The Upside of Hunger

by Roxi Harms

"I'm fine, sir."

  "You look rather ill to me."

  "I'm not ill sir. I am fit to work."

  At this point Adam spoke up. "You look sick, Uncle Florian," he said quietly, giving his uncle a wink.

  "You will have the week off to recuperate," the Commandante said as he scribbled on a pad of paper on his desk, then tore the sheet off and handed it to Florian. "Here is your authorization to be absent from work. I expect you back in good form next week."

  "Yes, sir," said Florian in a dazed sort of voice.

  "Thank you, Commandante. Please give my regards to your wife and children," said Adam standing up to leave. "Come on, Uncle Florian. We should get you home to bed."

  The reappearance of Uncle Florian when they arrived back at the house caused a bit of panic. After they explained, Uncle Florian's wife laughed cautiously. "Well, as long as you have the paper, maybe it won't cause any problems. Irene would be so disappointed if you were taken to jail again." His aunt turned to him to explain. "Irene has been trying to complete her law degree for many years. A child with a parent in prison is not permitted to attend university. Every time Florian is imprisoned for not being able to bite his tongue and keep his opinions to himself, Irene is kicked out of the university and misses her classes. And they're stricter with her about this than they are with the other students because of her German name. She has re-started some of her classes so many times she can recite the lectures from the first several weeks by heart. We want her to finish one of these days!"

  Day times were filled to overflowing as Adam, Jean, and his uncle and aunt toured the old spots that Adam remembered and compared stories about life in Hungary and in Canada. In the evenings Adam played his mouth organ while Uncle Florian played the accordion. Florian often sat near Jean and translated the Hungarian words into German for her when Adam had too many conversations going on and too many old stories being rehashed to remember.

  "Let's have a party at the Gyula Hotel tonight," Adam said the morning before they were due to leave. "All of us, cousin Irene and her husband too. We'll all have a nice meal and some dancing. It's my treat."

  As they settled in and began their meal, suddenly Uncle Florian stiffened. "The Commandante is sitting over there," he said to Adam.

  No one spoke, waiting to see what Adam would do. After a moment, Adam waved the waiter over.

  "Can you please send a nice bottle of wine to that table over there, and let the gentleman know we send our best wishes?"

  "Of course, sir," said the waiter.

  They watched nervously as the bottle was delivered. As the Commandante looked their way, Adam waved, then got up and walked over to him with a big smile.

  "Good evening," Adam said as he reached the table. "I hope your meal is good. My uncle wishes to express his gratitude for the recuperation time. He is feeling a little better, but it was very difficult to convince him to join us this evening as I'm sure you can imagine."

  The Commandante threw back his head and laughed. "I hope he has a good time despite his illness."

  "Thank you, sir," Adam laughed. "I'll leave you to enjoy your meal."

  Later in the evening, the Commandante approached their table, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Ignoring Adam and Florian, he held out his arm to Jean and led her onto the dance floor.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE

  When Frank finished high school and headed to Vancouver to college, Adam couldn't have been prouder. And even though the degree Frank ultimately earned was in Education, rather than the Business program Adam had suggested, Adam considered the tuition money well spent. Finally, all these years after Adam's college plans had been foiled by the war, a Baumann with a degree.

  A few months later, at a lavish wedding organized by Adam, Frank married the sweetheart he'd met in college. Theresa and Franz were flown in from Germany, and the Baumann family was together for the first time since Adam had immigrated.

  A couple of weeks later, Jean had shocking news when Adam arrived home from work.

  "Your parents want to go home to Germany," Jean announced from the kitchen.

  Adam stopped midway through hanging up his hat. "What?"

  "That's how I responded," said Jean. "It's true, they want to go home. Your mom told me this morning when I stopped over for coffee. She said that now that Frank is married, all her children are settled, and it is time for them to go home where Resi can look after them."

  Adam finished hanging his hat and walked over to the sideboard to pour himself a scotch. "Aren't we looking after them well enough?"

  "Apparently that's not the point. It's the daughter's job to look after the parents after they retire. They've thought it all out. They want to sell the house and take that money with them, which is only right I suppose since they've been making the payments for the last five years and they've kept it immaculate. And I guess when everyone was here for the wedding, Resi's husband explained the pension that your dad will be getting in Germany now that he's sixty-five. I doubt he understands that it's been you and your brother-in-law making the payments into it all these years, but that doesn't matter. And I'm sure they'll both be entitled to a little Canadian pension too, from their deductions here in the last few years. Anyway, now that Resi and Franz's daughter is married and out of the house, there's room for them. So they want to go."

  Jean had walked back into the kitchen while she'd been talking, and resumed chopping vegetables. Adam sat down and thought for a few moments. He knew his mom missed Theresa terribly, but she had seemed content working at the amusement park and cleaning cabins at the campground. He paid her well enough. And his dad seemed to enjoy his job tending the grounds of the par 3 golf course Adam had built adjacent to the amusement park, and a couple of days a week he worked for a German carpenter in town. Then Adam thought back to his dad's words that night he and Randy drank all that schnapps a few years earlier. The cow sucking the calf. Suddenly, it made sense. His dad was a very proud man. Living with Adam's assistance was eating away at him. He needed to be in control again, the man of the house.

  Adam followed Jean into the kitchen and leaned in the doorway.

  "Well, I guess we'll talk with them on Sunday when we go there for supper and see what has to happen."

  Within weeks the house was sold and airline tickets purchased.

  The girls were 13, 11, and ten already, and Cheri hadn't even been born when his mom and dad had arrived. Their grandparents had always been a part of their daily lives. His dad had tucked them into bed and rubbed their bruised knees far more than he had, and his mom was the perfect granny. After a tearful good-bye, Adam's parents climbed into the car with Adam and Jean for the drive to Vancouver.

  There was one last thing Adam wanted to show his parents before they left Canada.

  "King Cuts for my dad and me," Adam said when the waiter came to their table that evening. He'd reserved his favourite table at what he thought was the best steakhouse in Vancouver. "And my mom will have the Queen cut. Jean, would you like a Queen Cut too?"

  "Oh, heaven's no, there's no way I can eat all that meat," Jean laughed.

  To Adam's delight, his dad's eyes bulged when his meal arrived.

  "Oh, my God, Adam," gasped his mom.

  "What did I tell you?" said Jean, laughing with her mother-in-law at the thick juicy prime rib that filled her entire plate.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX

  1969

  His parents had only been gone a couple of months, but as Christmas approached, the girls missed them dreadfully, and Adam wanted to see how they had settled in.

  "Walk up quietly, and knock on the door and wait," he said to Cheri as he pulled into Theresa's drive.

  Cheri giggled. "Okay," she whispered, getting out of the car and leaving the door wide open.

  Sandy and Susie giggled in the back seat at the shocked look on Theresa's face when she opened the door and saw first Cheri and then the rest of them in the car outside.

  "Oh, Adam, y
ou're mean," said Jean from the seat beside him, unable to wipe the smile from her face. Adam knew how much she was looking forward to seeing his mom.

  Cheri disappeared into the house and a moment later they heard his mom shrieking in surprise.

  They stayed a week, making the rounds of the relatives' homes, eating and drinking and even dancing when his dad pulled out the accordion.

  "I tell you," Adam heard his dad saying to one of his uncles, "in Canada, they got the most beautiful mountains and lakes where the water is so clear you can see the bottom. And, I'll tell you what else, the weather is better. Next month or two the grass will be turning green in Canada, won't it, Adam?"

  "Yep. We live in a pretty mild area." Adam leaned back in his chair, listening to his dad.

  "My house in Canada, the roses they bloomed from March to October. And the fruit. You should see the fruit. There's so much that you can pick enough off the ground to make schnapps to last all winter. You should have seen the still me and Adam built at our orchard. After Adam sold that orchard, I bought the house, the one I sold when we decided to come back to Germany. And you should see the beautiful houses that Adam built in this neighbourhood that he called Sage Mesa." His dad pronounced the Spanish words slowly. "And George, he lives in Vancouver. Owns a big house too, four or five times as big as this one. Vancouver is five, six hundred kilometres from where we lived."

  "Five or six hundred kilometres?" asked his uncle dubiously.

  "That's right. In Canada, that's nothing. We crossed the whole goddammed country by train once. Took a week. You should have seen the places we seen. Nothing but forest for hours and hours and hours. And Indians drying deer skins to use for clothes." His dad laughed, then stopped for a minute to roll a cigarette.

  Adam hadn't seen his dad like this in so long, he'd almost forgotten. Since he was a child, he supposed. Before the war started. He always told stories. But now he wasn't just telling stories, he was happy. And proud. He'd done something significant. And gotten back some control over his life for the first time since the deportation order.

  As Adam, Jean, and the girls toured around Spain and Morocco over the next two weeks seeing one sight after another, Adam's heart was light. They booked a room at the Casa del Sol in Malaga, wandered through the palaces of Granada, and saw Christopher Columbus' tomb in Seville. When Sandy left her retainer in the bathroom of a tapas bar after lunch one day, Adam sent a car back to fetch it. When the tour bus containing his family left without him as he squatted behind a cathedral in Madrid with traveller's diarrhea, he chased them down in a taxi. They played card games on the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar, and Adam had the girls hooting with laughter when he joined the belly dancers in Tangiers.

  When the day of their return flight home arrived, the girls collapsed into their seats, buzzing with new memories. After takeoff, Adam fell into a contented sleep. Everyone was happy. Jean, the girls, his parents back in Germany. His parents didn't need him anymore, and neither did his brothers or sister. The job he'd taken on when he returned from the war at 16, was finished.

  Maybe all the challenges that history had contrived were finally behind him.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN

  1970

  "Remember that we have that ribbon-cutting ceremony, Adam," Jean called out on a Saturday afternoon a few months after they'd returned from their adventures in Europe. "We're supposed to be there in half an hour."

  "Okay, I'll get dressed," Adam replied.

  A new park had been built for Sage Mesa and the neighbouring subdivision. Adam had donated land for a road that gave residents of both developments easy access to the new park. And he'd canvassed the residents of Sage Mesa as well as contributed financially himself to help fund the new park. The opening ceremony was that day.

  The community hall was almost full when he and Jean arrived and made their way to a couple of empty seats near the front. After a few speeches, the councilman leading the ceremony announced that there were a few people he'd like to mention who helped the park become a reality.

  "A big thank you goes out to Adam and Jean Baumann, for the cash donation and of course the donation of the land that the road is built on. Without the financial support of Sage Mesa and Adam Baumann, the park wouldn't have been finished this year. Let's have a round of applause for..."

  Before the councilman could finish, he was interrupted by a loud voice from the back of the room. "Hang on a minute! I don't know what this world is coming to, but I never thought I would see the day when somebody tells me to applaud a Nazi."

  All eyes turned to the back of the room. Adam recognized Doug, the customs officer that worked at the post office.

  "Now, Doug, Adam made a big contribution to this park," the councilman responded in a pacifying tone.

  "I don't give a damn what he did. He's a Nazi and I'm not going to put up with this. There are real veterans in this room and all of this land was intended for real war veterans, not dirty Nazis."

  Adam grabbed Jean's elbow and stood up. "We don't want to cause any problems here," he said to the councilman, then turned to face the room. "Our apologies. We'll go and let you carry on with the ceremony."

  "You'll do no such thing," a man that Adam had been in Rotary with for ages said indignantly from across the aisle.

  "Let him leave. He knows I'm right. He's got no business here," Doug continued.

  Adam and Jean didn't move.

  One of the big general contractors in town stood up. "I think we've heard enough from you, Doug. The war ended 25 years ago," he said, walking towards the loudmouth.

  "You've heard enough from me? Well, I fought for this country. That German right there is who we were fighting and I'd say it's him we've heard enough from."

  Another businessman Adam had known for years who was sitting near the back stood up and approached Doug from the other side.

  Adam stood in silence as they grabbed Doug under each arm and hauled him to the door. After pushing him out, they shut the door firmly behind him. The room was silent for a moment. Then one of the guys who had just shown Doug the door spoke.

  "That was really terrible, Adam. You know no one else feels that way."

  "It's nothing, don't worry about it," Adam said quickly.

  "It's not nothing," the councilman at the front said. "Doug's an ass. You're welcome here today and you'll always be welcome here, no different than any of us. You're a valued citizen and resident of this town and I hope you'll accept our apology for the things that Doug said."

  It was true. He was a part of this place. Penticton had afforded Adam the freedom to express himself and reach his potential, and he had given back in spades.

  PART FIVE

  Peru

  "It is never too late in life to have a genuine adventure."

  Robert Kurson, author of Rocket Men

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT

  1971

  Adam had grown weary of the slow pace on the St. Andrew's Golf and Country Club project. They'd had a bit of fun one day, laying out the course with the help of a golf pro from Vancouver, a bucket of balls, and a bottle of scotch. Other than that, there hadn't been much going on to hold his interest. Grateful for Adam's early advice and assistance on the project, the developer obliged when he explained that he'd like out, and bought back the 15 percent he'd given Adam.

  Condor Mines was dead too. A massive fish kill in Japan had been attributed to mercury poisoning and the bottom had dropped out of the market. Fortunately, Adam and Jean had sold much of their stock at various profit levels prior to the collapse. The doors of Condor Mines and Adam's Vancouver office were permanently closed.

  When the Suzuki franchise had gone broke a few years earlier, Adam had bought back the commercial building he'd built for the franchiser a decade earlier. He'd seen an interesting business in Vancouver called ‘mini-storage,' and figured it would be a perfect use for the building. The storage units rented immediately and produced good revenue with lit
tle day-to-day effort. But it wasn't particularly interesting once it was up and running.

  He'd sold the motel and campground after his parents left. The mini-golf and the par 3 were running smoothly. Everything was going well. Most people would have been content with the circumstances, perhaps even pleased to relax and enjoy the rewards of years of hard work, but Adam was hungry for something interesting to do.

  "Disney is opening a new amusement park in Orlando, Florida in October. I think we should start there and see the grand opening, and then do a bit of sightseeing on our way down to Peru," said David Battison, a long-time friend, as they sat at the Three Gables enjoying a cold beer one afternoon in September. "We can stay with my buddy Merv in Lima for a couple of weeks, get a car, drive around a bit. What do you think? It's the perfect time, before you dream up some new project."

  Adam laughed. David was right. "Okay, let's do it."

  The girls were becoming young teens, and rarely around. Jean's time was filled with getting them to and from piano, or ballet, volleyball, and any number of other activities. He might as well fill his time, and the thought of exploring a few new spots was piquing his interest.

  "But if we're going to go all that way, let's make it worthwhile."

  By the time Adam and David reached Lima, they'd checked out Disney's brand-new Magic Kingdom, soaked up some sun on the beaches of the Cayman Islands and Aruba, and explored Caracas, Bogota, and Quito. Peru was the sixth and final country on their itinerary.

  On their second evening in Lima, Merv took them to the Sheraton Hotel for drinks. He knew someone who was staying in one of the fancy suites, a stock promoter from Vancouver named Turton.

  "Turton's here to look at a molybdenum mine way up in the Andes somewhere. Mickey mouse operation, but he's been told there's a huge vein up there. He brought an Indian geologist named Singh with him," Merv explained as they rode the elevator to the upper floors.