Shores Beyond Shores

by Irene Butter

  Fear spread like spilled hot chocolate, burning everything it touched. My Opa had worked his whole life building a bank and was now forced to turn it over to someone who was not Jewish. My Pappi also worked in that bank.

  One night, as I used the bathroom before bed, I saw Mutti crying. I didn’t like to see my parents cry, and I looked away. Pappi came to tuck me in.

  “I won’t be taking the tram to work anymore, Reni,” he said, smoothing my hair. “I will not be going to work…for now.”

  I was glad to hear that my parents were not upset with something I’d done.

  “Does that mean you’ll be home when I get home from school?” I asked.

  “Yes, I will be home with you, for a little while, but I need to find another job,” he said.

  “So why is Mutti sad?” Being home more seemed good to me.

  “She’s sad because finding another job will not be easy. But I am going to try very hard to find one, and I bet I will.”

  “Okay.”

  “Go to sleep now, sweetie, everything will look better with the morning sun.” He kissed my hair lightly.

  Look better? I didn’t think things looked bad. Something else must be wrong.

  A few nights later, Mutti forgot to read to me. Then, listening from my bed, I heard my parents talking in fast, sharp whispers, keeping me awake. I couldn’t hear the words, only the tone. Werner moved in his bed.

  “Why are they fighting?” I whispered to him.

  “I don’t know.”

  We both crept to the door. I wasn’t cold, but I brought my pink blanket. Mutti and Pappi’s words flowed down the hall from the living room. I wrapped my blanket around me, and draped it over Werner.

  “Even my friends have turned on me,” Pappi’s voice said. “On us. And these include the men I fought with in the Great War! How in God’s name can they not help us? We lived and died in those…those terrible trenches, and fought side-by-side for our…for this country, our Fatherland! Together! And now they won’t help. It’s unbelievable. Even Frank will not get back to me. Frank!” He ended with a snarl that made me shiver.

  “John, quiet, we don’t want to wake the kids.” Mutti said. “I know it isn’t fair. It isn’t right.”

  “Don’t they know that we’ve ALWAYS been Jewish? Now. During the Great War. Forever. When did we suddenly become evil?”

  I had never heard Pappi yell before.

  “John, please. I know, I know.” Pause. “What about Charles? Have you spoken to him?”

  “It’s the same, Trudi,” he said in a softer voice. “I stopped by his office, but he wouldn’t see me. I know he was there. Everybody is acting strange, even if they aren’t Nazis. They are afraid. They are suspicious. It’s spreading like a plague.”

  “There’s still Leo.”

  “Yes, there’s always Leo, but he’s in the same situation as us. In fact, he mentioned he’s thinking of moving the family to Holland.”

  Leo was my father’s best friend in the war. There was a photo in Pappi’s study of them standing arm-in-arm, in their smart officer uniforms.

  “Maybe we should go, too. There are more anti-Jewish graffiti and posters,” Mutti said. “When I go shopping. When I walk to the post office. It’s terrifying. The children see them.”

  “Trudi, there are more terrifying things to be worried about now.” He lowered his voice, and I strained to hear it. “Some of the bank tellers heard that they are gathering Jews, whole families, and sending them on trains to labor camps. Rumor is that it’s happening in some neighborhoods in Berlin.”

  I tapped Werner on the shoulder and whispered across the smooth hardwood floor. “What are they talking about? The camps. The posters. And what’s graf…?

  “Graffiti. It’s like drawing bad doodles on buildings.”

  “Really?”

  “And I saw one of the posters. It had a spear killing a snake, and the snake had our Star of David on it.”

  I didn’t know there were Jewish snakes. I didn’t like any kind of snake. Yuck.

  “My friends at school heard about trains going to the camps, too,” Werner said.

  Whenever we got on a train, it was for vacation, or to go someplace different and fun.

  “Why would people get on a train going to a bad place?” I asked.

  “They don’t have a choice.”

  “Who makes them?”

  “The people that run our country, Reni. The Nazis.”

  “The Nazis sound mean.”

  “They don’t like anybody who is not like them.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Anybody not Aryan.”

  “What’s Aryan?”

  “Reni! You ask too many questions. Aryans are German. Tall. Blond. Blue-eyed.”

  “We’re German! And I have blue eyes!”

  “It doesn’t include us.”

  “But why?”

  “Because we’re Jewish. Don’t you listen to anything?”

  It didn’t make any sense to me, but Nazi sounded like a mean word, a word that could cut you. And getting on a train to a bad place didn’t sound like a vacation at all. We listened to our parents’ talk float in and out until I was too tired. I left, bringing my blanket with me, and leaving Werner to listen and worry.

  3

  Berlin, Germany

  Spring 1937

  A few weeks later, Pappi hugged us good-bye, saying he was going far away to find a new job. He promised to be back soon. I tried to trick myself into believing it was a regular morning, with him dressed in a suit, smiling and walking away, down the sidewalk, going to work. But I knew inside me that it wasn’t a normal day. He had a big suitcase, and he wasn’t smiling. And then he was gone.

  Everyone seemed to change after that: Pappi’s leaving cracked open our world and let in the gray; Mutti cried often and hugged me whenever she could. I was thankful that Opa and Omi were there and didn’t have to leave to find a job. On my walk to school, Opa started holding my hand. He told me a few of our favorite stories—Remember last year and the magic cucumbers in the garden?—but his smile was missing. When he left me off at the steps of my school, I still felt his grip after he let go. My friends at school were quieter. No one seemed to be having parties. My teacher, Mrs. Schmidt, had no energy, like a flower hanging off a broken stem. Even the houses and trees that lined the street next to us grew sadder. Fewer lights were on, drapes were shut, and the new spring leaves on the trees drooped and curled.

  “Reni, I had another bad dream,” Werner said one night. He sat down on the end of my bed; my head bonked into the headboard, knocking me out of my near sleep. I held my head as if I were in agony and pushed my face deeper into my soft sheets.

  “It was horrible, Reni. It was raining really hard. You and I were in the living room. Except it wasn’t exactly like our living room, the chairs were yellow and not green and…”

  “Werner,” I said with a yawn, flopping the blanket down, “get ON with it. You don’t have to tell me the colors of the chairs.”

  “So much rain was thump-thumping on the house. It was pitch black and…and you and I couldn’t see anything. Like a big hole was there, or maybe there was never a roof there at all. And all of a sudden I saw that the roof was really burned off and through the big hole, which had layers of rug and wood and metal, I saw firemen outside, and I smelled smoke, but when they started pumping with the hoses, water didn’t come out, but snakes. Not water, but snakes.”

  Yuck.

  “You woke me to tell me about snakes?” I asked.

  He didn’t stop.

  “It was snakes thumping on our house. They were flipping and flopping all over our house and then all over us. They got sprayed into the windows and doors and slimed through the floorboards. They were small at first, like in little rolled-up balls, and then they sprang open and lengthened and their heads puffed up to be all big and toothy. You see, Reni?”

  He balled his fingers up then sprang them open, showing me the teeth. Now I
was really awake. “Those firemen were trying to save us, but they were really just spraying us with biting snakes.”

  “Stop!”

  He waited for me to tell him how stupid the dream was and to go back to bed. That was what we always did. It made him feel better. But I was scared and mad thinking about snakes in the corners of the room.

  “Well, Werner, it could happen. If there wasn’t enough water in the earth, and they sucked up the snakes that lived down underground instead. It could happen.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, but drew his legs up onto my bed.

  “Snakes will bite anything, you know.”

  “No,” he said, “not true.”

  I slid my hand under the sheets, grabbing his leg.

  “Reni!” He sprang up.

  I tried to laugh and pretend it was funny, but it didn’t feel funny, so my laugh came out as a dry cough. Werner crept back to his bed without a word. Maybe he’d at least stop bugging me now.

  On another day, Mutti picked me up at school, and I could tell she’d been crying again. Her face was growing blotches, her eyes red and looking around fast.

  “Reni, was your walk to school with Opa okay?” she asked, pulling me into her side and looking down at me.

  “It was okay,” I said as we walked out the front doors.

  “Oh thank goodness,” she said, keeping me close. “No one was mean to you? Or hurt you?”

  “Well, kind of.”

  “What happened? Tell me.” She stopped walking and knelt down in front of me. I could smell her perfume, like calm and petals. Her large eyes widened even more on her round face. The short sleeves of her dress hugged her arms, while the hem of her dress puffed and settled onto the ashen sidewalk.

  “Karl in my class is having a birthday party, and I’m not invited.”

  “Oh, oh…,” she smiled, her hands resting on my shoulders. “Who is Karl? Is he a friend of yours?”

  “Well, he isn’t really a good friend. But everyone in the class is invited to his big house this weekend. Everyone, but not me…and not Lisell.”

  “Oh Reni, you do love parties, but you can’t expect to be invited to every one of them.”

  “Lisell said it was because we are Jews.”

  Mutti held her breath.

  “Karl has a big house and fun parties. Can’t I just stop being Jewish for one day to go to the party? Just one day?”

  “Look at me, Reni,” Mutti said, gazing at me hard. “You will always be Jewish. We will always be Jewish, and that’s that. You should be proud. You should be….” She was quiet again, and then said, “Karl certainly isn’t a very good friend, is he?”

  I shook my head. She took a handkerchief out of her shiny yellow pocketbook and dabbed under my eyes.

  “He will miss out by not having you there,” she said. “They all will. Let’s have Lisell over, and we’ll have our own party.”

  I nodded. “Can we have cake?”

  “The biggest,” Mutti said, standing up.

  Then she took my hand and tugged me to the side. A wall of boys was coming our way, all dressed in tan shirts tucked into black shorts. Hitler youth. Black ties hung loosely from their necks, pointing down to big, shiny silver belt buckles. Their sleeves were rolled up like they had work to do, which, according to the loud adult who was with them, was to march in step and sing loudly.

  We will continue to march,

  When everything shatters;

  Because today Germany hears us,

  And tomorrow the whole world.

  They passed and passed, never looking at us, their eyes stuck on the boys ahead, until they had all thudded by. Mutti looked up the street and behind us before walking.

  “Opa will take both Werner and you to and from your schools from now on.”

  Werner won’t be happy about that, I thought. He wants to be big like these boys who passed. He doesn’t want his grandfather walking him. At home, I went to my room, closed the door, and changed into my play dress. Then I ran to tell Werner.

  “You have to walk to school with Opa,” I said as I marched in, my chin pointed to the ceiling.

  “Did Mutti tell you what happened?” he asked.

  “Yup, Opa has to walk you to school just like me,” I puffed and crossed my arms.

  “Not that.”

  Then Werner told me that, earlier that afternoon, a gang of boys chased his friends and him in the street. The gang yelled and called them Judenschwein. They caught one of his friends and beat him up badly. The friend had to go to the hospital. Werner had crept under some bushes. It was dark, and the moist dirt rubbed into his knees and hands. He tried not breathing, and then breathed as slowly as he could and tried not to think of his snake dreams. Werner had been late getting home and Mutti was upset, but happy when she heard how he had saved himself.

  Werner wasn’t fast, but he was a good hider.

  “Wait until you are big and strong like all the other boys we saw today,” I said to make him feel better.

  “What boys?”

  “Hitler youth.”

  “Reni, remember? They don’t want me.”

  “Well, anyway, you’re brave,” I said, “and you were smart to hide.”

  Werner put on his proud face, and it made me smile.

  4

  Berlin, Germany

  Summer 1937

  Pappi called with news. His voice sounded as far away as it was. He had found work at the American Express Company in Amsterdam, in a country called the Netherlands. We would be leaving Berlin and joining him in a few months. Werner and I sat with our mouths open. Nobody else looked surprised.

  “Will he come back here to get us?” I asked Mutti.

  No. It had been very hard to get out of Germany in the first place. It took lots of work and special papers. The people who gave him the special papers might change their minds if Pappi returned. Then none of us would be allowed to leave. That sounded okay to me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. All my friends were here. When Mutti passed the phone to me, Pappi said that getting ready to move would be hard work, and Werner and I had to be helpful. Did I understand? I nodded until he repeated his question, and I remembered he couldn’t see me. Then I said, “Yes.”

  After that, Omi asked me to help her get ready for dinner.

  “Reni, we won’t be able to take everything in this house,” Omi said and stopped chopping vegetables to refill my milk glass. We were sitting in the kitchen. She chopped, and I drank. “This house is so big, and the apartment in Amsterdam is smaller.”

  “Does that mean we have to leave everything?” I asked. “Even my books and my blanket?” My lips trembled.

  “No, you can keep those. But you have to leave the big things.”

  “What about my bed? And my tricycle?” I still loved my tricycle, even if I didn’t ride it much anymore.

  “You’ll have to leave those, I think. You’ll get new ones.”

  I pushed my tears into my belly.

  “Okay. As long as I have time to say good-byes.”

  “You’ll have time, sweetie,” she said.

  “And…and what about the dresses you bought me?” I asked. “The light blue one is new, and it feels springy. Are there parties in Amsterdam?”

  “I think you can bring those,” she said. “And yes, there are parties.”

  “I like getting dresses with you,” I said, a little more hopeful.

  “We are good shoppers, yes?” Omi said, her voice secretive. “We have fun.”

  “We’re the best,” I said, my eyes big, and my voice meeting her hushed tone, “I know the best dress stores, and you know how to pay for the dresses.”

  School started again, and each day when I returned from school with Opa and with Werner, the furniture had been rearranged by what we were taking and what we weren’t taking. Our home looked like a different home each time, while Mutti explained how she decided what to keep. The dining room table: We may not have large parties, so we won’t need it.
The hutch where food was stored: It’s big but compact, and it stores so much. We’ll take it. The two bookcases in the sitting room: They’ll fit perfectly in our new apartment. Mutti let me bring my tricycle into the house, and into Pappi’s study so I could ride it in circles, even though I was too big for it.

  One morning at breakfast Opa commented on how big I was getting. “Werner, too, of course,” he added with a look at my brother, “but Reni has really grown.”

  I slid forward in my chair and stretched my head to the ceiling to show them my size. Finally, I was really getting bigger.

  “I think we should go get a couple of dresses for you,” Omi said, “Today.”

  “Really?” I burst out.

  “Yuck,” Werner said, “you sprayed food.”

  Omi continued, “You have grown so fast lately that most of your dresses don’t fit anymore. And you will need something nice for when you see your Pappi again. We will be in Amsterdam soon.”

  I didn’t feel I had grown so much that my dresses didn’t fit, but I wasn’t going to fight shopping, and I wanted to look good for Pappi. I really missed him.

  “And a fine young lady deserves a new dress,” Mutti added.

  “Lady?” Werner asked. “A lady doesn’t spit chewed bread.”

  “Can I get a fancy one?” I asked.

  “Yes, any one that you like,” said Omi.

  “So we can go to Kurfürstendamm, to the fancy stores?”

  The Kurfürstendamm was exciting. It was a wide street with cars, trams, lots of people, and the very best shops.

  “Yes,” said Omi.

  “Just be careful,” said Mutti, “not every store is friendly.”

  “We will only go to the friendly ones,” Omi promised. I nodded in support.

  I jumped out of my chair and gave Omi a big kiss, announcing that I was ready to go. She wiped her cheek with her napkin. She told me to brush my teeth first. It would be the best day. Omi would let me pick out the dresses I loved, even if they were not practical. Mutti would not approve of such fanciness, but Mutti wouldn’t be there, would she?