes up. “I’ll trade all my chocolate to the person who gives me all their tea.”
“Deal,” Elfi immediately says. “I don’t think I’ll be able to drink it anyway, with dried milk and without sugar.”
“We’ll just have to separate the sugar and milk into little packets to use for our daily tea.” I feel like I’m back in the army again. We busy ourselves dividing up the rations to get through the week.
After watching us, Lee stretches and reaches for his hat, but I stop him. “Won’t you please stay for a delicious dried egg omelet?”
“The last thing I want to do is take any of your food. I have my rations in the car.”
“Well, go get your dried egg and cheese and we’ll eat together. It’s the least we can do for your help.”
He smiles and returns with his rations. He sits with Kathrin by the fire as I spoon out heaps of mustard-colored dust and whisk it with warm water until the clumps disappear. I sprinkle some salt and precious pepper in and say a prayer, as it sits in the bottom of our iron skillet, that the drippy muck will rise. Surprisingly it does, and I divide it as evenly as I can onto the blue plates and sprinkle it with cheese. Anything is improved with cheese. We sit down to my experiment, and Lee is the first one brave enough to try a forkful.
“It’s not completely terrible.” He sounds relieved and keeps eating.
We take a bite and immediately Elfi says, “Not if you like cheese-covered cardboard.”
“Well, it’s all we have for dinner, so eat up,” Kathrin says.
“Easy for you,” Efli says, “I bet you don’t even taste food anymore.”
“It’s a good thing, then, because this smells horrible.” Kathrin gets us all to laugh.
Lee pushes the empty plate away and pulls out a handkerchief-wrapped block of chocolate. “Now, I’m going to follow that…um…healthful and…um…expertly cooked wartime…um—”
I slap him. “Enough with it. We ate it as well.”
“I’m going to eat my whole month of chocolate in one delightful night. What better way to celebrate with you girls? Who’s going to join me?”
Kathrin gets up. “I’m all out of chocolate, so I’m going to bed before I take mine back from Elfi.”
“Yes, go to bed, then.” Elfi gives a little wave to her. “And since I have two blocks, I will join you, Lee.”
Elfi gets up to fetch hers and I call to her, “Get mine as well. It just won’t taste as good in little bites.”
“Oh, fine. Get mine as well,” Sibylle says, and we all break off each section to savor one at a time.
As I take my first silky bite, I say to Lee, “You know everything about us and we know nothing about you.”
“We’re probably not allowed to know anything about him.” Sibylle takes tiny bites.
He decides to eat his two sections at a time. “Tell me what would you want to know and I’ll see if I can tell you.”
Sibylle, Elfi, and I look at each other, contemplating what we should ask first.
“Is Lee your first name?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your last name?”
“I could tell you one they’ve chosen for me, but it’s not my real name. I can never tell you that.”
“Are you married?” Elfi asks.
He takes a moment. “No.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Sibylle giggles.
“I see where all these questions are going.” He laughs, but there is something sharp underneath. “No.”
He looks at me for my question. I ask, “Do you have family here?”
He pushes back in his seat. “Let’s just say that in my line of work, it’s better not to have any attachments and, lucky for me, I don’t have any.”
We’re quiet for a moment. He stops eating his chocolate and taps his finger on the table. Elfi says, “You must have friends, then?”
“This is the longest I’ve stayed in Britain for some time. I move around too quickly to make friends.”
He must go back to a lonely rental somewhere. He starts eating again, and he has eaten twice as much as I have.
Elfi smacks her lips. “Lee, why are you still helping us?”
I stop chewing for a second.
Lee is taken off guard as well. “Because you all need help.”
“I mean, you’ve got us here safely, and I’m sure you have much better things to do in the war than nanny us.”
He swallows. “It was a condition that Georg made, and we must follow it as long as he’s alive.”
“So if Georg is—” She slices her hand across her throat.
“Elfi,” I say.
“What? It sounds like we’ll just be left here to fend for ourselves if they don’t have to worry about Georg talking anymore.”
“No, it’s true, Annelie. As much as I enjoy all of your company—never failing to entertain me—I wouldn’t have any control over where I’m ordered to next.”
I wrap my chocolate up and he sees it.
“No, I’m not going to be the only pig who gobbles down my month’s chocolate.” He tries to reopen the package, but I’ve lost my appetite.
“I’m going to save some for tomorrow. Goodnight, everyone, and I wish you safe drive home, Lee.”
He sees my sadness. “With Georg still alive, it’s critical that he remain quiet about certain matters. As long as he’s alive, you’ll be taken good care of.” He pats my hand on top of the chocolate wrapping.
“But if he’s killed…” Elfi prods again.
“Let’s not talk of things that might never happen,” Lee says as I head to my room.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Lee returns a few days later to take Sibylle to meet her daughter. We give her a few hugs each and she’s trying hard to stay happy about her journey. “You girls have changed my l
ife. I feel like a completely different person.”
“But you are a different person. Look at you! You haven’t been sick for weeks. You’re glowing.”
Tears brim in her bittersweet eyes. “I owe everything to you all. Please stay in touch so we can get together again after the war.” We all hug her again and she follows Lee out with the luggage.
Lee calls back to us before we shut the door, “Oh, I have a letter for you.”
“Me?” I ask.
“It’s addressed to you and Kathrin.” He plunks the suitcases in his car and runs back to hand over the envelope. “I’ll be coming right back.”
Elfi asks, “Who’s it from?”
I see our old familiar mailing address. “It’s from our mother.”
I pull out the single piece of folded paper and I’m let down by how brief it is. I sometimes don’t realize how much I miss her until moments like this. I read aloud:
My dearest girls,
Your father and I were so pleased to get your letter that you arrived in England safely. I’ve had the worst stomach trouble since you were on the run and only now is it starting to subside. We are touched that you want us to join you, but it is truly impossible right now. You were lucky to cross the border when you did because things have changed greatly. The borders are nearly impenetrable now. But we will be fine for the duration of the war. I don’t think things will be as bad as everyone says it will be. I’m sure the countries will reach an agreement soon and we’ll all be back together once again. We send our love to both of you and thank Mr. Lee for taking such good care of you.
xoxo,
Mother
“It’s strange that we should both live in countries that are trying to kill each other,” I say as I fold the letter back up.
“I wonder which one will win and which one will be brought to their knees.” Kathrin cups her hands around yet another cup of tea.
Elfi switches on the radio. “I wish we could get the German channels, then we’d actually be able to understand what they’re saying.”